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(Mr. Cohen asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. Cohen: Mr. Speaker, this Democratic Congress has been successful in raising the minimum wage with help from people on the other side of the aisle, and the President signed that into law.

It has also passed stem cell research with some help from people on the other side of the aisle. The President has threatened to veto that bill and that's unfortunate.

The biggest issue hanging over this Congress is the war in Iraq; and while this Congress has made moves to have timetables and benchmarks, it hasn't achieved a consensus that the President will agree to and effectuate policy that brings our troops home.

It will take colleagues on the other side of the aisle, people who have been wedded to this war, President Bush's war, and have been unable to get themselves derailed from that train that's on a collision course. Until Republicans come forward and heed America's call to bring our troops home, more and more Americans will die in Iraq, more and more American dollars will be spent in Iraq where they shouldn't be.

We need to redeploy our troops to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and other places and keep our country safe. I ask my Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to join us.

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(Mr. Carnahan asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Carnahan: Mr. Speaker, after years of funding cuts by Republican Congresses and the Bush administration to key education, veterans, college aid and transportation programs, this House is now bringing appropriations bills to the floor that invest in the right priorities, while also remaining fiscally responsible.

This week, Democratic leadership will pass the largest increase in veterans health care funding in history, a critical step in fulfilling our Nation's obligation to our service men and women, their families and our veterans.

The Veterans Health Administration estimates that they will treat 54,000 more troops in 2008 than they did over the last year, including more than 263,000 veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This House is going to provide our veterans the health care services they are entitled to.

We also add 1,000 new claims processors to reduce the backlog of benefit claims so that our veterans will get the services they need in a timely way.

Mr. Speaker, this Congress is dedicated to fulfilling our commitment to our veterans in a fiscally responsible way.

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(Mr. Hodes asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Hodes: Mr. Speaker, last week the President's new war czar told the Congress that the troop escalation plan is failing and that the American people should expect sectarian violence in Iraq to continue.

Finally someone in the administration is making sense of the situation on the ground in Iraq, but honesty does not make up for the fact that President Bush continues to stubbornly oppose any change in war policy.

In the wake of the deadliest 2-month period in the war, 231 U.S. service men and women were killed in April and May. The facts on the ground show an increasingly grim picture.

In fact, a recent internal military assessment shows that the U.S. military's plan to secure Baghdad against a rising insurgency is falling far short of its goal. To date, according to the document, only one-third of the Baghdad neighborhoods are under the control of American and Iraqi security forces. The administration's goal was to have the entire city under control by next month. Clearly, that is no longer possible.

Despite the continued stubbornness of this President, the Democratic Congress will continue to demand that we move this war in a new direction.

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