Congressional Record, Volume 148 Issue 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)

[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H676-H680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

SOCIAL SECURITY, THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT, AND THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of different issues that
I would like to address this evening; but I find myself, having
listened to the last hour of comments, in need of a little rebuttal to
some of these comments, especially those comments that were directed to
us by the minority leader, which of course went unrebutted.
First of all, the minority leader talks about some kind of secret
Republican plan for Social Security. Where does he get that? What gives
him the liberty to make those kinds of remarks? That speech that the
minority leader gave, in my opinion, was one of the most partisan
speeches I have heard on this floor.
I challenge the minority leader to show me one Republican or show me
one Democrat on the House floor, one in office in either our House or
at any elected level, that is against Social Security. Show me one
elected official in this country that wants to devastate Social
Security. Show me one Congressman, Mr. Minority Leader, that meets the
standards that he put out there: because they are Republican, they must
be against Social Security.
What really justifies some of those remarks, I would guess, is the
fact that it is an election year, and now is the time to begin to
position oneself as the savior of Social Security. The minority leader
talks about, we should not talk about numbers, we should talk about
values. He is right, the minority leader, we should talk about values.
Part of those values are the preservation of that system.
All of us on this floor, Republicans and Democrats, want to preserve
the

[[Page H677]]

system; but in order to meet that value of preservation of the system,
we need to talk about numbers. Let us talk about a few numbers.
When that system was created 67 years ago, we had, what, 12 workers
for every retired person? Today that statistic is three workers for
every retired person, and in a few short years it is going to be that
there are two people working for every retired person. Take a look at
the math on that, Mr. Minority Leader, and take a calculation of what
that means.
Furthermore, take a look 67 years ago what the average age was, the
average life expectancy for a male and a female, and compare it to
today.

{time} 1930

I would suggest that the difference between 67 years ago and the life
expectancy today is at least a minimum of 14, perhaps 15 or 16 years.
And what will it be when the generations of my children grow, another
10 years, when people are living longer?
And that is the good news. The fact is that our system is getting
more and more weight put against it. We have got to come up with more
and more dollars to continue the same kind of benefits. One, if we have
less people putting in and more people taking out, we better talk about
numbers, Mr. Minority Leader. And because of the fact that some of us
who are fiscally conservative want to talk about numbers does not mean
we are against Social Security.
Mr. Minority Leader, there are a number of Democrats on your side of
the aisle who are fiscally conservative. There are a number of
Democrats who worry about those numbers. There are a number of
Democrats who put the emotion aside, the rhetoric aside and try and sit
down with us and those who are interested in trying to figure out how
do we work with these numbers so that, one, we can meet the demands of
the future.
Any elected official that tells you that any other elected official
wants to do away with Social Security, frankly, is not telling you the
truth. I have yet in my years of service in the United States Congress,
I have yet to find one Congressman, and we have gone through hundreds
of Congressmen in the years that I have been in service, I have yet to
find one Congressman who has told me to my face or I have heard it
through an indirect conversation that has said what the minority leader
said, and that is that the Republicans want to get rid of Social
Security; that they have a secret plan out there for Social Security to
slash the benefits of all of these people.
Mr. Minority Leader, I think your approach would be better phrased if
you said, hey, look, we better sit down, both sides of this thing. We
better talk numbers. Obviously, the value is preservation of the
system. I think everybody agrees with that. So there should not be any
argument about who wants to preserve the system.
Again, everybody that I know of in the United States Congress, and I
defy the minority leader to show me somebody who does not, but
everybody I know, every Congressperson wants to preserve the system. So
put that argument aside. It is not an argument of preservation. It is a
discussion of numbers.
How do we work with these numbers? How do we figure it out? Take a
look at 67 years ago, the benefits that Social Security paid out, and
take a look at the expansion of benefits that have occurred in the last
67 years without a reflective expansion of revenue coming in.
In other words, the Congresses through the years and the people of
the country through the years have appropriated and approved more
benefits than they have revenue coming in. Come on. You have got to
deal with your family budget and you have a responsibility to deal with
the budget of this country.
The best way to preserve Social Security for the future, which we all
want to do, is to act with some economic sensibility. Do not mislead
the people by pretending to promise them things that you know several
years after you leave office, several years after you accomplish what
you want to accomplish politically, somebody else gets stuck with the
bill. That is what happened years ago when 40 years of rule here
stacked up deficit after deficit.
Now we are back into a deficit this year, but it is not because of
some kind of slight of hand. It is because we are engaged in a war and
we are watching our revenue drop. We have to sit down and discuss that,
just the same as Social Security. So those remarks at the beginning of
this evening by the minority leader, again, some of the most partisan
remarks I have seen on this floor, are clearly devised for election
strategy.
It is an election year, and as we proceed closer to November, you
will see, unfortunately, more and more people using the strategy of
this microphone to enhance their own political self-serving interest.
And I hope we can avoid that, especially when it comes to Social
Security. Many of us, many Democrats that I know do not take part, do
not participate in those kind of partisan discussions. They instead sit
together in groups of people and say, how do we figure out, how do we
work the numbers?
We have a problem. We have a lot more going out in Social Security
over time than we have coming in. On a cash flow basis we are okay, but
on an actuarial basis over time Social Security needs to have some
adjustments.
I do not condemn the President of the United States. I commend the
President of the United States for stepping forward and saying, get
some expert help. Let me reach out to a commission, a commission made
up of Republicans and Democrats, a commission made up of experts and of
people who understand the needs of that generation and the needs of
future generations, people that know, that are experts in accounting
and economics.
That is the kind of panel that this President, President Bush, put
together. Instead of condemning it and saying it is some kind of secret
society out there which, of course, is obviously nothing but
politically-charged language, the fact is they have come up with some
suggestions, that the commission has worked long and hard to try to
come up with something that is constructive towards preservation of the
Social Security system.
So I would hope that the minority leader would tone down these kind
of partisan remarks; and instead of showing up at the microphone and
firing out with this negotiation as an election year strategy, in my
opinion, I think he would be much better served if he would join us and
sit down and maybe go over to the commission and sit down in person
with that commission and talk about what their ideas are and what we
can do to preserve the system.

Shadow Government

Let me move on to a couple of other things that I think are very,
very important.
First of all, in the last few days I have seen a media barrage, a
media barrage across this country, about how aghast some people are
that President Bush, the Vice President and the administration have put
into place a back-up government in case a terrorist attack took out the
sitting government in Washington, D.C.
Why would anybody be surprised about that? You better have a back-up
plan in place. You know what happened at this U.S. Capitol on September
11? I was here. You know what kind of back-up plan we had? Zip. Zero.
We were fortunate that a few brave souls, a few brave souls took a
plane into the ground in Pennsylvania, because my guess is this plane
would have been right here, coming through this dome in this Capitol
and would have very easily wiped out the congressional leadership. That
plane that hit the Pentagon very easily may have been intended to hit
the White House and take out the leadership there.
Sure, we have a line of succession; but what happens to that line of
succession, as occurred on September 11, when in one central location
are your Cabinet secretaries and your different agencies, and they have
no direction from the selected government on how to run? Of course you
better make up back-up plans.
In fact, some of the people, some of my colleagues here have
different bills they have introduced, for example, the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Baird) on succession. I think it is a very legitimate
and, frankly, is a responsibility of this administration, after
September 11 especially, to say, hey, what if this happens again? What
if they would have wiped out the

[[Page H678]]

United States Congress? What if they would have wiped out the White
House? Who gives direction to our government? What kind of safeguards
do we have?
So I commend the administration, not condemn it. I commend the
administration for thinking forward into the future, for having some
kind of foresight as to what we ought to do in case this scenario
repeats itself again.
We all know that there are people out there who hate the United
States and would love nothing more than to destroy this great building
and the people that work in it and to disable our government. So now is
the time to prepare.
So my opinion is people that have criticized this surprise me.
Criticizing the President for, in effect, buying a back-up fire truck
in case the fire station burns down. You ought to say, good job. Keep
it up. That is the kind of forward thinking that we need to prepare
against this ongoing battle against terrorism and this ongoing battle
against people who wish evil against the United States of America.

Honoring Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman

I want to move on from this and visit just for a moment about the
horrible causalities that we have taken as far as in the last 48 hours
or so. The deaths that were suffered were terrible, but I want to read,
in fact, about the gentleman who was mentioned here, Chief Warrant
Officer Stanley Harriman who lost his life in the last few hours in
Afghanistan. I wanted to read a few comments out of today's New York
Times from the families.
This is a card last month that the Chief Warrant Officer sent his
wife, an e-mail message rejoicing that he had been sent to Afghanistan.
``Honey, I am so excited about going to Afghanistan. I will be doing
what I have trained for 16 years to do.''
His survivors, which include his wife, a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-
year-old son, his father, who is retired military, and he has a
brother; and of this family, the commitment of this family towards the
duty of their father, towards the duty of their husband, towards the
duty of their son, towards the duty of their brother, it is an amazing
family, that the duty and the preservation and the great things that we
have in this country called for him to be in Afghanistan.
Let me share that card. Let me repeat a card that the Chief Warrant
Officer sent to his wife, another card. He mailed a card to his wife
from Kuwait which she received about one week ago. Mrs. Harriman, the
wife, read from it during an interview. ``I know that it is not always
easy with me gone so much, but we have so much to be thankful for. We
are truly blessed by God, and these trials and tribulations will only
make us stronger.''
Then let me say to you what his brother said, after learning of his
brother's death. This is the Chief Warrant Officer's brother, Steve. He
said that ``he hoped the military would not flinch at pursuing military
operations to their conclusion.
``Stan would not have changed it if he could. He would do it the same
way,'' Steve said. ``I hope they continue to do what they say they are
going to do, to complete the mission.''
And the key words here are ``to complete the mission.'' We cannot
allow the enemy to kill seven or nine or any number of our American
soldiers over there and cut and run from our mission.
Some of you may have had the opportunity to see the movie Black Hawk
Down. Those are the results, that is the kind of results where the
sight of a body bag convinces many of our enemies across this world,
the al Qaeda and some of the other people, that all you have to do is
show the American citizens a body bag and they will cut and run. If you
want to break America's resolve, kill a few of their soldiers.
As Steve said about his brother, his brother would want the military
to complete its mission. And we have a very heavy mission on our
shoulders, this country does, for the world, for the future of the
world, not just for our generations and future generations of America,
but for generations of all countries of this world. And that is to rid
this world to the extent that we possibly can of the cancer that we
discovered that had gone a lot further than we had ever imagined. That
cancer had spread, and we discovered it on September 11.
Now, we have been able to locate some of that cancer, and we have got
to cut that cancer out. You cannot ignore it. You cannot love it off
your body. You cannot pray it off your body. All of these things help.
Do not get me wrong. That all helps. But the reality is you have to go
in with chemotherapy. You may have to go in with surgery. You may have
to go in with radiation. You have got to get that cancer. You cannot
turn your face the other way. You have got to complete your mission.
You cannot go in and get a few cells of the cancer. You cannot go in
and nip the little end off of it. You cannot even go in a take a big
chunk of it but still leave some vital cells of cancer still in your
body. You have got to complete the mission.
This country has taken a loss in the last few days of some very young
and very brave American soldiers. But I would guess that the families
of those soldiers and every one of those soldiers if they could say it
today would say to the United States of America, complete your mission.
Take out the enemy. Destroy those who would destroy this country.
Destroy those who would destroy democracy in this world. Destroy those
who, without any regard to nationality, any regard to sex, any regard
to age would kill thousands of people in an act of terrorist attack.
So I think that our resolve should be hardened. I do not think we
should give any kind of message because I do not think it is true with
the American citizens. I think our resolve should be hardened to
complete this mission.
We have learned from the past. In Somalia, it was a disgrace,
frankly, our brave soldiers that fought and gave their lives. Vietnam
was another example. We did not complete the mission. And you know
what? We have trained people out there, we have convinced our enemies
that the United States, again, all they have to do is have a death of
their soldiers or torture some of their soldiers or drag them through
the street like they did in Somalia, and within a couple of weeks after
seeing their soldiers dragged through Somalia the president of the
country will order their troops out and we will have beat the American
giant.

{time} 1945

If we want to protect democracy in this world, if we want to stop
terrorism before it stops us, and a better word, instead of stopped, is
destroy us, we have to complete the mission. That is exactly what the
Harriman family has relayed through the tragic death of Chief Warrant
Officer Harriman, and that is ``complete your mission.''
I want to visit a little about the President and his dedication to
the completion of this mission. I noticed some criticism in the last
few days of some individuals who say, number one, the President ought
to inform us of the operational details of what is going on over there.
Listen, we are not military experts. We are Members of the United
States Congress. We have some oversight authority and so on, and we
work with the administration, but what do my colleagues want done?
What, do they want the President to come over to Congress every day and
say, all right, here is how many helicopters we have dispatched in this
portion of Afghanistan, here is where this ship is, this is what we are
doing? Let the President and the military administration do their job.
I heard a complaint over the weekend on some of the news stories that
we do not seem to really have a plan of where this is going. Well, I
think the Vice President, Dick Cheney, did a very good job of
responding to that. I think it was last evening, when he said, look,
the people we are dealing with are terrorists. They are not going to
meet us in some country and have a summit for peace or sign a peace
treaty with us. There is not going to be some kind of long-term peace
plan that they want to execute or cooperate in with the United States
of America. There is no deterrent out there against these kind of
people. They have one mission in mind: they want to destroy the United
States, and they want to destroy anybody that is affiliated with the
United States, and they want to destroy people that do not agree with
them in any regard.

[[Page H679]]

These are not the kind of people we can draw out some kind of peace
plan or conclusion with short of taking them into custody or destroying
them. And we cannot just stop with the al Qaeda. We have to call people
what they are; we have to call it what it is.
I was amazed that after the President's speech, where he talked about
North Korea, that all of a sudden some of my colleagues or some of the
commentators across the country were starting to act like North Korea
is a very amicable country; that the leadership, and not the people of
North Korea, but the leadership of North Korea is not as evil as we
portray them to be. What a misconception.
Take a look what North Korea is all about. In fact, if I was a
wealthy man, I would spend my money and I would take every high school
graduate in this country, if they wanted to go, and I would fly them to
Korea and I would take them up to the DMZ and I would show them that
line that separates two societies, the society of democracy and freedom
against the society of communism and dictatorship and ruthlessness.
But all of a sudden, because our President and his administration,
and a very able administration, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and
Donald Rumsfeld, because they say it so, we all of a sudden see them
draw criticism. It was interesting that Colin Powell had to say the
other day to even some of our allies in NATO, hey, every time you pound
on the United States, why not pound on Iraq.
And when the President talks about Iraq as part of the axis of evil
and the evilness of Iran, do not forget the leader of Iraq, Saddam
Hussein, who has poisoned his own people. He has not used chemical
warfare or other kinds of poison against an enemy, but used it against
his own people who disagreed with his policies. Look at the mass
executions in that country. Look at the oppression against women in
that country. Look at the oppression against scholars.
And let me remind my colleagues that they are not content to keep it
within their own borders. North Korea is not content to stay within its
own borders. Iraq is not content to stay within its own borders. They
want to reach outside their borders, and they want to destroy the signs
of freedom, and they want to destroy the evidence of democracy. And we
had better stand up to it.
Frankly, most of the people in America have given their support to
the President and his leadership. We have got to draw the line in the
sand. That is what the President has said, and he is willing to commit
the American forces to complete the mission. That is what all of us
need to do. But some of my colleagues stand up to the American people
and say, well, where is this going and to start criticizing the
administration at this point in time on our war against terrorism, when
they have not sat 10 minutes as the commanding officer of the United
States, our chief military officer; they have not sat for 10 minutes in
a lieutenant's chair in this mission. We need to give these people
confidence. We need to give them our confidence that the job they are
doing is what needs to be done.
The cancer that is the al Qaeda, the acts of these terrorists, must
be stopped. And thank goodness we finally have an administration that,
despite the fact that we have taken some casualties, understands that
if we are going to clear out the rats, if we are going to get in there
and get those cancer cells, we are going to take casualties. There is a
lot of dirty work ahead for us to get rid of this threat. But if we do
not get rid of it now, the casualties we take today will be nothing,
nothing compared to the many casualties we will take in the future and
the regrets we will have in the future because we did not support this
administration and take out the al Qaeda while we had the opportunity
to take out the al Qaeda; while we had the opportunity to do something
to restrain the expansionist mode of Iraq and the ideals of Iraq to use
nuclear weapons, or biological weapons, or any kind of weapon of mass
destruction against the rest of the free world.
So I would urge my colleagues to be a little slower in their
criticism; study the facts a little more and do not pretend to be some
kind of tank captain out there who knows how to run the battlefield. We
have experts out there that do that.
Now, I am not saying that Congress should forgive or forget or
release our oversight responsibilities and our budgetary
responsibilities, et cetera. I am not saying that. I am just saying
that I am beginning to sense that Congress and some Members of Congress
are beginning to run interference on their own team. As our quarterback
is getting ready to throw the ball, it is not a member of the enemy
team that has broken through the line, it is some of our own people,
kind of confused and running back there and asking the quarterback if
he ought to be throwing the ball, right in the middle of the play. That
does not work.
This country, I think, has shown very admirable dedication to what
this country is all about, and that is freedom and the protection of
people throughout this world. Clearly, it has been reflected by our
military, which has done an outstanding job. It has done such a good
job that up to this point we have been able to limit casualties. But
now when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, which is a necessary part,
now when it comes to digging in real deep to get those cancer cells, we
are going to have casualties.
I wish we would not have casualties. Everyone in this Chamber wishes
we would not have casualties. These poor families who have suffered the
worst loss a family can suffer wishes they had not suffered that. But
it is my opinion that almost everybody, almost everybody comes to the
same conclusion, and that is that sometimes we have to fight. We cannot
run. Sometimes we have to do what is right. Sometimes we have to draw
that line in the sand; and when the other person steps over it, we have
to stop them. Because if we do not, we will pay a very, very heavy
price in the future.
Let me talk very briefly about NATO. As my colleagues know, NATO is
our North Atlantic defense council or European council treaty
organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is very
important. They have played an important part in our war in
Afghanistan. Within hours after the September 11 attack against the
United States of America, NATO, for the first time in its history, for
the first time in its history, invoked what is called article 5.
Article 5 in the NATO agreement says, simplified, an attack against
one is an attack against all. Within hours after that, NATO agreed to
give the United States of America whatever was necessary, whatever the
United States requested to assist them going after the people who
committed that atrocious act of war against us. And the United States
took advantage of that offer and took advantage of our membership in
NATO.
We called upon our friends to help us track down the financial
network that supported this from a financial point of view. We called
upon our friends to help us with intelligence and to help us break up
those cells, those terrorist cells, located throughout the world,
including some located in the United States of America. We requested,
and it was supplied, NATO AWAC aircraft. For the first time in the
history of the United States, we had nine U.S. aircraft patrolling our
skyways while we sent our AWAC aircraft over to the theater of
operations.
I just recently returned from NATO meetings; and when I listened to
the British, it was like listening to your own brother. The British are
there. They are there 100 percent. And the British people, the
ambassador over in London, told me what it was like hours after
September 11. Tens of thousands of Britons came to the embassy to sign
the condolence books. They could not get a phone call out because there
were so many condolence phone calls from the British people to the
American people. Tony Blair's resolve was instant and has only
strengthened. It has not weakened. He came to the assistance of the
United States.
And so I want to commend NATO, but at the same time that I commend
our partners in NATO, I want to remind some of our fair weather friends
in NATO that this is not going to be an easy battle. Do not let these
casualties of the last few hours scare you off. This, clearly, is a
battle for this next century. This is a battle that determines the
safety and the freedom and

[[Page H680]]

the future for all of our countries, whether you are in NATO or not.
This time around it was the United States of America. It was New York.
It was Washington, DC. Next time it might be Paris or next time maybe a
terrorist attack in the country of Luxembourg or, God forbid, some
other place in this world.
We need to stick together as a team. This is not the time to pound on
the United States, as Colin Powell has said. It is time to recognize
who the enemy is, to acknowledge to the American people and to all
world people who that enemy is, and to do something about the enemy. It
is time to get a rope around that wild horse and bring it in. This
cancer that is spreading throughout the world must be stopped, and it
is not going to be stopped through weak knees. It is only going to be
stopped through teamwork, through dedication, and, frankly, through
sacrifice.
The sacrifice reflected in the last few hours by the loss of American
soldiers is exactly the kind of medicine that unfortunately is going to
be necessary to take that cancer off that body. So let me, in
conclusion of my remarks, just repeat what I said earlier, and these
are the remarks of the brother of Chief Warrant Officer Stanley
Harriman, who was killed in action in the last few hours, here is what
his brother says; and this is how I conclude my remarks this evening:
His brother Steve said that he hoped the military, and I add to that
NATO and all our allies throughout the world, he hoped the military
would not flinch in pursuing military operations to their conclusion.
Stan would not have changed it if he could. He would have done it the
same way. Steve said, I hope they continue to do what they say they are
going to do, to complete the mission.
Our military, with our support, and the administration, which is
doing an outstanding job of leading this effort, must be allowed to
complete the mission, to protect the freedom of the world and democracy
as we know it.

____________________