the senate and prayer gratitude here intercession for the members of this body lead our lawmakers as you lead your people want by  pillar of cloud through the day and a pillar of fire by night give our senators more love and more self denial make them them close to you and open to each other as they serve you and country today and unto you the god of love the all the glory and the clerk will read a communication to the senate washington d c april ninth two thousand and eight to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the staining rules of the senate i hereby appoint dalal benjamin l cardinal a senator from the state of maryland upon the duties of the chair signed robert  to ten minutes each time is equally divided and controlled between two leaders republicans will control the first half majority will control the final house wanting morning business senate worrisome consideration of h r three two two one a sledge  come to a final determination is as to how we should handle the wrap up to managers have i understand about three or four germane amendments that need to be voted on and they can be voted on now or we can wait until the time runs out those bills those amendments germane amendments are pending require votes those been filed or not pending that's not the case must the two managers agree that they want to bring those up so we'll work our way through this legislation just as quickly as we can mr president yes day's testimony before the senate armed services committee on the foreign relations committee for general petraeus  ambassador crocker the opportunity dressed to central questions of the war in iraq number one as a troop surge brought us closer they want to troops can come home second is a war in iraq making america safer by all accounts answer both questions is no gratitude for their hard work and this is hard work as under extraordinary difficult circumstances their testimony gave our country no reason to believe that the strategy will change president bush himself described the purpose of the surge as giving iraqi government its people the space to achieve reconciliation recent violence and intensifying struggle between al maliki and else sautter proved beyond any doubt that the window we provided may be closing president bush clings to his talking points that the surge is work but he called his plan a return on success meaning that if the surge worked our troops could return home we have the success he claims where is the return since monday we've had twelve american soldiers killed in iraq we're stuck in a twilight zone in iraq and violence is up to present says we can't bring our troops home when violence is down the president says we can't bring our troops home so it's long past time for the president be honest with you american people under what circumstances could our troops come home i know what scenario could this war and based on everything we've heard we can reach only one conclusion with sixteen with  with hundred sixty thousand courageous american troops serving in iraq president bush has an exit strategy for just one person and that's him selfe on january twentieth of next year here's what three united states senators had to say during yesterday's hearings one senator said and i quote i think osama bin laden is sitting back right now looking at this thing and saying in effect we're kind of bankrupting this country another senator said i think people want to want a sense of what the end is going to look like a third senator said our patience is not unlimited mr president all three of these questions these quotes were from republican senators yesterday to my republican friends i say let's work together we had the opportunity to change course and what rak last summer republicans who were willing to criticize war proved and willing to break with president bush by voting against it but it's not too late neither side is looking for a hasty withdrawal that would put our troops  iraqi people at under risk we want to smarter more sustainable strategy addresses all the national security challenges our nation faces in the son of bin laden's al qaeda safe haven in pakistan to winning the peace in afghanistan to building rebuilding the full combat readiness our ground forces we work together democrats republicans we can get a new course that takes us responsibly out of iraq and refocus on the global challenges that have gone overlooked for far too long issuing good work over the last nine to twelve months virtually every measurable way that you can to look at iraq conditions to dramatically improve that's a direct result of the smart military strategy that has put iraq in a position where it can realistically aspire to be a relatively normal country bashed by the standards of the middle east shortly an ally in the war on terror which is extremely important but i also think it's important for all of us to remember that we have not been attacked here at home for almost seven years a direct result of a strategy of getting off balance and pushing back against those who would attack us here at home which we've done both in afghanistan and iraq so it was an opportunity i think with the parents of the general and they ambassador to congratulate them for their outstanding work over the last year and we look forward to going forward in iraq in a way that leaves behind a stable country that can make a positive contribution to the security of the united states here at all and in the middle age for you for president seventy one or a leader seventy one percent of the american people believe the invasion of iraq was a mistake foreign policy blunder some say the worst this country's ever done worse foreign policy blunder seventy one percent during that poll it was a few percentage points people had no opinion so if not fifteen percent of people think the invasion of iraq was right decision mr president we must get our troops home sooner we do that the better off we are i look forward to general petraeus and ambassador crocker's hearing today before the two relevant committees in the house and when this is all over and done with we'll be able to assess when we can have a better opportunity of bringing our troops home as we indicated earlier day mr president it seems difficult when the violence is up we need more troops one is down we need more troops can't have it both ways and where the military is it really at a breaking point i'm not saying that i'm saying i'm repeating what others have said general cody who is a four star general on active duty and said he has never seen our military and secure state of disrepair as it is now so things are going really good we have to work together to try to rebuild our military and one way we can do that is focus on getting the right number of troops to afghanistan and rebuilding our military which  spreading the troops are coming all the computer mr president the troops are coming home in an orderly way persepolis which are all we know would lead to a new haven for terrorists with the opportunity to attack us here at  all i think clearly we will debate this issue in the fall the american people have this on their minds obviously they also have on the economy health care other matters they're interested in their future and i think the american people are not interested in having additional attacks here on the homeland in the future and that's something we'll debate not only here in the senate but out on the campaign trail this fall one of the things will be did they argue this fall mr president is whether our troops need to be interact for another fifty or one hundred years i think that will be a cover all part of the debate takes place presidential election commission misread of course no one has said that and my dear friend from the majority leader knows  that a swipe at senator mccain who is talking about troop deployments overseas not the content engagement and warfare in the mainstream media which has not been particularly friendly to the war has hammer those who have accused senator mccain of saying we're about a hundred year war in iraq that is a deliberate misrepresentation of what he has said anybody who looks at the entire exchange would occur which occurred in a town meeting in new hampshire back in january knows precisely what he said what he was saying he was talking about having troops deployed overseas which we've had in germany japan and south korea for many years he was talking about a situation under which they are not under attack and not being killed or  wounded but deployed overseas not only to protect our security interests but also to reassure our allies that is what i was talking about no one i know is suggesting and it's really almost laughable to suggest that we're talking about that kind of lengthy military engagement mr president  hopefuls had said this i would also be trying to spin it in a way that look good fact is you can't spend what some mccain said at that town hall meeting after you verbalize his record speaks for itself to how he feels about the war in iraq and my friend always talks about the fact that the american people don't want to tax your normal course they don't want to tax your home of course me down and everyone should understand oh mr president prior to the invasion of iraq there was not a terrorist anorak and now of course there are lots of them we need to focus on osama bin ladin on his safe haven that we have that he has and afghanistan pakistan and as general casey also an active member of the military general casey said we need to get more troops in afghanistan we can't do size of the army in a size that ranges and sufficient and i think there is bipartisan support here in the congress to increase the size of both the army and the marines i think that's something we can agree on and hopefully that will be achieved in the coming years under the previous order the leadership time is reserved under the previous order to senate will proceed to a period of mourning business for sixty minutes with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each with the time equally divided it controlled between two leaders or their designees with republicans controlling the first half majority controlling the final half a sprint senator from wyoming is recognized as president in light of the fact that just a few minutes ago we open the senate in prayer i would like to mention that  last month i had the privilege of co chairing with the senator from colorado senator salazar the fifty sixth annual national prayer breakfast was held here in our national nation's capital this annual gathering is hosted by members of the u s senate and the u s house of representatives who have weekly prayer breakfast groups once again we were honored to have the fifty sixth consecutive participation of our president and first lady presidents since  eisenhower have spoken at the annual prayer breakfast we also have another speaker we were encouraged and inspired by the remarks shared by ward bream unfortunately a transcript doesn't give the same purred pass and deliveries that we who attended got to enjoy but it's a suburban message that i want to share this year we hosted a gathering of thirty five hundred individuals from all walks of life if in all fifty states and for many countries around the world so that all may benefit from this time together on behalf of the congressional committee for the national prayer breakfast i would ask unanimous consent that a copy of the transcript of the two thousand and eight proceedings be printed in the congressional record at the conclusion use this this is an example of what we do in our weekly prayer breakfasts with with a little exception and that's that the presenters at our weekly prayer breakfast are always senators or former senators it's a chance for us to get to know who each person in this body really is as they present during the course of about two years for our colleagues to understand that the surge of troops in iraq that began in their early part of last year was a corrective measure that from the fall of baghdad and till january two thousand and seven it was clear to me senator mccain and others that our strategy during that period of time was not working that we had to few troops that the country got into a lawless state that political progress and economic progress  virtually nonexistent there was a paralysis when it came to the ability to govern in baghdad the economy was stalled and violence was spreading throughout the country to the point in two thousand  that the al qaeda flag flew over parts of anbar province so there was a moment of reckoning the president had a decision to make after the republican losses in two thousand and six in november it was widely held that the reason republicans lost in the midterm elections was because of iraq policy and secretary rumsfeld resigned and the president had a choice one of the choices would have been to adapt a strategy of withdrawing at a faster rate the theory being to put pressure on the iraqi military and government to perform better because they were not doing well because they were lying too much upon us the theory was that this security environment is so out of control and so tenuous that you'll never have military political or economic progress until you get better control over security the surge argument advocated primarily about senator mccain and lieberman and a few others won the day with the president so it was clear we needed to change strategy at the end of two thousand and six and we did now there's a debate still ongoing about whether or not that was correct that was the correct eight during that period of time what happened there was a surge of american combat forces into iraq thirty thousand additional combat troops the security argument for failed over the withdrawal argument the soldiers serve with iraqi soldiers and placement within the community and that build a sense a confidence we had not seen before at the end of two thousand and six something very startling happened in anbar province shakes atar  the young shakes in the anbar sunni region after his family were murdered part of his family was murdered by akeda came to an american colonel and said you know we've had it we want to fight with you we want these guys out of anbar we do not want to be dominated by al qaeda in iraq their sympathizers and bin laden agent and the commander instinctively seized the moment and put a couple of tanks around the guy's house and from that action by the colonel and the addition of combat forces and bar province is a completely different place if you ask me what is the most successful of than of all within the surge period of time i would argue is the uprising in anbar province by iraqi sunni arabs against the al qaeda presence and then bar that they have rejected the al qaeda agenda they join forces with the coalition forces with the american forces and we've literally  delivered a punishing blow to al qaeda in anbar province to the point now that ramadi and fallujah are some of the safest places and all of iraq and so for the american public to to really grasp what's going on here i think you have to understand this one fact that when muslims arabs muslim people say no to al qaeda we'll fight bin laden his agents and sympathizers that is a good day for america and that's what the war is going to be about eventually in terms of how we win is the people in the mideast turn on al qaeda and they say no and they shoulder the burden of fighting and they create a community in place of al qaeda is agenda that is more tolerant more open that will allow the shias and the kurds to live in peace that will not try to pass on the al philosophy an agenda on everybody surrounding the region so this is really incredibly good news that from the surge increase combat capability and the overplaying about kate his hand  and they were incredibly vicious to the people i've been to iraq eleven times in the stories that come out of bandar province al qaeda dominated the region are heartbreaking and bone chilling now we have  april of two thousand and eight a completely changed and bar province where we have over ninety thousand are iraqis called the sons of iraq but trolling their communities at night during the day to make sure that al  not come back our rock is a changed place in many ways if you had to list the winners and losers of the surge i would argue the biggest loser of all is the al qaeda presence in iraq is losing we're winning now what else has happened in that period of time the economic progress in iraq is real is fundamentally different than it was before the surge and the reason i think we've had economic progress in iraq is because with better security you can engage in commerce it's very hard to run an economy when you're afraid to go to work it's very hard to build a society when your children can't go to go to school well the g d p growth in iraq is about seven percent lation before the surge was it sixty six percent now is close to twelve percent and dropping all production is up fifty percent electricity demand is up by twenty five percent and we have economic progress in iraq that is showing signs of a vibrant country moving toward normalcy we had a budget passed in baghdad by the iraqi parliament sunni shia and kurds to forty eight billion dollars of revenue that the central government has under their authority and shared it with each and every province in each and every group within iraq now what does that mean i think most political leaders in america with money as political power in our minority status as republicans the democrat majority gives us an allocation to run our staffs and to participate in committee activity we share the resources of running the senate we sent down among ourselves republicans get this democrats get that that is a recognition that we may disagree but we all have a vibrant role and we need resources to participate in democracy the fact that the sunni shia and kurds were able to come together and allocate resources owned by the countries all each and every group is a major step forward would not have happened a year and a half ago it is a by and by every group that iraq is a separate country with a common identity and when you can get all three groups giving the resources of the country to each other that is a by and to war in iraq but there's more than that in the last year and a half an amnesty law was passed about ninety days ago what does that mean there are thousands of people in jail in iraq mostly sunni's that were captured as part of the surge and some for that we're taking up arms against the central government the sunni's in jail did not want to participate in democracy they ran the show under saddam hussein even though they were a minority in iraq when saddam was in power they ran the show so they did not buy into democracy they boycotted the two thousand and five election as a matter of fact they had an uprising  using violence to get their way to topple the government and they landed in jail one thing history will tell you and teach you if you if you follow it closely there will never be a reconciliation of a country that is divided ethnically or politically until there's a level of forgiveness now reconciliation is a word it means nothing without action so the amnesty law was passed by the shias the kurds in the sunni and it gave the people in jail who were captured as part of the sunni insurgents the a chance to be released and start over again they have been twenty four thousand applications to be released from jail under the amnesty law seventeen thousand have been told have been granted so that is a statement by the shias and the kurds who are on the receiving end of the violence of the people in jail saying go back home less start over as a new country that to me is in forgiveness that is a precondition to reconciliation and it would not have happened if there had not been a surge in the reduction of sectarian violence so mr  here and that is that our theory which was that the muslim world itself had to reject this variant militant islami d approach which is manifested in the terrorism of al qaeda that and until the muslim world itself turned on those militants those terrorists be very difficult for the west itself to actually defeat terrorism that it could pose a defensive posture but it would not be defeated and what the senator south carolina has said is that we are now seeing as a result of the american support for the iraqi people a unification of the iraqi people themselves and be importantly a rejection of this militant islamised terrorism to the point  that they are now joining in the fight and have something invested in that in terms of their country and the question i want to ask has to do with how all of this relates to american security yesterday senator both general petraeus and ambassador crocker whether or not as a result of the success of the surge and the key point at the center from south carolina made that now the iraqi muslim population was itself crocker's response and the senator's own extensive experience and what his comments on that would be thank you i asked general petraeus that very question and he said that any time that muslims would take up arms against al qaeda then we're marching towards a solution america has been making a call i think general betray us not they'll center the cows and labor on the understand this war is just not about killing terrorists this war is about supporting moderation where you can find it isolating the extreme elements within the region and if you had put a list of the extreme elements together al qaeda would be at the top so to those men and women who have participated in the surge and stood by the and our rockies who turned on al qaeda thank you made the country those iraqis who took up arms against al qaeda and then he made iraq safer in the world safer so my question back to the center for mary's on i found a is from your understanding of what with that yesterday what can the congress do rather than criticize what constructively could we do as a body to support those in harm's way and make sure that we leave iraq with a successful outcome but that's that's an extremely important question because there's a lot rhetoric about this war there but the question is what's the action line here what can congress do and actually it's a question of what congress must do as i understand it looking at general petraeus his testimony he was very adamant that congress needed to pass the supplemental appropriation bill that will actually fund the troops in the field this money was requested over a year over a year ago that represents a little over one hundred billion dollars and according to his testimony it is critical not only to the military needs but also importantly talked about the commanders emergency response program the state department's quick response fund in the u s aid programs for south carolina was just talking a moment ago about this two part process not only the political but the economic political reconciliation and the economic reconstruction of the country so this funding a general petraeus himself who clearly wants to get the troops funded noted the in a relationship of the funding to help reconstruct the country as well as to support the troops but we are very soon going to be in a situation according to secretary gates going to soon be in situation where the armed forces are going to have to allow money to be borrowed from their regular operational accounts to fund the operations in iraq and afghanistan and he said the results of that would be a slowdown in training and equipping iraqi forces the holding of military operations in pay of defense personnel and the they're losing the ability to replace lost and damage equipment by ongoing operations and finally that some operations would simply not be started because they won't know in advance that the funding will be there to complete the operation something that i'm sure no operational commander in the field would want to live with so my understanding of his testimony was that he very strongly urged the congress to quickly pass the supplemental appropriation bill so that the troops in the field can be funded to do the mission that after all we've stage the biggest threat to iraqi stability is no longer al qaeda or sectarian violence but special groups trained by the iranian government sent back and a rat they stabilized this effort at moderation if i ma arizona this is a very important question and it was i thought a very compelling part of the testimony offered both by general petraeus and ambassador crocker yesterday and if i may may approach this by going back to the colloquy between the two my two friends earlier i think you put your finger on a very important point and i may go even a little further back after nine eleven zero one after we were attacked  i think one of the insights that we we had was that there is a a violent civil war both violent and theological and political going on within the muslim world between a small group of fanatics violent jihad as and the rest of the muslim world which pretty much like the rest of all of us they want to live better safer freer more opportunity filled lives themselves and even better for their children so we went into iraq to overthrow saddam hussein we're there now to essentially help the iraqis and remember iraq is not just another country it's one of the historic centers of the arab world to help this great country and its leaders and people take hold of their own destiny and in doing so reject the extremists the  and create for the muslim world a different past to the future then the extremism and suicidal death and hatred and primitivism that al the current leadership of iran and others of that sort present to them and part of what the testimony yesterday i think from ambassador crocker and general petraeus said is that thanks to the backing of the united states through the surge the iraqis really are taking control of their destiny that is as you pointed out the moderates are winning they've got al qaeda on the run out of ambar province there the businesses are reopening the children are going back to school they have hopes of a better future and one of our colleagues on the armed services committee said general petraeus what's what's going on here i thought we were in iraq to fight al qaeda and now you're telling me we pretty much beat now that we have them on the run and now you're telling us we're there to fight iran well that question missed the point the point that you've made in your colloquy the point is we're there for an affirmative reason we're there to help the iraqis establish a self governing self defending moderate fanatic power not only working through these special groups in iraq but through hezbollah and lebanon through hamas in the palestinian areas and tremendous statements yesterday very strong ambassador crocker reckon to needs to undermine the efforts of the iraqi government to establish a stable secure state and this takes me and then i'll yield back to my colleagues to what seemed to be the frustration of some of our colleagues on the committees yesterday they were trying to get general petraeus and ambassador crocker to tell us again i we're going to get all our troops out or most of our troops out by  well you know fortunately betrayers in cracker are not accountable to the political calculus they're there at the they've been given the responsibility for this mission they have american lives on the line they've lost american lives and the answer to general petraeus gave us was clearly the right one i wish i could tell you how many brigades more i can pull out after july but i can't until i see what conditions on the ground are maybe i can bring out some more but maybe i can't and if i do it prematurely we will run the risk of chaos and a loss of all we've gained in iraq and frankly disrespect for the lives of americans that have been lost there with their families and loved ones always tell us don't let them have died in vain and the number one winner if we pull out prematurely will ram they're all over iraq they've got their hands in just about everything and if we leave and chaos ensues as ambassador crocker's said and i quote said yesterday iran has said publicly it will fill any vacuum interact in extremis shia militias would reassert themselves in quote we can't let that happen i think my colleagues thank you  uniform you want them to be together with their families you want them out of harm's right way and the most desperate way but the one thing i want people to remember is that these are all volunteers someone had been there two and three and four times they make one simple request  me as a senator take care of us but support us so we can win the reason they go back time and time again is they understand the consequences darnation if we lose so you want to take stress off the military don't we all but the best stress that we can take off our military is the stress of not knowing if they're going to be allowed to win so i hope that the ollie's in this body will respect general petraeus is reasoned opinion give him some deference because i think he's produce results that will go down in history as one of the most successful military counterinsurgency operations anywhere on the planet and a little of deference and respect and bastard crocker who has put together political progress on the most difficult circumstances where the iraqis are seeing each other now not as enemies but as partners in an endeavor to create a better life for themselves to live at peace with their neighbors and to make the whole world safer against extremism so when we come home is not the question for the ages it may be for your next election and it may be a for our nation and the world over time is what do we leave behind and i am more confident than ever that we can leave behind in the heart of the mideast in the center of the arab world a group of people called iraq that will be our friends for a long time to come will contain iranian expansionism and will but can't continue to be out kate is worst nightmare that day is coming  way we can lose now is for congress to undercut it so senator kyl how important is it for the congress to pass a supplemental without strings attached i'd say to my colleague that there are going to be efforts apparently to hold this war funding hostage to other funding requests for example one of our colleagues said we're going to look the supplemental not only for the hundred ninety billion for the war by the way that figure is incorrect it's one hundred two billion but also what we can do on this bill for summer jobs programs well i submit that it's important to fund the troops because we've sent them on a mission they volunteered and they deserve our resupport and we shouldn't threaten to withhold that support unless there is also funding for other programs that have a far lower priority than the security of our our troops and the security of the united states and i would also just add one other thing in reading from what general petraeus said yesterday and focusing right down on the american people it is clearly in our national interest he said to help iraq prevent the resurgence of al qaeda in the heart of the arab world and both he and ambassador crocker said that it is worth it to the united states that we are making that the that the success there is making us safer here at home that's what it all gets back to when folks say well we need to have supplemental funding on other programs this is making us safer home and i would just conclude i want my colleague from connecticut to come in for a moment the senate from tennessee also wanted a couple minutes at the end of our time and i just know that i am assured him that the temple couple of minutes we may have to ask for an extra minute or so i think my friend mr president thank you very briefly i just recount this had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning and he said that watching the hearings yesterday put to the those who've been critical of our effort in iraq seemed quite restrained yesterday and i said you know they were and i think it's because our colleagues had accepted the fact that general petraeus and ambassador crocker gave us some extraordinary progress in iraq very critical to our security because that it creates a victory for for the moderates for the good guys in th civil war within the islamic world and it protects our security in that sense because remember it's the fanatics who killed three thousand of us on nine eleven let's hope for another day when there will be an agreement on the facts and maybe we can get together to figure out how we can accelerate progress in iraq so that that what all of us want can happen which is that we bring as many of our troops home as quick as possible with honor and after a success what can congress do i've said two things after listening is today one is to pass the supplemental the second is to stay out of the way and not to force our military and diplomatic leaders to snatch defeat from victory don't impose i thank the senator from south carolina first courtesy in the senator from arizona as well and i know the presence on the floor of the senator from illinois who has and the center from connecticut as well the  sure a great many of our armed forces men and women over the last few days have been watching basketball when they could and yesterday i expressed my pride in in the university of memphis tigers and how they got to the will to the finals of the n c doubly men's division in basketball only to be defeated by a very good kansas team will today have even better news the university of tennessee lady  last night one their eighth n c the women's basketball championship they defeated an extraordinarily good stanford team the tennessee team has very good players the senator from illinois senator durbin and i talked earlier this morning about candace parker from illinois from his home state she may very well be the best woman college basketball player already she's likely to be the first in the draft today of the w n b a and there were four this is her last year she's graduated she's played three years and then there were four seniors who played but even though there were extraordinary players this win has to be about the coach as well pat summitt has won national championships so often she's made it look easy she won last year as well as this year she's won back to back  championships before she's won nine hundred eighty three games this is been remarkably difficult in her thirty four years she has dominated women's basketball she has defined it but she has also helped it with her spaghetti suppers for visiting players with her encouraging other coaches with her patience with the news media she's shown her willingness to change this ng with phil jackson about what off insta put in to react to disappointment playing with her superstar the young woman from illinois candace parker who was playing her last two games with a dislocated shoulder  what i like best about the lady evolves is not their winning streak over the years is the example they set when i was president of the university of tennessee which was fifteen or so years ago i would probably tell everyone that p summitt and her teams not only one championships but their players graduated it was true then i believe it's true today that every single young woman who's played basketball for pat summitt for four years has graduated from the university of tennessee pat summitt not only requires him to go to class she says you go to class and you sit in the front row i want the professors to know that you're there just a glimpse of coach summ and her young players on national television is the best possible advertisement for the university of tennessee that i can imagine if if pat summitt were the conductor of a symphony one would say she has mastered the crescendo because she always plays the toughest schedule but somehow she has learned as a coach to get the most out of her team to have them playing the best as they get to the n c double a tournament and as they get to the final four and as they get to the championship game as they have so often so congratulations to the players parker and hornbuckle and  those are the young women who played their last game last night but special congratulations to pat summitt whose remarkable career reminds us of what a mirror of the best of our society can look like i thank the president and i yield the floor like to address a question to the chairman of comedy majority leaders recognize and i'd just like to join with the senator from tennessee we did speak this morning about that  great game last night great praise to stanford for fielding a wonderful squad of great players too and making it all the way to the finals but special praise to pat summitt in the lady vols in tennessee we had a special interest in the game because of candace parker she is just an extraordinary young woman and watching her play with that physical challenge of her dislocated shoulder was just an indication that not only were skill but of her courage and when one of the players on the tennessee team was injured toward the end of the game you could sell the sense of team feeling there were tears running down the cheeks of her fellow players they were such a close knit unit and that says a lot about them an awful lot about their coach  when we get into debates here on the floor of the senate about title nine and women's athletics i hope that we can invite someone like pat some and someone like candace parker and others to come tell us what a transformative experience it's been for them to participate at this level of support and to really achieve so much not only on the court but in their lives and i salute the lady vols congratulations senator but i think the senator from from from majority leaders recognize smiter standing that the majority now has thirty minutes in the morning business centers correct thank you very much mr president the country is consumed with the appearance this week of general petraeus and admiral crocker from iraq this is our annual report companies make annual reports people like warren buffet call in to omaha nebraska the shareholders of berkshire hathaway to talk about the state of his corporation and what the prospects are the future it's become an annual occurrence here on capitol hill that the two leaders from the diplomatic and military side come and make their report to congress this is indeed  beginning of the six year of this war this war in iraq has lasted longer than world war two by the end of this summer it will have lasted longer than world war one and world war two combined we have lost over four thousand of our best and bravest our men and women in uniform who have given their lives in this conflict thirty thousand injured many with permanent injuries have returned from this battlefield our military has been stretched to the absolute limit there's no doubt in my mind that the united states military is the best in the world you only have to meet a you only have to understand the challenges that they have faced in the success that they've shown to know that but it troubles me that in the midst of this debate about how long we can stay in iraq we are actually saying how long can our military stay in iraq with the support of the american people and an honest appraisal of the american military today in the sixth year of this war will tell you that they have paid a heavy price beyond the deaths and injuries there is a serious challenge facing our military the leaders general cody who testified just a few weeks ago and general mccaffrey have told us that iraq has pushed the united states army to the breaking point that is a sobering appraisal by the military itself of what this war has done to our great military just the other day the army reported increased stress anxiety and depression for twenty seven percent of soldiers returning to iraq for a third fourth tour those of us who have been there to meet with soldiers as i have on three different occasions will tell you that these extraordinarily long deployments of our soldiers are virtually unprecedented since world war two and they have taken their toll our soldiers today a are usually married in previous wars they were not and so they go to battle remembering that they've left behind spouses and children on a daily basis there and contact by e mail they know when the car doesn't start they know when the baby has to go to the doctor they know when there's problem paying the bills they know it in real time in addition to the stress of being in battle and in combat they have the added stress of separation from their family and the knowledge that for many of them it'll be fifteen months in deployment before they can come home a lieutenant colonel from georgia a career man said to me as i left senator we have to do something about these deployments they're just entirely too long and the period between deployments isn't long enough he talked about leaving george with his daughter in the fifth grade returning after his deployment to find her in the seventh grade he missed a year of her life he also talked about the fact that bringing these troops home for a year or sometimes even less before they're sent away again doesn't give them time to rest to reunite with their families to be reequipped retrained to bring in new recruits and integrate them into the unit now we turn them around so quickly because this is ministration and those who support it look beyond the obvious take for granted that the military will be there time and time again and pursue a foreign policy which sadly has been a misguided policy from the start i will recall that evening as long as i served in this body in october of two thousand and two when we cast that fateful vote to give president george w bush the authority to invade iraq in authority which he used it was a good and historic night and a sad night for many of us twenty three senators one republican and twenty two democrats voted against the authorization to invade iraq i recall that evening believing that this president was poised and prepared and ready to go into iraq  misled through statements inaccurate statements the american people were misled about the circumstance involving that invasion the recall the fear we had we were told about weapons of mass destruction biological chemical weapons nuclear weapons we were told saddam hussein was somehow linked to the terrible tragedy of nine eleven we were told that his continued presence in the middle east made it more dangerous for israel for many of our closest friends and allies we were told that he was developing predator aircraft that could soon be sent in remote ways to drop these weapons of mass destruction all around the middle east if not beyond virtually every one of those statements made by this administration prior to the invasion of iraq was wrong inaccurate and has proven to have been false america was misled into this war that does not diminish in any way the bravery and courage determination of our troops but it says that the policy makers many of whom are finally going to leave the scene in a few months have to accept the verdict of history that they were wrong and they were wrong to lead us into this war and the price we paid has been a heavy price for that deception and that mistake they come now and tell us that even if we were wrong getting into this war even if it lasted for longer than anyone anticipated even if the cost of this war and human lives and actual dollars went dramatically beyond anyone's expectation we have to quote stay the course we to stay the course how many times to be we've been told by these military leaders and by the president that when the iraqis are prepared to stand up with their own defense force america's troops can stand down i have heard that until i'm weary of it years ago when i went to iraq i was greeted then by general petraeus who was not in charge but was part of the leadership there and he took me off for a little exercise at the airfield to show me what what the troops were doing the iraqi troops i couldn't tell you whether it demonstrated skill or not i'm not an expert in military deployment by any means but a handful of iraqi soldiers whose faces were hooded so they couldn't be identified by others around other rockies went through the routine of a drill i suppose it was  undertaken to impressive since it didn't i thought to myself i'll believe the iraqi military is really reach the point of professionalism when they start replacing american soldiers and american soldiers start coming home but year after wear year we have invested millions and millions of dollars in the training of their soldiers and their police and yet still have one hundred forty thousand of our soldiers rising this morning and every morning risking their lives for the people of iraq i sometimes wondered if the iraqi people have really come to the basic conclusion as to whether they are a nation worth fighting for i don't know the answer to that when you hear of what's going on in iraq recently where thousands of iraqi soldiers turned and deserted in battle it's not encouraging it tells me that despite all the time and all the money and all the bloodshed this war continues unabated i know now that many want to see this administration leave and hand over the maher of iraq to the next president that next president whoever that person may be will inherit two wars from this administration in iraq and afghanistan a recession a situation where health care across america is in crisis and energy challenge the likes of which we've never seen in this country and environmental challenge of global warming the challenges not are not only our nation but the entire world entitlement programs like social security and medicare on the ropes and unfortunately a country that needs real leadership that is the legacy of the bush administration and for general petraeus and admiral are probably ambassador crocker to come before us and talk about staying the course for another nine ten months to be betrays the obvious we have given the iraqi people more than any nation can ask in terms of human life and treasure it is estimated that the total cost of this war will be somewhere in the range of three trillion dollars what could we have done with that money in america had it been spent for america's strength just imagine we could have provided five point seven million americans with health coverage each year since the war began and hired four hundred thirty thousand new teachers across america and built one million units of affordable housing and provided four years scholarships at state universities for four point seven million students instead the money has been sunk in iraq and just so the record straight the iraqis are not paupers they have bought a whole sources of oil that they sell and while we labor with one of the largest deficit spec the largest deficit in the history of the united states a debt a mortgage we're passing on to our children while we labor with that and are asked by the president to send another hundred billion dollars into iraq with the next request coming in just a few days the iraqis today have a surplus in their treasury of over twenty five billion dollars we are sacrificing in america to send money to iraq to rebuild their country while they are building a surplus on their treasury from their oil revenues what is wrong with this picture there is no earthly explanation for that and it is a fact i think too of what this means in the long term for the next president that next president is going to inherit a terrible situation finding an honorable way out of iraq i notice when the republicans refer to that they always talk about a precipitous withdrawal no one's calling for that but the democratic candidates for president are talking about bringing our troops home i don't believe there's any other way for the rockies to be c convinced that this is their nation and their future and their responsibility as long as they can deal to dial nine one one in order up the best and bravest soldiers in the world to come defend them from america they are not going to accept their responsibility and do what's necessary meanwhile our military is is devastated by this war madam president west point educated officers are leaving the army in record numbers between two thousand and one and two thousand and four there was a doubling of the army's divorce rate a dramatic increase in suicide among the miller members of the military particularly from the national guard in addition to that we know that we are waiving requirements for recruits one out of eight new army recruits has a criminal record some with serious charges we are lowering the require meant for basic education to bring in recruits we are offering thousands of dollars to one thousand year olds fresh out of high school if they'll just sign up to be in the army that is not good for the future of our country it's not good for the future of our military we know that an estimated ninety thousand  civilians have been killed and maybe more innocent people caught in the crossfire of a war we know that there are literally millions of iraqi refugees and shamefully the united states as a been unwilling to even accept iraqi refugees who've risked their lives for our troops and our safety it is just unconscionable that countries around the world are accepting these refugees and the and knighted states which is needed them and use them refuses to accept them and it's a fact we have dangerously emboldened iran that is moving closer to the development of nuclear weapons with this morning's announcement in fact it was actually iran that helped broker an end to the recent violence in basra if this invasion of iraq was determined to show the strength of the united states it is hard to explain why we are still there six years later with no end in sight if this invasion of iraq was designed to diminish the power of iran in the middle east it is hard to believe anyone could make that assertion today with proof to back it up that is the reality of what we face so when i hear senator mccain and the republican leaders talk about staying the course i understand and i hope most americans do that we need to change the course we need to change the direction of this war we need to start to bring our brave soldiers home to the victors welcome they deserve we need to start to say to the iraqis stand up and defend your own country we need to start extricating ourselves from iraq so that this money that we are now spending to build iraq make it stronger  give us strength right here at home instead of creating jobs in iraq we should be creating good paying jobs right here in america jobs that can't be outsourced jobs that make a decent paycheck with benefits and health care and a promise of a good pension we should be investing in this country schools in this country's hospitals and this country's infrastructure and the iraqis should use their oil revenues to strengthen their own country and come together and make the hard political decisions which they have avoided i will close madam president turn it over to my colleague senator cardin from maryland by telling you that the debate will continue in a few weeks the president supplemental request will be if be for it's another opportunity for us to engage this chamber in a debate i know and we all know that the majority of republicans refuse to join us in talking about the change in this direction in this war we know as well this president would veto anything that changes his policies he is determined to leave office with a rock in the same condition that we know it today with no change in basic policy before us but  time is coming and coming soon in november when the american people have the last word finally after four years they get a chance to speak they get a chance to pick a leader to change the direction of this country in the right way to make certain that we have economic policies that build america and make it stronger our families and our businesses and to make certain that we have a new policy in iraq which really focuses on capturing osama bin laden beating back the al wherever they are found in pakistan or afghanistan making america safer in terrorism and stopping what has been a longstanding and negative impact of this president's policy in iraq you'll the floor mountain president there from maryland madam president first let me just the compliment in thank the system majority leader and senator from illinois for his consistent comments in regards to the united states role in iraq you have made it clear that the u s interest has not been served by these last five years that we've lost our focus in the war against terror which as you point out we have real concerns internationally against terrorism and we've been distracted particularly in afghanistan because of the focus in iraqi you pointed out very clearly that the united states has invested so much the lives of its soldiers the the cost to the taxpayers the the those of come back wounded and that what we've done this war that these soldiers deserve the right mission that we concentrate shii as for power in the united states has taken sides on both sides in some cases and that this is so counterproductive to u s interests i just really want to congratulate and thank you for continuing to bring out these issues and we hope the next t some changes we also understand that we have to transition to a different mission considering the type of sacrifices that have been made by our troops and by the taxpayers of this country and i thank you very much for your leadership not a president  petraeus and ambassador crocker and all the soldiers and all the diplomats that have served in iraq they've served with great distinction and i'm humbled by their skills and sacrifices and i acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices that have been made by their families but i must tell you they deserve the right mission what is in the best interest of the united states let me point out that how should we judge that progress that's an interesting point as to whether we've made satisfactory progress or not in iraq so let me go back to january tenth two thousand and seven when the president brought forward his new way forward in iraq his own words or is that the increase of our troops at this critical moment and help the iraqis break the current cycle of violence we we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home one of the reasons for the surge was to reduce our troop levels but when we look at the pre surgery troop levels one hundred thirty two thousand americans at the height of the surge last july one hundred sixty thousand a day we have about one hundred forty thousand and we learned yesterday that general petraeus billie's that we'll be at that hundred forty thousand level for the indefinite future and that there cannot be a commitment made at this stage to reduce our troop levels below one hundred forty thousand so at the end of the day we have more troops in iraq rather than less the president stated in that same speech over time we can expect growing trust and cooperation from baghdad's residents when this happens daily life will improve iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government will have the breathing space needs to make progress in other critical areas as a result of that benchmarks were established not by the congress benchmarks were established by president bush in his administration with the iraqi government and when you look at the progress that we have made let me use general petraeus his comments that he made no one in the u s or the iraqi government feels that there's been sufficient progress by any means in the areas of national reconciliation or in the provisions a basic public services only three of the eighteen benchmarks have been satisfactorily met the circumstances on the ground in in satisfactory iraqis are not getting the basic services they need so i questioned embassador crocker and following up questions that i posed to a panel we had last week before the foreign relations committee a retired generals experts in this area and that was can you name a national leader in iraq that's willing to step forward to provide the type of leadership make the necessary concessions so that you can have a government in iraq that has the confidence of its people well that's what we need to make the political progress no one can mention the person's name embassador crocker said well and i use the examples of south africa and northern ireland where you have people willing to step forward ambassador crocker said there's no nelson mandela in iraq what an understatement that was that was the understatement of our hearing we seem to be changing our goals as to what is success or what we are trying to achieve what's in the best interests of america what type of government do we want in iraq our expectations certain has changed the no expectation now that we'll have the type of of a strong national government that has the confidence of all the ethnic communities we change our expectation as to what that government iraq's relationship will be with iran you seem to a e that it may in fact strengthen iran there's no agreement now that we need to reduce our troop levels of certainly by the administration's mission they want to maintain the troop levels the current  level no commitment to reduce it there's certainly no expectation to reduce the cost of u s taxpayers were to get a supplemental appropriation asking for more money from the u s taxpayers and we certainly have not focused on the major dangers against terrorism if we did we would be concentrating on afghanistan not spending so much effort in iraq the current situation yesterday was characterized by our experts as fragile an even reversible we went through the current flare up in basra baghdad where she is are fighting a fight for power within iraq with u s soldiers in the middle of that power facts u s is supporting warring parties within iraq the fact that over five years over four thousand soldiers have died american soldiers three thirty thousand american soldiers have been madam president i have visited and i know what there are these are life changing injuries that they'll have to live with the rest of their allies six hundred billion dollars and still counting of u s taxpayer money has been spent this is a difficult mission for us to maintain look at our military our military stretched look our national guards i know what's happening in maryland and our national guards are serving with great distinction but they're exhausted and we need them in maryland look at our economy we're losing jobs here in america one reason is that we're so focused on spending money in iraq we're not investing in our own country look what's happening on our fight against terrorism prior to our invasion of petraeus we're not focused on the war against terror we're focused on the power struggle within iraq which should not be our focus and we need to do a better job in afghanistan but yet we're stuck in iraq we have no plan to draw down american troops i find that on acceptable that's not in the best interest of this country let me just mention one more aspect of what's happened in iraq this is factual the number of displaced people five million now five million displaced two million in neighboring countries general petraeus and acknowledge that one of the reasons just one of the reasons why violence of baghdad is less is that the communities the neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed people have left they don't want to be in a violent neighborhood they've left but they're displaced what's going to happen to  three million in iraq alone united nations commissioner commissioner on refugees it says it's not safe for them to go back to their neighborhoods what's going to happen you are talking about a solution for iraq take a look at the refugees this is a movement humanitarian concern is a security concern so also concerned about stability in the region let me just give you one example jordan now has of extra twenty percent of its population as a result of refugees twenty percent increase now if you use the same numbers in america that the sixty million sixty million people coming to our country think about the stability of the region well madam president my position is been clear i've posed this war i oppose giving the president the the right to use military use our military five years ago i opposed the manner which is were has been conducted but we are where we are we can't reverse history where do we go from here well we've got ten months left in this administration ten months ago and to me the status quo is not what we need to do we need to change the course in iraq focus on the war on terror rebuild and re in our military we've got to do that and stop spending twelve billion dollars each month in iraq at the expense of priorities right here at home that's what we need to do starting immediately we can't we shouldn't wait till  next election we should start doing this the day we need to change our mission our mission that should be u s soldiers fighting terrorists not refereeing community fights neighborhood fights american troops protecting americans our interest and helping transition the iraqis to take responsibility for their own security we should draw down the u s troops bring them home the status quo is not acceptable hundred forty thousand u s troops remaining in iraq but a president there was bipartisan recognition that the sta on acceptable several of our most distinguished republican members of the foreign relations committee made it clear the status quo is not acceptable yet this administration is trying to maintain status quo for the next ten months i hope we can change that public opinion is against that as well we know that what we need is a surge in diplomacy we need other countries that have a direct interest in what's happening in iraq to step forward we need to engage international organizations united nations and the o s c aid we have to have the iraqis step forward and take responsibility for the security of their own country and madam president they have oil we don't we need the iraqis to pay the cost of their own defense american taxpayers should not be doing this and one more thing that should be talking about that we don't need we don't need president bush and the iraqi government negotiating a long term security plan without congressional approval that would only restrict the options of the next administration or future congresses and we should never allow that to happen the world has an interest in a safe and secure iraq but are working towards that end we cannot ignore other competing needs around the world and at home we need a more thoughtful approach that will bring our troops home refocus our resources on al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan step up diplomatic efforts and internationalize the effort to bring stability to that country and to the middle morning business is closed under the previous sort of the senate will resume consideration of h r three two two one which the clerk will now report calorimetry forty h r thirty two twenty want to make the united states toward greater energy debate has gotten back underway on the home mortgage foreclosure bill after an hour of morning business in the u s senate are waiting for the managers of the bill to come to the senate floor the house isn't today dealing with some seven suspension bills and also later on today a land conservation bill again the senate back on today the home mortgage bill a vote on final passage possible later on today congress congressman accordingly writes about this bill that as congress tries to use the tax code to cushion some of the economic effects of the housing crisis the house and senate are increasingly taking divergent legislative approaches while the senate is expected today to pass its package h r thirty two twenty one of business tax breaks and incentives to buy foreclosed properties the house ways and means committee will take another tack bruising legislation that includes zero interest loans for first time home buyers and money to build low income housing ways and means chairman charles rangle describes his panel strategy consumer friendly taking a thinly veiled shot at the senate bill which would primarily help money losing businesses we're also covering today a house hearing a house financial services committee hearing looking at mortgage legislation and we'll show that later in our program schedule also today coverage of general david petraeus and ambassador ryan crocker this morning before the house armed services committee you'll be able to see that again shortly on c span three at about eleven o'clock or so and see all of that hearing later in its entirety on the c span networks then this afternoon general petraeus and ambassador crocker are before the house foreign affairs committee that's also live on c span three that scheduled to get underway at one thirty do send my strong congratulations to the university of tennessee lady vols who again excelled and set an example for our country in the way they conduct themselves pat summitt has a tremendous legacy in our state  someone that not only is an outstanding coach and has won eight national championships but she also teaches players life examples and ways to be successful later in life are students there that play on the lady vols thing our state than focusing on academics and being successful later in life and i just think the way that she has led deval and led our state by her actions in the way this team has excelled is something to be congratulated and certainly makes all of us in tennessee and i think in our country proud and also like to extend my congratulations to the university of memphis memphis  also done an outstanding job the coach john calipari has been a great addition to our state while they fell short earlier this week in reaching the national championship they still raise excitement level in tennessee and certainly our tremendous respect for the university of memphis and what they have accomplished and i'm sure that it's some point in the near future they will achieve the ultimate goal they had this year of winning a national championship my hat is out to both of these outstanding coaches both of these teams and programs which really focus on student excellence and making sure these players are prepared for life and join tennesseeans all across our state and um just asking people in vermont to tell me their personal experiences regarding what's happening to the middle class and we have done that in the past and frankly i expected we'd get a couple of do responses i'm out of and what happened was really astounding to me and really speaks about what's going on in the economy in this country today over a period of a few days we have now had some five hundred responses most from vermont but also i do a national radio show and we made a similar request nationally and we have had some from out of state mostly f of state but a total of some five hundred responses and what was absolutely astounding was the nature of these written responses that was so powerful so overwhelming that in fact they were sometimes just difficult to read a person after person wrote with amazing honest the and with an articulate this which comes from telling the truth they were given a great speech as we often do here in the senate talking about everything under the sun they were talking from their own hocked they were talking about what it means to be trying to raise kids try to send your kids to college trying to pay your fuel bills fill up your gas tank when you get to work amazing stories and we're going to post many of them on our web site and what i wanted to do this morning because i think it is terribly important that the senate he is from ordinary people to get a sense of what is really going on in america the struggles that people are having that maybe it's a good idea we hear from the people rather than just campaign contributors rather than just lobb and the language that we heard from that i heard from that came to my website was just extraordinary so what i wanted to do this morning and i have the feeling i will be doing it more than once is just listening to what people have to say and reading exactly exactly the words that's a right to be let me begin madam president by reading an e mail that came from a small town in northern vermont and i'm going to do my best to disguise identities of the writers but this is a small town the other canadian border and this is what this writer says she says quote my family has been squeezed for years now by husband and i have two children my husband works full time and has a degree he works sixty miles away from home and i tried to find a new job close up but has been unable to do so i tried for two years to find a job when i could not find a job i went back to school i am hoping that my degree was help our family the price of gas and oil now consumes thirty percent of our disposable income we have cut back on groceries and recently were only able to get groceries because my parents were nice enough to give us money we are going to buy a wood stove because we are fraid we will not be able to afford oil next year we do not qualify for a light heap my husband got a raise last the that disappeared on january first when the cost of our health insurance increased we have to we have to have reduced cost lunch for our children we cannot afford to put out children on his health insurance plan and we help and luckily they are on site doctor diagnosed which is the ashtar program and vermont but now we have to pay a premium where we didn't last year we have stopped doing any fun things we have not been able to go out to eat in a long time or to bring our kids to see a movie there are no treats i am praying that after i graduate i will be able to find a job to help my family out of course when i go back to work both my husband and i will have to spot and our student loans and this payment will amount to about five hundred dollars per month but one of the option that we have i could find work he can find a better job closer to home both my husband and i have degrees we did everything right we are not doing better than our parents when they were our age if it weren't for our parents we would be worse off our parents have helped us with oil by parents gave us six hundred dollars last year to pay for all royle my husband's parents helped us with car repairs so we wouldn't go to into debt my parents have given us grocery money and bought our kids school clothes i don't know what we would do without our parents this is the moralizing my husband keeps asking when will we be able to actually afford to support our own family i'm not sure what the answer is thank you i letter from a woman in the us in vermont this is a letter from a woman in central ramadi north central vermont whose job it turns out was outsourced this is what she writes my husband and i are in mid fifty's at this time of our lives we should be at our peak earning power putting money away for our retirement two years ago we were all but now we are making about forty two thousand between us and struggling through this vermont when i was in international i t manager making a nice salary then i spent fourteen years getting my ass b s and then my did master's degree from champlain college which is a college in burlington vermont we were comfortable and able to go on a nice the cation every couple of years then the company i worked for eighteen years outsourced its entire i t operation to india i received a layoff package but at my age it took me a while to find a job well one third of my previous salary and that job is not even in my field i am an accounting technician now my husband was laid off from a job as an electrician assistant and he is now working in a hardware store he makes three dollars less per hour now both of our moms are new york eighty and live with us we also help to take care of our next door neighbor who is eighty three we are struggling to keep up with our bills fortunately when we refinanced the home several years ago we took a fixed rate mortgage even so our heating gas and even grocery costs are rising so quickly and our salaries are not when i was younger i found it easier to regroup from a loss like this but then everyone wanted to hire me when i was younger i thought the government was quote of the people by the people and for the people end quote but it seems to me that it is mostly quote of the people by the law b s and for the rich and quote by the time we get to retirement maybe when we're seventy at this rate social security and medicare will be gone and we'll be on our own i feel as though our government has sold us out and even if we elect a new president who can't for the people it will take too long to recover for us to reach a comfortable place again thank you for listening senator sanders this is  a very brief email that we received from a small town and in central vermont between my retirement and social security i got a grand total of eight hundred and four dollars a month my last oil delivery was over the six hundred dollars for the month of march that's my story and i'm stuck with it thank you center the for trying to make it better this is from the wife of  them on a lot of people in the state of vermont earn their money in the woods they go out in the countries this is the toughest time i have seen since i was a child my husband is a self employed log or and has an excavation business the way the economy is has really hit in both of his employment very hard the price of logs have dropped drastically and no one is building he has extremely high blood pressure but somehow we cannot receive any dot we do have catamount blue health insurance that we pay two hundred fifty dollars a month walk but that does not cover some of his medicine that doesn't cover all hospital bills we have exhausted any savings we head but still have a small ira but cannot touch that without being penalized we have had to refinance refinance a home of thirty four years and i have just bought a job but it requires me to travel thirty five miles one way and with the price of gas it is almost a hopeless case i am sure there are other people in worse shape than us but i have to wonder why the government is not helping the working person the only thing i guess a working person has is pride is it worth it i'm really beginning to wonder and this is from a fifty seven year old working widow again from the central vermont area and this is what she says i have no on the line no disposable income like many vermonters i drive a long way to my job and consider myself lucky to have one and like most jobs of vermont it does not pay as well as the same job in all the areas of the country by round trip mileage is sixty miles per day i invested in an american made hybrid in two thousand and four which gets between twenty five to thirty mpg also the organization i work for what does not reimburse me at the federal rate for the miles charge to them i have to i have to have more and more money each week to pay for that week's gas and then wait to be reimbursed it really is a tough suites and some of my coworkers are in a tight spot i was fortunate to have locked in fuel oil last spring at two dollars and forty six cents a gallon eight hundred gallons supplement woodburning however i fell on the ice in the semper hurt my shoulder which makes lifting wood difficult therefore i turn the thermostat back to sixty and live that way now the thermostat is back to fifty and the burner only comes on to heat hot water i stopped using hot water to wash my clothes over a year ago and just use cold water i don't notice a difference i have not had a vacation except a long weekend in  at fifty seven and a widow and a woman i can look forward to living in poverty i am thankful for the things i have been pray that i can hold on to them i have firsthand experience that there are many many vermonters that i've lived much less falling through the cracks they do not have enough food to eat and i'll quote too rich for fuel programs i have a friend who is legally blind and lives on less than eight hundred dollars per month she lives in senior housing so rent a subsidized but she still has to pay for utilities and food how does she buy food and clothing on this pathetic amount of money how can we be the richest nation in the world and allow this to happen i vote i give to charities  bake small amounts but how can i move mountains i pray for peace and justice because i don't know what else to do and i am thankful what i have and what i am able to do i appreciate your keeping important issues before the public and let me conclude as i said these are the stories from vermont that we i've received similar type stories from all over america let me conclude with four stories for families in other states than vermont and this is from a young man in tulsa oklahoma thank you so much for allowing me to tell the story of how our family is being squeezed by the current economic conditions in our country being from oklahoma i have to send it is such a pain in december of two thousand i spotted work from my current company at the bottom rung of the ladder i was changing korea's yet again and the old saying you can't spawn at the top certainly applied i have worked my way up from a starting position pot time at seven dollars and sixty five cents an hour through three promotions and into a management position in the mid thirty's a year salary range that used to be an ok salary here in oklahoma not anymore the rising cost of fuel food utilities other necessities has turned my ok salary into a near poverty level experience for my family in addition to the above mentioned cost i experienced eight hundred two dollars per month increase in my portion of the premium for my employer provided family health coverage i don't get it i work hard every day i show up on time every day give it everything i have and never back at all and somehow everything except my salary is going up at an alarming rate my parents parents taught me that no matter what if we worked hard enough and never gave up we get somewhere it seems these days that doesn't hold true anymore please encourage your colleagues in the city to do something and hurt i'm doing all i can and it just isn't enough this is from a young engineer in gladstone oregon i'm a twenty six year old college graduate with a masters degree in mechanical engineering i've been working for two years as an engineering engineer as an engineer in the portland oregon metropolitan area and though i consider my compensation for my job to be appropriate for my level of education expertise about sixty thousand a year i am still struggling to make ends meet in this economy despite the fact that my home mortgage payment has remained stable i am finding that the average price of energy in commodities has increased such that i can no longer afford to contribute to my four hundred one k retirement plan and i am living month to month with only about two hundred dollars in savings i pay about three hundred for gasoline two hundred dollars to he one hundred dollars for electricity and about four hundred dollars of food every month this is fully twice as much as i was paying for the same expenses just two short years ago ouch by situation is ironic i'm a bit frustrating where as i now make all the four times what i made as a graduate student i live with the same quality of life as i did in college i cannot afford the cations or extravagant purchases and i am burden as so many people lot these days with a persistent worry about getting sick or injured and stuck with the medical bills that i cannot afford i realize that i am nobody special in terms of how hard i work or how much i pay for food how quote unquote said my story is and that is why i write to you i am moved by the stories of how these middle class families oss of life and i can sympathize with them in terms of some of the financial worry they are experiencing it is hard for me it must be incredibly difficult for them thank you for your time and thank you for your service as a u s senator and thank you for providing a forum like this and this is a thirty year old man from of the earth from the pacific northwest to feels the american dream has failed and this is what he writes i was raised he writes in extreme poverty my mom had a ninth grade education my father dropped out in sixth grade my brother three years my senior dropped out of high school in one nine hundred ninety six the year i graduated i never knew what house we were up in one and two bedroom apartment i also never knew i was raised in poverty until adulthood when i tried to transcend the state of economic marginalisation i was the first of my family to graduate high school four years later i entered junior college transferred to a private four year institution and earned both an undergraduate and graduate degree i also earned seventy thousand dollars in student loan debt at that point i never earned more than seven thousand in my life three years after college i purchased my first home you guessed it by loan was predatory and was one of the a r m this groceries or medications my a r amateur in my mortgage raise three hundred dollars over night the first home in my family is likely to go back to the bank and i fall a falling short of the finish line in the race out of poverty i am now in credit card debt just the by the essentials and my student loan debt aunts me most of my life i feel disillusioned by the american dream and the american middle class if you graduate if you go to college if you are then you will rise above the poverty line let me tell you most of the sandoz i feel more impoverished today than i ever have why because when i was poor i didn't have nearly one hundred thousand dollars of debt near san francisco and this is the last letter both my husband and i have faced significant pay cuts for the last year we feel grateful to still have jobs however many of our friends our age have no jobs and up and out of work for many months with no prospects in sight we have three trillion and live in the high cost san francisco bay area where we were born a combined income of one hundred to one hundred fifty thousand doesn't go very far at all he'll when a modest townhouse cost almost six hundred thousand and everything else of his is proportionally more expensive the difference in the cost of living across the country is never taken into account by tell politicians planning tax breaks and should be our oldest daughter completed two years in america after graduating from the university of vermont where she got a bachelor's degree in environmental science and conservation biology some of her student loans were forgiven by american law but not many now she works for an environmental consulting firm in boston but her wages are so low she can barely support herself and we are paying still paying three hundred fifty dollars per month on her student loans that remain we will owe three hundred and fifty a month on those loans for the next thirty years and she has close to seventy thousand dollars left to pay off my husband is almost sixty one and i am fifty two we have nothing saved for retirement one small ira we have will be cashed out this year to pay for a new roof on out townhouse we can barely meet our mortgage payments property taxes and pay our bills we live over the past year we have cut out many of the extras we used to consider necessities my husband felt extremely guilty running up a charge card to buy much needed clothing for himself to work he had not bought clothes for him self in about five years our home is now worth less than the loans we have on it there was no money to replace our old rug or even have it professionally shampooed no money to fix our broken clothes dryer no money to repair our bathroom sink no money to take even a modest occasion for a few days the list goes on and on we no longer have what we once considered a middle class standard of living now we are nearly retirement years realizing we will have to work if we have jobs until we die how could we ever exist on social security alone in this area it would be impossible since we will not have our home even close to being paid off i have never felt so despondent about the state of our life and our families prospects of the future we have slid down the economic ladder one wrong at a time i used to believe if we worked hard enough we would be rewarded for our work but no longer believe that we are working harder than ever and now make far less money i see no improvement in our financial wellbeing in the future whatsoever i am beyond  i have no more two years i only have two questions that no one seems to be able to answer and i think it's appropriate to end on this note and this is what she say's i have only two questions that no one seems to be to answer is everyone in washington so far removed from the plight of our country's middle class that they cannot see what we are going through or do they see and simply not care as the president  agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record without objection not the absence of the form the clerk will call the ro the underlying legislative business today as h r thirty two twenty one the mortgage legislation on the senate floor today a possible vote on final passage later on today while this quorum call continues we're going to take you over to the house armed services committee day today or hearing from the general david petraeus and ambassador ryan crocker an update on the surge in progress in iraq back for a very of texas questioning general petraeus and ambassador crocker now