Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate US Steel on their 100th anniversary of production in the State of Alabama.

In 1907, the United States was in the midst of a ``financial panic'' that threatened the future of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) and the jobs of thousands of people employed by the company in Alabama. The United States Steel Corporation (US Steel), the Nation's first billion dollar business enterprise, agreed to purchase a majority of the capital stock of TC&I, preserving thousands of Alabama jobs. President Theodore Roosevelt and the U.S. Justice Department gave their approval on November 4, 1907 for the merger of US Steel and TC&I to help restore public confidence in the Nation's economy, thus ending the financial panic.

Soon after the merger, US Steel significantly expanded iron and steel production in Alabama, creating thousands of new jobs, and initiating social reforms for company employees, such as: building new homes for workers, establishing community schools, and building the Lloyd Noland Hospital.

US Steel was the first steel company in America to embrace collective bargaining in 1937 by recognizing the Steel Workers Organizing Committee which became the United Steel Workers of America. The steel produced at US Steel by its Alabama employees built the ships, tanks and other military armaments that defended the United States in two world wars, as well as in the Korean War and Vietnam War.

In the past 100 years, generations of Alabama residents--estimated to exceed a million people--worked at U.S. Steel mills, coal and iron mines, barge rail lines and other commercial facilities.

US Steel continues to create quality family-supporting jobs, with health care benefits for some 2,500 skilled employees in Alabama. These employees work at plants and offices including the Fairfield Works, the largest steel making plant in the South; the Fairfield Works Seamless Pipe Mill; US Steel Realty, a major land developer in the Birmingham area; and US Steel's Transtar subsidiary that includes the Birmingham Southern Railroad, Warrior & Gulf Navigation Company, and the Mobile River Terminal at Mobile.

Despite the fierce competitive challenges in a global steel market, including unfair competition from heavily subsidized foreign steel producers, US Steel has continued to make job-creating and job- retaining capital investments in Alabama.

US Steel has a long history of supporting philanthropic and community projects to enhance the quality of life in Alabama such as the Red Mountain Oak in Birmingham, which will be the largest urban park in America. This project represents a contribution from US Steel exceeding $10 million.

Madam Speaker, I wish to officially mark the centennial observance of the United States Steel Corporation in Alabama. I congratulate the company for 100 years of steelmaking and job-producing commercial activity in my State. Through its 100 years, US Steel and its skilled employees have made a tremendous contribution to the State's economy, and to Alabama's future as a major manufacturing center in America.

I've listened to a lot of allegations, Mr. Speaker, that the Democratic Party, the party that crafted Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid, is somehow cutting health care benefits. I don't want this debate to end without putting a few simple facts in perspective.

There is one party in this Chamber that said to 13 million working class families on Medicaid for the first time, you have to make a co- pay for your kids to go to the doctor.

There is one party in this Chamber that, 4 years ago, in the Medicare Modernization Act, tucked in the fine print of the bill a requirement of guaranteed Medicare cuts in the next several years.

There is one party in this Chamber that passed the prescription drug bill that contained a massive doughnut hole for seniors which allowed them to lose their coverage for a period of time.

There's one party in this Chamber that has sent five budgets, just in my tenure, to the floor of the Congress cutting Medicaid benefits.

There is one party in this Chamber that has proposed to cut, that has passed a guaranteed 10 percent cut for reimbursements for doctors, set to go into effect beginning on January 1.

It is the Republican party.

Let there be no debate, Mr. Speaker. There is one party that has its bona fides on the question of health care. It is the party that is moving today a bill that will provide universal coverage for all children who need it.

It is shameful for this debate to have been twisted and distorted in the manner that it has.

Madam Speaker, as a former assistant United States attorney, I am pleased to introduce the ``Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Retirement Treatment Act of 2007.'' This bill will enhance the Federal Government's capacity to collect unpaid judgments and restitutionary obligations owed to the United States and victims of crime, as well as strengthen the retirement benefits of assistant United States attorneys.

Madam Speaker, as you are aware, United States Attorney Offices are responsible for criminal and civil debt collection efforts that result annually in billions of dollars that are turned over to Federal agencies and crime victims. Unfortunately, however, there remain billions of dollars that go uncollected due to the competing demands on our law enforcement officers. ``The Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Treatment Act of 2007'' will address this problem by improving the process by which the Department of Justice collects criminal and civil debts owed to the United States and the victims of crime.

But Madam Speaker, that is not all. The ``Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Treatment Act of 2007,'' in addition to improving debt collection, will also significantly aid our law enforcement efforts in another important way: it will ensure that assistant United States attorneys receive the same retirements benefits as all other Federal law enforcement officials, thereby increasing the retention of our career Federal prosecutors. Indeed, despite their vital role in prosecuting criminals, despite their vital role in defending the United States in litigation, despite their vital role in

keeping America safe, assistant United States attorneys are unfairly shortchanged in the retirement benefits they receive once their public service is complete. The retirement benefits of AUSAs are considerably lower than their law enforcement colleagues within the FBI, Secret Service, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons. The ``Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Treatment Act of 2007'' corrects this glaring inequality.

Madam Speaker, I think it is fair to say that our career Federal prosecutors have been under tremendous pressure these past several months and their morale has been tested like never before. But in spite of that, day after day, week after week, month after month, these men and women vigorously prosecute those that would seek to undermine our democracy and further weaken our rule of law. Our AUSAs deserve better, and we deserve better. Passing the ``Enhanced Financial Recovery and Equitable Treatment Act of 2007'' is the least we can do for those that work so hard to keep us safe.

Mr. Speaker, there's a pastor back home who has a card that he carries around with him and it says, made by God, return to the Creator upon expiration.

As a person of faith, if you believe that, as I do, you have to believe that that admonition and that promise applies not just to you and your kind, but to people who may be different, act different, think different, and look different. So this is the simplest way I can put this to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

If you are a person of faith, you have a Bible-based problem with hate. And if you have a Bible-based problem with hate, it's legitimate to say that hate ought to be punished a little bit more. That's all this legislation says.

Obviously, it must be done consistent with the first amendment, and that is why I offered an amendment that was accepted in committee and that my good friend, Lamar Smith from Texas, not only voted for, but praised during the markup. The amendment says specifically, nothing in this statute shall change the terms of the first amendment as they exist.

So this is as simple as I can put this to my good friend, Mr. Gohmert. The only people who ought to fear this bill are people who would say to another human being, you ought to do violence against someone else. I don't know a man of God or woman of God who would take to any pulpit in the land, any synagogue or mosque in the land and say, do violence to another one of

God's children. And because I have confidence in people of faith and know they wouldn't do that, I know they won't be hurt by this bill. And, by the way, I say that as the only Democrat on the committee who voted against gay marriage.

This bill ought to be passed, and I ask my colleagues to do so.

I thank the Chair for recognizing me.

Members of the House, we tend to use the term ``friend'' very liberally in this institution. We often apply it to anyone with whom we have had more than a casual or passing conversation. Juanita Millender- McDonald was someone that I genuinely viewed as a friend, not in the way the Members of the House use that term but in the way that ordinary people who are watching this on television use it.

There were a lot of days when we sat on this floor and we talked together. There were a lot of days when we sat on this floor and we exchanged confidences. There were a lot of days when we sat on this floor and I spoke to her of my aspirations and my goals and she spoke to me of hers. There were times when I spoke of my family and she spoke of her abiding, continuing faith in her family.

Many people do not realize because she did not speak of it a great deal, but Juanita was from Birmingham, Alabama, and it is a tragedy that a black woman born in 1937 or 1938 felt that she had to leave the State of Alabama to reach her full promise. Juanita did. And it was my State's loss. She went to the State of California, and so many of my colleagues have told the story of her wonderful ascension and her wonderful career there. But she always retained memories of growing up in the South. She always retained memories of growing up in a segregated environment. And her family, much of it remains there.

Another thing that was not widely known, Juanita's brother, Shelley Millender, was a longtime radio talk show host in the city of Birmingham and I have had a long-time attachment to him. When I ran for this job for the first time, there were very few people who would welcome me onto their programs or into their forums. The very first one to do so was Shelley Millender. He did it constantly and I have always appreciated that.

Juanita's nephew, Shelley, Jr., has become a friend of mine and I always enjoyed telling her how proud she should be of him and how well he conducts himself in the city of Birmingham.

So, Mr. Speaker, what I want to say today, Juanita Millender-McDonald was a phenomenally elegant, restrained and dignified woman. She richly deserved the title Madam Chairwoman that she was just beginning to wear so well, and I will remember my last conversation with her sitting just off this floor. It was not uncommon for us to gather and talk about what was going on as we left the floor. I remember her telling me during that conversation how much she looked forward to her work on the House Administration Committee. I remember her telling me how much she looked forward to several hearings that were upcoming. She never had the chance to do that which she talked about that day. But I will always remember her confidence, her courage, and her decency. And as she and her family watch and as they prepare for God to take her back to her home in heaven, know that the time she spent here was well served and the legacy that she left honors her native State of Alabama, my State, and the State she adopted and served so ably, California.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished Chair of the committee for honoring me by giving me a chance to speak during this momentous debate.

And I want to begin with a simple observation. If you scour the globe and you look at the places that are listed as democracies, the places where the consent of the governed is what drives the politics, there is not a single one where the people who live in the capital do not have a representative to their parliamentary body. No, not one. That is telling, and it ought to frame everything that we say here today because the system of government in this country and the way we have gone about business until now has been unique in the world. This is the only place in the world where the people who live in the capital have no voice.

Now, let me speak to some of the constitutional arguments that have been raised. I find it very telling, Mr. Speaker, that many of my very able colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spent a lot of time in their recommit motion and other places, making a point about the recent D.C. Circuit ruling about the right to bear arms. They have brought that unrelated issue into this debate.

But it is interesting for this reason, and I take out this dog-eared copy of the Constitution. If there is one document that ought to be well worn, I suppose it is the Constitution.

If you look at the second amendment, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Chairman, that our opponents in this debate rely on, it says ``A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,'' a clear-cut reference to the security of a free State.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle say that is relevant to Washington, D.C. They say there is a right to bear arms that the people shall enjoy. If it is so in the context of someone carrying around a 9 millimeter or a semiautomatic, it must be so in the context of people walking into a ballot and voting for a delegate who is a representative who has a voice here.

What kind of a system of government says that the right to have a 9 millimeter outweighs the right to vote? You can't have it both ways in this argument. You can't say you throw out the State in the second amendment, but somehow you make the State giant and bold and capitalized and italicized in the context of this representation.

Another point that Mr. Nadler touched upon: We hear from the opposition that D.C. is a special thing, a Federal district, that it is neither the United States nor the States so, therefore, it belongs in its own special category. If that is the case, to my friends on the other side, take out your copy of the Constitution, plow your way through it, and look at amendment after amendment. If that interpretation is so, that D.C. is not a State or the U.S. Government, it means the equal protection clause doesn't apply to Washington, D.C. It means that the antipoll tax provision doesn't apply to Washington, D.C. It means that every other provision of the Constitution that contains the word ``State'' or ``U.S.'' does not apply.

No one makes that argument that the people of Washington, D.C. are utterly shorn of rights because they are neither a State nor the United States. If you don't make it in another context, you cannot make it in this one.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with my good friend from California, Mr. Daniel E. Lungren, that facts do matter. And these are the interesting facts, Mr. Spratt:

While Mr. Daniel E. Lungren was on his sabbatical in California, the two political sides shifted. The old progressive party decided that it believes in fiscal discipline. That is why we have the PAYGO rules. And the previously conservative party is advocating an AMT tax continuation that would bring 26 million families into its purview. Let me put this in perspective.

There is one budget on the floor that, for the period 2008 to 2012, would raise taxes as much as $2,300 per person on 26 million families. It is not the CBC budget, it is not the Spratt budget, it happens to be the budget of the President of the United States.

So we have switched. The progressives have become the people who want to restrain spending, and our friends on the conservative side no longer care about raising taxes on the middle class.

Mr. Daniel E. Lungren, a number of things have indeed changed.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote today for a resolution that would finally draw the war in Iraq to a close, and that would for the first time put conditions of self-determination on the Iraqi government that has benefited from our country's generosity. While I was not yet in Congress at the time of the original authorization debate in 2002, I have concluded that the authorization decision was wrong and that too many American lives have been sacrificed for the dubious cause of advancing the interests of one side of an Iraqi civil war over the other.

It is also my belief that Congress has the unmistakable authority to put time limits on the commitment of American forces and to attach strings to the manner in which military funds are spent: Congress has used this power before in Lebanon, Vietnam, and Somalia, and most recently, during the second term of the Clinton Administration, when Republican congressional majorities imposed restrictions on the use of ground forces and on the duration of the force commitment made during the Balkan conflict.

Some of my colleagues who share my opposition to the war have suggested that this resolution has the defect of not going far enough in that it does not require an immediate withdrawal of American forces. I disagree: for the sake of regional stability, any withdrawal should be more orderly and more measured than the haphazard way American forces were deployed in the first place.

Other anti-war critics argue that a Democratic Congress has a moral imperative to take a bolder course, such as repeal of the 2002 authorization or a pledge to impound funding for additional deployments. While I agree that the test of Democratic legislation cannot be whether it would attract a Presidential veto (if that is the standard, Democrats would be immobilized this next 2 years), it is reasonable for the Democratic leadership to pursue a bill that can win overwhelming Democratic support, including those members from more conservative districts whose opposition to the war comes at some political cost.

Finally, I respect the concern of some Alabamians that any withdrawal from Iraq is a loss of prestige that will embolden our enemies. While this is not a trivial argument, the reality is that radical Islamic fundamentalism has exploded into a civil war in Iraq and that Al Queda will be a generation-long threat. These conflicts will rage on regardless of whether we are in combat in Iraq because they are rooted not in an assessment of our strength but in a permanent disdain for our values.

We need to engage Islamic terrorism on a different ground, such as Afghanistan, where Al Queda is resurgent, and we should use the leverage from a withdrawal from Iraq to cement international resistance to the Iranian nuclear program. Lines should be drawn in the sand around Israel's security, and the steady work of cultivating Arab moderates and isolating Arab radicals should continue. But it is time to end our active engagement in the disaster that is Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, approximately 24 hours from now, this House will bring this debate to a conclusion and it will vote. And the vote, based on everything we expect, will be an overwhelming one. It will include people from the left of this House, the right of this House, it will include people from both political parties. It will include people who supported this war and who believed in it 5 years ago, and it will include those who have questioned it from its inception.

And there is a reason for this consensus, Mr. Speaker. There is broad agreement on several things in this House. There is broad agreement that we have been caught in the cross-hairs of a civil war between two sets of radical Islamist fundamentalists, neither of which shares our values.

There is broad agreement in this House that the human and material cost of this effort has gone too high, and there is broad agreement in this House that the moral obligation is not to put 21,000 more soldiers into harm's way; but to do the opposite, to begin the process of pulling our men and women out of this cauldron that is now Iraq.

And there is broad agreement on one other point, Mr. Speaker. It is this: that the President of the United States is wrong to say that it doesn't matter to him what this Congress thinks, or what this country thinks.

I am reminded, Mr. Speaker, I am one of the younger Members of this House, I was in college a little more recently than some of my colleagues.

I had a very esteemed professor back in the 1980s named Richard Newstadt who wrote about the American Presidency for a number of years. And one night he invited all the freshmen in the class to come over and to have a dialogue with him about the future of the Presidency. And a number of us said to him, Mr. Newstadt, what do you fear about the Presidency of the United States? And it is interesting what he said, and it is relevant today. He said, I don't fear that someone corrupt will become President one day. I don't fear that someone incompetent will become President. There are too many guardrails built in the system. The process is too exacting for that to happen. But what I fear, he said, is that one day someone will come in that office who is absolutely convinced he is right about something on which he is absolutely

wrong. And he said this: that if the country is frightened enough, if we are in enough danger, that enough people may think that what is rigid is what is strong.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said that this resolution carries no weight, no legal or moral force. I will tell you the weight that this carries, my friends. Twenty-four hours from now, 65 percent of the Members of this Chamber will send a signal to the American people that we have heard their voices. That is a powerful thing when I think of all the people in this country who sent a clear signal, last November 7, that they were not heard.

And I end with this point. A number of my colleagues in this debate, our adversaries in this debate have said that there is a group in Washington. There is a group of people on the left. Some of you have said there is a group on the other side of the aisle who want to defund, or who don't somehow have the strength, the fiber, to support our troops.

I remind you, my friends, your disagreement is not with the Democratic Caucus. It is not even with the 50 or so in your ranks who will vote for this resolution. It is a disagreement with the 65 percent of this country. It is a disagreement with the people in my very conservative State of Alabama, 60 percent of whom now think this war is wrong and who say to me, Mr. Davis, why on Earth have we taken sides in a battle between radical Islamic fundamentalists? Why is a blood feud between Shiia and Sunni worth the spilling of American blood?

They are the ones you are saying are wrong. They are the ones you are saying lack strength.

So, Mr. Speaker, I simply end by thanking my colleagues who had the good judgment to be right about the futility of this war from the outset, by thanking the colleagues who were wrong 5 years ago and are right today, and by asking one last thing.

The President of the United States, who brags that he has watched none of this debate, if he could only hear just one plea from debate, that he listen to some fact, some evidence, because, Mr. Speaker, this is the problem that we face with this President. No set of facts, no set of truths can tell him that he is wrong. Tomorrow this Chamber will tell him so

Mr. Speaker, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon this debate can sound a bit technical to people, so let me put it in very plain English. We are saving $14 billion in United States taxpayer dollars. That is an important change in values in this institution because the last Congress, when they wanted to save money, here is how they did it. They decided we will save $8 billion by going to young adults in this country and saying, you know what, we are going to change the rate of interest on your student loan and you have got to pay more money every month. They decided at one point they will save $3 billion by saying to working class families who struggle to have health care, you have to pay more premiums now to go to the doctor. That is how they saved money in the old Congress.

A lot of issues at stake today, Mr. Speaker, but this is the most important one. There is now a new set of values that runs this institution. We no longer ask the least of us to sacrifice, because guess where we are getting this $14 billion from? From companies who at their best average around $15 billion a year in profit after their liabilities. That is a much more equitable way to do it. That is, in major measure, why this side of the aisle sits in the Speaker's chair today and not our opposition.

Madam Speaker, we overlooked Gerald Ford's significance when he served as President. His tenure was only slightly longer than a congressional term, a cruel irony for a politician whose political career was so grounded in the by-ways of the House. He was hardly a master politician, if the term refers to the winning of elections or the swift dispatch of opposition: Ford came within an inch of not being re-nominated, and he lost in the general election to the most obscure winner of our times.

This week, as we mourn Ford's passing, his legacy is much clearer: first, he gracefully presided over the aftermath of Richard Nixon's forced removal, and over the culmination of our debacle in Vietnam. Had he gotten either moment wrong, the country might have been ripped into two, bitter competing halves. As we contemplate the mistakes subsequent presidents have made, it is a virtue that Gerald Ford made not a single major error in judgment: he did not blunder into any ill-chosen wars, and as much as an opposition dominated Congress thwarted him, he never resorted to subterfuge in an effort to tip the scales.

Then there is the graceful way Ford practiced politics. The challenge from Ronald Reagan was perilous because even in 1976, Ford was not of a philosophic kin with most Republican primary voters. A less principled president would have demagogued on issues like busing or affirmative action; certainly, he might have abandoned the detente that was a major contributor to taming the Soviet Union. A modern, win-at all cost politician would have savaged an unknown like Jimmy Carter. The fact is that the 1976 election season was at once breathtakingly close and remarkably civil.

Imagine if Gerald Ford's major value, the cultivation of common ground, had dominated the last two fractious decades. Our two major political philosophies would not have been at irreconcilable odds, with both tending to treat each battle as if it were the ultimate one or as if we weren't bound to share a future together. We mourn Gerald Ford's decency and we also mourn the loss of the political character that left the stage when we retired him.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Let me say just one thing at the outset, Mr. Speaker. Prior to the conception of the HOPE VI program, we tended to believe that public housing was a condition that was not alterable, it was not changeable; and, similarly, we believed that it would look pretty much as it did when a public housing unit was conceived.

The signal event that happened when this program was passed in the late 1980s was that, all of a sudden, we recognized that a public housing unit, like any other piece of property in America, can be transformed. It can be made esthetically attractive. It can be made a unit that will attract residents from different income levels. It can be made a place that is not just a shelter, that is not just four walls, but that is a home.

I have to think that that recognition about the capacity to physically change communities has had a carryover impact on the lives of the people who live there.

So put aside all the statistics that we have talked about, put aside the information that we have discussed today about the leveraging of investments and the leveraging of dollars in the communities. This is ultimately about a new stake and a new confidence in places in America that have historically been neglected.

Let me thank a few people. I certainly want to thank the outstanding Chair of this committee, as he leaves the House and moves into the private sector, for being such a consistent voice in support not just of this program but all kinds of other good housing programs for the United States.

Obviously, I want to thank the ranking member for being so diligent on this issue. I want to thank two of my colleagues who are here, Mr. Watt of North Carolina and Ms. Waters of California, who yielded time.

A lot of us support HOPE VI, but what has distinguished Maxine Waters and Mel Watt is that for a period of their whole 14 years in the House they have constantly said, yes, we can make it better, yes, we can fix it, but let us not do away with it. And when the critics and the detractors have questioned this program, the two of them have been enormously vigilant.

Let me certainly thank Mr. Shays for his work, and let me recognize someone whose name has not been called, who is also departing the House, Ms. Harris of Florida.

Twice we have had to bring amendments to the floor of the House to sustain funding for this program. Twice we have had to ask the House to second-guess the administration, to make a dollar commitment to this program. Two years ago, we got 59 Republicans to cross party lines. This year we topped that. We got 64 Republicans to cross party lines. And a lot of that was a function of Ms. Harris' work.

So I want to end on this note. We all agree, or so many of us in this Chamber agree about the value of this program. I hope there are two people in the United States who will take heed of that, the President of the United States and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Because for 4 years now they have given us budgets that would do away with HOPE VI. For 2 years, this House has accurately and correctly second-guessed them and put the money back in. And today this House will make another statement by reauthorizing this program.

This works when the two branches of government that the people select, the executive and the legislative, actually listen to each other. This business works better when the executive branch every now and then takes heed of what we do here.

There are two more budgets, Ms. Waters, that will be issued from the Bush administration before the President takes leave to Crawford. I hope that both of those budgets are much more reflective of Mike Oxley and Chris Shays and Katherine Harris, as well as the numerous people on this side of the aisle who believe in the utility of this program.

So this is an important statement for families who live in these units, and it is a statement of our values as well.

Permission to speak out of turn, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of being the first of a series of Democratic speakers tonight about the budget. And my colleagues will talk in some detail about the deficit and the debt and its consequence on the country.

But, if I can, I want to begin with a memory of a 10-year-old child growing up in Montgomery, Alabama. I remember being 10 years old and listening to a very conservative radio commentator talking about the liberal government in Washington, D.C., spending too much money.

I remember hearing this very skilled radio commentator talk about the fact that amazingly the Government of the United States of America was running a $36 billion deficit, and that it might rise to $100 billion the next year.

And I remember hearing that very conservative radio commentator say: If we do not get our hands on our budget, if we do not figure out a way to restore fiscal discipline, there was no way that we can have a strong and solvent economy.

Well, that radio commentator was named Ronald Reagan. He would be elected to the Presidency 2 years later; would forget a lot of what he said. He ended up running up massive deficits during his own time in office.

I begin with that observation, Mr. Speaker, because for the next, what is it, 51 days between now and November 7, we will hear a lot of talk about which party can be trusted to better manage the money of the American people. We will hear a lot of talk in this 51 days about the danger of Democrats being fiscally reckless and irresponsible, and we will be told that all we will do is we will tax people too much, and we will spend too much.

And I looked in the paper today, Mr. Speaker. The President's approval ratings are rising, we are told, and they are rising for one reason. He has gone from a 70 percent approval rating among Republicans to 86 percent.

And when I read the various political reports that we are regularly favored with in this city, I read the Republican's strategy on November 7 hinges on one factor: bringing home the base. Bringing home those Republicans in Tennessee and Missouri and Ohio who drifted away, getting them to come back and to believe again.

So I want to direct my remarks, if I can, at the Republican base for a minute. I am not a member of it. We have got a lot of conservatives in Alabama, and I think I can speak to them. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, I want them to know a few basic facts.

I want them to know that fiscal conservatism has changed its meaning in this city, and the government in which they put their votes and in which they put so much faith is now running up these massive deficits, and the Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors went before a group of Republican-leaning businessmen last week and said, you know what, it doesn't even matter. Deficits are just things that the statisticians worry about.

I want all of the conservative people who are listening tonight, again, many of whom are in my great State of Alabama, to know that, well, you may be a conservative, I bet you care about the security of your border. One of the reasons we cannot put enough money around enforcing border security is because of these debts and deficits your government is running up.

To all of the conservatives who are listening tonight, you may be a conservative, but I will bet you would love the see the veterans of this country given adequate health care. Well, the government that you value so much, the government to which you have given your votes the last several cycles cannot do it because they cannot afford it.

We had a debate on this floor, Mr. Speaker, just 1 year ago, September of 2005. The subject was whether we were going to provide full funding for health care for Guards and reservists. And our esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle rose in the Chamber and said, we just cannot afford it; it has got to be health care for veterans and reservists, or it has got to be helicopters. We cannot afford to do both. In part, that is because of the debt and the deficits that we have.

I want to say finally to these conservatives, Mr. Speaker, before you go back home so easily, before you go back to your base, understand what your party has become, a conservative party that says the debt does not matter, a conservative party that says that red ink is not important, and a conservative party that cannot find enough money to secure the border or provide benefits for veterans. It is enough to prevent you from going home. It is enough to make you look at an alternative.

Now, my colleagues will talk tonight, Mr. Speaker, about a lot of other lost opportunities. They will talk about the fact that if we could get our fiscal house in order, we could do all kinds of things that we thought we could do just a short time ago. You remember the debates, Mr. Speaker, when there was a $236 billion surplus. Republicans had ideas on what they could do. They talked about middle- class tax cuts instead of upper-end tax cuts. People on my side of the aisle talked about a refurbished commitment to veterans and the health care and education. We cannot debate any of those things right now because of this debt and these deficits.

So I end with that point. The conservatism that is on the ballot on November 7 is a conservatism of missed opportunities. It is a conservatism that has totally changed the notion of what it means to be fiscally responsible. It is a conservatism that is fading and failing for a reason.

I think a lot of people will come home on November 7, Mr. Speaker, but it will not be to a party that used to call itself conservative, it will be to common sense, it will be to a notion of reasonable sacrifice in this country, of shared sacrifice. And that is why I think the ranks will change so much on November 7.

Mr. Chairman, I wish my colleagues from Georgia understood something very fundamental about this Voting Rights Act. It is not a burden on the South. It is not some scourge or tool of oppression against the South. It has been a liberator for people, black and white; and I wish my colleagues from Georgia understood this basic truth that all the children who are here understand today.

There were Barack Obamas in the old South. There were Mel Watts in the old South. There were Bobby Scotts in the old South. There were Jesse Jacksons that lived in the South in the 1930s. But their talent was not allowed to breathe until this act was passed.

It gave all kinds of people of genius and brilliance and talent a chance to be elected to office. That is the legacy that we celebrate here today.

So I urge all of us to join Mr. Sensenbrenner in this bipartisan statement today that the Voting Rights Act belongs to all Americans, black and white, Democratic and Republican, and everyone who believes that merit ought to determine who holds office in this country.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Norwood said some things change in 25 years, and he is right about it. One thing that has not changed in 25 years is that people say one thing and have a different agenda.

We have heard all day that we are opposed to unfunded mandates, and now we want to put a new mandate on the Department of Justice with no new money.

We have heard, when Mr. Westmoreland writes about this topic in the pages of The Hill, that he wants to lift the South from the whims of Federal bureaucrats, and this amendment would empower the bureaucrats of the Department of Justice more than ever.

We heard his remarks, again on this amendment, by saying, I want to save the Voting Rights Act; and then he proposes to save it by making it harder to administer, more subject to judicial challenge, and far more complicated.

It has not changed. People say one thing and have another agenda.

I close by saying the agenda today appears to be to water down this act and strip it of a lot of its power, and that is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in support of your resolution that the House will not get to vote on; and I have to begin by pointing out some of the absurdities put before the House tonight, Mr. Frank.

On one hand, we hear that the terrorists are cunning and brilliant and threaten every liberty that we have. On the other hand, on the next hand, they are too dense to know we are monitoring their bank transactions.

On one hand, we decry, with every piece of passion and indignation we have, the New York Times. We dust off the reputation of the deputy chief of staff who tried to leak classified information to them and put him in charge of the fall campaign strategy.

So I begin with the absurdities, but I end with a more profound point. If you vote for this resolution, you are voting for two simple statements: The first statement is to one newspaper and to one executive branch. This is an admonition by the Congress to prosecute an American newspaper. I do not know that we have done that in all the years that we have been here.

And then there is the second statement to every newspaper in the United States of America and every magazine, to everyone who carries a journalist's pen that the next time you think about piercing the veil of secrecy, be afraid, be very afraid, because the hammer may fall on you.

And I do not trust that, Mr. Frank, for a very simple reason. These checks and balances have swung far too widely in favor of the Executive. The President, I respect all of his power and all of his authority, but he is not the sole arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. And because we haven't performed our oversight role, we have left him with this role of being the arbiter of what is classified, of what is wise, and what is necessary to protect this country.

So I end with this trade-off: We would be very happy to give up some of the freedom of the fourth estate if this branch of government, the legislative, would do its task of oversight. But because we are not doing our task and we see instances of it time after time, yes, we need a fourth estate that is free. We need a fourth estate that is not chilled.

That is the effect, Mr. Oxley. It is the effect of it.