Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss H.R. 3056, the Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007. I find myself in the awkward position of opposing the distinguished Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, but we are being asked to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, program to collect past-due income taxes without an alternative. This program involves the collection of millions of tax dollars, and there are no plans in place to collect this money if the program were to be killed. There are no plans to collect the millions of dollars needed to close the tax gap. Additionally, there is also no alternative to finding employment for the countless disabled veterans and severely disabled Americans.

Before we eliminate this program, there should be an alternative in place. Our colleague in the other body, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, has introduced an initiative that would take the IRS program and use it to create meaningful employment for persons with disabilities and disabled veterans. The Disability Preference Program for Tax Collection Contracts would give an incentive to private third-party collection companies to hire people with severe disabilities and provide them with quality jobs.

Mr. Speaker, one in ten Americans has a disability. While the current unemployment rate in the Nation stood at 4.7 percent in September, the low employment rate of persons with disabilities continues to hover at 70-80 percent. The high number of returning disabled American veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will only serve to compound this problem.

Currently, there are not enough jobs to provide gainful employment for the severely disabled veterans with only a high school GED. The Disability Preference Program would serve to alleviate the lack of meaningful employment opportunities for these young men and women. Jobs with third-party debt collection agencies can translate to high-paying careers. These jobs pay anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000 including health and 401(k) benefits.

Under the provisions of the Disability Preference Program, an initial hire of 750 persons with disabilities would save the Federal Government close to $350 million over ten years in Supplemental Security Income, SSI, and Disability Insurance, DI, benefits alone. This figure does not include the additional benefits associated with the hiring of people in the $40,000 salary range. This landmark program would not only create well-paying jobs for our severely disabled Americans, it would save the Federal Government millions of dollars at no cost.

This legislation is necessary because the IRS stated that ``under existing GSA Federal Supply Schedule, FSS, contracting procedures, it cannot set a specific number of awards aside for contractors employing significant numbers of persons with disabilities,'' only for the one disabled employer who may never hire another disabled person.

This is an oversight in our law which needs to be corrected. It makes no sense that current law provides an employment opportunity for ONE disabled person, while this initiative would create opportunities for hundreds--if not thousands--of people who are disabled and without a college education.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned previously, there is particular concern over the group of young, disabled veterans who have few employment options. Most able-bodied soldiers without formal education, upon leaving service, take positions as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, janitorial services, or security personnel. If the Disability Preference Program is not enacted soon, a viable opportunity will be lost.

This initiative is supported by the Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, the American Legion Auxiliary, the American Association of People With Disabilities, the One Percent Coalition, and the National Rehabilitation Association. In addition, the language has been passed by the other body on numerous occasions.

I ask my colleagues in the House to join with me in supporting the Disability Preference Program for Tax Collection Contracts. I ask them to join me in providing meaningful employment opportunities for persons with disabilities and for our returning soldiers who have been disabled in the line of duty.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Brady for yielding, and I rise to oppose H.R. 3056.

Let me start, Mr. Speaker, by saying that I strongly support the right of public and private employees to organize and to work for better working conditions and to improve the quality of life in their workplaces and in their communities, and my record reflects that.

However, I think there is something that we all agree upon, as Democrats, as Republicans, as public employees, private sector employees, and that is that there is a huge tax gap in this Nation, and that tax gap is to the tune of $345 billion. It adds, on the average taxpayer, about $2,700 to its tax bill on an annual basis. These are tax dollars, most of them having been acknowledged by the taxpayer that they owe, but the IRS has not been able to go after them for whatever reason. And so the IRS private debt collection program is putting money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans.

I would like to tell you that the private collection agencies working on this contract do not replace a single IRS worker, and no IRS jobs are lost through this program. To date, this program has recovered about $30 million in delinquent taxes. Through this pilot project, the IRS has turned over about 77,000 cases worth nearly $450 million in unpaid taxes.

Now, I heard some speak about harassment, undue harassment by private collectors. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that this program is closely scrutinized by the IRS. And the IRS program has, according to the Internal Revenue Service itself, received a 98 percent favorable rating from the IRS for regulatory and procedural accuracy, and a 100 percent rating for professionalism.

This program has also received at or above a 96 percent rating for taxpayer satisfaction. Less than 1 percent of those taxpayers collected by the private collection agencies have filed complaints with the IRS, and none of those complaints against the companies currently participating in the program have been validated.

Mr. Speaker, this program is bringing in money to the U.S. Treasury without raising taxes and closing that tax gap, and will be able to close that tax gap if we can keep the programs and improve them, money that otherwise would never be collected. To this end, it would be a very bad message to send that we are not serious about closing the tax gap.

I urge my colleagues to vote down H.R. 3056.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3087.

This bill requires the administration to develop a new, redefined mission regarding our involvement and long term interests in Iraq.

This body has taken many votes this year on the issue of Iraq, but this is the first bill to address this issue that has come to the Floor with overwhelming bipartisan support.

A bipartisan approach is critical to put an end to the political infighting that has thus far stymied congressional debate on Iraq.

As a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and a Vietnam veteran myself, it is my utmost concern to see that our troops are receiving the resources that they need, but I will continue to assert that our military has done all that we have asked it to do and now it is time for the Iraqi Government to take responsibility for the country's future.

Given that, our Commander in Chief owes this Congress and the American people a plan for a redefined mission that reflects this reality.

I have always believed that bipartisanship equals progress and in no other situation is the need more immediate. In fact, I hope that my colleagues know me as a person who puts these words into action. In the near future, I will be leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit our men and women stationed in Iraq.

It is my sincere hope that our upcoming bipartisan trip and this vote today begin a new era where Members continue to join together on areas in which we find agreement in order to make progress for the good of the American people and our great country.

Madam Speaker, had I been here on September 7, 2007, I would have voted in favor of H.R. 2669, the College Cost Reduction Act.

Madam Speaker, had I been in Washington on September 7, 2007, I would have voted in favor of H.R. 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007.

Madam Speaker, had I been present on Monday, September 10, 2007, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Res. 257.

Madam Speaker, had I been present on Monday, September 10, 2007, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Res. 643.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name withdrawn as a cosponsor from H.R. 1983.

I thank my friend Chairman Olver.

Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the FY08 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act.

This is a bill, Madam Chairman, that the American people can be proud of. This bill's spending levels fall within the fiscally responsible budget resolution passed earlier this year by providing $50.7 billion for the Transportation Department and Housing and Urban Development.

Our tax dollars are well used by investing in our road and airway infrastructures. I'm very supportive of the $1.5 billion this bill provides for Amtrak, and I'm hopeful this money can provide for the reinstatement of the Sunset Limited line that crossed into north Florida and traveled throughout the State.

This bill also invests $4.2 billion in economic development which folks all across our Nation find essential for their communities' well- being. The improvements made with these funds serve all of the American people, whether it be the overnight delivery of important documents to our workplaces, or the timely travel to and from schools, or the arrival of fresh produce at our grocery stores across the country.

Efficient state-of-the-art transportation infrastructure ensures that our economy continues to be the strongest economy in the world, and that our citizens continue to have the highest quality of life throughout the world. The Federal Government is fulfilling the role envisioned by the Founding Fathers by providing these community benefits with our tax dollars.

I want to thank Chairman Olver, Ranking Member Knollenberg and their staff for their hard work in producing this legislation.

I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend Mr. Ross for yielding, and I'm very proud of him. He's obviously one of our elected leaders of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and does a great job. I'm very proud of him, and I'm very proud of the other 42 members of the Blue Dogs who deliver this message to the American public that accountability and good stewardship of our tax dollars does matter.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased that the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Lincoln Davis) was here earlier talking about the 1990s and how we extracted ourselves from a fiscal mess where we were experiencing huge and systemic annual deficits, and how this government worked hard during the 1990s under a Democratic President and Republican-led Congress in a bipartisan way, worked real hard to pare down what government was doing and make the revenues come into balance with the expenditures.

We did that during the course of the 1990s under a divided government, but, Mr. Speaker, none of us like taxes. We live in America, the greatest country on the face of the Earth. I talk about this regularly with my constituents back home in north Florida, that America is the greatest country on the face of the Earth. We're the most successful democracy. We're the most successful, greatest economy in the history of mankind. We have the greatest military machine in the history of mankind.

I tell my constituents that 25 percent of the world's wealth is controlled by 5 percent of the world's population. That's what America is. One out of every 20 people live in America, and we control 25 percent of the world's wealth. We have a gross domestic product that exceeds, I don't know, $13-, $14 trillion a year.

And we have the greatest military machine on the face of the Earth ever assembled. You can amass the military of all the other 193 countries. It will not equal, Mr. Speaker, the firepower that the United States of America can bring to bear.

I tell my constituents that that great wealth and that great military power, with it comes a great responsibility in this world to use that wealth and that power in a responsible and careful manner.

Now, none of us like to pay taxes. None of us like to pay taxes. Our job, as Members of the United States Congress, House of Representatives, is to make sure that we are good stewards of the taxpayers' money that our good citizens send up here for us to run the country.

Now, a great deal of that money is spent on our national defense, the number one priority of this Nation. None of us on this House floor ever like to vote against defense dollars that are being spent around the world where we ask our men and women to go put on the uniform and defend our values and our freedom and our causes around the world.

Mr. Speaker, over the last 6 years, I think the greatest act of omission that has been perpetrated by this Congress is the lack of oversight that has been exercised by this Congress over the executive branch when it comes to how we spend those tax dollars.

Six years ago, our national defense budget was in the neighborhood of $400 billion; today it is in excess of $650 billion. That's about 5 percent of our gross domestic product. There are not many countries, if any, around the world, that spend that much on their military.

Our American citizens, our people back home, don't mind us doing that. They like for us to do it. But they want to know that when they send that money to Washington, somebody is making sure that it's spent wisely, and we are good stewards of that.

What has happened over the last 6 years, when we had one party come in control of the White House, and the House and the Senate, the oversight role by Congress has been abdicated. It's not the first time it happened. It happened before when the Democrats controlled everything.

But in this case it was the Republican Party that was in the majority. As a result, we have seen systemic deficits built in. We have seen a situation where there has been no oversight exercised by the House of Representatives and the Senate over the administration, and the Congress just got in the mode of rubber-stamping everything that the administration wanted, and ultimately, we had some problems. Some arrogance developed, some corruption developed.

That's basically when the American people stood up in November and said, no more, we don't want that any more. We think a divided government works best.

As Blue Dogs, we want to work with the Members on the other side of the aisle in making sure that the American people's money, when it comes to Washington, is spent wisely and is accounted for.

I wanted to remind our citizens back home that this chart in front of us that shows the $8.8 trillion national debt is for real, and that money has got to be paid back by somebody, or at least interest on it has to be paid back; and we ought to stop increasing that number on a daily basis. That's what the Blue Dogs are all about. Let's make sure that the tax money that we collect from American citizens is spent wisely, and that we exercise good stewardship as we see about the people's business of the United States of America.

I am proud to be a Member of the U.S. House with my good friends on both sides of the aisle. I'm proud to be an American. I want to thank my friend from Arkansas for the time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to applaud the valor and honor the legacy of a brave young man who gave his life to his country while serving in Iraq. Marine LCpl Daniel Chaires was killed on October 25, 2006, at the age of 20 in a gun battle with Iraqi insurgents. Daniel has left a wonderful legacy of devotion to his family, the community, his church, the Marines, and our great country.

As a descendent of one of Leon County's pioneer families, Daniel has deep roots in North Florida. His hometown of Chaires, Florida, and Chaires Elementary School are named after his family. On Friday, Chaires Elementary School will celebrate the life and military service of Marine LCpl Daniel Chaires. The school will be dedicating a patriotic mural and a monument in honor of Daniel, who was a young man of great courage and character.

As an active and energetic member of the community, Daniel touched the lives of so many. I know that his family and friends will always remember Daniel as a source of strength, inspiration, and leadership.

As a Vietnam veteran, a father, and a fellow American, I would like to pay tribute to Marine LCpl Daniel Chaires. We honor him, we thank him, and we will never forget the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country and for the cause of freedom. I know that his family is immensely proud of him and his service, and we are all in his debt.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 262, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and counterpart, Mike Ross from Arkansas, my fellow Member of the 43 Member strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. It is a group that I have been a member of all the years of my service, 10 years of my service here in the United States House of Representatives, and it is a group that I am quite proud of their work on behalf of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, like yourself, being raised in Indiana and Mr. Ross in Arkansas, I was raised in a little community in north Florida on a farm by parents who taught me very early that it was important that we, as a family, live within our means. We established our priorities as a family, the things that we had to have, needed. We knew what our sources of income were, and we worked hard as a family to meet those priorities. But Mr. Speaker, you know, we were taught as young people, as children, if you don't have the money, then you don't buy things which you can't afford to pay for. Those were lessons that we learned very well at an early age, taught by our parents, that we carried on to our businesses. And let's face it, if you spend more money every year in a business than you take in, you're out of business pretty soon; your banker pulls the plug on you.

We learned that lesson. Our local governments and State governments understand that, as well as our county governments. But something has happened in Washington in the last 6 years. In 8 tough years during the 1990s of making tough decisions relative to our priorities and spending and getting under control the deficit spending, 6 years ago, 6-plus years ago, we went on a rampage here in Washington that sent spending through the roof, far outstripping the revenues raised to pay for that spending. As a result, we had to go into the capital markets and borrow that money to pay for normal operations of our United States Government.

We have the most powerful government in the world. We have the most powerful Nation. We have the richest Nation. Our economic model is a wonderful, wonderful economic model. But we have forgotten the lessons that we all learned as children taught to us by our parents that we ought to be fiscally responsible and we ought to be accountable for how we spend our dollars.

This is really what my friend, Mr. Ross, who is leading this special order tonight, the point that he wants to make. That is that when we take dollars from the American public in the form of taxes, and today is the day, April 17, which happens to be--since yesterday was a holiday someplace, today is the day that our taxes are due. When we take taxes from the American people, the American people expect us to spend that money wisely and they expect us to account for them and they don't expect us to waste those dollars.

That is why some of the things that I have been seeing over the last several years in the way that some of our Federal executive agencies have spent the money and been unable to account for, and I tell you, honestly, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Defense probably is the biggest offender as it relates to accountability. Many of the dollars that we have appropriated over the years for the Iraq war, for instance, the Department of Defense cannot pass an audit or account for in how they were spent.

I think you see one of the things that is happening in the last several months since the election is that Congress is beginning to ask the tough questions of the administration as it relates to how the tax dollars that are taken from the American people by the United States Government, how they are spent. Are we spending them wisely and are we accounting for them? Do we have contractors running amuck in Iraq, and are we getting our money's worth?

I think this is an important time to be thinking about accountability and good stewardship of our American tax dollars. Today is the day. Midnight tonight is the time when that filing is due. You know, the people at home that I live around, they don't mind paying taxes as long as they know as a government we are setting our priorities and we are doing a good job of stewardship and accounting for the dollars that are being spent. I think that is what this is all about tonight, accountability; and I want to thank my friend, Mr. Ross, for leading this discussion.

And, Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in that chair as a fellow member of the Blue Dog Coalition.

I thank my friend Mr. Spratt for yielding.

I rise today, Mr. Chairman, in strong support for the Democratic budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, the Blue Dogs didn't submit our own budget this year because the Democratic budget under Chairman Spratt's leadership includes many of the priorities that we advocate for and Mr. Spratt put into the bill.

First, it adheres strictly to PAYGO rules, and this is the biggest difference between this budget and the failed budgets of the past 6 years. Our budgets put an end to new deficit spending. PAYGO has a proven record of success. It was instrumental in the return of budget surpluses during the 1990s. It has worked in the past, and it will work again. And this Congress let PAYGO expire in 2002.

Secondly, the Democratic budget will reach a glide path to balance by 2012, and it does so without using budgeting gimmickry or tricks.

You have heard a lot from the other side criticizing our budget and talking about debt, but let me tell you something. The Republicans in the past have refused to adopt PAYGO rules, and spending has skyrocketed under their leadership. They financed their plan by borrowing $3 trillion over the last 6 years from countries like China, and many times in the past the appropriations bills have not been enacted and we have had to do omnibus bills. Eighty percent of those were not enacted last year.

In short, Mr. Chairman, we have to return to fiscal sanity. We have created a mess in the last 6 years, and it is going to take this Congress working hard together in a bipartisan way to come up with a plan that will put us back on a glide path to balance. Mr. Spratt's bill, the budget resolution, which we have a chance to vote on today, is the best start for us to return to that path; and I want to applaud him for his resolution and ask for your support for that resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Skelton, for giving me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my fellow veterans to express strong opposition to sending more than 20,000 additional United States troops to Iraq, and I rise in strong support of the underlying resolution that we are debating today.

Mr. Speaker, when thinking about our political and military situation in Iraq, I often reflect on my own service in Vietnam and my thoughts there as a person, when I served there as a young man in uniform proudly defending the ideals on which America was built.

I often think, how is it different today? How is today's soldier in Iraq different than soldiers 40 years ago in Vietnam? I think there are some differences, but there are obviously many striking similarities.

Obviously, our soldiers today have communications technologies and other war-fighting technologies that are far superior to what we had 40 years ago in Vietnam. Soldiers now have access to a 24-hour news cycle that we did not have in the 1960s.

But, Mr. Speaker, what is the same, what is exactly the same, is the fact that our soldiers are trained and equipped to accomplish the mission given to them by their political leaders in Washington. They are trained to execute this mission and to the best of their ability, without any thought to whether that mission is right or wrong, or even whether that mission is well thought out. Clearly, this is very similar to what we experienced during Vietnam.

When I served in Vietnam, we were trying to execute a mission that was impossible to do because our political leaders had given us a poorly defined mission that we could not win militarily.

Our brave men and women serving in Iraq rely on us, their political leaders, to develop a winning strategy, and it is very clear that we are not winning in Iraq by any standard of measurement that you might want to use.

I returned from my service in Vietnam at the height of the anti-war sentiment; and let me tell you, there was no worse feeling than coming home after a tour of duty to find that you had come home to an American society that was not grateful and was not behind you.

I want to make sure that our sons and daughters serving in Iraq today do not experience what we experienced 35, 40 years ago. The American people and their leaders in Congress all support the men and women executing the outlined mission. These men and women who have fought and defended our country should be proud of the job they have done, and we all are proud of them.

However, we should have learned from the mistakes our political leaders made in Vietnam and not make those mistakes again.

The problems we are having in Iraq have nothing to do with our troops and

their ability and their training and their equipment. Our problem is with our policy.

The men and women serving in Iraq are counting on their political leaders to develop a successful strategy in Iraq, and interjecting more young American men and women in uniform into the crossfire of an Iraqi civil war is simply not the right approach.

The warring factions in Iraq have been at odds since the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D., and the United States military is not going to solve an Iraqi political problem, a problem that has existed between the Sunnis and the Shias for more than 1,400 years.

Past troop surges aimed at stemming the violence in Iraq have failed, and continuing to deploy more American troops will not bring us any closer to a self-governed Iraq.

We have been training and equipping Iraqi security forces for almost 3 years. We have 325,000 trained, conducting security operations there. The continuing presence of large numbers of American troops in Iraq only postpones the day when Iraqis will have to assume responsibility for their own government. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon the Iraqis to make peace and promote democracy in their own country.

With 140,000 of our troops in Iraq, the war in Iraq is exhausting our resources, resources that we, our people, are demanding that we have at home to solve some of our domestic priorities such as health care and education. And those resources are not only dollars; they are human blood.

Again, I stand here today to oppose the Iraqi troop surge because all evidence suggests that it is not a path to victory in Iraq and will only put more Americans in harm's way.

Ultimately, the debate today is about one thing, the men and women that proudly wear the uniform and the best way to take them out of the center of an increasing sectarian conflict and civil war in Iraq.