Bill Delahunt

That was the year that some started to express concern about border enforcement.

If I can interrupt just once more. Of course you are aware that the Republicans have been in the majority in this chamber for 12 years.

Are you aware, and again I know we are changing subjects here, but I do not know if you are aware that there has been a decline in the number of enforcement actions against employers for hiring undocumented workers.

Mr. Meek, I want to commend you on that eloquent exposition of the issues that I know resonate with the American people. Could you do me a favor? Could you hold up that last book once more?

I was sitting in the Cloakroom, and I heard my good friend and colleague from Iowa refer to the gentleman from Massachusetts. And I just wanted to clarify for him it was not I that said to stabilize Afghanistan what is needed is 150,000…

But what is most disturbing is that this House, run by the Republican Party, has failed to ask those questions of this administration, and thereby abrogated its responsibility to the American people to ask the questions that would have…

So in the space of some 5 years, enforcement actions against employers who were hiring illegal immigrants----

So he is a Republican. So why do not we refer to it then as the Bush-McCain bill that is distinct from the other bill?

You are all silent. I mean, can you help me, please? I am just confused, Mr. Speaker. Whatever happened to John McCain? Does he still support this bill, this possible candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2008…

I have to get back to the point that you made when I yielded to you about the missing John McCain. Since tonight listening to their remarks about immigration, somehow they want to put it on the Democrats that the problem is and was created…

Congressman Ryan, have you seen Senator McCain? It used to be the McCain bill, and now it is the Reid-Kennedy bill. I mean, who is kidding who? Now, you have a Senator, I believe, from Florida by the name of Martinez, Senator Martinez. I…

Okay. But it is not a Mobil product. And you interpret it, as I did, as a way to discourage people from using a fuel source that, over time, could wean us from that mideastern oil and allow us to rely, again, once more on that farmer, that…

Right. You know what I find interesting is, you pointed it out. It is the first time I have heard it, that you can't use that particular credit card, a Mobil credit card, did you say?

They don't believe in government. That is the truth. Their version of government is simply the smaller the better.

And what is happening now, as I said, senior citizens were unaware of the fact that that limit would be reached so quickly, which would put them into the doughnut hole, or I call it the ``abyss.''

Right. Because that has happened so quickly that they believed initially that it was only the moneys that they had to pay out under the so-called copayment system. But, no, it was the total amount of the cost of the drug between what they…

I don't know if any of you saw it, I think it was yesterday in our major newspapers, I noticed that there was a story relative to a report that indicated that much of the information that seniors received relative to the prescription drug…

A personal special interest, because I don't know if you are aware of this, I am somewhat embarrassed to acknowledge this in a venue such as this, but a week from today I will be on Medicare.

No, that is not the case. But I heard you talk about Medicare, and it provoked a special interest.

50,000 civilians who have died. So my point is, to go back to where we began, all of us want to win against terrorism, which we can agree is scourged. However, the rest of the world--there was another poll that was taken; 34 out of 35…

We cut and ran from Afghanistan. We were distracted by this vision, this neoconservative vision of invading Iraq and bringing stability and democracy to the Middle East. And yet now, now we are paying the price in Afghanistan. I yield back…

Well, this is as good, I guess. The former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, speaking about this Republican Congress, can you read that for me.

And let us remember, Mr. Speaker, who is running the government. It is true, Mr. Speaker, that this administration for the past 6 years has been run by a Republican President, a Republican Vice President. All of the Cabinet members, with…

But the point that you are speaking to, I think everybody understands, is that the country is heading in the wrong direction. In the space of 15 years, people that were in your situation, as you just described it with your husband, newly…

I couldn't improve on everything that has been said. I am excited about the challenges ahead. I think we are going to take this country in a new direction. I think it is going to benefit the American people, whether they be Republicans or…