Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.

I would just say so much has been said I am not sure I will need 3 minutes.

Obviously, I am here to speak in support of a measure that I introduced in this body last July that passed by a 2 to 1 majority. That means nearly every Republican and tens and scores of Democrats, a whole host of Democrats that passed by a 2 to 1 majority, voted for almost identical language contained in this bill.

Now, the negotiation in the agreement between the House and the Senate to make this more permanent fell apart, and so we did what we have always done, which is extend it for another year.

Just a few months ago--just a few months ago--Republicans and Democrats came together in this body to vote on identical legislation to extend it a year at a time. In fact, this piece of legislation has been extended four times since 2006 under the same proposal that we are submitting here, just not a year at a time but, rather, permanent, the same pay-fors or lack thereof, written almost identically.

So what is at stake? What is at stake is how much the people of our respective districts are going to benefit and whether they will benefit.

Back in my district, the head of the Galesburg Community Foundation says that, when he is meeting with donors, if they can give to their IRA, as this bill will allow, they give, on average, four times the amount of goods and services that they would otherwise give without the IRA donation provision--four times.

This isn't about the donor; it is about the recipient. And so I would just simply ask: Why don't we give the certainty not to the donor but, rather, give the certainty to the recipient, whether it be food and shelter, whether it be education benefits here in our country and around the world, a benefit from this provision, give them the certainty, do what we have always done, but do it early and do it now?

Rather, I would ask anyone who stands up to oppose this: 10 months from now, where will your vote be on a 1-year extension? Where will your vote be on a 2-year extension? What is wrong with making what we have been doing since 2006 1 year and 2 years at a time permanent?

It is important for us to give the certainty to the beneficiaries and to the communities who benefit from this provision. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this. And I hope, once again, as we did last July, this body will pass this bill with an overwhelmingly 2 to 1 majority.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to mark the 150th anniversary of Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois, which is celebrating the creation of its charter on February 8th, 2015. Lincoln College is a private liberal arts college established in 1865 to fill the need for an institution of higher learning in central Illinois.

Lincoln College now has campuses in both Lincoln and Normal, Illinois. Lincoln College's mission is to uniquely empower students to realize their full potential. The College's dedicated faculty and exceptional student services produces graduates who are prepared to meet the challenges of today's 21st century economy. The students and alumni of Lincoln College truly live the school motto of ``Experience Outstanding'' through their academic performance, professional achievements, and commitment to improving their communities.

Over the last 150 years, Lincoln College has become an integral part of the Central Illinois higher education community. I am honored to represent an institution with such an outstanding track record in academic, sporting, and leadership achievements, and I am proud to rise today to congratulate them on their sesquicentennial celebration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 596 so the flawed Obamacare program can be reformed in order to focus on patient-centered care.

Nancy Pelosi infamously said ``We have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what's in it.'' Nearly five years later, the verdict is in: Obamacare continues to be a flawed program that created over $1.8 trillion in new spending. It imposed over $1 trillion in new taxes, including on those families who make less than $250,000 a year-- violating another promise made by President Obama. In fact, Obamacare's tax increases will be borne primarily by middle class Americans during a time of sluggish economic activity.

Instead of allowing individuals and families to take control of their own healthcare decisions, the health law contained 18 separate tax increases, fees and penalties that imposed mandate after mandate and resulted in over 20,000 pages of new rules and regulations. I believe a far simpler way to fix our broken healthcare system is to give individuals and families control over their own healthcare choices, such as through health savings accounts or incentives to live healthy lifestyles. Investment in prevention and wellness will not only lead to longer lifestyles for Americans but also reduce the overall cost of healthcare.

In my home state of Illinois, we have already seen the effects of Obamacare in effect. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, since 2011, Illinois has lost the equivalent of 66,000 across multiple sectors due to reduced hours or less workers in the workplace due to Obamacare's employer mandate. Illinois families in 101 out of the state's 102 counties are facing, on average, higher premium costs--in some cases those premiums are nearly 120% higher than they were before Obamacare according to the Manhattan Institute.

Finally, the President's health care law creates a limited religious conscience exemption that limits the exemption to a few select faiths. Legislation such as my EACH Act bill modestly expands the exemption so that more individuals who choose not to seek healthcare will not be fined for violating their religious beliefs.

I am proud to support this important legislation and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee on solutions to better reform our healthcare system that protect the doctor-patient relationship while also incentivizing more people to take control of their own healthcare.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, there are currently 4.4 million people ready to enter this country through legal channels. Many of them have been waiting for years. They have saved their money. They have filled out all of the proper forms. They have paid their fees.

This amendment is about doing right by them and their families. It is about making sure the men and women who play by the rules receive the fair treatment that they were promised.

Congress must send a clear message to the administration and the American people that we are committed to fixing what is broken about our immigration system but not at the expense of law-abiding immigrants.

In recent weeks, I have worked with The Heritage Foundation to identify seven failing programs at the USCIS that are in most need of improvement. One of the most egregious examples is of the $792 million that the USCIS spent between 2008 and 2012 to create an online system for applicants to file forms and pay fees. After $700 million spent and 4 years of time, only two forms out of 100 and one out of 73 different fees can be processed online.

The administration's repeated inability to build a Web site that works--well-documented as it is by now--is compounded by its eagerness to bypass the Constitution and break the law.

Had the President wished to show real leadership on immigration reform, he could have used his executive authority to promote greater efficiency and cost-saving measures within the system. Had he done so, I suspect there would have been overwhelming support in this Congress, but, regrettably, that is not the course he chose, and it is why this Congress must act.

We have a responsibility to American taxpayers and to millions of immigrants to establish spending priorities at the USCIS, and eliminating wasteful spending in the immigration system is an important component of our responsibility and is a first great step in achieving comprehensive reform. Ensuring that the fees paid by lawful applicants are not used to fast-track those who break the law strikes at the heart of our oath of office.

During my time in Congress, the 18th District of Illinois has welcomed more than 2,600 new citizens, many of whom have faced a long road to get here, but there are still thousands more who are waiting. It is not because their paperwork isn't in order, not because they have something in their records, and not because of anything other than there being a broken system.

Take Charles from Peoria. He has been trying to get his fiancee to join him here in the United States since January of 2012. For more than 2 years, Charles has waited. He has struggled with the financial support requirements. He has been unable to travel to see her. He had his application postponed time and time again. Why? Because Charles is a quadriplegic on disability.

Take Danny from Jacksonville, Illinois. He works two shifts at a meatpacking facility. He applied and paid for his green card on October 4 of 2013. His green card was mailed to the wrong address, even though it was properly done on his paperwork, and it was in order.

Danny lost his job because he couldn't show his green card to his employer. After many months of lost wages, the USCIS admitted to my office and to Danny that they screwed up and made a mistake. Now, more than a year later, Danny finally received his green card, and he went back to work, but not before our broken system cost him a year's worth of wages.

Madam Chair, these stories could be repeated hundreds of time in my congressional office alone--tens of thousands of times across this body in Republican and Democrat districts alike. The system is failing our constituents, their families, and their loved ones. It is failing businesses in our districts. It is failing daycare facilities and major manufacturers.

Yes, Mr. President, the system is broken, but the way to fix a broken system is not to overload the system by fast-tracking 5 million more people.

Madam Chair, it is as if these hardworking taxpayers--these hardworking people--are sitting at a toll booth.

Madam Chair, how much time is remaining?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), my friend.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, nearly 160 million Americans receive health insurance coverage from their employers. Before Obamacare, employers were free to tailor their benefit plans to meet the needs of their workers. Once Obamacare was enacted, however, employers with more than 50 full-time employees were required to offer government-mandated plans to their employees or face steep tax penalties. In many cases, this penalty could range from $2,000 to $3,000 per employee.

Obamacare mandated that a ``full-time employee'' is someone who is employed an average of 30 hours per week. As the administration has written new regulations to implement Obamacare's mandates, the costly administrative complexities have forced many employers

to shift more workers to part-time status. According to a 2013 study by the University of California, Berkeley, as many as 2.3 million workers--or roughly 2 percent of the American workforce--are ``vulnerable'' to lost employment and reduced wages due to Obamacare's mandate. In Illinois, an employee earning the state's minimum wage of $8.25 an hour stands to lose up to $330 a month if the definition of full-time employment remains at 30 hours.

Additionally, Obamacare's 30-hour rule has caused great harm to school districts, colleges and universities. As many as 225,000 workers in the education sector are at risk of seeing their hours cut, hitting bus drivers, teachers' aides and cafeteria workers the most. Meanwhile, the rule creates a new burden for institutions of higher learning that seek to hire adjunct faculty to meet the demands of their students' course requirements. Not only will these additional burdens place limits on the services that institutions of higher learning offer to their students, but in many cases will cause the schools to dramatically raise tuition.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Illinois for yielding the time.

I also want to thank my colleague from Illinois, the distinguished dean of the Illinois Republican delegation for organizing the tribute to the late Phil Crane.

The history of American conservatism, I believe, cannot be written without mentioning Phil Crane. Phil was born into a large family, to stalwart Republican parents. Crane's bedtime stories may well have been the Federalist Papers or the collected works of Edmund Burke.

After completing his Ph.D. in history at Indiana University, Phil moved to my hometown of Peoria, Illinois, and he began teaching history, philosophy, and economics at my alma mater, Bradley University. For years, Crane filled his classes with students captivated by his engaging lectures, and he inspired them by his commitment to America's founding principles.

All the while, he worked to build conservative youth movements from the ground up, creating leading groups like

the Young America's Foundation and the American Conservative Union. Together with the pantheon of American conservatism, William F. Buckley, Ed Feulner, Stan Evans, Phyllis Schlafly, Barry Goldwater, and even Ronald Reagan, Crane helped lead the Republican Party out of the wilderness.

I don't think it is an overstatement to suggest that a governing Republican majority would never have been possible without the gentleman from Illinois, the Honorable Phil Crane.

He was willing to enter the arena, to confront the ideologies of socialism, communism, and Big Government liberalism head on. He armed conservatives with the intellectual firepower they needed to assault the bulwark of Big Government, and he lived long enough to see the New Right emerge strong and resilient.

In Congress, he was a fierce advocate for free trade and pro-growth economic reforms, and he was a champion of commonsense pension reforms that were needed to help the middle class.

A few years ago, Phil was honored at a dinner here in Washington for his contributions to the conservative movement. That night, surrounded by the men and women he had worked alongside for more than three decades, he reflected on his earliest memories growing up as a conservative in Illinois.

He told the crowd that night how every time when he was a young boy going to visit his grandfather, that his father would make him shake his grandfather's hand, and he would say, ``Son, remember shaking that hand. That hand has shaken the hand of Abraham Lincoln.''

Phil Crane grew up with a deep sense that he had a responsibility and a calling to keep the party of Lincoln tied forever to the principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, and peace through strength.

Through his entire public service, Phil Crane fought hard for the things he believed in, and along the way, he managed to mentor and train an army of young conservatives to join him.

There is something poignant about the fact that Phil Crane lived long enough to see the largest Republican majority in the House of Representatives in his lifetime. He even got to see his home State of Illinois elect a Republican Governor, the first time since 1892 that a sitting President's home State Governor switched parties.

In his eight decades, Phil labored to build the conservative movement. In his final days, he surely sensed that his labors were not in vain.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution.

The release of the Taliban Five, in violation of a law that President Obama himself signed, is among the greatest examples of this administration's disregard of the Constitution. It reflects contempt for this Congress and for the people who are represented here. Worst of all, his actions have emboldened Islamic militants and endangered American service personnel and civilians around the world.

Five years ago, when I first came to Congress, the President announced his intentions to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The Justice Department went shopping for a prison back in my State of Illinois to relocate those most dangerous and hardened enemy combatants from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Back then, Democrats had a majority in this House and a supermajority in the United States Senate. Even then, the President could not get authority from this Congress, controlled by his party in both chambers, to empty Guantanamo and move terrorists even detained back here to United States soil.

It is one thing for the President to defy any old law. It is another thing for the President to defy the very laws that he, himself, signed into law, but President Obama has gone even further.

By refusing to notify Congress of his intention to open the gates at GTMO and thus avoiding the anticipated political pressure that his carelessness would invite, the President has done the unthinkable. He has negotiated with terrorists, plain and simple.

I would say that he has abused the office and the power which comes with it, except in this case he has done something that he doesn't even have the power to do.

Tomorrow night the President will address the Nation about his latest strategy to deal with Islamic jihadists, but I would suggest that the world has seen enough about how this administration deals with terrorists and nothing he says tomorrow night can hide the growing sense among jihadists around the world that they finally have an American President who will negotiate with them.

It is important for Congress to tell the world where we stand. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on today's resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Full- Service Community Schools Act of 2014, which I am pleased to be introducing with my friend, Mr. Hoyer.

A strong education is the foundation our children need to succeed in life. Unfortunately, issues affecting students' home lives often interfere with their ability to achieve their true potential.

One innovation that seeks to overcome these burdens is full-service community schools. As Mr. Hoyer mentioned, in my hometown of Peoria, Illinois, three of these schools have been created and are operated with the support of Bradley University. The Harrison full-service community school has many of these diverse programs.

Harrison promotes events such as Fitness with Firemen, which teaches students the importance of a healthy lifestyle, or Hawkeye News, which is another program that uses smart boards to let students write, produce, and read the news in both English and Spanish. LEGACY is yet another program that gives young people the skills they need to transition from grade school to high school and beyond.

The utility of these schools is further illustrated by the Trewyn full-service community school in Peoria. At Trewyn, the Riding Tigers Horse Club allows financially disadvantaged students to learn how to ride and take care of horses. The riding program has been so successful that it has attracted the attention of parents, many of whom have never had the privilege of riding a horse themselves. Trewyn is also committed to getting parents more actively involved in their children's educations with programs like the Parent Advisory Council. We all know that parental engagement is key to a child's success and learning, and successful alternative programs like this deserve a chance to positively impact our communities.

The program that best captures the collaboration between a full- service community school and the local community is Manual Academy's Academic Progress Conference, the APC. The APC program provides a platform for students to share their academic progress reports with the community and receive feedback from local community members. These gatherings have given community members greater insight to the challenges these students face in their community while also strengthening the ties between the students and the students' neighborhoods.

You see, full-service community school programs have received positive feedback from both school leaders and the parents. For example, parents have expressed to me that they have seen that full- service community schools have promoted students' creativity outside the classroom, and school leaders have credited the program for allowing students to experience relevant school activities that are matched to their personal interests.

I can tell you, as a former school board member and as the youngest school board president in Illinois' history at District 150, I know the challenges that these parents, teachers, and school administrators face every day. Motivating these children to learn, teaching them and meeting their basic needs are a daily reality for everybody involved. If we don't do it, it doesn't happen. The full-service community schools are an important tool in this effort, and although relatively new to the Peoria area, these schools are making a difference to educators, to parents, and, most importantly, to the students.

The Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2014 will expand the opportunity for more schools to become full-service community schools and to see the benefit to the neighborhoods as well. As Congress continues to seek innovative solutions to address our national educational needs, the full-service community schools should play an important role.

Again, I want to thank my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for his leadership on this important cause. On a personal note, I want to join him in a fitting tribute to his late wife, without whom full-service community schools may never have enjoyed the remarkable success they have in his home State or in mine.

I look forward to working with Mr. Hoyer on this effort, and I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this important program throughout our country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of our committee for introducing this important piece of legislation that is being supported by the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, the Salvation Army, United Way Worldwide. All want to see the IRA charitable rollover which is contained in this bill made permanent.

The IRA charitable contribution incentive was established as a temporary provision of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, but the past 8 years, we have extended provision with strong bipartisan support.

Why? Because Republicans and Democrats have known that our Nation's charities comprise the most effective army of mercy and often are on the front lines of meeting the needs of our friends and neighbors when disaster strikes.

The war against poverty, homelessness, illness, and illiteracy is fought by our churches, private foundations, and the public charities in communities throughout the United States and around the world.

I have been working closely with one such organization, the Global Poverty Project, with my good friend, Hugh Evans, who has implemented a vision to eradicate extreme poverty, increase economic opportunity for women and children, and bring the developing world clean water, modern sanitation, and the health care they need.

It is organizations like this and the many public charities in my district--like the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal, Peoria's Hult Center for Healthy Living, and the Community Foundation of Central Illinois--all of which stand to benefit from making this provision permanent.

In the first 2 years Congress made the option available, more than $140 million was donated to public charities in the United States. Since that time, hundreds of millions more have been committed.

In Illinois, one single charity, the Jewish Federation of Chicago, has raised more than $11 million just from 1,000 IRA contributions since 2006.

Every dollar that is voluntarily contributed on charitable work means one less dollar that U.S. taxpayers are forced to spend to meet the same basic human needs here in our communities.

Last year, charitable giving in the United States grew by 4.9 percent, topping $316 billion. Globally, the United States gives more to charitable causes than any other countries, according to the World Giving Index of 2013.

This provision helps accomplish that, and that is why it should be made permanent. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Thomas W. Dewitt on his election to the Board of Directors at the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU). This is just the latest chapter in a long and productive career in financial services, and I know he will be a great asset to NAFCU.

The core mission of credit unions is to serve their members, and Thomas Dewitt has embodied that spirit throughout his career. For nearly the past two decades, he has served 130,000 members in Central Illinois and around the country as the President and CEO of State Farm Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois.

In addition to his role at State Farm, Mr. Dewitt has been an active participant in the activities of the NAFCU, most notably in the regulatory and legislative committees. In all, he brings 40 years of financial services experience to his new role at NAFCU, and he has consistently demonstrated his firm grasp and understanding of the issues important to credit unions and their members.

Once again, congratulations to Mr. Dewitt on his election to the Board of Governors, and to NAFCU for gaining such a capable and seasoned addition. I look forward to working with Mr. Dewitt in his new role and wish him all the best.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate an organization that has been dedicated to improving central Illinois for 100 years. The Itoo Society is the oldest Lebanese-American organization in the United States and one of the oldest heritage societies in Illinois. Named after a small village in northern Lebanon, the Itoo Society was formed in 1914 by a group of Lebanese immigrants who came together to support their members through financial and emotional hardships. Since then, it has developed into an active community group that Peoria, Illinois is proud to claim.

Peorians know the Itoo Society to be a family oriented organization that honors its members' heritage and culture. The Society has long been dedicated to charitable works that benefit the community members in Peoria as well as villagers in Itoo, Lebanon. Many of their festivals illustrate their dedication to commendable causes, including Peoria's oldest food festival, which honors those who have served in our military. I think my colleagues and I can learn a valuable lesson from the Itoo Society as its members are known for producing results through a team-oriented approach to their many projects.

In addition to serving its members, the Itoo Society opens its doors to charitable organizations and small businesses. By providing the community with a meeting place for business purposes and public fundraising events, the Society contributes to the success of other community institutions. This function is another way the Society brings together friends and neighbors who share similar problems, values, and ideas.

An impressive list of Peorians can claim Itoo roots, including former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, former City Councilman and now Chairman of the Society, Leonard Unes, and Peoria County Circuit Judge Steve Kouri.

I'd like to thank Corrie Ricca and Carl Williams, the Ladies' and Men's Branch Presidents, respectively, as well as Chairman Leonard Unes and the rest of the Itoo Society for their continuing service to the greater Peoria community and its devoted Lebanese members. On behalf of the constituents of Illinois' 18th Congressional District, I commend the exemplary record of service the Itoo Society has contributed. I am honored today to recognize their 100 years of effort. May they have many more to come.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the T-HUD appropriation bill really to address a problem that we have identified in our State of Illinois. Many of us are familiar with the Housing Choice Voucher program, often known as section 8. Throughout our communities, over 2 million households in America receive some form of benefit through section 8 vouchers. In many localities around the country, and particularly in my home State of Illinois, there are long wait lists of people who would qualify for and desperately need access to affordable housing and particularly the assistance they get under section 8 vouchers through the T-HUD appropriations bill.

Unfortunately, there have been some abuses and stretching of permission that Congress has given specifically to the Housing and Urban Development Secretary. I am speaking about a program commonly referred to as super vouchers, where the agency has basically used Congress' latitude it has given it to allow it to go up to 125 percent of what is deemed to be the cost of affordable housing in a particular community.

Obviously, from community to community, the cost of affordable housing differs, and the value of a voucher differs for a family member. But we have seen in the city of Chicago, for example, in my home State, of vouchers now going up to over 300 percent of the average cost of affordable housing and a voucher value approaching over $4,000 a month for a single voucher recipient.

Now, I know that each State's real estate values are different, each State's rental costs are different, and certainly Illinois may be more expensive than other States, but I would submit to my colleagues that for every one of these super vouchers that we give out, for every family that is given over 300 percent of what they should be given, there are tens of thousands of families waiting in line patiently and desperately needing some assistance, and there is only so much money in the pot that Congress appropriates.

So what my limited amendment really does is instruct the Secretary to go up to that 125 percent limit, but really to allow that those dollars of money that Congress appropriates in a bipartisan way for section 8 housing ensure that we help as many families as possible, and that we don't allow some families to, in essence, hit the lottery and get over $4,000 a month when others--for example, in the city of Chicago, we have over 40,000 people on a waiting list who meet the qualifications for section 8 housing.

It is time that they get the assistance that they need and their families need. It is time that they get into and have access to affordable housing, and it is time that we eliminate these super vouchers, which, really, reward a few at the expense of so many.

So, with that, I would urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska for yielding me this time, and for his leadership on the committee to make these bills law.

Mr. Speaker, New Philadelphia, Illinois, was the first town founded and built by a freed slave, and it happened before the Civil War.

Today, this historic town in my district deserves designation as a national park, and H.R. 930 will pave the way for official recognition.

The man who founded New Philadelphia was Frank McWorter, a Kentucky slave who worked to buy his own freedom and that of his wife and 15 family members. At a time of immense cultural and political hostilities over the issue of slavery, the McWorter family and other citizens of New Philadelphia built a town where free African Americans and European settlers lived and worked side by side.

Due to their hard work and strong faith, the scourge of racial violence never gained a foothold in the town, despite the upheaval around them. Think of the significance of that. The people of New Philadelphia built the dream of Martin Luther King a full 127 years before his immortal words were spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Long before the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of American schools, these Illinoisans were teaching their children in the same classrooms, letting them play in the same parks, and drawing water from the same wells. The story of New Philadelphia is a proud heritage for central Illinois, and it deserves to be shared with all Americans.

Today, we are honored to have a direct descendant of Frank McWorter here in the gallery, Sheena Franklin. This family, this town, are examples of the best of America, and they accomplished it during the worst of our times.

I also want to especially thank members of the New Philadelphia Association, especially Charlotte King, who have worked for more than a decade to document, preserve, and restore the extraordinary history of the town. It is through their efforts that this unique chapter in our history can be preserved for generations as a national park, and I look forward to continuing to work with them toward that goal.

This legislation is another step in the direction of racial justice. It is another sure stitch in the healing process for a Nation once divided so bitterly and tragically over the issue of slavery. I urge passage of H.R. 930.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2575, the Save American Workers Act.

Simply put, this bill just reestablishes what most Americans think is full-time work--40 hours. It is what I grew up knowing. It was what my parents and grandparents grew up knowing.

Interestingly, we have been talking a lot about jobs here in America. The President continues to call on Congress to pass more jobs legislation. Well, let's look at jobs in his home State, where I hail from in Illinois.

The Illinois Policy Institute, since 2011, says that Illinois has lost 66,000 jobs just in retail, food, and beverage since 2011. Ironically, that is more job loss than job gains--jobs added--in every sector in the President's home State. His unemployment in his home State in Illinois stands at 8.7 percent, a full 2 percentage points higher than the national average. And among young people and minorities, it is even worse. Among African American men, the rate of unemployment is 19.6 percent; among Hispanics, over 11 percent; and among young men and women, young people, ambitious people, a whopping 30 percent rate of unemployment.

Six years since the economy tanked, 5 years into the Obama administration, 4 years after ObamaCare has become law, this is what we are left with.

Now, I recently met with a manufacturer in Quincy, Illinois, who had me meeting with several hundred of his employers--Knapheide Manufacturing, people that they like, people who are doing a good job, people who are getting paid a fair wage, people who like their job, but people whose jobs are being cut back by 25 percent because of the Affordable Care Act. In true dollars and cents, this is about $330 a month that they are losing in take-home pay. Now, to put this in perspective, every time the President gets on Air Force One, it costs about 500 times that amount for every hour on Air Force One.

I would suggest the best jobs bill that Congress can pass is a jobs bill that insures people who have a job and like it can keep it, and that is what this jobs bill does.

I urge passage.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor March 2014 as the 31st annual National Eye Donor Month, a month dedicated to recognizing the need for eye donations as well as honoring eye donors, corneal recipients and their families.

Corneal diseases hamper an individual's ability to see properly. Over time, eye diseases lead to vision impairment or, in the most severe of cases, total blindness. Unfortunately, due to higher medical expenses and lost hours of workforce productivity, eye disorders rank as the fifth costliest type of diseases in the United States.

Thankfully, since 1961 corneal transplants conducted by the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) have allowed over one million people to regain their vision--a success rate of more than 95%! In 2012 alone, 46,684 corneal transplants were performed.

Of the 97 EBAA eye banks, two--the Illinois Eye Bank-Chicago and Illinois Eye Bank-Watson-Gailey in Bloomington--are located in my home state. Because of their hard work, 2,632 corneal donations were made in Illinois in 2012.

One such individual I was made aware of is Caleb. When Caleb was 5 he was injured in an accident that caused him to lose sight out of his right eye. After working with an ophthalmologist, Caleb was able to undergo a corneal transplant that removed the traumatic cataract and restored sight to Caleb's right eye. According to Caleb's mom, ``each new experience he encounters is special because someone had the courage to donate.''

I encourage all Americans to register to become eye donors. Everyone is a universal corneal donor--regardless of age or blood type. Once registered as a corneal donor, one should notify their family of their wishes.

I also urge my colleagues to work with their local eye banks in order to promote the importance of eye donation.

During National Eye Donor Month all Americans should remember the sacrifices made by corneal donors and their families while also celebrating the gifts their sacrifices made to thousands. Additionally, we should celebrate the work of the EBAA and its member banks as they continue to restore the sight of thousands more throughout the U.S.