Kendrick B. Meek:i offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 85. resolved, that the following

Tim Ryan:named members be and are hereby elected to the following standing committees of the house of representatives -- mr. ryan: mr. speaker, i ask that the resolution be considered as read and printed

Tim Ryan:in the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. ryan: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the resolution is agreed to. mr. ryan: thank

Tim Ryan:you, mr. speaker, for your kindness. the speaker pro tempore: and the motion for reconsideration is laid upon the tate. -- table. mr. ryan: thank you for the tolerance of the new member.

Tim Ryan:just to go back a few seconds to talk about what's going on in iraq and what really the president's plan has been. i think it's important that we remove this from any kind of partisanship.

Tim Ryan:as we have shown in the past couple weeks ago. the votes we have passed here have consistently been passed in a bipartisan way. minimum wage, student loans, medicare negotiations on -- all

Tim Ryan:of these have been passed in a bipartisan way. so the tone that the speaker pelosi has set in this house has been a tone of bipartisanship. the concern that we have in iraq at this point

Tim Ryan:with the troop surge is that this president does not have the support of the american people, he does not have the support of the democratic party. he's losing support among the republican

Tim Ryan:party. and the top chair -- former chair, john warrener, has come out against the president's -- warner, has come out against the president's proposal. the majority has been against this

Tim Ryan:proposal. most that was in the bush administration has left, that had been under this commander in chief has left, is now against what the president is saying. the iraqi leadership is against

Tim Ryan:it. the only people who are for this is the administration. and i think it's important for us to recognize that this is the -- we need to get out in a way that -- make sure we retain our

Tim Ryan:dignity and we redeploy. nobody is talking about cutting and running. but redeploy in a responsible and get our kids out of harm's way. it's been botched from the git-go. i appreciate you consistently

Tim Ryan:focusing. we talked for 3 1/2 or four years about if we get in charge we're going to do it in a bipartisan way. we've been able to maintain that over the past couple of weeks. i think it's

Tim Ryan:important that we continue to go down that road. if you look at -- and i don't want to talk too long because i know my friend has an interest in joining. i want you to look at the first,

Tim Ryan:mr. speaker, the first 100 hours and what we've been able to do. ok. this has kind of gone in two different directions. pass the minimum wage, reduce student loan interest rates, cut them

Tim Ryan:in half and allow the secretary of health and human smbts to negotiate down drug prices. so if you're an average family, those are three major steps forward where you're going to make

Tim Ryan:more money if you have a minimum wage worker, where you're going to have less student loans to pay because the interest rates will be cut in half and the prescription drug prices that your

Tim Ryan:parents and grandparents are paying will be a lot less. so that's going to be significant savings in the short term. but now we have our long-term program. if you look at where the democratic

Tim Ryan:party and speaker pelosi is pushing our agenda, we have investments into stem cell research, which is something we passed in this chamber just a few days ago. we're going to invest into this new

Tim Ryan:and great and vibrant industry and new sector of our economy that is not only going to reap tremendous health care benefits for our citizens but also provide jobs for our scientists and

Tim Ryan:our researchers and funding the verch and development and partnering with private sector people. that's going to create an economic boom in the united states of america because once we pass it,

Tim Ryan:if we can get it past the president, that will be a heck of a move on our part and i think it will be great for the american people and a will be great for the next generation of people

Tim Ryan:coming out of college and coming out of medical school and getting their ph.d.'s a. we'll have a different sector of the economy. repealing the corporate welfare, mr. meek, which you talked about

Tim Ryan:on this floor over the past couple of years, repealing the corporate welfare that we were given to the oil companies and to the energy companies and putting that money into research for alternative

Tim Ryan:energy resources. creating and pushing a whole other sector of our economy so we don't depend on the middle east for our energy. we got it right in the midwest in the united states of america.

Tim Ryan:we're stabilizing, we're taking care of people today, we're giving the american people a pay raise, cutting student loan interest rates in half and cutting prescription drugs in half. and moving

Tim Ryan:into these two major growth areas of alternative energy and stem cell research. i think leader pelosi and mr. hoyer and mr. clyburn and mr. larson and mr. emanuel have all set an agenda for the

Tim Ryan:democrats in the house to do some good in the short term and then to open up these other areas of the economy in the long term. so with that i'd be happy to yield back to my good friend, my

Tim Ryan:dear friend from florida, mr. meek. mr. meek: you know, mr. ryan, i think it's important that we have a real discussion back and forth on this very issue. we talked about the president coming

Kendrick B. Meek:to the floor and hopefully bring about a -- well, promote, mr. speaker and mr. ryan and members, promote bipartisanship. come to the floor and say, there's some good things that have happened