mr. speaker , i could not help but remember within a few days of the hurricane when president bush gave a speech , i think from new orleans , and he talked about how they were going to reconstruct the city and provide all of these programs and benefits , and none of it has happened . 
it sounded like he was doing a reconstruction program like in iraq , or the marshall plan after world war ii . 
now they are proposing cuts in all of the programs that would actually benefit people . 
it is not just poor people . 
if you look at the things that we are mentioning here for the u.s. versus iraq , i talked about health care . 
the republican budget would cut $ 9 billion in student loans , $ 806 million from no child left behind . 
that is for all americans . 
on the other hand in iraq , they rehabilitated 2 , 717 schools , and 36 , 000 teachers and administrators were trained . 
even the environment , everybody breathes the air and drinks the water . 
in the u.s. , the republican budget has a $ 200 million cut in clean water state revolving funds , and opens anwr to oil drilling . 
in iraq , we spend $ 1 billion for safe drinking water , $ 4 million for marshland restoration . 
everybody is drinking the water and benefiting from environmental infrastructure . 
it is just really americans versus iraqis , and i am not saying that we should not help the iraqis in some way . 
i did not support the war , and i still oppose the war , but i do not mind spending some money to help rebuild iraq , but it is not fair to spend all of this money on iraq and cut money for americans . 
look at the infrastructure . 
in the u.s. under the republican budget , $ 336 million is cut from the army corps of engineers , including funding for the levee construction in louisiana . 
it is no wonder the levee gave . 
we did not keep it up . 
there is a $ 2.3 million cut from amtrak ; high-speed rail funding is eliminated . 
in iraq we are rehabilitating the canal system , including repairs to levees , and rebuilding the iraq railway line . 
