Priorities for Graduate Studies Act of 2004

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to spend just a little bit of time before we talk about how we are going to bring jobs back into America talking about the things we just heard about.

Now, a lot of the Democrats and liberals want to ignore what happened on September 11, 2001. They want to ignore that terrorists brought the war on terrorism right down home to America. It was an attack on America, just like Pearl Harbor was an attack on America.

They have forgotten that we are at war against terrorism, and it is on a global scale.

And what do the terrorists want? They want a Taliban-style society right here in America. They want us to lose our freedom. They want our women to lose their rights. They do not want our women to have any property. They do not want them to have any voting rights. They do not want them to drive without having a male partner with them. They want them to wear burqas and look out through a mesh.

This is a total change to what our western society is. If you just look at Fallujah where we tried to give those people in the terrorist organization a chance to peacefully surrender, we backed off, we allowed the Iraqis to go in, and what happened? Well, we have a Taliban-style government there. The women are threatened to wear burqas. The men cannot shave their beards anymore. What is at stake here around the world is our culture.

The liberals want the U.N. to take charge. We heard that just over the last hour. They want the United Nations to take over this battle. Well, let us look at the record the United Nations has.

In Cambodia, after we left Vietnam because of the pressure of the liberals, 2 million people died, another million in Vietnam. But the U.N. was in control. We should be comforted, we should be satisfied that they took over, where 2 million people died in Cambodia.

Rwanda, the U.N. turned a blind eye; and 500,000 people died in Rwanda.

Today, in the Sudan, there is a racist war going on where the Arabs are killing Africans. They are killing the black people. Nearly 100,000 people may be dead as of this point.

The U.N. cannot fight the war on terrorism. The U.N. cannot make the United States safe.

Well, then they said, the liberals just said earlier that we had a bad decision because of the ``neocons.'' What they were referring to is the neoconservatives. It is some kind of label they are trying to put on people who are serving this country within the Department of Defense.

They said that we made a big mistake because we trusted Chalabi who was an expatriate. Well, we did make a mistake trusting Chalabi, but I have to tell my colleagues that we trust people who are expatriates all over the world today. Why do we do that? We do that because we think they have the best information coming out of the nation, and we trust them because they have the freshest information, and we trust them because we have no other alternative, thanks to the liberals and the Clinton administration.

We totally decimated our human intelligence all over the global. We decided, according to a rule that was placed on the CIA, that we could not deal with any ``shady characters.'' Well, who knows this information? It is the people who are on the inside in these countries that are corrupt. They are all shady characters that we have to deal with, but we have no human intelligence to verify it.

That is why we trusted Chalabi. We trusted him because it was the only information we were getting was from him. We trusted it, but we needed to have some human intelligence to go inside the country of Iraq before we went in and say, yes, this is right, or, no, this is not right. But thanks to the Clintons and the liberals, we could not deal with them. We did not have anybody there to verify it. So we trusted him, and we made a mistake. I think we ought to admit that, and we ought to move on.

Chalabi passed on information to the Iranians. It was reported in The New York Times. How we got that information, the reporter from The New York Times, I do not know. We need to check that out as well, because we are talking about very important secrets that this Nation held.

But we wanted to verify what was going on in Iraq before we entered, we want to verify what is going on around the globe, and we are trying to rebuild that human intelligence network. But thanks to the Clinton administration and the liberals, we do not have any of those contacts right now.

But in Iraq what we have done as Americans is we have taken the fight to the terrorists. We are not sitting back and waiting for them to come to New York or Washington, D.C., or Wichita, Kansas. We are taking the fight to them.

Now the liberals want us to withdrawal from Iraq. We cannot do that. I think that we have to stay there.

I talked to a young soldier over in Iraq when I was there myself, and I said, what do you think about being here in this hot spot where all the terrorists from all over the globe are coming here, they are arming themselves, they are trying to take out Americans?

He said, you know, this is the one spot in the whole globe where every American here is carrying a gun. I want the terrorists to come here. I do not want them going to my home. I want them to come to Iraq. Because this is where every American is carrying a gun, and we can take care of our ourselves, and he patted his machine gun.

We have to take the fight to the terrorists. We cannot wait for them to come to us. We do not want them here on the floor of the House of Representatives. We do not want them on the streets of Washington, D.C. We do not want them in Wichita, Kansas, or New York City or anywhere else in America. We want to take the fight to them.

Well, the liberals say, now, we are in this because of the oil; and they quote people in France and in Germany. Well, if we check about the Oil for Food program that the U.N. had, all of the kickbacks that were coming out of the Oil for Food program went to France, Germany, some of them went to Russia. Does that not sound familiar when you compare that to the list of countries that would not support us in our effort to free Iraq and kill the terrorists? They are the same people that benefited from the Oil for Food program by

taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein.

Well, it is not about oil. Because you know what? We could have bought oil from Saddam Hussein. It was on the black market. It was flowing out of Iraq, thanks to these European countries. But we did not do that because we thought about justice, we thought about right, we thought about making America safe.

Well, it is not just about oil, because we could have taken care of that. It is also about making our country safe. It is about our way of life. It is about western civilization. It is about making the American people safe at home and safe across this country.

Now, the liberals would rather fight this war at home. They want to back off, but that is not what we are going to do. Thanks goodness for George Bush, who has had the courage to take this battle to the terrorists.

Now, they said we got bad information, that we got bad information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that we know that they gave us bad information and we went in, and, sure enough, there was not anything there.

Well, they are ignoring several facts. Number one, we have found sarin gas used in ammunitions against our troops. Now, certainly that qualifies weapons as mass destruction. Perhaps they do not think that is the case. We have also found mustard gas. We have found containers with radiation material that has been in it. What do you define as weapons of mass destruction?

They are present in Iraq. Iraq had the will. They had the potential. They had the equipment. They had the material. They had the gas. They had the distribution systems. They had the history. They used it against their own people and against the Iranians. They had the proof.

Denial is not an option about weapons of mass destruction. They did exist. They currently do exist.

But I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about those who spoke here earlier and the criticism that they brought forward. But it was not right, and I think the American people need to understand that it is time for us to realize how serious this battle is. We are fighting for western civilization itself, and we need to take the fight to the terrorists instead of waiting for them to bring it to our hometown, because it is our children, it is our way of life that is at stake.

I did not come down here to talk about that. I just wanted to set the record straight before we moved on.

What I wanted to talk about was lifelong learning, and this is part of an overall program that we have developed at the Republican Conference in the House to address the problem that we have had in America about losing jobs overseas. Now, many people want to blame the companies that hire and create and keep jobs in America. Even the Presidential candidate for the Democrat party, the Presidential candidate for the Democrats said that we have Benedict Arnold CEOs that are sending jobs overseas. Well, let me say, the guys that have made the decision to send the jobs overseas did not do it on a lark or on a way of doing something that was just light-hearted. They did it because they have very few options left.

If we look at the possibilities for CEOs today, they can only control a couple of things. They can control the cost of wages, and they can control the overhead, in other words, how many buildings they have, how many people they have working for them. But if you look at a lot of the costs that are in business today, many of them are way beyond the control of the CEOs. Most of them, as a matter of fact, fall on to the burden that has been placed on them by the United States Government.

These are things that have occurred over the last generation. People in Congress with good intentions voted on legislation that had bad consequences, and it is time to set the record straight, and it is time to do something about it.

We have divided these problems into categories. These eight categories are listed on this placard next to me.

First is health care security. Health care costs have been rising dramatically across America, and we are having a hard time containing the costs, and it is really hurting us as far as keeping jobs in America.

We have bureaucratic red tape. We are trying to terminate that. That has really caused us to have problems with keeping jobs here in America.

This week we are dealing with lifelong learning. We are going to talk a lot more about that today, but lifelong learning is very important for creating an atmosphere in the future so that we can attract jobs and keep jobs right here in America.

Next week we are going to talk about energy self-sufficiency and security. We are going to then deal with tax relief and simplification, and we are then going to deal with trade fairness and opportunity and then spurring innovation through research and development. We are going to end our 8 weeks on the floor of the House with ending lawsuit abuse.

All of these categories were created by Congress over the last generation. All of these categories need to be changed so that we can bring jobs back into America. If we do not, we are going to see a continued loss of jobs in America, and you are either with us or you are against us. Either you support these issues and support bringing jobs back to America, or you are going to turn your back on working Americans, turn your back on the middle class, turn your back on the future for our kids and our grandchildren.

These are the issues that we are dealing with. This week, it is lifelong learning.

I am going to turn it back over to the gentleman from North Carolina, but I just want to say in closing my remarks that lifelong learning is the way that we are going to give hope not only for our children and grandchildren but for those workers who have suffered a loss of their jobs.

I just want to end with this one example. My cousin was laid off from the Boeing Company in October of 2001. Now, the Boeing Company makes commercial airplanes. He worked in the sheet metal shop working on commercial airplanes. After September 11, when people quit flying, they laid off a ton of people at the Boeing Company in Wichita alone. At one time there were 24,000 employees. Now they are down to about 12,000 employees. One of those laid off was my cousin, Mark Smith.

What he has done is he has gone back to college. He decided that he was going to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a teacher. Through the unemployment benefits provided by the Republican House, through the ability to go back to college provided by the Republican House, he has gone back to school. He has fought against the trend. He has gotten his degree now. He is practicing teaching as we speak, and he will start next fall fulfilling his dream as an educator.

He has done it because he had a vision, and that vision needs to be passed on to other Americans who are currently laid off. Let them go back to work. Let them create a future for themselves and for their families and do it.

Because we are thinking about how we can put them back to work. We do not just want to extend unemployment benefits, because the best we can do for an unemployed worker is to get them back to work. That is what they want. That is what they desire.

So lifelong learning is a tremendously important issue. It is third on the list of eight. And as we deal with that tonight I think it is important to remember that if you are going to get workers back to work you have to give them the tools to do that. Lifelong learning is one of those tools.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding.

I want to point out this placard I have about a statement that was made by Alan Greenspan before the Committee on Education and the Workforce. It says, we need to increase our efforts to ensure that as many of our citizens as possible have the opportunity to capture the benefits that flow from that engagement. For reasons that I shall elucidate shortly, one critical element in creating that opportunity is the provision of a rigorous education and ongoing training to all members of our society.

This proposal is not novel. It is, in fact, the strategy that we have followed successfully for most of the past century and a strategy that we now should embrace with renewed commitment. That is what we are talking about tonight, the renewed commitment to lifelong learning.

Mr. Speaker, I have a statement that outlines what we intend to follow this week, the legislation that we will bring before the committee, the commitment that the Bush administration has for education.

Mr. Speaker, I also have a statement about IBM and about their commitment to lifelong learning and how they average about $3,000 per employee and how they coordinate with different universities about lifelong learning that I would like to insert in the Record at this point.

Learning is indeed a ``lifelong'' endeavor. I'd like to highlight the efforts of IBM. IBM seems to understand what it takes to create a stronger workforce and is stepping up to the plate.

IBM partners with a number of colleges and universities around the country. For example, IBM's Scholars Program (http://www-306.ibm.com/ software/info/university/) allows colleges and universities to receive IBM software free to charge and also permits faculty to attend IBM training sessions at no cost to them.

In Vermont, IBM relies on the Vermont State College system to supplement the company's own internal training curriculum in a variety of engineering and computer courses. Similar relationships exist in Poughkeepsie, NY, with Marist College and Dutchess Community College; in Austin, TX, with St. Edwards; and in San Jose, CA, with Santa Clara Community College and UC Santa Clara. IBM also has a long standing relationship with the National Technical University which allows employees to take a full range of classes remotely, which will lead to advanced degrees.

It's worth noting that IBM will spend between $750 million and $800 million on employee training this year alone. Half of this will be for U.S. employees (which averages out to almost $3,000 per employee). In addition, IBM will spend $25 million more on training those employees whose jobs ``may'' be at risk due to global resourcing. This training is specifically aimed at equipping employees with the skills necessary to secure employment with IBM business partners, vendors, or customers if IBM does not have a position for them. Moreover, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor, IBM is working with other business partners to potentially train IBM employees for positions in these other companies so that an individual displaced from IBM would never enter the public workforce system but would receive custom training that fits the needs of their new employer.

IBM's training programs work and have produced positive results. I encourage the Federal Government to join IBM and others to create a stronger workforce and keep American workers competitive in today's global economy.

Mr. Speaker, I also have a statement about a great example of a company taking the reins and bringing job training to their employees. That is about the Quaker Fabric Corporation of Fall River in southeastern Massachusetts. Their motto is, ``Hire the Best, Invest

in the Best and Keep the Best.'' It is an outline of their commitment to lifelong learning for their employees, and I will insert it in the Record at this point.

Mr. Speaker, in today's dynamic business environment, lifelong learning and job retraining are an essential part of the modern workplace. Businesses realize this, employees realize this, it is time for Congress to realize this.

A great example of a company taking the reins to bring job training to their employees is the Quaker Fabric Corporation of Fall River ion southeastern Massachusetts. Quaker Fabrics is a small business that manufacturers woven upholstery fabrics for residential furniture markets in the United States and abroad. Their motto is ``Hire the Best, Invest in the Best, and Keep the Best.''

Mr. Speaker, Quaker Fabrics realizes that new technology requires job retraining to stay competitive in today's global market. In order to compete, they opened the Quaker Learning Center to help their employees stay on top of new technology. This investment in their workers has paid them dividends. Their sales have increased by 55 percent and they have added new jobs for 1,000 people in their area. In the process, 12 of their employees have received their GED certificates, 20 employees now have certified computer training, and due to partnerships with local colleges and universities, 15 of their employees have graduated from MBA programs.

Quaker Fabric Corporation has gone a long way to empower their workers with the skills they need to compete in a global market. However, in their own words, ``We can't do it alone. We need our schools and teachers from K-16 to build the foundation of literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, mathematical and interpersonal skills required to be successful in today's knowledge based society. And it is critical that we have more programs and funding available for incumbent worker education.''

Mr. Speaker, lifelong learning creates new jobs and provides individuals with the skills they need to fill these new jobs. This is smart policy already embraced by American businesses across the country. The U.S. Congress should join businesses to help provide lifelong learning to American workers.

Mr. Speaker, I also have a statement about our Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, who is highly revered for helping lead Americans to independence and guiding the construction of our government but also talks about how he realized the importance of education and advocated not only for public education systems but also for adults to continually expand their knowledge. It follows with our concept of lifelong learning and what we are committed to, and I will insert it in the Record at this point.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin is highly revered for helping lead America to independence and guiding the construction of our government. But it is the lightening and key experiment that has endeared him to schoolchildren. Benjamin Franklin was even more of a Renaissance man than actual Renaissance men. He was an inventor, a printer, a scientist, writer, philosopher, statesman, economist, musician and entrepreneur. He challenged all he encountered--in person and through his writings--to think in different ways and improve themselves. Most important, he realized the importance of education and advocated not only for public education systems, but also for adults to continually expand their knowledge. Franklin wanted to ensure that Americans got the necessary training at home to compete with the best and brightest around the world.

Though his formal schooling ended at age 11 when he began his first apprenticeship, Franklin never stopped educating himself, constantly reading, writing and learning new skills. Franklin assembled philosophy and science leaders for discussions, set up a subscription library in Philadelphia and established the Public Academy in the City of Philadelphia to ensure that young people had a chance for formal schooling. His push to promote education at home as well as to attract the brightest minds to the United States has been successful.

Franklin's goal of lifelong learning holds true today, perhaps even more so. A highly-educated workforce is critical to America's competitiveness. Today's students are tomorrow's workforce, and for that reason, education is directly linked to America's ability to compete in a changing worldwide economy. Many working adults are trying to keep pace with the education required to stay ahead in their careers, or are in need of retraining to get them back into the workforce.

As part of our eight point competitiveness agenda, the House is addressing Lifelong Learning needs this week. Our public school system has given generations of Americans the tools to pursue their dreams, and it can certainly help prepare boys and girls for the demands of the new century. Now we need to make sure that our children are learning the fundamentals, that they become familiar with technology, and that math and science curriculums are enhanced so they can compete in the economy of the future. We will pass three bills to do so: the Teacher Training Enhancement Act, the Teacher Shortage Response Act, and the Priorities for Graduate Studies Act. We also highlight the need to continue to make sure that students have the opportunity to attend higher education institutions. Finally, we will address worker training and retraining needs. The Worker Reemployment Accounts Act offers new assistance for unemployed workers to enhance their skills and find new jobs and reenter the workforce.

This week the House is focused on the American worker, on how we can directly help the American worker compete in the global economy. We need to give our children the basic building blocs for 21st century jobs, make sure all Americans have access to universities and community colleges, and that workers have access to the training that will guarantee them high quality, high paying jobs.

Instead of political rhetoric, Republicans are offering real solutions. We invite our colleagues to join us in moving America forward and providing opportunity for U.S. businesses and working families.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to point out that the Chamber of Commerce has addressed Congress, and they said that as much as 40 percent of tomorrow's jobs do not exist today. I believe that the only way that we are going to prepare for tomorrow is that if we continue our efforts for lifelong learning and heighten the awareness of people in America to their commitment to education, whether it is at the primary level, the secondary level or the graduate level or postgraduate level, so that we continue lifelong learning for all Americans; that the commitment that the Republicans have in the House of Representatives, that the administration has be carried out through our efforts.

This week we are addressing lifelong education. Again, it is number three on our list of the eight issues that we think are important to bring jobs back to America. These eight issues are issues that have been roadblocks to keeping and creating jobs.

Congress itself over the past generation through good intentions has passed bad legislation. We are trying to overcome that bad legislation by changing the environment so we can bring jobs back into America. We started out with health care security. Then we moved to bureaucratic red tape. This week we are talking about lifelong learning. Next week, we are going to move on to energy self-sufficiency and security. Following that, we will take a week and talk about tax relief and simplification. Following that, we will talk about trade fairness and opportunity. Then we are going to move to spurring innovation through research and development. We are going to end up with lawsuit abuse and changing that.

This is a commitment that the Republicans have made to address each one of these issues one week at a time over a period of 8 weeks so that we can keep and create jobs in America, bring jobs back. Instead of outsourcing, we want to insource jobs to America. This is one way that we can overcome the barriers that employers are facing so that they can bring jobs back to America.

I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina for spearheading the effort on lifelong learning. He has done a tremendous effort and a great success in the way he has brought other Members into the circle. He has brought this issue to the entire Republican Conference. He knows it is not only important in North Carolina but it is important in Wichita, Kansas, and across the United States.

So I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina for allowing me this time to speak on behalf of this issue, working with him on this issue, as well as the others, and I would like to conclude my remarks and yield back to the gentleman from North Carolina to complete our efforts tonight.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 656, I call up the bill (H.R. 444) to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to establish a Personal Reemployment Accounts grant program to assist Americans in returning to work, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and included extraneous material on H.R. 444.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the economic news over the last 8 months has been very encouraging. Republicans and President Bush have focused on creating jobs and opportunity, helping working Americans by providing tax relief, improving worker training and education to help Americans without work get back on their feet, and enhancing the competitiveness of employers both at home and abroad to ensure they continue to hire more and more American workers.

As recent data from the Labor Department shows, the U.S. is creating thousands of new jobs every month. The pro-growth agenda has created 1.1 million net new jobs over the last 8 months, and 625,000 jobs, net new jobs, I should say, in March and April alone. Moreover, the national unemployment rate declined to 5.6 percent in April, lower than the average unemployment rate during the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.

While this is welcome news for working Americans, we remain committed to ensuring that every displaced worker has the opportunity to find meaningful employment and access to job-training services that will help them find good-paying jobs. As President Bush has said, one worker out of work is one too many, and we have a responsibility to help working families in times when they need it most.

Job training and worker education is more important to this effort in today's changing economy now more than ever before. Every member of our society, including those who are most vulnerable and the hardest to employ, want to achieve independence and self-sufficiency. No American wants endless reliance on our government, and I think the President recognizes that and providing personal reemployment accounts represents one more way we are helping the unemployed by specifically tailoring job training and employment services to meet their unique needs.

Giving displaced workers the resources they need and continuing this economic expansion is critically important. That brings us to why we are here today: to highlight a new and innovative approach to helping the unemployed get back on their feet. The bill before us, the Worker Reemployment Accounts Act, allows demonstration funding under the Workforce Investment Act to be used by States and local workforce investment boards for a pilot project to offer personal reemployment accounts of up to $3,000.

With the funds from these accounts, unemployed workers may purchase a variety of different services to help them find a new job and to reenter the workforce, including job training, child care, transportation, housing assistance, relocation services, career counseling, computer classes, just to name a few. And all of these are accessible through the One-Stop Career Center system where unemployed workers already seek job training assistance.

A key component of this plan allows workers who become reemployed within 13 weeks to keep the balance of their account as a cash reemployment bonus. In addition, these reemployment accounts empower individual recipients to make choices appropriate for their own circumstances. Recipients will be able to create reemployment accounts that help them navigate all of the options that are available, such as career counseling or job training for a new profession. In providing choice and flexibility, I think we get people back to work into steady, good-paying jobs sooner.

For those who are struggling to get back on their feet, we in Congress, I think, have a responsibility to look for additional solutions to help them when they need it most. The intent of this bill is clear: this new benefit supplements and enhances the services that are already available for those who are most likely to face obstacles in finding and keeping new employment, whether it be unemployment benefits or the employment training programs offered through the Workforce Investment Act.

The bill before us is a pilot project, a scaled-back version of a more comprehensive proposal that the Committee on Education and the Workforce approved last year. Our goal here is to put this program to a test, see how it works in practice, and determine whether it truly gives unemployed workers an option, a workable option to help them improve their job search. The lessons learned through this pilot project will give Congress more information on how best to serve those who are looking for work.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) and the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) for their work on this measure and last year's bill as well. During hearings that we had last year, we heard from State leaders at a field hearing in Nevada about the practical benefits of these reemployment accounts in helping the unemployed. We also heard from Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who said that the accounts ``will empower individuals by giving them more flexibility, personal choice, and

control over their job search and career.''

Over the past 2 years, we have taken numerous steps to help unemployed workers, and we are also in the process of reauthorizing the Federal job-training programs under the Workforce Investment Act. Millions of jobless workers should not have to wait for job-training reform, and Congress has an obligation this year to improve those job- training opportunities for American workers. Unfortunately, it appears, though, that some in the other body want to block major job-training legislation that would help strengthen training and retraining opportunities for American workers. I think if given the opportunity, we look forward to completing work on that legislation this year.

But Congress must act now to provide new, innovative options to help workers as quickly as possible, and the choice and flexibility available through personal reemployment accounts will help more Americans get back on their feet and find good jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we probably would not be here today if the other body would actually go to conference on the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. But I think all of us realize that they have been unwilling to go to conference, and we believe that we have got every responsibility known to man to help those people who are unemployed and need help.

Secondly, let me say that, once again, we are getting into a debate about the perfect becoming the enemy of the good. What this bill does is set up a pilot project that allows unemployed workers who qualify the option of this $3,000 reemployment bonus. The real key here is that they, the unemployed workers, get to decide what kind of training they need, what kind of education they might need, what kind of services they may need to help them get back on their feet and into good work. They get to decide, not some bureaucrat in some office somewhere. They get to decide.

And this option of allowing them that flexibility, I think, is worth trying. That is what we are asking for today: Let us try this. Let us see what happens. Let us see if this additional flexibility for unemployed workers does, in fact, help them get the training, retraining they may need to find a good job.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my colleague, the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) the author of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), the original author and I would describe as the father of the Workforce Investment Act. I applaud him on his good work.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter), the author of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

There was a discussion here about what would happen if workers chose to take a $3,000 personal reemployment account and their ability to access services at the Career One Stops. I just want to set the record straight.

While it is true that recipients would be prohibited from accessing intensive or training services through the One Stop career system for 1 year after the creation of the account, unless, unless the person with the account chooses to purchase services there, however, all individuals remain eligible for the core services provided by the Career One Stop. Such services include job search and placement assistance, including career counseling, where appropriate, and access to labor market information.

Now the idea here is that we allow individuals $3,000, giving them the right to choose the types of services that they think will help them get back on their feet and find a good job. They can purchase those services at the Career One Stop or they can go down the street and go to a community college if they want. But the core services that the Career One Stops provide for all individuals, these persons with the $3,000 personal reemployment accounts, would still be eligible for those core services.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I think all of us realize that the American economy is changing, and I think it is changing at a more rapid pace than any of us would likely know. During a hearing several months ago, I found a number of statistics that I really found unusual. If we all think back for a moment to 1999, the American economy was in full bloom, the stock market was rising, employment levels were at all-time highs, yet in 1999 the American economy lost 35 million jobs. Yes, that is right. The American economy lost 35 million jobs. But, in 1999, the American economy also created 37 million new jobs, a net gain of 2 million jobs.

Now, let us move forward 3 years to 2002. And what happened in 2002? We had a recession, we had the effects of 9/11, we had a war going on in Afghanistan, and the American economy lost 35 million jobs in 2002. The American economy, though, in 2002, only created 33\1/2\ million new jobs.

This churning that we see in the American economy has always been there, but this churning we are now seeing is happening at a much faster pace than ever before; and, as a result, the need for job training, retraining, and educational services for American workers is at an all-time high.

During our hearing, when we had Alan Greenspan in front of our committee, he said this: ``We need to increase our efforts to ensure that as many of our citizens as possible have the opportunity to capture the benefits that flow from that engagement. For reasons that I shall elucidate shortly, one critical element in creating that opportunity is the provision of rigorous education and ongoing training to all members of our society. This proposal is not novel. It is, in fact, the strategy that we have followed successfully for most of the past century and a strategy that we now should embrace with renewed commitment.''

Education and training and ongoing education and training for the American workforce is absolutely critical, Mr. Speaker.

There has been a lot said here today about the nature of our economy and what is happening, but in a U.S. News and World Report that is out today, dated June 7, Mort Zuckerman, in his editorial, says this:

``The economy is well on a tear. New jobs are being generated in large numbers. Income is growing at twice the rate of last year. And the exhilaration is such that we will probably see 5 percent growth in the gross domestic product. The jobs reports of the past few months have changed market sentiment. Sixty-one percent of private industries surveyed have added workers. That is the highest in 4 years. Business confidence has surged to a 20-year high, and business spending is exploding, with even American manufacturing joining the party. Companies that once saved every nickel are laying out more and more money as capital equipment to meet growing orders in double-digit rates.''

He goes on to say later in the article, ``We are on a trajectory toward extraordinary growth in the second half of 2004 that will beget stronger job and income growth, stronger retail spending, and accelerating demand at a time when businesses have cut costs, raising profit margins to their highest level in years.

``Higher profits will beget more spending, which will beget more business expansion, which will beget more income for workers which should trigger yet another increase in demand.''

Do not look now, but the surging economy may be the real October Surprise. There is a real surge in our economy; and for Americans to take advantage of that surging economy, the kind of education and training that we allow under the Workforce Investment Act and provide for them should be helpful to them. These personal reemployment accounts are a pilot project to give them the choice about the kinds of services they need, the kinds of training or retraining they need to go out and take advantage of a surging economy to get a real job for the long term.

I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means that deals with this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) has pointed out, we have extended unemployment benefits on several occasions and have provided tens of billions of dollars in support for those extensions.

The motion to recommit, if Members believe this is going to provide unemployment extensions to people, they are kidding themselves. What the Kildee motion does is create a new program within the Workforce Investment Act to extend unemployment benefits. This is not the usual unemployment system that we have that works really well. Under this proposal, we create a new program that is not funded. There is no funding in this bill for the program that is being created, and all this is going to do is bring false hope to millions of Americans who are out there trying to seek work who are on unemployment.

But the worst part of the motion to recommit is that it totally eliminates the underlying bill. For those of us who believe personal reemployment accounts are a good idea and that projects ought to be initiated to allow people up to $3,000 to find the kind of training, retraining, and education they need in order to gain good employment, that entire bill is eliminated under the gentleman's motion to recommit.

I would urge my colleagues, let us not engage in a facade; let us not make empty promises to people who need our help and need our help badly. This is a new program. It is not funded. It will not extend unemployment benefits. Again, the worse part about it is it would eliminate the entire underlying bill and the personal reemployment accounts that we think will be helpful for American workers who are out of work. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I spent 20 years in public education at the university level training young men and women to practice lifelong learning. The field that I was a part of was in computer and information systems, and I began that adventure in the early 1970s. Between the early 1970s and 2000 the industry changed virtually every 18 months. So it was a constant struggle to keep up with the technology, to keep up with the concepts and the techniques, first as a practicing professional but later as a faculty member at Georgia Southern, to be able to train my students in a discipline that was a constant change.

That is what we face in our Nation today. That is what we face across the spectrum.

I think what I want to talk about tonight, I appreciate my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) in his work on the Committee on Education and the Workforce with me and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). The bills that came out of the House today were important and significant on higher education. I was glad to be a part of that for both teacher training enhancement, which included a very significant component on centers of excellence for our minority serving schools, but also the Priorities and Graduate Studies Act, which allow us to focus on math and science and special education, those components of our society and our educational environment that we have, unfortunately, neglected all too frequently over the last number of years and we have fallen behind by any measure on world standards. We have got to improve in our education department.

But tonight as a part of lifelong learning I want to shift gears and talk about a concept that maybe does not get as much attention as it should. Many families in America, when faced with the choice of sending their child to a public school, they feel that maybe their needs cannot be met as well as an alternative or two. I want to talk about those alternatives.

We seem to be reinventing the way America learns, how young people are prepared to face today's society. We have alternatives from our public schools to our private schools to our charter schools to our home schools to even our cyber schools. Especially in the technology world, the cyber schools are becoming a major component of that.

But tonight I want to talk about home school, charter schools. I have home schooled constituents in my district, I have charter schools in my district, and there are many reasons why a parent and a family might look to that alternative.

It is amazing, self-learning has really been around a long time. If you go back and you kind of look at the lore of learning and the achievement by individuals who had limited formal education, if any at all, Thomas Edison, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, the Wright brothers, Helen Keller, even Albert Einstein, all self-learners, all life-long learners.

It is amazing that we are beginning to come back to the concept of a family taking responsibility for their child's education, to become a partner in the education process.

I am a teacher, and I have tremendous respect and regard for those in the teaching profession. The dream of the teacher is to help their students achieve their dreams. So that a dream of a teacher is to make the dreams of that student come true, but the partner with the teacher is the parent. And all studies are going to tell us that when parents are involved, students learn. There is more discipline in the challenge. There is more involvement. There is a better environment for learning.

Just recently the Augusta Chronicle in my district in Georgia, the 12th district of Georgia, ran a marvelous article about a young lady who was in a school that failed to meet its annual yearly projects progress as a part of No Child Left Behind. She had a choice. She and her family looked at the amenities, and she changed schools within the public system in Richmond County. And this article went on to describe the positives that were associated with that and the achievement that she received and the way in which she was able to advance so much more, basically because of lack of discipline in the environment that she was having to move from.

Charter schools and home schools oftentimes are able to handle those challenges more effectively. There is a charter school in my district in Savannah, Georgia, that I visited not long ago; and they have two fundamental expectations: appropriate behavior by the student and parental involvement in every case. Now all of a sudden many of the things and the challenges that we face have become of limited concern.

Sometimes parents choose to home school because the alternatives may instill values that they do not agree with. They may instill values that run contrary to those of the traditional family. They kind of feel caught up and bound by their tax dollars to schools that may not meet their child's needs.

Over the last two decades home schools have grown from about 200,000 to over 2 million; and you have to ask yourself, why has there been such a rapid growth in this area? Well, in 1998, there was a study done that in every subject, in every subject in every grade level, K through 12, home school students, are you ready, scored significantly higher than their public or private school counterpart. Some 25 percent of all home school students at the time that they were enrolled at either grade level or beyond, they had an average ACT score of 23, compared to a public ACT score of 21.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Alan Greenspan rejected the Democratic notion that the more money we put into a school the better the school performs. His comment says, ``Putting money in is not necessarily an accurate measure of the output. We are falling behind by any measure in our secondary schools.''

Greenspan went on to say, we have to increase the skills every year, every year, or we will fall behind, we will fall behind.

One of the things that I want us to talk about tonight and maybe share with the rest of House is that how can we take the lessons we have learned from home schooling and apply them to improving our public education system. Primarily, the exponential growth in home schooling is primarily a result of bad public policies and programs in our Nation.

We have unfortunately turned a deaf ear to parental input and the voice of the parent. We have not given it its proper respect and consideration. We have tended to push the parent aside, as opposed to making them a partner. I will tell you that the best schools in my district, the highest-performing schools in my district are those who have active parental involvement in every grade in every classroom.

The President has placed a strong agenda on education and the pillars the educational reform pillars, accountability and testing. We all know No Child Left Behind has four fundamentals: accountability and testing, flexibility and local control, funding that works, funding that provides a return for the investment, and, finally, expanded parental options so that we can indeed move America forward.

We have to close the achievement gap. We have to have a first-class education around our Nation. The report cards that are coming out in Georgia now that show the progress that our schools have made, and they have made great progress. I have been in every school district, in many of the schools in my district, and I will tell you they are making great progress, and I want to congratulate them.

We still have a lot of work to do. But the point is, we have to have qualified teachers. We have to have committed parents. We have to have the fundamentals of education in every environment.

We are turning the corner on success, and we are beginning to see a return on our efforts when it comes to public education. I am proud of that achievement. If we are going to become lifelong learners, if we are going to be able to move from this decade into the next

and the ones beyond, we must all recognize that lifelong learning is a fundamental requirement in today's society.

So if you look at the experiences in higher education, if you look at the experiences in our great technical colleges, if you look at the experiences in our secondary schools, we have to realize that we must continue to improve at every turn in order to achieve a competitiveness and a quality standard second to none in our globe.

Mr. Speaker, there is a significant part of our agenda for America to ensure that no child is left behind regardless of their background, socio-economic, their ethnicities where they happen to live, but we also have to build that mechanism and that desire for learning.

One last illustration. Last week, during the district work week, I met with a family out of Hinesville, Georgia. They were in the military. They had a son, fine young man, 11 years old. He was in a school system that unfortunately was not meeting his needs. Not because he was too slow but because, in reality, he was advanced. He had taken the SAT score at 11. He scored 1,040 on an SAT. This young man had special needs, but they were special needs to be challenged. He was bored. He was bored in a 5th grade classroom when he could perform at 7th and 8th grade levels.

I sat there and I listened to the story, and I have got to work on this challenge. But we do not need to leave any child behind, but we do not need to hold any child back either, because there are folks out there who can really achieve.

After spending a half an hour with this young man and with his father and mother, by the way, his father is in the U.S. Army, Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia. He just came back from a year in Iraq. And I sat there and I listened to this young man and the challenges he faced.

I asked him to do one thing, do not lose your love of learning, because that is what will sustain you throughout your entire life.

We must all have a love for learning, and he assured me that he loved to learn, and that even though in a traditional classroom he might be a bit bored, that he could make up for that as a self-learner, and that is what we must all be.

I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), thank the committee for focusing on learning and recognizing the fact that learning is an integral part of all of our lives and we must do it every day if we are to remain competitive.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I had an opportunity at the university environment to periodically have assignments in the international setting. I spent 6 months in Australia, and my sons were in the fourth grade and the seventh grade, and even though they went to Australian schools, my wife would tutor them in their U.S. subjects.

Four years later, we were in Sweden. My sons did not speak Swedish, but yet their instruction was in Swedish, and my wife, again, assumed the role of parent/teacher, and my sons, because of my wife's dedication, never missed a beat.

Now, not all families can do this. Not all families would select that option. But I think one of the most important things we see in this model is commitment to learning by the family unit and a commitment to assisting their children in achieving very, very positive results; and once that love of learning is instilled, then it carries through for a lifetime.

Mr. Speaker, we have tonight the subject of lifelong learning and education, making sure that our friends, our families, and working people in America have careers, opportunities, and chances to have the financial rewards that come with being American.

But, first, I would like to yield to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), who I think would like to help with the rewriting of history and set the record straight on some comments made by our colleagues across the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his efforts, and I thank him for bringing these issues to the forefront.

At this time, I will yield to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his efforts and his leadership.

This majority is making a difference as we aggressively pursue education goals that create careers and opportunities for families all across America. I might also point out, and I appreciate my colleague pointing out the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).

And just today we passed a fine piece of legislation that expands on unemployment benefits by allowing people an additional $3,000 to help with finding a new job. We passed that today, House bill 444.

We are in the very near future going to deal with the family marriage amendment. We will protect America's families because education without families does not get us anywhere. Faith-based initiatives. This majority is making a difference.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield to one of my good friends here from Georgia tonight, the gentleman from Georgia (Dr. Gingrey), for such time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership. I thank him for his commitment to education, his commitment to the State and to his district. I am wondering if the good doctor would yield for a question.

Mr. Speaker, as we stand here tonight talking about the importance of lifelong learning, my colleague is a doctor, like me he is not as young as he used to be, medicine and the way it is practiced has changed somewhat since he graduated from medical school and completed his internship.

If my colleague would just speak for a few moments, if you will, about the importance of continuing education, upgrading one's skills so that one can use the newest technology, the equipment, the techniques, the procedures that have allowed us to maintain the number one health care system, no thanks to the liberals who want to give it all to the government, but speak to us about a lifetime learning and his experience as a doctor and how that not only relates to medical skills but scientific skills, government skills, and others.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the gentleman's patients are particularly appreciative of the transparency and the accountability that you bring to the operating table and to your doctor's office by presenting those credentials and letting you know of how you have increased your skills and kept up with the latest technique.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Those patients not only appreciate but they demand accountability. It sounds like no Child Left Behind, so we are on the right track.

Mr. Speaker, a good friend from Georgia and a leader in education, agriculture, defense, it is hard to think of what he is not a leader in, but I appreciate him being with us tonight. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for pointing out the many intricacies and the many pieces that this Republican majority is helping to bring together so that lifelong learning and competitive young people coming out of our school system is a reality.

Just as a matter of interest, I do not know if the gentleman from Georgia knows this, but my wife and I lived in Alaska for a year. Sometimes we think of home schooling as a choice of Republican schooling. Well, in Alaska, it is an alternative. If you live more than two miles from a bus stop, they will furnish you at no question, no cost, the materials for home schooling.

One of the things that we learned from home schooling and why it is so important is, and I give my wife the credit because she did most of it, but I helped sometimes, if you home school your children, you really appreciate the teachers in the public school because you get a feel for what they go through. One of the beauties here, again, is small class size, concentrated, strong family involvement and participation.

So, again, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his participation.

At this time, I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

(Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), for his wonderful leadership and pointing out how important these issues of education are.

He talked about bureaucratic red tape. Just last week, if my memory serves me correctly, we passed the Paperwork Reduction Act, which puts

over $800 billion potentially back into our economy for American jobs and helping people with their career.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, there are two things that I have stressed in my time in Congress, and they are national security and economic security. My friend pointed out that on September 11 incredibly insane people flew three airliners, used them as missiles, flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. National security is critically important to our future. Fighting and winning the war on terrorism, which our brave young men and women are doing every day, is happening because of the commitment of America, the patriotism of these fine young men and women; and our commitment and our support of them is crucial for the future of our young people.

Economic security comes from education, childhood, families, middle school, high school, secondary, postgraduate. Economic security allows us to maintain the financial integrity of this Nation. Financial integrity and the things that go with it enable us to equip our military which liberates countries like Iraq and Afghanistan from terrorists, thugs and murderers.

So those are the two important issues.

To give you some firsthand information and experience from my district, we have seen how important this is. In August of this year, we had the largest single layoff in North Carolina's history. As this tragedy occurred and many people were dramatically, drastically and terrifyingly affected, retraining, education through the community colleges, through high schools, through other means, has been pointed out how important it is, and this majority and this administration has stepped in to provide the help and the guidance in every possible way that we can so these folks could be retrained so that they could be skilled for new careers.

A wonderful example is a lady named Barbara Price who worked at Pillowtech. She went back to school and I remember meeting with her at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and hearing her describe how all of a sudden she is a 57-year-old mom who was having her high school students, who were extremely proud of her ambition, her willingness to go back to school, but they were helping her with her homework. They were encouraging her to adapt, to learn and to get these new skills.

So that is just one of many, many examples where lifetime learning continues. We are retraining for next generation, highly skilled jobs.

The question becomes, what are those jobs going to look like? Well, my answer is simply that America, with the ingenuity, the resources and the talented people we have, we can create those 40 percent of new jobs which have not yet been created, and that is what this majority is working to do with incentives, with tax cuts, with letting people keep more of their own money. Just a few of the ways that we can help do this.

In education, we are working with all of our schools, trying to find out how do we keep young people in school today. Because manufacturing jobs are not available when people drop out of school early. We have a program with the Dell Computer Company called Dell Techno, targeting at-risk and other young people in middle school, giving them the encouragement and also the excitement they need to see the connection between education, learning and earning. It has been very successful.

They come to school after hours. They learn how to take a computer apart, put that computer back together with the latest technology. After completing the course, they own that computer; and they can take it home and increase their skills.

BizWorld, teaching entrepreneurship and financial accountability. Teaches youngsters how to strive for making jobs, creating jobs, not just taking a job, teaching them the basic skills of creating a product, marketing that product, selling it and taking the profits, which not only are not a bad word but that is an imperative, taking the profits and expanding and making jobs, not taking jobs.

Congressional scholars bringing the remarkable assets of the Library of Congress into their high or middle school or college. Giving teachers additional tools. Because the way to show appreciation to these hard working teachers is, again, to give them the flexibility, the tools, the assets and resources they need.

Technology is not the only answer. We need stronger families. We need discipline in schools. We need the kinds of things and the cooperation that we have talked about tonight. This is the kind of America that we envision for our children and our grandchildren, an America that is learning, that is earning, that is taking the greatest that we have and expanding it, creating, maintaining and expanding freedom, opportunity and chances for others to enjoy the blessings that we have.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) and all who have participated tonight, and I thank all of my colleagues who are interested in lifelong learning.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). I thank the gentleman from Kansas for reserving this hour and giving us this opportunity to talk about lifelong learning and preparing our men and women, indeed our children, our students for the 21st century workplace.

It is kind of interesting, we hear all this criticism. It seems like in this Presidential election cycle the big word is the O word, ``outsourcing,'' the outsourcing of jobs and decrying that. What is left out of that argument, of course, is the fact that with a global economy, with fair trade, you also balance that outsourcing, even though we wish no jobs would leave this country, with a lot of good jobs from insourcing.

I am a native Georgian and I represent, Mr. Speaker, the 11th District of Georgia; but I actually grew up in South Carolina just across the Savannah River on the State line, if you will. And I have seen that State, while losing over the years, the last 20 or 30 years, in fact, a number of textile jobs, unskilled jobs, in fact whole towns

were affected. The town of Graniteville, South Carolina, where my dad grew up, every job in that town was a textile job, of a cut and sew, highly unskilled job from generation to generation. And all those jobs were lost.

But, thank goodness because of a global economy today, in the State of South Carolina I know my colleagues, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) just mentioned it, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) the good work that he has done representing my mom and my brother in South Carolina, I am sure if he were with us tonight he would talk about that BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as I could talk about the Pirelli Tire Company up in Rome in my 11th District in Georgia.

So there is a balance. I think it is important that we make a point there, that we are concerned about losing jobs, but we are mighty thankful that there has been a lot of insourcing. And hopefully one day soon we will have more jobs coming into this country than we have had leaving the country. They will be better jobs. They will be better- paying jobs with better benefits.

But as my colleagues pointed out, we cannot attract those companies, we cannot provide these jobs unless we have an educated, highly skilled workforce. And what has happened in the past with our youngsters coming out of school without good skills in math and science and information technology, computer skills, what you see, of course, is in so many instances you do not have all these operators, you do not go back to the old television series, I Love Lucy, Mr. Speaker, when Lucy and Ethel were on that assembly line trying to keep up with those donuts. You do not have that anymore. You have a lot less need for people on the line, on the production line because they have to be skilled and they are running the computer. And a lot of this stuff is done by computer. These are good-paying jobs, but they require more skills than what we have had in the past.

That is what this hour really is all about, to talk about what this leadership, what this administration has brought forward. And certainly we lost some jobs since 9/11, nobody could control that; but the efforts that this Republican leadership, this Congress has put forward over just the 2 years that I have been here as a freshman Member. I am very proud to have had an opportunity to vote in support of things that help the lifelong learning process.

Just today, just today, Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) mentioned, we had the opportunity to bring forward H.R. 4409, the Teacher Training Enhancement Act. Now, this is a bill that improves the skills of our teachers. And it is hand in glove with the No Child Left Behind Act that was passed in 2002, the year before I arrived here. And that was nothing but the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education, which was long overdue, which finally had some accountability in it and required that Federal dollars are being well spent at the local level. But there needs to be some accountability.

So if we are going to expect that no child will be left behind by the tenets of that legislation, then it is appropriate for us to also say colleges that teach our teachers, education colleges, you need to provide the highly skilled teachers that that law, No Child Left Behind, requires, that you produce these highly qualified teachers in the classroom by date certain. And they need to also be accountable just as we are expecting our superintendents and our teachers and principals at the local level to be accountable.

So this bill, and again, Mr. Speaker, I am proud that it was passed with wide, strong bipartisan support, as well it should be, because this just enhances the State grants, these partnership grants, teacher recruitment grants to make sure that not only are we doing a better job of teaching teachers, indeed making them highly qualified so that our youngsters in secondary education, before they get to higher ed, if they decide they want to go out into the workplace and take these highly skilled jobs that we are producing, then they are ready, they are ready to go. It is just very important that we do that.

So, again, I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina for allowing me to come and share some of my thoughts. And again it is bills like H.R. 4409 and other things that this Congress has done, this Republican leadership, that is going to result in not only almost a million jobs that we have created in the last 8 months but certainly we are going to continue to do that. I just commend my colleagues for that effort.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield, sure.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that the gentleman brought that up. There is no question that in my profession, as he pointed out as a physician, we are actually required on a 2-year cycle to take a certain number of hours of continuing education. And it has to be good hours. It is not a vacation meeting. It really has to be good continuing education requirement.

And this is, as my colleague points out, as it should be, because things change. And if we practice the same medicine in the 21st century that our great forefathers practiced back in the days of Little House on the Prairie when there were no antibiotics and you only did surgery as a last resort, today if we practiced in that manner, we would be practicing below the standard of care. And we would be subject to severe penalties, maybe even lose our license.

So it is very important. And just as you say, you cannot rely on those things that you learned when you are 10, 15 and even 20 years old. You have got to continue to upgrade your skills in any profession.

There is no question about that. And it makes me think, too, we are talking about this issue of outsourcing and the weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. But the very same people that are crying about outsourcing are the ones who for my profession will not give us an opportunity for a level playing field in regard to tort reform, will not help us pass meaningful legislation to bring fairness into class action lawsuits or product liability and put all these burdens on our small businesses, men and women who employ most of the people in this country. They create the jobs.

But yet it is not just wages that is causing us to lose these jobs. It is a lot of these burdensome rules and regulations that our competitors offshore do not have to abide by. So you are absolutely right.

We want people, my patients, I always want them to know. Whenever I completed that cycle, that 2-year cycle of particular education, I would put that little diploma in my office, hang it right there on the wall or in one of the exam rooms so they could look and see where I trained and am I up to date, absolutely essential.