Date: 2004-09-13
Speaker: CORINNE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I want to raise another issue with my colleague. and it is pertaining to the Vice President CHENEY and the package he received when he decided to run for Vice President. My understanding. and I want to be correct on this. buVI understand he got a $34 million retirement package when he retired. but also I am trying to find the exact amount that he gets every month. What was very disturbing to me is that his company Halliburton got a sole source contract before the first shot was fired. I have worked really hard trying to help minority and female businesses get a part of government opportunities. government business. but this is an example of sole source. no competition. no nothing. billions of dollars to your company and then say. well. you know. I had nothing to do with it. Well. who believes that? But let us go on. I received calls from soldiers. Let us say Halliburton was supposed to provide 25.000 meals a day. twice a day. They were charging the Anerican taxpayer for 100.000 a day. That is criminal. but yet there is nothing and we are still doing business with them. and you know it is just nothing. It is just amazing about how they are running this war. We gave them. I want to be correct. $89 billion for the first 6 months. Six months later. they came back and asked for another $87 billion. Everybody talked about the second $87 billion. No one talks about the first $89 billion. There is no accountability. They will not even tell Congress what they did with the first. They certainly did not provide the military with the flak suits and the armor and what they need to protect the Humvees. What happened? What happened to the first $89 billion? There is no accounting. no telling the people. that is our job of oversight. what happened to it. and then 6 months later. they came with another $87 billion. I did not vote for it and I support the troops 100 percent. even though I know that they were sent to a war based on lies from the beginning. I went to all of the briefings. I went to all of the discussions. and they did not show me not one single thing that they did not know in 1991. So people said. well. why did some Democrats vote for it and others did not? Well. I come from Florida and I know they stole the election in Florida. and my grandmother always told me if you lie. you steal. and it goes on and on. So I had no trust in this administration. Certainly. they were telling Members. please give the President the authority to go to war. he is going to use it as a hammer. I mean. I guess some people really trusted him. and I guess the American people still trust him. but I go with the facts. I knew that this administration started out based on lies. What happened in the 2000 election was criminal and what have we gotten from that? We have a war in Iraq. Now we are taking the Medicare prescriptions. pollution. and Leave No Child Behind is just a slogan. because we Hf7044 have cut funds for after school programs. Head Start programs. day care programs. A wonderful slogan. Leave No Child Behind. stolen from the children defense armor. should I say. adopted by this administration. So there is a lot of anger in me because this administration constantly misleads the Congress and the American people. E 2045