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 .  