Bill Delahunt: “not only was he wrong, but what the administration did, and we have heard much about $87 billion, and the White House…”

“not only was he wrong, but what the administration did, and we have heard much about $87 billion, and the White House attacks John Kerry because he voted against the $87 billion, but what they failed to do was tell the other half of the story, like we all voted against the $87 billion also, because not only did he fail to tell the truth about the cost of reconstruction but rather insisted that the monies that were to be utilized in rebuilding Iraq were to be a gift, a giveaway. So all of those American taxpayers who are out there who were misled about the cost of the war being paid for by the Iraqis in the first instance, they should understand that all of the money we are pouring into Iraq is not a loan. It is a gift. It is a giveaway. It is welfare, if you will. We heard today about welfare, welfare to work. We are providing welfare for the Iraqi people. We are building them 6,000 miles of roads. We cannot get a transportation bill through here to help build American roads and repair them. We are building schools in Iraq, and we are rehabilitating schools in Iraq, thousands of them. But there is no money to rebuild and rehab schools in America. And do my colleagues know what else we are doing? We are building affordable housing, 25,000 units, for Iraqi people. In the United States, with our population, which is ten times that of Iraq, we are building 5,000. And do my colleagues know what? Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer are not going to get a dime of it back.…”