Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in the days after 9/11, the United States took the last action that our enemies thought we would take, we took the fight to them. They believed that our partisan bickering would provide them with the protection they needed to continue to operate. But they were dead wrong.

Today, we have them on the run. Saddam Hussein has been captured, and Zarqawi is dead. In their place stands the very thing our enemies fear the most, democracy. Instead of a fascist dictator is a newly elected prime minister. And fear and oppression have been replaced with an emerging economy.

But our enemies continue to fight. Why is that? Does their resolve stem from some military, political, or strategic error on our part? No. To the contrary, it is our doubt that gives them strength. al Qaeda has declared Iraq as the battleground between democracy and their hatred of our way of life.

But they know that their war cannot be won on the battlefield. And I look forward to the day when our friends in the Middle East can stand on their own. They have already proven to be allies, and the future of our friendship still hangs in the balance.

Some would rather abandon our friends and everything we have accomplished, hoping this act of good faith would somehow appease a foe proven to be without mercy. But I know our borders and our communities should not be our front lines. It is our job to keep our Nation safe, and we will.

Mr. Chairman, this is really just a question of whether you solve a problem the right way or you solve it the wrong way.

Now, we ought to adopt this amendment, we ought to leave the moratorium in place while the Resources Committee, which has been working on this, having hearings, having testimony, comes up with a comprehensive program to solve this problem and to deal with this issue.

This is not the only time or the only place. In fact, it is not the right time, on this appropriation bill, or the right place. It is a complicated issue. You heard that it deals with environmental issues, economic issues, and military issues. It doesn't lend itself to a quick fix.

If we don't adopt this amendment, we will end up with a knee-jerk reaction that will allow offshore drilling anytime, anywhere, off any coastline within 3 miles. And that is just terrible public policy. Terrible public policy.

So let us be reasonable. Let us let the Resources Committee do their work, and then let's make a decision based on the facts.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I guess as I listened to this, I think it makes it very clear the difference in philosophy of the two parties that have put forth these budgets. Because, on the one hand you have got the Republican budget that takes the money that is available, sets a spending limit, does like every American family has to do, you sit down and you decide how much you are going to be able to spend on the priorities that you set out. And it does just that, it gets a handle on the spending, which is what the American people want. And then it tries to reform some of these areas of the government that need to be reformed. And, thirdly, it says that, look, there are some things we can do like establish a rainy day fund, we can set aside money for emergencies we know we are going to have, and it does those three things.

And yet you look on the other side and you see the Democratic alternative. There is no ounce of reform,

none whatsoever. There is no real effort to set aside money for true emergencies.

I guess the most drastic difference between the budget that I support and the Republicans have offered and the budget that Mr. Spratt has talked about is just that age-old philosophy of you just spend a little more money, you make a little more people happy, but how do you pay for it? Where do you get the money? And you all proudly talk about how you are going to spend more money, but you are not so proud about where the money is coming from because it is like magic money. You don't say we are going to raise taxes. You just do the things you do that automatically increase taxes on the middle class, the folks that you are saying you are going to help by spending more money, and that is just an endless cycle.

When I was a kid, I used to watch TV and there was a thing called Bullwinkle and he was a moose, and he had a friend that was named Rocky and he was a squirrel. And Bullwinkle would always say to Rocky, ``Hey, watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat.'' And old Rocky the squirrel said, ``No way. You are not going to be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat.'' And sure enough Bullwinkle would reach into that hat for that elusive rabbit, and he would always pull out something other than a rabbit. One time he pulled out a lion.

And I submit to you all that our Democratic colleagues once again are reaching in that hat just like Bullwinkle did; and instead of pulling out the magic money, they are going to pull out a tax increase. It is just the way it goes.

So let me just say to everyone, I think we all know we need money to provide services, but right now it seems to me we need something more. We need discipline to rein in spending. We need courage to make the right decisions even when they are hard. And we need a commitment to make sure that every task of government is accomplished more efficiently and more effectively than it ever has been before, because if life is going to change in America, life has got to change here in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced common sense legislation that provides the Forestry Service the flexibility they need to properly manage their assets. This legislation modifies the Florida National Forest Land Management Act in two simple ways, which will provide the Forest Service essential authority to manage the National Forests in Florida effectively.

The first provision simply adds an unmanageable tract of land located in Tallahassee, FL to the list of lands the Secretary of Agriculture is currently authorized to sell. This specific property, tract W-1979, is approximately 114 acres of land that has evolved into an unmanageable problem area for the Apalachicola National Forest. Due to the configuration and surrounding development, the vegetation cannot be managed through prescribed fire. Although a very valuable tract from a real estate/commercial aspect, this tract has lost its National Forest character. The sale of this land will allow the Forest Service to purchase other lands located within the Forest that are more manageable and will enhance National Forests in Florida.

Secondly, this legislation would allow the Forest Service to use proceeds from the sale of other ``non-green land'' to be used for construction and improvements to Administrative facilities essential to the proper management of the Forest. These ``non-green land'' tracts of land are owned by the Forest Service, but have urban improvements like fairgrounds or sporting complexes and are not conducive to the overall purpose of protecting our National Forests.

This legislation would allow the Service to use the proceeds from the sale of improved lands to build critical infrastructure they need to manage the Forests in Florida, while allowing the Forest Service to continue its practice of using receipts from all nondeveloped ``green land'' tracts for the acquisition of other ``green land'' tracts to enhance the National Forests in Florida. By passing this legislation, the Forest Service will have the ability to efficiently and effectively manage our Nation's precious resources.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor 30 young men and women in the United States Navy. On March 23, I attended the Sailor of the Year awards at Naval Station Mayport in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. The Sailor of the Year is bestowed upon one young man or woman in each of the naval units stationed at Naval Station Mayport.

We all know that it takes courage and dedication to enlist in our armed forces. All of these honorees have made that valiant decision to serve our country. They have successfully navigated the Navy Basic Training Course and have excelled in their chosen rating. However, these men and women were picked today because over the course of the past year, they have gone above and beyond the call of duty and demonstrated great character and resolve. Their command leadership who work with them day in and day out, in peacetime and in wartime have hand selected these honorees because they see a great leadership potential in each one of them. It was my honor to be the guest speaker at their award ceremony, and I wish them the best in their future in the Navy and in life. They make us proud of our men and women in uniform. Thank you and Godspeed.

Sailor of the Year Honorees:

AD1(AW) Crystal T. Cooper assigned to AIMD Mayport,

BM1(SW) Paul Burt assigned to ATG Mayport,

HM1 Andrea M. Searcey assigned to BMC Mayport,

AE1(AW) Bret F. Stroman assigned to CNL Mayport,

IT1(SW) Michael T. Laurie assigned to COMHSLWINGLANT,

IS1(SW) Walter J. McKinley assigned to COMUSNAVSO,

AO1(AW) Christopher M. Ham assigned to HSL 40,

AZ1(AW) Cory S. Benfield assigned to HSL 42,

AE1(AW) Christopher B. King assigned to HSL 44,

AD1(AW) Christopher N. Howell assigned to HSL 44,

AWI(NAC/AW) Spencer G. Wait assigned to HSL 46,

AM1(AW) Aristile S. Guidry assigned to HSL 46,

AD1(AW) Abraham Tolbert assigned to HSL 48,

NC1(SW) Lizzie Martin assigned to HSL 48,

AW1(AW/SW) Jason C. Kleinsmkith assigned to HSM Weapons

School,

CS1(SW/AW) Stephan Jones assigned to NS Mayport,

GSM1(SW) Gregory L. Crum assigned to SERMC,

CTT1(SW) James C. Woods assigned to the USS Boone,

FC1(SW) Christopher D. Weddel assigned to the USS Carney,

IT1(SW) Benjamin J. Padgett assigned to the USS Doyle,

GSM1(SW) Scot A. Wanser assigned to the USS Halyburton,

CTT1(SW) Scott B. Aaron assigned to the USS Hue City,

EM1(SW) Adam J. Smyk assigned to the USS McInerney,

OS1(SW) Hannabal E. Forbes assigned to USS John L. Hall,

EN1(SW) Andrew J. Hochgraver assigned to USS Samuel B.

Roberts,

TM1(SW) Christopher Moore assigned to the USS R.G. Bradley,

EN1(SW) Paul A. Gurrola assigned to the USS Simpson,

EM1(SW) Oliver Cummings assigned to the USS Taylor

EM1(SW) Timothy Howard assigned to the USS The Sullivans,

EM1(SW) Cory Baron assigned to the USS Vicksburg.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this Deficit Reduction Act. It takes another giant step in trying to get our own financial house in order here in Congress, and that is what the American people want. They want us to control the way we spend their dollars.

We took a step when we cut taxes, as was pointed out just a minute ago. When you cut taxes across the board and you let people keep more of what they earn, well, guess what is happening? They get to decide whether to spend it, whether they want to save it, whether they want to invest it; and when that happens, the economy begins to grow.

We have had 2\1/2\ years of positive growth in the economy. What happened? The deficit has gone down because more money comes into the Treasury when the economy grows.

Then last year we took step two. We wrote a budget here in this House that actually reduced nondefense spending by one-half of one percent. That is the first time that has happened since Ronald Reagan was President, and that is another giant step in the right direction.

Here we are now, step three. We are looking at deficit reduction. And now we are looking at the areas in our budget that the appropriations process does not even impact. We are talking about the so-called mandatory spending, entitlement spending, the things that are on automatic pilot. That is where more than half of our money goes in this Congress.

So we are simply saying for the first time in 7 years, let's begin to get a handle on that. Let's control that part of the budget. Because everybody knows the government needs money to provide services. But what we are saying right now is we need reform. We need discipline to rein in spending. We need courage to make decisions that are difficult at times because we have to live like every American has to live, by setting priorities and tightening our belts.

Finally, this is an act that will bring commitment to make sure that every task of government is accomplished more efficiently and more effectively than it ever has been before. That is what this Deficit Reduction Act does, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to control the time of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to make the following point, and that is what we are talking about here is to try to get a handle on the way we spend money. We are going to spend more money next year than we spent last year, more money for all of the programs that you hear people talking about, railing about cuts being made.

I want everyone to keep in mind that we will spend more money, but we will not spend a whole lot more money. Only in Washington do you hear people say when you spend more money, but you do not spend as much as you want to spend, you call that a cut. People do not say that in the real world. Keep that in mind.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the issue here is very simply that our friends on the other said of the aisle just do not like the Budget Reduction Act. They do not

want to step in and change the way we do business. They do not want to reform the way we spend money. And so they have opposed that, and now they have a motion to instruct which, if you read it, is pretty much the kitchen sink thrown in to try to tell our conferees this and tell them that. It is kind of a hodge-podge, but basically, they oppose what we are trying to do.

But, Mr. Speaker, I think the American people know that we have got to change the way we do business here in Washington. We have got to change the way that we raise money, because it comes from the American people. And we have got to change the way that we spend money, because we are stewards of the American people when we do that.

And we have taken some giant steps this year, Mr. Speaker, to change the way we do business here in Washington. We started by lowering taxes across the board. People that pay taxes got tax relief. That lets people keep more of what they earn. And when you let people keep more of what they earn, then they get to decide whether they want to spend it, whether they want to save it, whether they want to invest it.

And that is the way you get the economy moving again. And we got the economy moving again. Everybody knows the good news that has come out of our economy. The economy has been growing for the last 10 quarters. More people are able to buy new homes. It is a wonderful time from the standpoint of the financial wherewithal of this country. So we took that step.

And then this year, as people sometimes do not understand, we wrote a budget this year, and like a lot of people have to do when they write their budget at home, we had to kind of hold the line on spending. The money that we in this Congress get to spend, we wrote a budget that actually reduced the amount of money we spend in the budget. Except for Defense and except for Homeland Security, spending went down. And we are sticking to that. We are pretty much spending the same amount of money we spent last year.

We have not done that since Ronald Reagan was President about 20 years ago. And that is a giant step forward to control the way we spend money. And here we are again now with what we call the Budget Reduction Act. As our chairman said, it is a plan to reform government and to actually save money, because over half of the money we spend here in Washington is kind of on automatic pilot. We do not even get a chance to say how it is being spent or why it is being spent.

And right now, with this Budget Reduction Act, we are going to get a handle on that. We are going to reform the way we spend money. And that is what we are trying to do. And so I would urge my colleagues to vote no on this motion to instruct, even though when you read the motion, you are not very clear exactly what it does other than try to confuse the issue, because I am afraid my friends on the other side, if you listen to them talk, they have an answer for everything; spend a little more money. Where do you get the money? You raise taxes.

All we are saying is we want to reform the way we spend money, because everybody knows this, and I will conclude with this, Mr. Speaker. Everybody knows that we need money to provide services. But right now, the American people are saying to us, you, the people in Washington making this decision, you need to do a better job of the way you spend money. You need to control spending. And that is what we are trying to do.

Sure we need money. But right now, we need the courage up here to make some tough choices, just like every family has to do every year when they sit down and make their budget. They have got to set priorities. They say we cannot do everything. So we have got to make sure that we limit the amount of money we spend.

We need a commitment, a commitment by all of us to say, we are going to decide what is important, and we are going to try to do that, but we cannot do everything. Because if we are ever going to change the way we do business, we have got to start right here among ourselves.

So once again, I would urge my colleagues to vote no on this motion to instruct. Let the conference begin. Let our Members of the conference committee sit down with the Members of the Senate conference committee, work out any differences they have, but at the end of the day, let us come up with a final plan that will save money for the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time, and I hope tonight we can all join together and take this historic step toward getting our financial house in order.

We took step one when we lowered taxes and let people keep more of what they earn, and millions of Americans benefited from that. When they felt that bump in their paycheck, they could be free to save that money for retirement or they could invest it in the stock market or their small business or they could buy something for the family or make a down payment on a brand new home, and it worked. People went back to work. The economy is moving again. Four million new jobs were created.

Tonight, we are taking step two. We are going to get a handle on the way we spend money around here. We are going to reform the way we spend money because that is what we need to do.

We have got to tighten our belt just like every family has to do from time to time. We have got to set priorities. We have got to make hard choices because we all know that government

needs money to provide services; but it seems to me right now, at this very moment, government needs something more.

Government needs discipline to rein in spending. Government needs courage to make the right decisions even when they are hard; and government needs a commitment to reform itself, to reform the way it spends money, to make sure that every task of government is accomplished more efficiently and more effectively than it ever has been before, because if life is going to change in this country, life has to change in Washington.

This bill takes a giant step in that direction. I urge your support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my appreciation for the thousands of emergency personnel who continue to work tirelessly to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina. The devastation caused by this hurricane is epic and we are only beginning to learn of the total destruction it caused. Yet, in the face of enormous adversity, thousands of Americans put their own lives on the line to help their fellow Americans in need.

These individuals worked themselves into exhaustion both mentally and physically. Without their sacrifice, thousands more Americans would have lost their lives from this devastating storm. Mirroring September 11, 2001, local first responders were once again on the front lines.

None of us shall soon forget the images of our brave men and women who serve in the United States Coast Guard. This disaster brought a new meaning to the term ``search and rescue.'' Petty Officer Eric Sciubba arrived in New Orleans Monday and said crewmembers found themselves trying rescue techniques never before attempted. Replacing Scuba gear with axes, Americas' ``Coasties'' found themselves chopping through roof tops to reach trapped victims.

At one particular house, Petty Officer Sciubba found an invalid woman in even more peril than most in New Orleans. Her feeding tube had stopped working, and Sciubba found her in bed on her home's first floor, with her head barley sticking above water. The helicopter couldn't reach the stranded couple through the back yard, and with the front door locked, Sciubba knew that time was their number one enemy. Finally, the man inside the house was able to get the door unlocked and both individuals were brought to safety. This couple was among the 109 people Petty Officer Sciubba's crew pulled from disaster to safety before returning to Ellington Field on Thursday.

And that is just one of the hundreds of incredible rescues made by the Coast Guard.

We certainly will not forget the sacrifice made by the tens of thousands of National Guard, many of whom recently returned or are soon being deployed to Iraq, who sacrificed their precious time with family and loved ones to help those in need and return order to a city in chaos.

America has faced many challenges in its history and Hurricane Katrina will be written as one of its greatest. Yet once again, this great country will meet and overcome this latest challenge and will triumph in the face of adversity. This great Nation of ours will once again show the world its courage, conviction and will to overcome.

Mr. Speaker, this morning the President announced some very good economic news: Our economy continues to grow and our deficit continues to shrink. That is good news. Why is that happening?

Number one, we gave tax relief to the American people so they can keep more of what they earned, and that has helped create an awful lot of new jobs, and this year we put the brakes on Federal spending when we wrote our budget and passed our spending bills this year. We actually spend less money next year than we did last year. Spending goes down. When we take out homeland security and defense, discretionary spending is reduced.

Mr. Speaker, that is what every American family has to do. They write a budget and then they stay within the budget, and we did just that. That is great news for the American taxpayers, that is why the economy continues to grow. That is why interest rates are down. That is why jobs are up and unemployment is down.

That economic news is something we have been waiting to hear. When you give tax relief and put the brakes on Federal spending, good news happens and the economy is growing.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer my support to H.R. 2863, the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill. I commend the Subcommittee Chair, my good friend, Bill Young for tackling many important, yet difficult issues.

For the past few years, I have been deeply troubled by the Navy's shipbuilding budgets. Each year when the President's Budget is submitted, the number of ships procured in that year is always lower than the year before, however the amount of ships planned for the out years keeps growing and growing. For example in this year's budget, the Navy had requested 4 new ships for a total amount of $6.2 billion, but believes that they can sustain a shipbuilding budget of $17.7 billion for 12 ships in Fiscal Year 2011. As a man with an investment banking background, I can tell you that you can never rely on the certainty of the out years.

I believe this budgeting trend will continue not because the Navy needs fewer ships, but because our shipbuilding programs have become unaffordable. Unless the Navy makes some radical changes to the way they budget and account for new ship construction, our ship numbers will continue to drop. We talk about transformational technologies and weaponry everyday in Congress, we need to begin talking about transformational and innovative accounting.

According to a GAO audit published earlier this year, simple business accounting practices such as independent cost estimates and uncertainty analysis could have saved the Navy millions in cost growth from a number of shipbuilding programs, including our most expensive ship, the nuclear aircraft carrier.

This Committee on Appropriations has recognized this dangerous trend and the need for change. In addition to doubling the amount of ships procured in Fiscal Year 2006 from 4 to 8, the committee report contains strong language and direction that will hopefully stop cost overruns from draining our future ship resources.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Subcommittee Chairman to see if we, on Appropriations, can begin to transform the way this Nation builds and procures ships. We will need innovative thoughts and practices from corporate America.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill and its innovative approaches to our national defense.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, Madam Speaker; and I rise in strong support of this rule.

I think that the underlying legislation is much needed and long overdue. I have been working to help reform the United Nations since I first came to Congress, and I have not found anybody yet that disagrees with the fact that we very, very direly need to reform the United Nations. This once-utopian organization has degenerated into an institution that is largely dysfunctional and on the verge of becoming irrelevant, and that is why we need these reforms and we need them now.

There are a lot of areas that this legislation deals with, whether it is cronyism, corruption, or financial mismanagement. But I just want to stress one that relates to budgetary reform and the way that people vote on that.

Right now, the United States contributes about 22 percent of the general budget of the United Nations and 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget. If you take the last 128 nations that contribute dues, if you put all their dues together, that adds up to less than 1 percent; yet they have the same vote. Those 128 nations have the same vote as the United States. In fact, if you take the top three countries, they contribute over half the dues, and yet everybody has the same vote on budgetary matters.

Imagine a family, if you will, where the dad goes out and works all year and provides income for his family. And at the time to decide how to spend it, the four kids get up and say, this is what we want to do, this is where we want to go on our vacation, this is what hotel we want to stay in. Well, that is the way the United Nations works, and that is why we need the Henry Hyde U.N. Reform Act we are considering today.

One of the reforms in this act would say that when you vote on budgetary matters, then you weight those votes. That would do two things: number one, it would mean that the countries that contribute the most money would have more leverage in making sure that the money gets spent where it is supposed to be spent and in making sure that they get the results they want to get. And it also would encourage some of the other countries to contribute more money to the dues of the United Nations.

One of the areas we often hear criticized is this area of cronyism. It is unbelievable, but the United Nations, if you count the full-time and the contract employees, they have over 43,000 employees. To put that in perspective, a lot of multibillion dollar corporations do not have that many employees. Ebay, people have heard of that, is a company worth $52 billion, and the United Nations has five times as many employees as they have. Anheiser Busch, which makes and sells beer around the world, the U.N. has a third more employees than they have.

So I think it is time that we got a handle on how the money that American taxpayers send off to the United Nations gets spent, and this haphazard budgetary process can be changed by weighted voting.

There is no doubt in my mind that the time is now for reform at the U.N. This organization has become a shadow of its former self and likely bears little resemblance to what its founders had envisioned. Amid charges of cronyism, corruption, and financial scandal in recent months, the relevance and reputation of the United Nations has deteriorated drastically. What's more, the U.N. appears to engage in anti-American sentiment for sport, promoting it around the globe.

This is a true slap in the face to the United States. After all, we are going to contribute 22 percent of the U.N.'s general budget and 28 percent of its peacekeeping budget this year. This means a funding request for Fiscal Year 2006 of $439 million by President Bush. The top 10 contributors of U.N. dues account for more than 76 percent of all dues paid while the 128 countries with the lowest dues account for less than 1 percent of dues paid. However, among the 192 member countries, everyone's vote is worth the same. Imagine this scenario: parents agreeing to fund the family vacation, but allowing the children to dictate where the family goes, what hotel they stay at, and what activities they do. That's what is happening at the U.N. right now and that is why we need to support the Hyde Bill.

H.R. 2745 calls for weighted voting on budgetary matters. Weighted voting on budgetary matters would give the U.N.'s biggest contributors more leverage to ensure that their money is achieving the purposes for which it is intended. Weighted voting would encourage other countries to increase their contribution to the organization.

The State Department said the U.S. paid nearly $3.9 billion in contributions to the U.N. system in 2004. And who knows where that money went? Some of it likely went to fund patronage jobs of which the U.N. has many. Between full-time employees and contract workers, the U.N. employs almost 43,000 people. Let me put that in perspective: 43,000 workers is more than five times more the total employed by eBay, a company worth almost $52 billion. Another kicker: total U.N. employment is nearly one third greater than that of Anheuser-Busch, another multi-billion dollar company.

As elected officials, we have an obligation to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. It is our responsibility to bring reform to the U.N.'s haphazard budget practices and the Henry Hyde U.N. Reform Act of 2005 is a step toward accomplishing that goal. The American people deserve nothing less.

Madam Speaker, I urge adoption of the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to lend my voice to the cause of remembrance. Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is a day aside on the Jewish calendar to remember the murdered Six Million of the Holocaust and to remind us all what can happen when bigotry, hatred, and indifference are allowed to permeate a society.

It has been 60 years since the end of the Holocaust. We mark this passing of time because while the Holocaust serves as a vivid reminder of the worst mankind has to offer, we must remain vigilant so that all might learn its lessons.

Its horror demands that we fight tyranny.

Its victims show us the dangers of ignorance.

Its lesson is that we must never embrace indifference if we are to advance in peace.

Yom HaShoah is the occasion to pay tribute to the lives lost and a time to rededicate ourselves to work together toward greater understanding so that this unspeakable horror never visits our societies again.

Mr. Speaker, I have been to Jerusalem. I have been to Yad Vashem and the Western Wall. The emotional power of these places moved me to a greater belief in two things that the power of faith is unbreakable and that hard work and patience can achieve the goals of peace. Let us today allow Yom HaShoah to remind us of both faith and peace.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, over the last 4 years our economy has faced some pretty serious challenges; but, today, the consensus of both the private and public forecasters is that our economy is in a sustained expansion, with solid growth of real GDP and payroll jobs, unemployment rate at its lowest point in 4 years, and inflation remaining relatively in check.

Let me give some highlights of this economic success. Real GDP has increased for 14 consecutive quarters, including the first quarter of 2005 when it grew at 3.1 percent and, last year, the average growth was 4.4 percent, and that is the best it has done in 5 years. As my colleagues know, homeownership has continued to be at an all-time high, 69 percent. Housing construction continues at record paces. New home sales are up again in March, over 12 percent, another record high, and the unemployment rate is down to 5.2 percent. That is lower than the decade average in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.

These figures are not just abstractions. They represent something real that is happening in our economy: real growth, real job creation. And this budget that we are going to pass today ensures that we are doing everything that we can do to support the sustained growth in job creation which is so critical to our Nation and its people.

This year's budget is not an easy budget, but the steps it takes to keep taxes and spending down are critical to a strong economy and a better life for all Americans.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time, and want to commend him for his hard work in crafting this fiscally responsible budget which fulfills Congress's commitment to protecting American citizens.

As the chairman just stated, the driving force of this budget is to make sure, first and foremost, that our most critical priorities are met, and there is no greater priority in this budget than making sure that America's continued strength and security are intact. Our number one commitment to the American people continues to be the protection of their security.

Five years ago when I decided to run for Congress, I decided because I looked at our military, I saw that it was underfunded, I saw that it was overdeployed. In fact, in the late 1990s, the service chiefs had warned Congress that our Nation was on the brink of a hollow military, with inadequate funding for troop training and maintenance of equipment.

This became painfully clear when we were attacked on September 11. Our Nation had severe defense and homeland security deficits that had to be addressed immediately. Since that day, Congress has shown that we are more than willing to spend whatever is necessary to protect and defend our Nation and support our troops.

Since September 11, we have spent $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, to provide for the defense and homeland security of this Nation, and that does not include the supplementals that we have already passed, which add up to $248 billion. So we have done a whole lot of very necessary and very costly building, rebuilding and across-the-board updating to correct those deficits, and we acted quickly, deliberately, and in a bipartisan way to address those needs. I am glad to say that this year's defense and homeland security budget builds on the substantial progress we have already made.

Our national defense base budget continues the multiyear plan to enable the military not only to fight the war against terrorism today, but to transform our military to counter some of the unconventional threats that will come in the future, and Congress has shown that we are more than willing to do whatever it takes.

I am going to show you a chart, and this shows that since 2000 we have increased spending for the military by 66 percent. You can see it goes from $287 billion to $476 billion these last 5 years. So that is quite a commitment.

Now, this budget accommodates the President's request for the Department of Defense and increases our spending this year up to $419.5 billion, almost $420 billion. That is an increase over last year of 4.8 percent. It also proposes a sustained average increase of 3 percent over the next 5 years.

I think we all know that the most important part of our defense funding is for the people, the men and women who serve our country, the finest military personnel in the world. To support them and to allow the Department of Defense to continue to recruit and train first-rate forces, this budget builds on the critically needed funding increases of the past few years for military personnel.

Since President Bush took office, we have increased spending in military personnel accounts by approximately 40 percent, providing such quality of life advancements as, number one, an increase in military pay of 21 percent. We have reduced the average out-of-pocket housing expenses for military people from 18 percent down to zero. They do not have to pay on average any out-of-pocket expenses for their military housing. And we fully funded the health benefits for active duty members, for retirees and their dependents as well.

We spend money in operations and maintenance. That is the core of our readiness to fight this global war on terrorism. This budget provides for increases in training and education, operations and support for the military forces, maintenance of field weapons systems and equipment, and operation and maintenance of facilities. In total, operations and maintenance has gone up by 20 percent over the last 4 years.

To continue our effort to replace worn out or obsolete equipment, we provide for procurement of new ships, aircraft and vehicles, as well as the purchase and initial fielding of weapons systems, ammunition and other combat-related systems. Over the past 4 years, funding for procurement has increased 25 percent.

Also, as the chairman noted in his opening statement, we have included in our budget $50 billion to fight the ongoing War on Terror.

Mr. Chairman, the number one responsibility of the Federal Government is to protect American lives, and I am proud to say that this budget does just that. I urge its adoption.