U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly hasn’t tired yet of talking tough on China during his frequent visits to Kokomo, and Monday’s address to a small group at Carver Community Center was no exception.

The freshman congressman, who represents a district stretching from Markland Avenue to the Michigan border, hasn’t been happy with the lack of action on suspected Chinese currency manipulation by the Bush administration.

Describing U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow’s measured plan for reducing what Donnelly terms a massive unfair trade advantage as “killing us, absolutely destroying our businesses and manufacturers,” Donnelly, D-Granger, continued his call for a fair trade.

“They always have the same line: ‘It’s a very complex situation,’ they tell you. ‘We want China brought into the community of nations, but we’re worried they’ll have upheaval in their country,’” Donnelly said.

“My reply is that we’re already having an upheaval in this country.”

Donnelly bristled at what he termed China’s threat to invoke a “nuclear option” if pressed too hard on fair trade, saying Chinese officials have suggested they could unload about $1 trillion worth of Chinese-held U.S. debt onto international markets in one swoop, thereby striking a massive blow to the U.S. economy.

“In other words they’re saying ‘if you don’t play fairly, we’ll blow up part of your economy,’” he said. “This is why we have to get our act together and reduce our debt.”

Donnelly touted the Democratic congressional leadership’s “Paygo” program as a step in the right direction, but warned that requiring any new spending requests to not increase the national debt was only a first step.

With the national debt now at $7 trillion, “It will take decades for us to dig our way out,” he said.

The congressman didn’t disagree with the premise of the question when asked “How did we get into this mess?” by a member of the media.

The answer, Donnelly said, is that our leaders didn’t apply the lessons of history when making decisions whether it be in regards to the debt or foreign affairs.

In particular, Donnelly cited a 1994 video, taken of Dick Cheney, who had been Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, in which Cheney defended the decision to cease Gulf War hostilities once Kuwait had been liberated. That decision left Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq for another decade.

“How many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth? Our judgment was not very many, and I think we got that right,” Cheney is seen to say in the video, which surfaced on the Internet last week.

“In 1994, Cheney was saying if we take down Saddam, who’s going to run the place? Nobody will be in charge and we’ll be there forever,” Donnelly said.

Still, Donnelly said he’s realistic about the Iraq conflict.

“Even if we made the decision to withdraw today, it will take a year for us to leave,” he said.

However, he said he backs a proposal made by U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., to redeploy U.S. forces to Iraq’s borders.

“We could say that if they want to fight a Sunni/Shiite civil war in downtown Baghdad, that’s not a fight we want to be a part of,” he said.

He also blasted the Shiite-led Iraqi government for taking the month of August off after a series of impasses. “We need to tell this government we won’t carry their water forever,” he said.

While clear answers as to the next step in Iraq may be hard to come by (Donnelly described getting opposite answers from top Pentagon officials as to who would win a Shiite/Sunni post-occupation conflict), Donnelly said he’s concentrating his efforts on improving treatment for wounded and disabled soldiers returning from duty.

In addition to working in his position on the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee to improve sometimes deplorable outpatient living conditions near VA medical facilities, Donnelly also touted legislation he co-authored to reduce the time vets must wait before getting answers on disability claims, and said he hopes to get a VA clinic opened in Miami County by 2009.