I want to complement the President for traveling to southern California to comfort the families and the communities of the San Diego area. While Americans in southern California suffer great losses and begin the struggle to rebuild, it is…

in the last 3 years, 3 million Americans have lost their jobs; 42 million Americans are without health insurance of which 22 million Americans work full time; a trillion dollars worth of corporate assets have been foreclosed on; and 3…

just yesterday in USA Today they ran a story, ``Once Just a Trickle, Canada's Rx drugs pouring into the United States'' and predicting that it is now coming close to $1 billion worth of business where people are buying their medications…

I am proud to rise in honor of the Illinois Nobel Laureates. Illinois has always been well represented in this competition of the world's best and brightest, but this year three individuals from Illinois have won the Nobel Prize: Paul…

in 2 days the House Committee on Appropriations will take up the $87 billion that the administration has requested for Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the second down payment on top of the first $75 billion that has been requested. Secretary…

we are on the verge of considering $87 billion to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the second payment on top of the first $70 billion that was requested by the administration, and Secretary Powell the other day noted this is a…

What I described was the line items of the $21 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction. I went through the hospitals, the education, infrastructure, the water projects. I did not mention that today in the newspaper there is an…

of the $150 million, I have a request to spend $1.5 million for the Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. It is one of the top five pediatric hospitals not only in the country, but the world. In fact, that hospital saved my life when I…

No, they will not get that. There are 12 million children in this country who will not get the tax credit; yet we are going to spend $100 million in Iraq on a witness protection plan. There is a desire to build 3,500 units of affordable…

I have no idea, but two points on that, if I could, to my colleague. One is we do know it would produce 50,000 here at home if it was spent here. Second, there was an article the other day in The New York Times about how we are paying…

I also have a request. There is an academy in Chicago called the Chicago Academy, Carnegie endowment, called one of the landmarks for teacher trainings, a request for $1 million for a landmark facility doing new teacher training in the…

to my colleague, I do think that the House Committee on Rules will give me ``welcome to the NBA'' treatment. I do see my bill getting stuffed.

I rise proudly as an original cosponsor of the Charitable Giving Act and also in strong support of Cardin-Doggett substitute. I signed on as an original cosponsor of H.R. 7 because our Nation's charities are struggling in this weak economy…

in 2\1/2\ years, we have added $2.5 trillion to the Nation's debt and 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs. As Ronald Reagan used to say, facts are a stubborn thing, quoting former President John Adams. In the short order of 2\1/2\…

to add to that point, we have 45 million uninsured folks in this country with no health insurance. The bulk of them work. We have a pension crisis and retirement plan crisis where there are $330 billion in arrears in private retirement…

And the irony is as these deficits mount, tuition costs are rising 11 to 15 percent annually, and the ability of college assistance like the Pell grants, which once represented two-thirds of college cost, today represents less than a third…

I think the deficit has now become the centerpiece of his economic policy. If we look at the administration's projection over the next 6 and 7 years, on the deficit going out to the year 2011, they actually borrow money every year…

This is a landmark bill that will help American consumers by giving them important new rights and protections. Our economy benefits from a national credit reporting system like no other in the world, and this legislation strikes the right…

well over 6 months ago, Secretary of the Army, General Shinseki, was asked his opinion about how many soldiers we would need in Iraq. He said a couple hundred thousand. Today, we have about 180,000 troops in Iraq and Kuwait. The…

just over a month ago, the Federal court ruled that IBM violated Federal anti-age discrimination laws when it converted from its traditional pension plan to a cash balance plan in the 1990s. As a result, over 130,000 of IBM's…

in Sunday's Chicago Sun Times, they had a headline noting the skyrocketing health care costs in America and how they were punishing consumers and businesses. One out of ten Illinois businesses are now looking at cutting their health care…

One out of four children in America are covered by Medicaid for the maternal care. So the cuts in Medicaid affect directly the newborn children and the health care coverage, where we are talking about universal coverage in Iraq.

In Bosnia, the United States troops share a burden with other Democratic nations under the command of a United States general. They are not serving under anybody else's command. There has not been any major deaths post combat. That is true…

today in USA Today, they released a poll that showed that 71 percent of the American people believe they should be allowed to buy prescription drugs from Canada and other European countries. People from around the world come to the United…

I am glad my colleague started on this, asking the administration to come forward with what is our exit strategy, how long will the American troops be there and what will be the total cost to the American taxpayer. My colleague knows that…