Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate 10242017 20171025

Priority that they deserve. California has been devastated, frankly, by the wildfires that we have just experienced. Ten days ago, i was in santa rosa, california, and firsthand witnessed the devastation that took place throughout that region, and in particular in cofey park. I met with evacuation, i met with firefighters, i met with community leaders, elected leaders, and others who traveled to that area out of concern and with the desire to help. I met county supervisors, and two of them in particular, supervisor gore and goren. Their entire districts were on fire. One of the supervisors even lost her own home. Yet they were leading the charge in the Recovery Efforts and doing so in such a selfless way and with such courage. But entire communities were devastated, and people have lost everything and are still suffering to an incredible extent because of the loss that they experienced and the fact that they have not been resettled. My heartbreaks, as i know all of us feel, for the 42 people and their families whose lives were were ended in these fires. There were 42 people in this region who lost their lives. 6 in addition, more than 8,400 homes and buildings were destroyed. For example, in santa rosa, the Housing Stock in santa rosa is 5 of the entire Housing Stock is gone. And many of these folks in these neighborhoods are middleclass families, working families. They are plu plumbers and teachs and First Responders who were barely able to meet their mortgage. The fires have scorched more than 245,000 acres, 100,000 californians were forced to evacuate. I must tell you i am in awe at the work of the firefighters and First Responders who fought tirelessly day and night. I heard stories of firefighters who worked 80 hours straight to do the work of evacuation and ensuring that no lives were lost and no lives were in peril. Im in awe of their work. Ive met a firefighter. His first name is paul who when i met him, he was wearing he finally was taking a moment of rest from the firefighting he had been doing. He was wearing sweat pants and a sweat shirt and flipflops that he borrowed from another firefighter because he lost his home and everything he had. Yet there he was on the front lines fighting to make sure that no other californians, no other people faced the kind of devastation he faced. There were more than 11,000 total firefighters who responded to the fire. Some from other states and even other countries. And they deserve our thanks and i stand here in the United States senate to thank them for the work that they did coming to california and helping us deal with this crisis. First responders and medical professionals did important work as well. 51 doctors from santa rose take Memorial Hospital santa rosa Memorial Hospital who lost their homes and possessions still stayed overtime to help crowded Emergency Rooms full of patients. And i am uplifted by what i know and the world now saw which is the character of the california person and the californians. People rushed to help the elderly in Nursing Homes evacuate. I heard the story of a doctor who used his motorcycle to save newborn babies from a neonatal unit. And now these folks need our help. Senator feinstein and i will continue to demand fema resources, which include the need for housing, individual assistance, transportation, and water infrastructure. We need to make sure all californians regardless of status can help at the shelters, and i spoke with d. H. S. Acting secretary elaine duke and confirmed that i. C. E. Will suspend Immigration Enforcement in the area until further notice. It is our belief and our understanding as californians that that notice will be clear when this this effort will end in terms of not enforcing immigration, and we want to be clear when its going to start so we can tell californians because right now they are trusting d. H. S. word that the Immigration Enforcement has been suspended. We will support were told that fema through elaine duke will also support emergency packages that provide Disaster Relief for the hurricanes in texas, florida, puerto rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. California is resilient and we will rebuild, but we need help. More than 12,000 constituents have contacted our office. And we will continue to work with fema, h. U. D. , the Small Business administration, and the usda to ensure that those affected in my state will get all the relief that is necessary. Congress needs to Fund Programs like the Community Development block grant and section 8 housing to help Affordable Housing for low and middle class residents. They need the help to find Affordable Housing. Californians facing Affordable Housing crisis like many other states in our country, and this is something that has been highlighted by the devastation that these various states and territories have experienced recently, but it is an ongoing issue that we must deal with. And we cannot stop there. We need larger supplemental emergency packages that include helping california. And this has to be a longterm commitment. California is experiencing the worst fires in history, and they are becoming more frequent. In the 1980s, fires burnt and wildfires burnt under 25 acres on average. Now typical wildfires will burn over 100 acres. Californias 2017 fire season has not yet ended, and it has already burned more acres than the average for the past five years. In Southern California to san diego, red flag warnings are occurring as we speak and they are currently up to 55 mile per hour winds and warm, dry weather with no humidity or very little humidity. These are the conditions that were at play during the most recent wildfire crisis. We must also look at the future and how we can prevent wildfires from reaching this magnitude as we go forward. We must pass the wildfire disaster funding act. Today over half of the United States Forest Service budget is dedicated to combating wildfires compared to just 13 of the budget in 1993. Wildfires treated different are treated differently than floods or hurricanes. Forest service is not allowed to use general Disaster Relief fund at fema and that makes no sense. And prevention is cheaper than reaction. The United States Forest Service estimated that there are 6. 3 billion dead trees in the western states. Removing them would improve safety by mitigating wildfires. Also it would have an economic benefit and create jobs. There are certain bills and the bills that i mentioned that help achieve this because it will allow the Forest Service to dedicate part of the budget to Forest Management and not just reacting. And we must listen to the experts. For example, cal fire agrees. Too often states are picking up the bill for prevention and Forest Management. And we should make it very clear fires are not partisan. This bill that i mentioned, the wildfire disaster funding act, is a bipartisan bill and it should be inserted cleanly into the next supplemental emergency package. And finally, lets recognize the connection between these disasters and Climate Change. California is leading the way and preparing for increasing wildfires, but the federal government needs to do its part. Natural desires from fires to hurricanes to floods do not discriminate by region or by party. We must help each other when the travesties hit but we also must prepare for the future. So in closing i would suggest and urge our colleagues to pass the supplemental bill and future emergency resources, ensure that federal agencies deliver prompt help on the ground, and pass the wildfire disaster funding act. Thank you and i yield the floor. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from florida. Mr. Nelson mr. President , just as the senator from california has outlined the needs of her state having been hit by a natural disaster, so, too, natural disasters, not wildfires, although weve had plenty in florida, but hurricanes, hurricanes have hit other states. Yesterday this senator spoke at length about the effects on a particular industry, the citrus industry. I showed pictures of 75 to 90 of the fruit on the ground. This senator made a unanimous consent request to include a bipartisan amendment of getting money for agriculture, not just in florida but texas and puerto rico and the Virgin Islands and the wildfires in california into the package, specifically about 3 billion for agriculture. And the losses in florida on agriculture are 2. 5 billion of which threequarters of a billion is just losses to citrus growers. Now, thats all the bad news because the unanimous consent request was rejected. The good news is that although the white house rejected it, they made a promise to put it in a continuing supplemental emergency appropriations in november for all these natural disasters and to get that funding in there for agricultu agriculture. But some of us on both sides of this aisle in order to make sure that that promise is kept have put a hold on the nominee for deputy budget director. I will take the white house at its word, and this ought to all be worked out in november. That was the subject of my address to the senate yesterday along with my colleague senator rubio from florida as we talked about the losses, particularly to agriculture. Today i want to talk about here a month after the hurricane in prk an in puerto rico and two months after the hurricane in florida, the aftermath is not going so swimmingly because people are not getting the assistance that they need. Now, mind you, this is two months after the hurricane, two months after the hurricane in which people have lost all the food in their freezer because they didnt have any power. Theyre supposed to get assistance in order to be able to buy food. And if you are living paycheck to paycheck and you dont have a paycheck, you dont have any money to buy food and, therefore, the Financial Assistance from fema and the usda and yet you ought to see the lines, the lines and lines in miami, in orlando, in tampa, in belle glade. And then theyre cutting off the lines. And the people that are getting cut out, theyre going without food. So weve got a long way to go. The usdas supplemental nutrition assistance program, its called dsnap is supposed to help all of our people recover from losses incurred by irma by making shortterm assistance available. Its especially important for families that are low income, that dont have income or theyre not getting a paycheck. And now theyre saddled with unexpected repairs, a storm damaged roof. They spent money evacuating or they lost wages during the storm or they lost power and lost all the food in their freezer. You know, some people do go and buy food in bulk because they can get it cheaper and store it in the freezer. And then bam, its all gone because theres no power. Well, there were 50,000 people waiting at a center in south florida, and many were turned away for waiting in the heat for hours and hours. And then the next day it was the same story in another city that i didnt mention, del ray beach. And so the people are getting desperate. I want to thank fema for everything that its done. I want to thank the congress for doing the first supplemental in september that was intended originally for harvey in texas but along came irma in florida. I want to thank the congress for the additional supplemental that we just passed last night. But the administration of all these programs for assistance to people, its not going so well. So lets take another example. You get on the phone. You call fema. Youre supposed to get a fema representative, and you have to wait and wait and wait. So if thats because fema needs more people on a shortterm basis to handle the amount of calls, well, fema, lets get it going. Or what happens if youre calling because youve got to have a fema representative come to your house to inspect your house so that you can then get the necessary individual assistance to help you. Youre waiting for assistance as to when a Housing Inspector can come and visit the home. Once you get through on the telephone and the last time we checked, the expected wait time to get a Housing Inspector is 45 days. Thats too long for families to wait for an inspector to come because these are floridians that are stuck living in damaged homes, homes that have gotten wet and, therefore, the mold and the mildew has built up. And they dont have anyplace else to go. They dont have any income that they can go down to one of the airconditioned hotels, and theyre still wait being for the fema inspector to come and inspect their homes so they can get qualified to get the assistance that they in fact are due under the law. So our people cant access certain forms of fema assistance until the inspection is comple complete. And im told that fema has indeed increased the number of Housing Inspectors on the ground, but this process has got to be expedited. Now, this isnt the only delay that is causing a very serious threat in florida, a threat to health and to safety. Now fema has been very slow to get in manufactured homes, mobile homes. Why . Because a lot of peoples homes and or mobile homes were so damaged that they cant go back and live there. So they get temporary assistance. They go into hopefully some airconditioned place, like an existing apartment complex or, per chance, a hotel. But what if youre in the florida keys . What if youre in the keys where there are not enough hotels and motels . And, in fact, there are not a lot of rental apartments. And, oh, by the way, its the Service Industry that is necessary to revive the Tourism Industry in the keys, as an example, because thats the lifeblood of the economy, and the Service Industry has no place in which to live because their trailers are history. I wish i had a picture here to show you just north of big pine key of a Mobile Home Park that i went to. There was not one mobile home that was upright. They were either all on their side or their updied down or they were upside down. And it is not unusual because these are the keys. The hurricane came right off the water, a cat 4. But fema isnt getting those mobile homes, those manufactured homes, in as temporary assistance. Understand, the example i gave is the florida keys. Theres one way in and one way out. But youve got to compensate for that. And in the meantime people are suffering and people are hurting. And the red tape just should not stop anyone in this country from having a safe place to live. And so i urge fema to expedite the transporting of these units all over florida, to Florida Communities and filling them up so that floridians have a place to live that is safe and that is clean. All right, if it werent enough of whats going on, i say to my friend from new jersey if it werent enough in florida, what about puerto rico . You know, right now 80 of the island still, a month after the hurricane, more than a month, 80 of the island still doesnt have power. I didnt go into the urbanized parts of san juan, although i was there and did look around. I flew back into the mountains, into the little town of utualo. For two and a half weeks they were cut off. They didnt have a road to get up there for two and a half weeks. Puerto rico would you believe over a month, i say to my friend from washington, over a month after the hurricane and 30 still do not have Potable Water . I saw up in utualo in the mountains, i saw them going up to a pipe coming out of the water that was flowing down through the mountains, this wasnt necessarily Potable Water, but it was the only thing they had. And they were lining up with their plastic jars and their plastic buckets. Hospitals in puerto rico are rationing services. Theyre foregoing optional operations. Theyre making difficult decisions on prioritizing patients because of limited medication, limited facilities, fuel, communications, and power. And Dialysis Centers are desperate to get the water, the cleanenough water, so that they can process the dialysis for kidney patients. And so, clearly, more needs to be done also to help the people of puerto rico in addition to florida and all the other states. And i urge my colleagues to remember the plight of americans trying to put their life together after a major disaster. And so we heard the senator from california making the plea about the wildfires. Youve heard this senator make the plea for florida, puerto rico, and the Virgin Islands. Youve heard the texas delegation make the plea for texas. We all have to come together in this time of need and pass a robust and comprehensive aid bill. And we hope the white house will be true to its promise, that the additional aid, particularly for agriculture, will be put in the november emergency supplemental. There should be absolutely no ambiguity that the federal government intends to provide all the necessary assistance to make our people whole. Mr. President , i yield the floor. Mrs. Murray mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from washington. Mrs. Murray thank you, mr. President. As we speak, millions of americans are working to put their lives together after a devastating series of as doe doessters, the hurricanes that the senator just speak about the catastrophic disaster there. There are countless families from santa rosa to san juan that need a handup rightened and we have going to there for them. Including our fellow americans in puerto rico where a vast majority of families on the island are still without power or access to clean walkers as we just heard to clean water, as we just heard. I am glad we will soon take up a passage to send resources to those in need, many who have lost everything. As you will hear from many of our colleagues on the floor today, this is not the end of our commitment to those affected by these recent disasters, but, rather, a down payment on what we know will be a very long road to recovery for many devastated regions. But i challenge my colleagues to do one better not only could we address the longstanding fisheries disaster that continues to cause hardship for men and women of our fishing industry and our tribal communities, we could also fix the flawed way this country fights wildfires. For far too long the u. S. Forest service has been forced to use up its budget fighting wildfires every season only to have no funds left over to work on preventing them. This is a very dangerous cycle and a disservice to so many communities in the west. And it has only gotten worse as Climate Change takes hold. Meaning our wildfires have grown more massive in size and intensity in recent years. So i urge my colleagues to treat wildfires like the disaster they are. And i hope we all take this moment to acknowledge all of our neighbors affected by disaster, even if they dont make the front page of a paper. Lets use this opportunity to the get the policy right and help out all our neighbors in need. Thanknition. The presiding officer the senator from from kentucky. The senator recognized. Mr. Paul we currently have a 20 trillion debt, and you might ask yourself whose fault is it . Republicans or democrats . The easy answer is, both. Both parties are equally spock, equally both parties are equally responsible, equally culpable, equally responsible of ignoring the problem and allowing our country to rot from the inside out. This year the debt will be 700 billion. The deficit will be 700 billion for just one year for our country. 700 billion. We borrow about 1 million a minute. Under george w. Bush, the debt went from 5 trillion to 20 to 10 trillion. Under president obama, it went from 10 trillion to 20 trillion. Its doubling under republicans and democrats. So right now were in the midst of another spending frenzy. Now, people will say, well, were spending the money for something good. Were going to help those in puerto rico and those in texas and those in florida. My point is theyring about to spend money to help someone in need. Maybe we should take it from another area of spending thats less in need. I think that just simply borrowing it even for something that you can argue is compassionate is really fool hard hi did i and may make us weaker as a nation. Admiral mullin put it this way. He sad the numberone threat to our National Security is our debt. In fact, most people who follow world politics, while we do have problems around the world, dont really see us being invaded anytime soon by an army or an armada. But people do see the burden of debt. So what we have before us is a bill, 36 billion. Much of its going to puerto rico and texas and florida. My request is very simple we should pay for it. About a month ago we 15 billion for the same purposes. We are set in all likelihood to have over 100 billion spent on these hurricanes. I simply ask that we take it from some spending item that seems to be less pressing. I mean, we could go through a list of hundreds and hundreds of items, but one thing i would think that we could start with why dont we quit sending money to countries that burn our flag . So if you are a country and you are saying, death to america, burning the american flag, maybe we shouldnt give you any money. We give money to pakistan, we trade and sell arms with most of the middle east that dont like us, and we do this with borrowed money. We dont even have the money were sending. But week make the burden a little but we can make the burden a little bess if we said, you know what . Lets dont give any known countries that 30, any country us that that hates us, any country thats burning our flag. A woman has been on death row for five years for being a christian. She went to the well to draw water and the women began chanting, death, death to the christian, as she was being beaten and pummeled on the ground and thought she was going to die, the police finally show up ax and they thought they were there to reserve could you her. They were there to imprison her. That was five years ago. Not easy being christian in the middle east. In pakistan, there was a doctor who helped us to get bin laden. His name is alfred. He helped us get information that helped us to target bin laden and finally get this great enemy of our country. The pakistanis put him in jail for helping us. The pakistanis help us one day and stab us in the back the next dame the taliban when they were defeated under president obama, when he put 100,000 troops in there they skoshried off to pakistan. They have a sanctuary and then come back. I think we ought to think twice about sending money to countries that burn our flag, sending money to countries that persecute christians, sending money to countries that frankly dont even like us. We spend about 30 billion helping other countries. With you know, if you were going to help your well, you know, if you were going to help your neighbor, if your neighbor was without food, would you first feed your children if you had a little money left oh, help the children next left over, help the children next door . Would you go to the bank and borrow the money to give to somebody . Would that be compassionate or foolhard did i . Is it compassion did compassiow known give to someone else . So people here will say they have great compassion and want to help the people of puerto rico and the people of texas and the people of florida. But notice they have great compassion with someone elses money. Ask them if theyre giving any known puerto rico. Ask them if theyre going give to tex texas. Ask them what their doing to help their fellow man. Youll find that its easy to be compassionate with someone elses money. It is not only compassion with someone sells money, it is compassion with money that doesnt exist, money thats borrowed. Of the 20 trillion we owe, china holds 1 trillion of that. And all this might be said and you might say, we just have to help people. Youre worrying too much and you have to talk about details. All the money is being wellspent. If you look back at money thats been spent before in disasters, guess what . People replace everything, including things that werent broken. I remember in katrina a family that was hold up in a beachside resort for weeks, taxpayer money. They couldnt put them up across the street for about 60 or 50 a night. They were staying in a 400anight beachside resort with government money, with fema money. I think we have to lowincome at how well i think we have to look at how well government spends money. You want an example of how well government spend money . Last year we had some great signs there was a lot of great taxpayerfunded signs going on. They wanted to study whether or not Neil Armstrong when he set foot o on the money, when he sad one small step for mankind or whether he said one small step for a man . So it was either one small step for man or one small step for a man. They want node if the preposition a was in there. They took some money to study autism and they studied Neil Armstrongs statement when he landed on the moon. 700,000. In the n. I. H. Last year they spent 2 million study being whether or not studding whether or not if someone in front of you if swung knees on the nude food are you more or less likely to eat the food thats been sneezed on . I think we could have polled the audience on that. They spent 300,000 studying whether japanese quayle are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine. I think we could hassume yes. This kind of thing goes on here year after year. You think those are aberrations. Thats new. William proxmire was a senator, a conservative democrat back in the day, and he used to do something called the Golden Fleece award. He would put out these awards. They sound exactly the same as the stuff were finding now. We spent money studying the gambling habits of ugandans. Weve studied how to prepare the philippines for Climate Change. Were studying around the world with money we dont have. If you wanted to make the argument were running a surplus, were a great country, we are going to help all the other countries of the world, i would actually listen to you if we were running a slums but were not. Were running a 700 billion debt. We borrow 1 million a minute and we got a lot of rich people here. We ought to ask these rich senators, what are you giving puerto rico . What are you giving texas . Instead theyre giving your money, really not even giving your money. Theyre giving money they borrowed. So what am i asking . Not that we dont do this. What im asking is that why dont we take it from something we shouldnt be doing. Or why dont we fry to conserve . So if you decided you wanted to help the people next door, you might say you know im not going to the movie theater. Im not going to go to the broadway play. I am not going to the nfl game. I am going to save money by cutting back on my expenses so i can help the people next door that are struggling. But you wouldnt go to the bank and ask for a loan to help people. Thats not the way it works. Unless youre a government and then common sense goes out the window and you just spend money right and left because youre compassionate. You have avenue got a big heart because you have the ability of the Federal Reserve to print up more money. But there are ultimately ramifications to profligate spending. We are approaching that day. So say that you some say that you get there when your debt is at 100 of your g. D. P. Weve now surpassed that. We have about a 17 trillion, 18 trillion economy and a 20 trillion debt. Is it getting any better . Have we planned on the one hand fixing it at all . There is floss fixing. Is one party better than the other . No, they are equally bad. They are terrible. One sides is at least honest they dont care about the debt. The other side are just hypocrites because they say, oh, were going to win the election by saying were conservative, we care about the debt, but they too. The debt gets worse under both parties. Voters need to scratch their head and say, maybe theyre both equally bad with regard to the debt. Most of the debt is driven by this. Its driven by mandatory spending. What is spanned mandatory spending . These are the entitlements. Medicare, medicaid,food stamps, Social Security. This is driving the debt. Its on autopilot so when we talk about a budget, nobody is talking about doing anything about the spending on autopilot. Why . Its risky to talk about reforming entitlements because everybody is getting one. If we dont, though, were consigned to more and more debt, and ultimately i think we are consigned or resigned to a time in which the currency may well be destroyed and the country could be eaten from the inside out through this massive debt. Last week, we voted on a budget, and from appearances, you would say, well, the republicans put forward a conservative budget, had 6 trillion worth of entitlement savings. In the first year, 96 billion worth of entitlement savings. But ask one republican, ask any republican in congress where is your 96 billion worth of entitlement spending coming, most of them didnt even know its in the budget, but its in the budget to make it look good and make it look like it balances over ten years, and yet there is no plan to do anything to entitlement spending. There is no plan to do any entitlement savings. There is no bill in committee, and no bill will come forward. So i introduced an amendment to the budget, and i said, well, if youre going to cut or save or somehow transform the entitlements into responsible spending where we spend what comes in and we dont borrow, why dont we put rules or reconciliation instructions into the budget to tell people, yes, were honest and were sincere and were actually going to cut spending. Do you know how many people voted for it . There are 52 republicans. We had five. So they say they are for spending cuts, but they are not really because nobody will vote to give the instructions to actually do the spending cuts. If you were to eliminate all of the budget that we typically vote on, the budget that we typically vote on is called discretionary spending. This is the military and the nonmilitary. If you were to eliminate all of that, you still dont balance the budget. Thats a third of the budget. You cant even balance the budget by eliminating a third of it. You have to tackle the entitlements. And yet, nobody has the wherewithal, guts, or the intestinal fortitude to actually do it. Now, we did have a big fix once upon a time in the Social Security. In 1983, president reagan and tip oneill, republican and democrat, came together to say we were out of money and we gradually raised the age of Social Security to 67. Is anybody happy to do that . Is anybody jumping up and down and saying i want to wait longer to get Social Security . No, nobody is, but if we dont do it, there will be no Social Security because were destroying the system. Social security pays out more than it brings in. Once upon a time, it was the other way. We used to have about 16 workers for every retiree. Now we have about a little bit less than three workers for every retiree. Families got smaller. So when people ask me how come Social Securitys running a deficit, how come medicare is . Whose fault is it, republicans or democrats . Really, a little bit of both, but its also the fault of your grandparents for having too many kids. We had a whole bunch of baby boomers born, and theyre all retiring, but the baby boomers had fewer kids, and the baby boomers kids had even fewer kids, so its a demographic shift. But if we put our head in the sand and do nothing, the debt will continue to accumulate. Were accumulating debt by the billions and billions of dollars every year. This year, 700 billion. And its estimated that it will be close to or may exceed a trillion dollars next year. During president obamas tenure, we had deficits of over a trillion dollars in several years. Over an eightyear period, we actually increased the debt over a trillion dollars a year. It was a 10 trillion increase in the debt in the eight years of president obama. If we look at whose fault it is, republican or democrats, its both, but ill tell you the way it works around here. People say it is noble. You are enlightened to compromise. So heres the compromise you get. You heard that four of our brave young men died in niger the other day. Most of the people didnt even know we were there, to the tune of a thousand soldiers. But the people once they heard about it, the hawks once they heard about it, they said oh, we need more. They didnt know a thousand were there, but they said we need more there. We need more people in niger. Known has bothered to have a no one has bothered to have a debate about what the war is about in niger, whether we should send our brave elian there. Our Founding Fathers said that was the first principle. The first principle of going to war, the initiation of war, the declaration of war is to be done by congress. They specifically took that power away from the president. Its not just about funding, although thats another way we control war, but the primary way we control whether we enter into a war is the declaration of war. Its under article 1, section 8. This is where the congressional powers are laid out, and people say oh, thats an anachronism. We dont obey that anymore. They certainly dont, but it was never removed from the constitution. They just quit and began ignoring this. How important was this to our Founding Fathers . Madison wrote this madison said that the executive is the branch of government most prone to war. Therefore, the constitution with studied care granted the power of war to the legislature. This wasnt just madison who said this. It was jefferson, washington, adams. The whole panoply of Founding Fathers said that war was to be initiated by congress. Weve had no vote, no debate, and most of the members didnt know we were in this part of africa, and yet, here we are with the kneejerk reaction by those on the right typically but some on the left, is we need more. We wouldnt have lost these four lives had we had 10,000 troops in a country that none of us knew we were going to be at war there. None of us fully have had debated who the parties are to the war, and yet were going to be at war there now. And so the kneejerk reaction is that we are to expand our role in this war in africa. I had my staff ask a question how many troops do we have in africa . Nobody here knows. We looked it up. We found out its 6,000. We have 6,000 troops in africa. You knew you were at war in iraq and syria and afghanistan and libya, but we didnt really know we had 6,000 troops in africa. That would include libya, but 6,000 troops are in africa. The point of it is when you get back to the debate that were talking about, the budget, is that there is a great deal of expenditures to have troops in 100someodd countries. So we literally have troops in over 100 countries. We have 6,000 troops currently in africa. Its expensive. So how do you convince the other side of the aisle to pay for it . Typically, the republican side of the aisle says katie bar the door, well spend whatever it takes and then some on the military. The democrats say well, what about welfare . We need more welfare. So then they tell you to compromise is noble, to be enlightened, to be pragmatic, to compromise is what we should shoot for. We should work with the other side. So thats what happens. There has been a bipartisan consensus for maybe 50, 60, 70 years now, and that is to fund everything. If the right wants warfare, the left says we must get more welfare. If the left wants welfare, the right says we have to have more money for warfare. So its guns and butter. It began in an aggressive way during the vietnam war, but its proceeded apace. We continue to spend money like theres no tomorrow, but both parties are guilty. Its the right and the left. Its compromise thats killing this country. Its the compromise to spend money on everything for everyone whether youre from the right or the left. But, you know, there could be another form of compromise. We could say that we wish to compromise in the reverse direction. We wish to say that, look, maybe for the republicans, National Defense is more important than welfare, and maybe for the democrats, welfare is more important than warfare, but maybe the compromise could be, you know what . We dont have enough money for either one. Maybe the compromise could be well spend a little bit less on each. You know what . We did that recently. When i first came up here, was elected in the sort of Tea Party Tidal Wave that was concerned about debt, something was passed that was called a sequester, and guess who hated it. All the bigspending republicans and all the bigspending democrats. They couldnt pass out their goodies and favors enough because there was some restraint. And you say well, i heard the sequester was terrible. I saw people at school, and i saw people in my town saying the sequester wasnt giving them enough money. The sequester was actually a slowdown in the rate of growth of spending. And this is why you have to understand newspeak. We talk about newspeak and how people change the meaning of words to make them meaningless or even to make them mean the opposite. You hear all the time, when we had this debate over reappealing obamacare, we were talking about capping the rate of growth of medicaid. You heard all the squawking on the left saying, oh, were going to cut medicaid. No. We were going to cut the rate of growth of medicaid. So we had a sequester, and it was evenly divided between military and nonmilitary, between republican interests and democrat interests. It did not cut, it slowed down the rate of growth of spending over ten years. It was actually working to a certain degree. We got it because people who were concerned about the debt fought and fought and fought and said we need to be concerned about the debt. Were hollowing the country out from the inside out. So who destroyed the sequester . Really, the voices were louder on the republican side than the democrat, but both parties were complicit. The sequester has essentially been gutted and destroyed, and really the spending caps have become somewhat meaningless. So we have before us today 36 billion. It will exceed the spending caps. So we have a sequester in place, but there is all these exemptions, so its exempt. So any time you say its an emergency, its an exemption. Within the 36 billion, though, there is 16 billion because we run a terrible governmentrun Flood Program thats 16 billion in the hole. So were going to bail it out by letting it wipe all its debt out. That sort of sounds like longterm mismanagement in a bad program, badly run program rather than it sounds like an emergency. And yet its going to be stuck in an emergency bill so it can exceed the caps. So what am i asking for today . Im asking that we obey our own rules. We set these rules, we set these spending caps, we set the sequester. Lets obey it. The other side will say oh, were obeying the rules. Were just not counting this money. Thats the problem. We have this dishonest accounting where people just say oh, yeah, were obeying the rules but were not. So there are a couple ways you could pay for this. The first way i tried a couple of weeks ago. We had a 15 billion bill, and i said why dont we pay for it with the foreign aid, the welfare we give to other countries. Why dont we say, you know what . It is time we looked at america first. It is time that we take care of our own. It is time that we spend money taking care of those in texas, florida, and puerto rico, but lets spend money that were going to send in the form of welfare to other countries. Maybe we should take care of our own. Instead, though, the senate voted otherwise. I forced the issue. They werent too happy with the amendment. I only got the vote because i was persistent, and i threatened to delay things, and i was able to get a vote. Do you know how many senators voted for this . No democrats. No democrats wanted to offset any spending, and ten republicans did. So i think the vote was 8710. 87 senators voted to keep spending money without any offsets, to basically just borrow the money. And now were having the same debate again. I have an amendment to offset the 36 billion. Now, in all likelihood, im not going to get an amendment vote because they dont have time. It would take 15 minutes, and god forbid that we spend 15 minutes talking about how were being eaten alive by a 20 trillion debt. God forbid we talk about how a 20 trillion debt is an anchor around the neck of a country, god forbid. God forbid that we offer an amendment and at least take 15 minutes to have an offset, to say we should pay for this money were going to send to puerto rico and texas and florida, pay for it by taking it from some other element in the budget. So last time i offered foreign welfare. This time what i have put on the table is something that is very similar to a bill thats been put forward and offered for several years called the penny plan. The penny plan is this theres a great illustration of this if you want to look at this on youtube with a bunch of a guy with a bunch of pennies and showing in a visual way what it would be like to cut one penny out of every dollar. Thats what were talking about. 1 cut across the board would pay for this 36 billion bill. We have a its actually a little bit less than 1 . 1 of 4 trillion budget would be about would be 40 billion. So we need 36 billion.  so its less than 1 . Just cut the budget less than 1 . Do you think there might be 1 waste in every department, including even departments of government you might like . Do you think any American Family has ever had to deal with a 1 cut . Government is so wasteful at every level that we could probably cut several Percentage Points of every division and department of government, and you wouldnt know it was gone. I mean, the waste is astounding. When we look at where money is spent, we looked at some of the money that was being shipped overseas not too long ago, and one of the programs we found was a televised Cricket League for afghanistan. All right. Selfesteem is real important and youre paying for it. So were going to pay for television so the afghanis can feel better about themselves watching cricket on tv. The first problem is we dont have any money. We have to borrow it. The second problem is they dont have televisions in afghanistan. Some do but about one in a thousand of people have a television. I guess theyre going to feel better about the americans paying so they can watch cricket on tv. Its one thing after another. We paid 1 million for a Variety Program to put skits on their televisions. Once again most of them dont have a tv to watch. In the war effort on afghanist afghanistan, we spent trillions and trillions of dollars in the war effort. We defeated the taliban many times, and im sure we can defeat them again. That just means they go across the border, hide in caves and come back when were tired. We spent 45 million on a gas station in afghanistan. This gas station, its an interesting gas station. It serves up natural gas. Thats great, were lessening the Carbon Footprint in afghanistan. Except for its completely absurd because they dont have any cars that run on natural gas in afghanistan. So they build a 45 million plant. The original estimates that were that it was going to cost about half a ilin. So it was a million. So it was 46 times cost overruns. Ends up costing 45 million. And it serves up natural gas that nobody has a car that runs on natural gas. We said, whoops. So we immediately bought them 24 cars that run on natural gas so they can go to the 45 million gas station and get their natural gas. But that wasnt enough because we had natural gas cars for them but they had no money to buy the natural gas so we bought them all credit cards. We bought them natural gasburning cars. We gave them a natural gas gas station and bought them credit cards to reduce the Carbon Footprint of those living in afghanistan. This is absurd. When we look at the budget and we look at accounting, a lot of the money thats been spent overseas in the iraq war, the afghan war, the syrian war, the niger war, the libyan war, the somalia war, the chad war, a lot of this money isnt really budgeted. A lot of this money is actually done as an offbudget thing. Its called the overseas contingency operation. Its really a way of cheating, a way of being dishonest in your accounting. Its a way of evading spending caps, but its also gone a long way towards making it easier just to keep spending money without restraint. So we tried to put restraints on military and nonmilitary and theyre exceeded by this slush fund. They call it oco funding, overseas contingency operation. We had the budget vote recently. I put forward an amendment. It simply said we shouldnt spend above our caps. If we put these caps in place, this is what we should spend. I think we got maybe 15 or 20 votes on that. But this is the problem. Ultimately we have to decide as a country are we going to obey the constitution or are we only going to war when we declare war when congress does its job, declares war . Are we going to go to war any time, anywhere . Thats sort of what we do now. We go to war any time anywhere on the face of the planet and its not for free. Not only is it expensive in dollars but its expensive in lives. The young men and women that are sent to these wars and yet no ones ever voted on them. We lost a soldier in yemen three or four months ago. And for his family it was devastating but america pays little attention because america basically isnt fighting the war. A very small percentage of america, brave young men and women, often from rural parts of our country are fighting our wars. But the massive america isnt fighting. You could say theyre volunteers and that is great. I think thats the best kind of army to have. But i hate it that we dont show the responsibility and care of actually doing our job of taking the time to debate it. Should we be at war in yemen or not . Should we be at war in niger . Should we be at war in libya . Should we be at war in chad . Should we be at war in som mall la, pakistan, afghanistan . We have troops in probably 20, 30 nations where theres conflict going on, and were actively involved in the midst of conflict in at least six or seven. Very expensive in human lives and dollars. We need to ask ourselves will we do this forever . Sunnies have been fighting the shiite for about a thousand years. People say, were going after isis in africa. Well, isis is basically a name for radical jihadist islam and theyre all over the planet. We going to go everywhere and kill every one of them . Is there a possibility that when we kill one, ten more pop up . You know, is whackamole strategy for killing every radical on the planet a way were going to win . We went into yemen on a manned raid in january or february of this year and we last one brave navy seal. They say we got information. They wont exactly tell me what information they got. They claim is was this great information thats going to make the war on terror so much easier. I have my doubts. In the raid, though, which was a manned raid in the middle of yemen, women and children died. And i dont blame our soldiers. Ive got members of my family are active duty. They do what theyre told. They take orders and its tough being put in a situation like that. Youre dropped in the middle of nowhere in the village. Maybe women and children are shooting at you as well. You have to defend yourself and complete your mission. And yet i wonder whether or not the policymakers should be more involved with making a decision whether we should be in yemen and whether or not the people that live in the surrounding area to that village will for a hundred years or more recite through oral tradition the day the americans came, whether or not we actually killed more terrorists than will be created by the oral tradition of when the americans came. We are also aiding and abetting saudi arabia in this horrific war in yemen. Theres 17 Million People who live on the edge of starvation in yemen and the war is exacerbating that. Yemen is a very poor country to begin with. They import about 80 of their food. Currently the saudis have a blockade and so no food is getting in. They say its to prevent arms, and im sure it is, but one of the consequences is no food. Theres a half a Million People with cholera right now. Its sort of a bad form of dysentery and in poor countries you die from cholera. Half a Million People with cholera. It goes along with no food, no clean water. The saudis are blockading yemen. The saudis are bombing yemen. We are giving the saudis or selling the saudis the weapons. Were refueling the planes and helping the saudis pick the targets. One of the saudi targets about a year ago was a funeral procession. This was a funeral procession of a houthi leader or rebel. There were 500 people, civilians, who were wounded in that procession and 150 killed by a saudi bomb on civilians. Do you think theyre going to soon forget that . Do you think that by killing 150 people in a funeral procession and wounding 500 that you killed more terrorists that day than you created . I would say that that day will live on in oral history for a thousand years, the day the saudis came with american bombs and bombed an unarmed funeral procession will live on for a thousand years and hundreds if not thousands of people will be motivated to become suicide bombers because of the day the saudis bombed a funeral procession. Its incredibly expensive in lives, their lives, our lives. When you look at the cause of famine around the globe and you look at it extensively and study the causes of famine, probably six, seven times out of ten its war. War is a terrible thing. And if we dont acknowledge that and try to think how are ways we can make war the last resort instead of the first resort, for goodness sake, the people on television this sunday didnt know how many troops were in niger, and yet their Immediate Response is, well, we should have more. We need more troops over there in africa. In a place most americans had not heard of, have no idea whos fighting whom, and whether or not its an achievable goal. They say a thousand isnt enough. If we had 10,000 and air support and all of this, we would have prevented these deaths. Thats one lesson you could learn. The other lesson you could learn is maybe we shouldnt have been there at all. You see, people have to stand up for themselves. Theres this idea of sort of selfrule and independence, and the people are coddled and not sort of forced into the position of defending themselves, they wont. So weve been in afghanistan 16 years. In the 16 years we were there, what have we found . Well, about 60,000, 80,000 afghans came over here. They were translators. Oh, we have to help these translators. Well, they spoke english and are prowest, they needed to stay in afghanistan and create a country. The same in iraq. We won the war in iraq. All the good people came over here. I have nothing personally against those who came other than im disappointed that there werent enough people who were her heroic heroic enough to stay . Their country to build a new country. Who fights over there . Some of the afghans fight. Some of the people join their army to shoot us. Whether its green on green, where their soldiers are shooting our soldiers because they come in intentionally are there to kill our soldiers. The question is, how come after 15, 16 years the afghans cant fight to preserve their nation . Everybody now says oh, if america comes home, the taliban takes over. Well, the talibans not quite isis. Theyre also not quite the same International Sort of jihadist. They did harbor Osama Bin Laden once upon a time. Most of those people are dead although not all being dead. When you look at when the i. R. A. Ended in england and ireland, it actually ended up being a negotiation. Some say well never negotiate with the enemy. If you never negotiate with the taliban, they are unfortunately pretty popular in afghanistan. Theyre going to be there forever. Can we kill them all . No, just like the radicals throughout the islamic countries, i think theres too many to kill. And the question is do you create more than you kill . But if you put this in context and you say, well, we have to be able to defend ourselves, our country needs to be strong to defend ourselves, i couldnt agree more. But you know what . We become weaker every day as we run up this debt. 20 trillion in debt, 700 billion this year. We borrow 1 million a minute. Realize that predicament, and then realize that the powers that be dont want to allow amendments to offset spending. So im proposing that if we spend money on puerto rico and texas and florida, that we offset it by taking it for something thats less of a priority, Something Else in the budget. If we were to cut 1 of the rest of the budget, wed have more than enough to pay for this. Would anybody notice 1 . Sure. Shed have just under two hours. The subcommittee ontwo hours. Information technology will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Good afternoon. Todays hearing is part of a series of hearings the committee has held to analyze the existing law and regulations that may have become obsolete or need updating