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“RESPONSE TO THE WASHINGTON WASTE WATCHERS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2883-H2884 on May 12, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
RESPONSE TO THE WASHINGTON WASTE WATCHERS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, that was interesting. Now if only the Republicans controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, they would take care of this waste, fraud and abuse at the agencies.
Many of the things the gentleman talked about are due to administrative mismanagement. If only George Bush was a Republican and they controlled the White House. Whoops. He is and they do. If only they controlled the House of Representatives. Well, they do; and the Senate. They control the entire Federal Government, and he comes up here and talks about the waste, fraud and abuse that he would eliminate if only they were in charge. Well, they are in charge. Why do they not eliminate it?
They never bring bills to the floor to deal with waste, fraud and abuse. He talked about a few things that could provide a little bit of help for the troops. Let me talk about things that could provide a lot for the troops.
Comanche helicopters, a scandal that has been going on starting with the Democratic administration and Republican Congress but continued under the Republican administration; $9 billion wasted. Finally canceled. No products. How many Humvees and sets of armor could we buy for that? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of sets of armor and armored Humvees which, guess what, Donald Rumsfeld did not order. That is why we do not have them, not because there is not enough money in the Pentagon budget.
They did not order what we needed to protect our troops because they did not predict what would happen because Rumsfeld would not read the reports from the State Department intelligence folks and from the CIA. He had Ahmed Chalabi, his favorite convicted felon from Jordan, who was feeding him information that he was paid to give, that he admitted was false.
Then there is the $2 billion Crusader cannon, canceled. No product. How many sets of armored Humvees could be we buy for $2 billion?
Then, of course, the $100 billion Star Wars fantasy. The Republican majority and the President want to spend $10 billion this year to deploy a missile defense system that does not work, according to the Pentagon itself; is untested, cannot even intercept a missile on a trajectory without decoys; $10 billion. Twice what we will spend defending all the borders and all the ports of the United States of America against the real threats, the new threats, the terrorist threats that these people are ignoring because they are worried that some suicidal maniac is going to shoot one missile at the United States, like Kim Jong Il who does not have any missiles that can reach the United States, and have this country instantly incinerated.
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That is not the threat. The threat is a tanker, a freighter, a truck coming across the border, or something being smuggled in some other way. But we are doing nothing to protect against that. We are going to spend the money. Why? Because the defense contractors are making a bundle, and then they turn around and give a cut to the Republicans to help keep them in the majority, just like the pharmaceutical industry I talked about earlier today.
So it is just kind of pathetic, people standing up here saying, I'm a waste-watcher, and if my party was in charge,'' oops, they are. ``If my party had the Senate,'' oops, they do. ``If my party had the White House,'' oops, they do. And you are doing nothing about it. Well, do something about it. The minority cannot stop you.
Please, do not give us that. The American people are not quite stupid enough to believe that the minority in the House, who is trampled over day in and day out, is stopping the Republicans from taking those steps. You are not even trying, because a lot of your buddies are making money on that stuff.
New Record Set by President Bush
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I came to talk about something else. I do not have much time left now, but I wanted to talk about a new record that has been set by the Bush administration.
Congratulations to George Bush and his economic team; they have set yet another record. They told us last year, if only the dollar dropped in value, well, that was all that was hurting our manufacturing. It did not have to do with their totally failed trade policies and the outsourcing of American jobs. It was just that the dollar was a little too high.
Well, the dollar dropped catastrophically. It was at a record low just a month ago, and guess what happened during that month? The U.S. ran a record trade deficit. So their theory does not seem to quite work. But we are still outsourcing jobs at a record rate. The dollar has come back a little. That might even make the deficit worse yet again. Their theories have not panned out.
We have a failed trade policy in the United States of America. We are losing our manufacturing base, our technology base. China is stealing our technology, stealing it from small companies in my district; and the Bush administration will not file a single complaint. Not one. They say, let us get China into the WTO, then they will have to follow the rules. Okay, well let us enforce the rules. Oh, no, we cannot enforce the rules.
We are not going to file complaints against China. It might upset our friends, the Chinese. Our friends the Chinese are dealing in weapons, they are dealing with terrorists on sophisticated manned pads that can shoot down airliners, they are dealing in nuclear technology to terrorist nations. Our friends, the Chinese. The Bush administration says, if we only embrace them a little tighter, they will come around. Yeah, right, after they get all our money, all our jobs, and all our technology, they will come around?
I am just getting tired of these excuses: that if only they were in charge, they would do better. We have a failed trade policy, and what has this President proposed? More of the same.
Now, I have to admit Bill Clinton had a failed trade policy, too; but he copied his from George Bush who copied it from Ronald Reagan, and I opposed all of them as I oppose this.
Let us bring jobs back home to America. We need a new trade policy, and we need a little honesty around here instead of a bunch of whatever.
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