Foreign and Domestic Policy

FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me agree with the Senator from Georgia. The men and women in uniform representing the United States of America are our best. I have had a chance to meet with them, both the guard units in my State and their families, and to go to Walter Reed Hospital to meet those who have been seriously injured in combat. I have attended the funerals of those who have died from my State. My heart goes out to every single one of them and their families. They have given this country all we can ask and they have given Iraq millions of acts of kindness and bravery and good will, which we as citizens back home could never, ever repay.

But, having said all that, we cannot look beyond the fact that the policy and the decisions made by this administration that brought us into this war have raised the most serious and profound questions with the American people and with the Members of Congress. We understand now, sadly, that, frankly, we were given the wrong reasons. We were wrong in the reasons the administration gave us for going to war. There were no weapons of mass destruction massed on our borders, poised to threaten our troops and poised to threaten others. There were no chemical and biological weapons, no nuclear weapons.

The administration was wrong when they talked about plutonium being shifted from Africa to Iraq. There was no evidence of that whatever.

There was no evidence whatever, despite the administration's statement, of the presence of al-Qaida in Iraq or any connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11.

This administration was wrong on the number of troops we needed. When General Shinseki boldly said we would need more forces to accomplish our goal, he faced derision from this administration. He has been proven right and, sadly, at a time when we were supposed to be bringing American troops home, we are bringing more troops into Iraq. We are escalating the number of forces that are necessary for us to protect even those who were on the ground.

We were wrong about our coalition. It was too thin and too weak at the start and still is today.

This is an American war, borne largely if not exclusively by American taxpayers, and almost exclusively by American troops. Despite the contributions by Great Britain and Poland and others, these are American forces whose lives are on the line.

We were wrong about the reaction of Iraqis who were supposed to greet us with parades and flowers as we liberated their country. Sadly, we see what is actually happening today. Now three-fourths of the Iraqis want Americans to leave. They are glad Saddam Hussein is gone, but now they want us to be gone. That was something that was not predicted.

We were wrong about the protection of our troops. The fact that our Humvees were not properly armored has meant that one out of four American lives were lost because of this lack of preparedness. We were wrong about body armor. A third of our troops in Iraq, as of last year, did not have body armor to protect them personally. We were wrong about protection when it came to the helicopters which sadly still do not have the necessary defensive equipment to fight off shoulder-fired missiles.

We have been wrong, as well, in terms of the human lives, the lives we have given; wrong in terms of the dollar costs. This administration in February said we need no more money to execute this war. As of last week, they said we need $25 billion. Mr. Wolfowitz said it might be $50 billion more to finish this war at least into the beginning of next year. And we were wrong in the prison at Abu Ghraib with improper personnel not properly trained, not properly supervised.

Frankly, we have been wrong on the impact of the war on terrorism. We believed somehow that standing our ground in Iraq would help us in the war on terrorism. It has made it more difficult. This has become a magnet for terrorists who come to Iraq to kill American soldiers and American civilians. That is something that was not predicted.

So this administration has been wrong-wrong in its policy, as we find every single day. The American people still stand foursquare behind our men and women in uniform. They are doing their patriotic duty and we are proud of them. But this administration has not prepared us, did not prepare us, for this invasion and, sadly, we are paying that price today.

There is another important element beyond foreign policy. It is the question of the domestic policies of this administration. The question which should be asked is not a question from a Democrat but one that was asked by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. It is very basic. The question you have to ask yourself every time we have an election is: Are you better off as an American today than you were 4 years ago?

Take a look at the state of our economy and you can understand we are not. The middle Americans across America have to say, frankly, we are not better off. In the first 2 years of the Bush administration, real income has dropped by almost $1,500 per household. Growth and wages, remarkably weak. After growing at a healthy rate during the Clinton administration, wages have barely kept up with inflation under President George W. Bush. In fact, the Labor Department recently reported that in the last 12 months, wages and salaries grew at the slowest rate in over 20 years.

At the same time, Americans are facing skyrocketing costs. Take a look at this. Flat wages during the period that the President has been in office, average weekly earnings, are up 1 percent. Gasoline prices are up 25 percent, college tuition prices are up 28 percent, and family health care premiums are up 36 percent. These are the real costs of families across America.

So when this administration says, We are in recovery, things are looking a lot better, take a look at the reality of the bills that American families have to pay. These are, sadly, families who are not doing better today under President George W. Bush's economic plan.

For many Americans the problem is even worse than flat wages and high costs. For millions, the problem is because they have lost their job. We have lost 2.2 million private sector jobs under President George W. Bush. Under President Clinton, we increased the number of people working in America by 21 million. Under President George W. Bush we have lost 2.2 million jobs.

The manufacturing sector has been devastated, with jobs lost in 36 out of the 39 months under this President. We have lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs not likely to ever be replaced by jobs paying as well.

In 2000, the unemployment rate was 4 percent when President Bush took office. Today it is 5.6 percent. There are 8.2 million Americans out of work, a third more than when the President took office.

In addition, long-term unemployment has nearly tripled under President George Bush. Look at the situation with long-term employment. When he took office, 649,000 people were out of work. Today, 1.9 million are out of work. There are long-term unemployed and the Republican administration refuses, still, to provide unemployment benefits for these people struggling to keep their families together while they are out of work.

In addition, what we have seen is this administration has also turned record surpluses under President Clinton into record deficits. When President Bush took office, we were on track for a 10-year surplus of over $5 trillion. Sadly, in this situation today, we are headed toward a 10-year deficit of over $3 trillion.

In 2000, we were saving every penny of the Social Security trust fund for those who needed it in the future. Since 2001, we have raided it every year to pay for President Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. That does not add up. It does not add up to income security for seniors. It does not add up to fiscal responsibility, which this administration promised.

In addition, because of the weak state of the economy, State taxes have been on the increase, rising by $14.5 billion in 2002 and 2003 after 7 straight years of going down.

So while the President may talk about tax cuts for wealthy people, State taxes and local taxes are increasing to make up the difference. Household debt has increased among families in America from $7.1 trillion in the year 2000 to $9.4 trillion at the end of last year, a 32.8-percent increase. Our public debt has reached record levels under this President and, unfortunately, that debt comes down to $20,000 for every American-a $20,000 mortgage we are carrying because this President insisted on tax cuts while we fought a war, the first President to ever ask for that. Consumer confidence has fallen by 20 percent under this President.

And we come back, again, to the famous question asked by President Reagan in 1980. That question-are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?-it is hard to see in any circumstance why families, on an economic basis, could be considered better off. Their wages are flat, jobs have escaped us, and the costs of doing business in America and raising a family in America continue to go up.

It is clearly a time for a new direction in America. We need strong leadership to point us in a new direction of fiscal responsibility and economic growth. For the next 4 years we need to dedicate ourselves to working families struggling to make ends meet and raise a family that in the future can enjoy even a better standard of living than their parents.

We are not better off than we were, but we can be.

I yield the floor.