Posted on 11/16/2004 6:20:10 AM PST by OXENinFLA
NTS
Harkin debt limit lie
On Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004
The Senate convened at 2:15 p.m. and adjourned at 6:44 p.m. One record vote was taken, and S. 2986, the Debt Limit Extension bill, was passed.
Next meeting: Thursday, Nov 18, 2004
10:00 a.m.: Convene and proceed to morning business.
Interesting.......
Debt Limit Extension bill
YEAs -- 52
NAYs -- 44
Present --1
Not Voting -- 3
Very interesting....
Present - 1 Reid (D-NV)
Not Voting - 3 Biden (D-DE)Clinton (D-NY)Leahy (D-VT)
PING...
What is the difference in being Present and Not Voting?
Didn't want to go on record huh?
That's what I was thinking, or they just weren't there.
But Reid was.
I think voting Present is more of a pass.
Not voting could mean they just weren't there.
.
Oh that's right .. I forgot about Clinton's Library opening .. Hellary is down there
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act Conferees--Agreement: A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that with respect to H.R. 4818, making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, Senator Cochran be inserted in lieu of Senator Specter as a conferee.
Page S11427
That post above that says "NTS" Note to myself, Harkin said something about the Bush administration's "hyperbola, a fancy way to say lie" it's not in here. I guess that's what "advise and extent their remarks is" ------------------
Mr. HARKIN. As long as the floor is open, I might as well speak now.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Montana. I will not take a lot of time. I wanted to talk a little bit about the measure in front of us, raising the debt limit yet one more time on the American people.
I liken it really to this right here. I will take it out of my billfold. It is a credit card. You see, what the Republicans have done is they have put America on a credit card. What they are doing is sort of like: spend and pay later, feel good. There was an advertisement once for a credit card company that said you can have it all. That is what the Republicans are telling us: You can have it all. We are going to put America on a credit card society. We can have tax cuts for the wealthy and the most privileged and we will put it on a credit card. We can continue the war in Iraq, brought on by exaggerations and misinformation to the tune of about $6 billion a month now. That is what we are spending in Iraq. I think it will $200 billion by the end of this fiscal year. Put it on a credit card.
Put it on the credit card. And, boy, does it feel good. We can have everything. We can have it all. That is what Republicans are telling us. All you have to do is go in debt, put it on the credit card, put it on the country's credit card. We all know what is going to happen. When you are running up the credit card, boy, it feels good.
Who is getting all the advantages of this credit card, though? The wealthiest among us who got all these big tax cuts, and they are now shopping at Neiman Marcus. Check it out. High-end stores, the high-end catalogs are doing very well. People are buying expensive trinkets, expensive watches, yachts, and everything else. They made out.
Guess where it is coming from. It is on your credit card, America. It is on your credit card. And who will be paying? Working families. And now they want us to extend the credit card limit one more time.
You see, they bumped against the limit on the credit card, so now they are saying we have to extend the limit. That is what all this is about. You have to put it in real-life terms. This is a real-life credit card. You know what your limit is, you know what your income is, and you know what happens if you exceed your credit card limit and you cannot pay it. What happens? What happens when you cannot meet the payments? You either declare bankruptcy and go to bankruptcy court, or your creditors come after you. They restructure you. They deny you certain things so that you can start to pay off your credit card debt.
Guess who is now taking our credit card debt. The top countries holding our credit card debt are Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, OPEC--the oil producing and exporting countries have a lot of our debt--China. I do not mean to castigate China. I happen to like the Chinese people. I think we ought to trade with China, although in a more balanced way. But what happens when they become a big creditor and we are their debtor? What happens to trade deals down the road?
Put yourself and your family in this position. What happens when you are the debtor and you have a creditor? Who tells whom what to do? Does the debtor tell the creditor what to do? Your creditor tells you what you have to do to get out of debt.
So what is going to happen a few years from now when we are having a trade deal with China, when we are trying to hammer it out and the Chinese do not like exactly how we are dealing? What happens when they are keeping the value of their currency artificially low? The debtor tends to pull their punch when dealing with the creditor. And we have been pulling our punches in this situation.
This is not some fancy kind of thing. I have heard some speeches on the floor today about the debt limit. Look, this is family. This is the American family we are talking about, and the Republicans are selling us out to creditors around the world. And now that we have bumped up against the limit on our credit card, they say we are going to raise the limit one more time. We can put more debt on our credit card: $800 billion more. Think of it as another $11,000 for a family of four.
Two things are happening. First is you have to pay interest, right? When you have debt on your credit card, you pay interest on that credit card debt. You pay it every month or you start paying interest on the interest. Guess what. You will have to pay it. That is what is happening to our national debt. We raise the limit on our credit card, and every month we have to pay interest or what it build and build.
How much interest? Every man, woman, and child in America will, by 2009, be paying $1,000 a year in taxes just to pay the interest on the national debt; $4,000 for a family of four, every year, just to pay the interest on the debt. And, Mr. President, that is not one tax that can be cut. You cannot cut that tax. That has to be paid. The interest has to be paid on the debt--$4,000 a year for a family of four.
I have heard a lot of talk around here this year and
in previous years--and now I hear the President of the United States talking about it again--about the death tax, otherwise known as the estate tax, which is if you have a big estate, over $1.5 million dollars, before you pass it on, you have to pay taxes on the amount over that sum. They got to calling it this fancy death tax, like you are taxed because you die. You are not taxed because you die, you are taxed because you have large holdings that have built up, a lot of which you have not paid taxes on, that you can pass on to other generations in your family. They call it a death tax. [Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]
I think we ought to start talking about the birth tax. That is what is happening on the floor today. Increasing our national debt is putting a birth tax on every child born in America.
[Page: S11415] GPO's PDF
Think about it. For a child born in America 5 years hence, during that child's first year of life, his or her share of the interest payment on the publicly held debt will be $1,000. No one is talking about it. We ought to be talking about it because that is what it is--a birth tax on every child born in America. You have to pay $1,000 a year interest on the national debt to pay for the tax cuts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. That is what it is. It is a birth tax. Every child born has to pay $1,000 in interest on the debt that first year.
Where did the money go? Lots went to the wealthiest in our society who are now shopping at Neiman Marcus and buying fancy cars. Trickle-down economics. All you have to do is give more to the wealthiest in our society, and it will trickle down. Nonsense. What is trickling down is the interest on the debt that our families have to pay. That is all that is trickling down.
Here it is right here on this chart, the debt each American owes, per capita, Federal debt outstanding. This year, $25,398 each American owes on the Federal debt outstanding, and now we are asking one more time to raise the credit card ceiling. One more time we will raise it, putting American families more in hock to the Chinese, the Japanese, the United Kingdom, the Caribbean banking centers, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland, and the oil producing and exporting countries, the top 10 countries holding our national debt.
This is not rocket science. All it is, pure and simple, is giving more to those who already have a lot in our society. It is spending, as I said, on a needless war in Iraq to the tune of $6 billion a month, not counting the tragic loss in American lives and innocent Iraqi lives. Yet, with all of that we do not even have enough money to fund education. We are putting to bed, so to speak, our education appropriations bill. Guess what. In the Omnibus Appropriations bill we will consider on the floor of the Senate this week, funding for Title I spending, for the poorest schools, is $8 billion short of the authorized level. We have had to cut title I spending for the poorest schools, for the kids in the lowest income areas of America today.
So we do not have enough money for kids and education, for poor schools. We don't have enough money to make sure we have a decent health care plan for the poorest in our country and our children. Our middle-class kids graduate from college with debt up to their eyeballs because they can't afford to go to college. Our environment is being ravaged, our transportation system is falling apart--drive down any highway, thank you--yet we are asked to raise the national debt one more time on this credit card so the most privileged in our society can continue their spending spree. It is time to get us off the credit card.
A simple fact, simple truth: Republicans can't be trusted with your money. That is the simple fact. It happens every time. They simply think all you have to do is run up that credit card, give tax cuts to the wealthy, and everybody will be fine.
Someone said earlier today the responsible thing to do was to vote to increase the debt limit. I am sorry. I am sorry. That is not the responsible thing. That is one more irresponsible action.
I wouldn't mind voting to raise the debt limit if it were coupled with a bill that was true tax reform, that made the wealthiest in our society pay their fair share, that provided for good education and health care for our people. Then you could say we had a fair deal. This is not a fair deal. We are raising the debt so the most privileged in our society can have more. We are raising the debt limit so countries like China can have a noose around our neck.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. HARKIN. I ask for 60 more seconds and I will conclude.
Mr. BAUCUS. I yield the Senator 60 more seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. It is a shame we have come to this. It is time to rip up the credit card. It is time to take the credit card away from the Republican majority here and from the President of the United States. It is time that we have a fair deal for the people of this country and not impose a new birth tax on every child born in America to pay this interest on the national debt. It is unfair. We ought to turn it down and come back with a fair deal for the American people.
The Senate convened at 10:00 a.m. and adjourned at 6:49 p.m. No record votes were taken.
Next meeting:
Friday, Nov 19, 2004
9:30 a.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
Thereafter, resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 1047, the Miscellaneous Tariffs bill.
PING...
CULTURAL ISSUES IN AMERICA -- (Senate - November 18, 2004)
[Page: S11446] GPO's PDF
---
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it seems that several things have happened with regard to questions of matters of faith and what some would call cultural issues that seem to be upside down in America.
Just in the last few days, we have seen several ABC stations across the country that have had a fear of being fined by the Federal Communications Commission for showing the award-winning movie, ``Saving Private Ryan,'' because of some of the language that is used in this extraordinarily heroic film that is one of the most accurate portrayals of the fog and heat of war that has ever been made.
At the same time, we find that ABC, in its leading up to Monday Night Football, has fostered an advertisement to promote one of its nightly network prime time shows in which a risque kind of setting is displayed for an audience that would inappropriately include children, particularly, who are watching at around 6 o'clock in the Pacific time zone of this country. On the one hand, ABC stations are taking off the air a movie that really has a great deal of portrayal of the strength of this country and all of its patriotic values and, at the same time, the network, ABC, is then promoting what some would find questionable.
It seems to me we have lost our sense of balance, our sense of direction, that it is entirely upside down as to what we should be doing.
So, too, I have noted in a Washington newspaper today the fact that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is urged to defend the Boy Scout movement, the title of the headline, and of which critics are pointing out that a settlement by the Department of Defense of an ACLU suit back a few years ago is going to continue to drive, to force the military to cut off all taxpayer support to the Boy Scouts of America which, in this case, uses military bases for meetings and events, such as their annual Boy Scout jamboree that is held on a Virginia military base.
It seems that we have it, again, upside down, for if the objection is that the Boy Scouts of America have, as part of their oath, an allegiance to God, and if that is the reason for the suit, might I remind the Members of the Senate that when we took the oath of office, it said at the end of the oath, ``so help me God.''
But isn't it interesting that the U.S. military has taken a position in a settlement which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would keep the Boy Scouts of America off a military facility when, in fact, every military officer in the U.S. military, including this former officer of the U.S. Army, took an oath that said the following:
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of this office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God.
That is the part of the oath every U.S. military officer takes, and it is the one I took decades ago when I entered as an officer of the U.S. Army.
It seems to me there is a great deal of inconsistency then that the U.S. Department of Defense would take a position where every one of its officers has sworn to uphold their oath, and at the end of that oath state, ``so help me God,'' and yet they are moving to a position to knock the Boy Scouts out of being able to use public facilities--in this case, military facilities--because they have a similar oath.
I come back to my opening comments. We have something that is upside down. There is not a Senator here who does not passionately believe in freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of belief in what any person chooses to believe, but are we getting so mixed up that we lose sight of what are the accepted ways in which we conduct ourselves and the respect we have for one another in our respective beliefs?
Really, is there anyone who wants to kick the Boy Scouts out of their annual jamboree on a Virginia military facility? Of course there isn't.
In this week that has just passed where we see the ABC network saying to some of these stations that we are not going to allow ``Private Ryan'' because it has bad words in it, and at the same time promoting a commercial that certainly has questionable viewing characteristics for young children at the 6 o'clock timeframe on the west coast of this country, and where today's news is bringing us to the point at which our own Department of Defense is taking a
position that ultimately would lead to kicking off the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts believe in God, then I think this country has gone too far. It is time to stand up and speak out about common sense and principles that were set in place for this country by its Founding Fathers of a belief in Divine Providence and a respect for that belief.
So what I will be doing is offering a resolution to the Senate today, and that resolution will conclude that:
It is the sense of the United States Senate that the Department of Defense should continue to exercise its longstanding statutory authority to support the activities of the Boy Scouts of America, in particular the periodic national and world Boy Scout jamboree.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BURNS). The Senator from Kentucky.
The house is talking about the SUDAN and S 2781
McCain up..............sounds like he talking about the "tanker" contracts..
Just put it on .. Thanks for the ping
Uh oh, Kennedy coming up in about 10mins.........
It's the CHILDREN speech
He's gearing up to spend more money
I don't know about other States .. but I do know they do that around where I live
My sister's sister in-law has a special needs child in public school .. the school had to hire an extra teacher for the class to handle/care/teach him .. they also have to have someone on the school bus to take him to and from school at the cost of something like $30 grand a year.
There are other stories I could tell you about that whole situation
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