Date: 2005-11-08
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. all of what we are saying here tonight has caused me to look at the view of our generation and how we feel about the future and the direction that this leadership. this Republican leadership. is taking this country. We did a little research in my office. President John F. Kennedy once implored Americans to ask not what their country could do for them. but what they could do fdr their country. Another important question that all of these issues raises is how all of this budget cutting and pulling the rug out from under college students future leaves them feeling in terms of public service and what their government can do for people and whether they would want to be a.part of that. So we found some research that showed just exactly how our generation feels about this. A 2004 Hart Research Study for the Council of Excellence in Government found that 34 percent of young Americans said the idea of a government service career did not appeal to them. What does that say about the confidence that this leadership is inspiring in our generation? Mr. Speaker. that is 34 percent. That is a huge number. It means they have no confidence in governments ability to improve peoples lives. After 9/11. we were starting to change those statistics. You saw after 9/11 the incredible response of first responders and of volunteers. All of our hearts in America swelled after the response from 9/11. The polling that was done then showed that young people felt that the response to 9/11 made. them more likely to pursue careers in government and the public sector. But recent events. the culture of corruption. cronyism. the lack of competence that has been evident since the inception of this administration has absolutely. in 3 years from 9/11. 2001. to 2004. totally turned that belief in governments ability to improve our lives On its head. Just by way of example. some things -that most likely did cause that. let us go under the category of corruption. When young people see politicians. leaders of our Nation. deliberately deceiving the American people. an example would be the recent indictment of Mr. Libby and the deceptive actions of Mr. Rove. You have people who spend their lives serving their country. and what happens. people in the administration. a person for the first time indicted in 130 years that served in the White House. people in the administration repay them that service by revealing a CIAs agent covert status. jeopardizing the lives of countless numbers of government employees who are trying to do good work on behalf of the United States of America. Example number two of corruption: We went to Iraq under questionable circumstances. under false pretenses. no question about it. We send American men and women into the battlefield. and more than 2.000 have given their lives. If you -ask the average person. particularly in our generation. if they know for what those lives were given. I do not think that they feel confident that they would give an answer that anyone would be happy about. Let us look at the cronyism that might have caused this shift in confidence in our generation. This generation of young people is extremely independent. They have a spirit of.selfdetermination. They are less likely to identify with a political party. Most young people today are identifying themselves as Independents. They see political appointments based on friendships. The appointment of Michael Brown. "Brownie." because he was a college roommate with someone in the administration. with a friend of the President. being put in charge of one of the most important agencies in . the country in terms of making sure that peoples lives are protected as a disaster approaches and we can help them afterwards. we put someone in charge of that agency whose sum total of his experience was he was president of the Arabian Horse Association.