Date: 2006-09-20
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Thank. you so much. Mr. MEEK. And I have to tell you that I know I am less senior than you are. I came here a term behind you. and I am just completing my second year in the Congress. And what I have been shocked by is the lack of oversight. I sit on the Judiciary Committee and Financial Services. And in the Judiciary Committee in particular. which is supposed to be the place where we are protecting our civil liberties and protecting the Constitution of the United States of America. even in the Judiciary Committee in this House. we have ceded our authority. our authority for oversight. and holding the administrations feet to the fire to the executive branch. The Republican leadership here has thrown up their hands and said. you do whatever you want. It is okay. Honestly. sometimes I ask myself. other than our taking the floor each night and individually trying to do what we can and as a caucus collectively trying to do what we can to hold the administrations feet to the fire. I wonder why these people who are running this institution bother showing up to work. because what are they doing? We have worked less. We have been in session fewer days than even the "DoNothing. Congress" of the 1940s. We arent passing significant legislation. Two weeks ago we literally. the only piece of. quote. unquote. major legislation we passed out was a bill that would prohibit the slaughter of horses. And yet -we still have Americans who are twisting in the wind. who are struggling to make ends meet. who are toiling at a minimum wage rate where they cant possibly pay all the bills. and the Republicans just continue to paint a rosy picture. And what you always say. and I quoted you earlier. is maybe if they just think if they say it enough times that people will believe it. or it will magically come true. Let us just look at what they said and what the reality is. Essentially we know that Americans are not fooled by this rosy picture that is being painted. Let us look at the recent polling: A respected poll. NBCWall Street Journal poll. 52 percent of those polled disapproved of the Presidents handling of the economy. That was not a long time ago. That was on September 15. a few days ago. A BloombergL.A. Times poll showed 60 percent of selfdescribed Independents said the economy was doing badly. 60 percent. That was on September 5. And really what we are dealing with here is Americans are facing a different reality than the Republicans statistical spin. Let us look at the situation with the minimum wage. It is now at its lowest level in 50 years adjusted for inflation. Real household has declined nearly $1.300 under this present administration. The cost of family health insurance has skyrocketed 71 percent since the President took office. And the cost of tuition dnd fees at 4year public institutions. 4year universities. has exploded by 57 percent. We are talking people who are caving in under money pressures. We have an economic squeeze that really in 48 days I believe. we believe. is going to affect how people make their voting decisions. Look at hourly wages. They are down 2 percent since 2003. Up 20 percent from just a year earlier are gas prices. Consumer confidence is down by 7 percent in just the past month. When the economy is rosy. Mr. MEEK. and I am no economist. but usually the consumer confidence index is not in this direction when the economy is doing well. What is up 97 percent since this President took office. mortgage debt. You and I know we live in now what is one of the most expensive communities in the country. Who knew that South Florida would end up being as costly as it is? But our school districts actually just realized that they lost and had an un6xpected drop in the number of schoolchildren in each of our school districts. and they are baffled as to how that. happened. except the only thing they can attribute it to is that the cost of housing has exploded to such a degree that people have just moved because they cant afford to live in our community anymore. And that is the case with communities all across America. Only where are they going to go? Every place is expensive. The average cost of a house in our communities now is over $300.000. Yet we continue to pass tax cuts for the wealthiest few off this floor and out of this Congress and send those things to the President. At least we have the Senate as a backstop. One of the other things I wanted to touch on. we have been talkingabout our 2006 agenda. our new direction for America. and we have covered our commitment to real security at home. our commitment to better jobs. specifically not sending jobs overseas. increasing the minimum wage. cutting the student loan rate. really making a commitment to energy independence and affordable access to health care. One of the things. that -we talked about in the 30Something Working Group a lot last year was the privatization scheme that President Bush proposed for Social Security. And what Leader PELOSI has emphasized so often with us is dont let the American people forget that this is not off the agenda or off the table for this Republican leadership or this President. They are absolutely still committed to privatizing Social Security. and if we take control of this Congress. we will ensure that that will not happen. President Bush literally has said he hopes to revise his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm. elections. And you talked about thirdparty validators. That is whom we rely upon for our information that we disseminate on this floor each night. That was the Wall Street Journal just on September 9. just 10 days ago. The bottom line is that the threat of privatizing Social Security is not over. and we need to make surethat we have a party and a caucus and Members who are committed to preserving Social Security. Just look at the quote of Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. He said. "Social Security was created in 1935. Today people are living longer than that they did in 1935. Yet Social Securitys basic. structure has barely. changed. Just 3.3 workers are paying into the system to support each beneficiary while 16 workers did so in 1950. The President put forward a plan last year to strengthen and modernize Social Security. The longer we wait to fix this problem. the more limited will be the options available to us. the greater cost. and the more severe the economic impact on our Nation." And all of the people in the administration. there is quote after quote after quote that describes their underlying intent to privatize Social Security. pull the rug out from under our senior citizens from the most successful program in American history that is the floor through which we will not allow our senior citizens to fall. And we have just got to make sure that 48 days from now we are able to make sure thatour senior citizens can be protected not just in their retirement security. but in terms of their health care security. in terms of making sure that they have a prescription drug benefit that truly protects them. that truly gives them affordable access to prescription drugs. that is consistent. that does not have a doughnut hole that they fall through. and that allows the Federal Government to negotiate for lower prices. Those are the things that are reflected in our agenda. And you can see by the Republicans. agenda here that they have been committed to nothing remotely close to that. They have been committed. since I have been here. to increasing tax breaks for the wealthiest few. They have been committed to giving subsidies to the oil industry. I mean. sometimes I feel like they are committed to reducing access to health care because they have done absolutely nothing to move that ball down the field. It has just been a real shock to me. And the fact that they have allowed the aftermath ofKatrina to continue by contracts goingout the d6or unchecked. millions and millions of dollars not accounted for. nobid contracts awarded to companies that are essentially the friends of Republicans. We have got former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. certainly no friend of the Democratic agenda. who has commented that "they are seen by the country." they being the Republicans. his party members. "they are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that cant function." And that is because they are giving away the store. They are letting things happen completely unchecked. ceded the oversight authority of the Congress to the executive branch and. on top of that. in the war in Iraq. also allowed for contracts to be let without a bid with absolutely no oversight of how those funds are spent. one contract where $9 million went out the door. and no one knew what it was spent on. It is just shocking. These are facts. These are not things that we are making up. and it is not hyperbole or exaggeration. I just dont understand how they look at themselves in the mirror every morning when they wake up. My parents raised me that you have got to make decisions that are going to make you comfortable and that are going to allow you to look yourself in the mirror when you wake up in the morning and put your head down on the pillow and rest comfortably at night. And I honestly dont understand how any of the Members on that side of the aisle can do that when they take out that rubber stamp that you bring to the floor each night that we are and they just stamp it. They just repeatedly pound it over and over for the agenda of this President. which is clearly out of step with the average American.