Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the authors of this amendment. The debate here and potentially the outcome confirm a very important point: We do not suffer in this country from a problem of the Presidential usurpation of power. We suffer from congressional dereliction of duty. It is not a case of the President overreaching. It is a case of us ducking and dodging and letting him do all the tough issues.

This amendment is a very simple one. Now, Members have said on the other side, I heard the gentleman from Kansas say, why don't you bring in a bill? Two reasons: First of all, if we brought in a bill, it would never see the light of day. How can a majority party which has specialized in strangling legislation at its birth complain when we don't think that is a good way to debate important issues?

But there is another reason. This is one that can sustain a veto. The Supreme Court has made it very clear: It will not referee disputes between the executive and legislative branches. The only way you can put some restraint on a President who is acting without restraint is by an amendment that says there are limits on what he can do with the money.

Now, we have heard selected quotations from John Jay. Poor old John Jay hasn't been mentioned in years. I am glad his spirit has been invoked. But nobody much cares about John Jay most of the time.

We have had some Supreme Court cases cited. Youngstown Sheet and Tube against Sawyer, which restricted the President in a time of war, was not mentioned.

Let's be very clear: History does not dictate the answer. This calls on every Member of this House to say what kind of Constitution do you want? Do you want one in which the President can have unchecked executive power, not just in time of war, but any time?

We are in what the President now says is a war against terrorism that is unlikely to have an end. So we are not talking about temporary wartime powers. We are talking about what kind of Constitution do you want?

We have a President who has asserted his right to do whatever he thinks necessary to protect the country, including, remember, arresting American citizens and having them incarcerated indefinitely with no chance to present a case. The Supreme Court said, whoa, that goes a little too far. But this is what the President has asserted with regard to FISA.

One gentleman said, well, remember what Griffin Bell said. I will be honest with you, I have found that as a general principle, ignoring Griffin Bell is a good idea. I have always done that in important cases. But what Griffin Bell said or didn't say doesn't tell us.

And this is the question, not what John Jay said or this one said, because you can quote each other to death. What kind of Constitution do you want? Do you want one where the President of the United States without any check can do what he thinks best? Because, by the way, the courts won't be involved here, because they can avoid a court decision by never prosecuting based on this evidence.

So the only potential check here is if we say no. Yes, you can wiretap, as long as you can get a warrant. And getting warrants under FISA is not hard. But we do not like the principle of an unchecked Presidential power.

I will yield to my friend from California if he will begin by answering this question: Conservatives tell me they like to be textual with regard to the Constitution. Would he cite for me, I thought maybe the Constitution got changed while I wasn't looking, so I went and read article II, it took about a minute and a half, it is a pretty small article. I am glad to see the President can get paid. It is right there in the Constitution.

But would he cite for me the text of the Constitution, article II, which empowers the President to do this, even if Congress tells him not to?

I will just add this. With regard to Youngstown Sheet and Tube, as I recall the analysis, it was there are three situations. I will ask for additional time, because I would like to have a colloquy. The President acting alone, the President acting with Congress, and the President acting in contradiction to what Congress has said.

The analysis has always been acting with Congress, the President is at the peak of his powers. Acting alone, it is unclear. Acting in contravention to what Congress has said, he is at his weakest. Here, since we have FISA, this is in contravention to what Congress has told him to do.

So I would now yield to the gentleman. Would he begin just by citing the parts of the Constitution that are relevant, and then, obviously, he is free to say what he wishes.

Please read it. I would ask the gentleman literally to please read it, because I think it doesn't say what he says it says. Please read it.

I would ask, would a page bring me the Constitution while we are talking?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I take back my time. So the gentleman then agrees with this point. There is nothing inappropriate about this amendment. So while he believes the President is within his power to do this, does the gentleman agree that if this amendment is adopted by a majority, the President would be bound by it?

So that if he can find, I thank the gentleman and I appreciate that. I take back my time. The gentleman knows the rules. The gentleman knows the rules. He may not know the Constitution, but he knows the rules. I take back my time just to say, so we understand----

Let us have the common ground. The question here, and I think I will accept this, we are not debating constitutionality here; we are debating what public policy ought to be. The gentleman from California agrees it is appropriate for us to consider it and agrees that, if it passes, the President is bound by it.

Now, I would yield to the gentleman. Are there other places the President can then find this money? Is that what the gentleman is saying? If the President were to be bound by this, would the gentleman suggest the President could then do this anyway in some other fashion? I would yield to him.

We are beyond that. Look, I do not think the Constitution, I will be honest with you, I think people decide and then they pick the----

I just want to say, stop hiding behind varying degrees of constitutional interpretation. By hiding behind them, I mean this: I don't think that people sat and said, oh, geez this is what John Jay told me and this is what I am bound by. I think we are talking here about what we think public policy ought to be. Should the President or should not the President have to get a warrant through FISA? That is the text of this amendment. Let us debate the public policy.

I yield first to the gentleman from Washington.

Let me just say this. Here is the constitutional text that my friend from California invoked, and pretty accurately. Good memory the gentleman has. Article II, section 1: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America, period.

Now, he says that gives him the power. This is circular. Why does the President have the power? Because he has the executive power. But we are precisely here defining for ourselves, as Americans today, what the executive power is and has meant to be. All this says is that he has the executive power. Does the executive power mean he can lock somebody up without a trial as he has said it does? Does the executive power mean he can ignore an act of Congress and wiretap when he wants to? That is the question. Saying that the executive power is vested in him simply is a way of putting the question. The question is, What is the executive power?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I will answer the gentleman's question: because the President and his supporters do not want to concede that there is any limit on his power even if he could get this done through FISA, and that is the----

I ask for an additional minute.

I thank the gentleman.

In my remaining minute, I understand, I will say that my good friend from Pennsylvania I think is probably not distressed that we are talking about something that is not the heart of the bill. But the fact is, I will close by this, we are talking about it here because this is the only enforceable way to put restraints on the President. And I will tell you why I think it is important. Chaplain Yee at Guantanamo, Burton Mayfield in Oregon, Wen Ho Lee under the Clinton administration, there are, sadly, cases of entirely innocent individuals who were prosecuted and gone after.

I don't think the President is ill intended here. And I think the law enforcement people are the good guys; I just don't think they are the perfect guys. So I want to give them power, but I want to subject that to some check beforehand and some process afterwards. And that is what we are

saying here. We are fully in favor of empowering law enforcement, but we do not want them to be exclusive in the exercise of that power. And asking that they go before a judge to justify it when they are going to be wiretapping an American seems to us to be reasonable and to do no harm to America.

And to repeat my answer to the gentleman from California: the opponents of this amendment are the proponents of the view that the President's power should be entirely unchecked, and that is dangerous.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court has made it very clear it will not referee fundamental constitutional debates over power between the executive and legislative branches. Only if you got a case would this get to the Court, and they will dodge and duck and never allow there to be a case. This is the only constitutional way to confront it.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we are further along than we were, but the phrase ``consensus,'' consensus is nice, but nothing in the House rules or the Constitution or the writings of John Jay say that it is a prerequisite for moving legislation.

I would hope that the gentleman would say on an issue that we all agree is important, a bill will come to the floor, the majority will decide, but I do not think those of us not on the committee ought to only get an opportunity to legislate on this if there is a consensus.

Now, if you are telling us do not do it as an amendment to the appropriations bill, Mr. Chairman, because the bill is going to come forward, we need to know that a bill is going to come forward, consensus or not, and then the House can decide what it wants to do.

Mr. Speaker, first let's note what a degradation of democracy is taking place here.

The majority party has put forward a resolution that allows no amendment. There will be a debate in which those of us who think some things are good and some are bad, contrary to every reasonable democratic procedure, will have no opportunity to say so.

Here is the tactic that is being used: they take a number of things that people agree with, they mix in with them things which are quite controversial. They treat them as if they were not separable.

Let me say what I have said again before. The majority party thinks the way to legislate is the way you feed a pill to a dog: you take the unpalatable with the popular.

Now I will have to say this: one of the things we are trying to do is to persuade the people in Iraq to be able to work together and make democracy work. We are trying to persuade, we are told, the Shiia and the Sunni to work together. We are trying to tell the majority Shiia to share power.

Mr. Speaker, how can you and your party believe that we inspire people to share power by giving the example of its monopolization in an abusive fashion?

I just hope that the members of parliament in Iraq who may hear about this will remember a very important point: please do not try this at home.

Now let's get to the substance.

This war in Iraq came after September 11. It was not the response to terrorism the war in Afghanistan was. I am struck in listening to the Members on the other side of the aisle that Afghanistan appears to have too many syllables for them to pronounce. What is in fact happening is that the war in Afghanistan, which was the response to the terrorist attack, which was almost unanimously supported here and by Democrats in the Senate, is in fact not going as well as it should.

One of the prices we are paying for the war in Iraq is the deterioration in Afghanistan. Now, the war in Iraq was launched based on a couple of lies we were told. And I am struck to hear people still defending the arguments about the weapons of mass destruction. It seems my colleagues on the other side have decided to adopt a Marxist idea. The Marx in question, of course, is Chico, and the mantra is: Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? Having been repudiated overwhelmingly by the facts, they stick to the rhetoric.

Here is the price we are paying. We shouldn't have gone in. Of course having gone in, we are victimized by one of the most incompetently administered examples in American national security history. But here is the price we pay: the war in Afghanistan deteriorates our ability to protect ourselves at home. Every time you hear that we can't afford communications, we can't afford more people at the border, we can't afford port security, every time people hear that we can't afford something that would enhance our security at home, understand that it is the war in Iraq that makes it impossible for this Nation to afford it.

If we did not have these hundreds of billions being drained there, we could take care of the agenda.

Finally, it constrains us elsewhere in the world. It has led to an increase in anti-Americanism which I deplore, with which I disagree, but it is a fact.

Our ability to deal with the potential Iranian nuclear weaponry is constrained by the fact that we are in Iraq. In fact, the Iranians have been among the major beneficiaries of what we have done in Iraq.

So you went into a war on the basis of two lies. You have handled it incompetently. We are now at the point, well, does that mean you pull out? And here is the point. You tell us on the one hand that there is great success. We have built a government, et cetera, et cetera. But also, you tell us simultaneously that if we withdrew American troops the house of cards falls. Well, which is it? Have you built a successful entity in Iraq? If you have, why can't we pull out? Why can't 28 million people in Iraq, with a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis under arms deal with 15 or 18,000 terrorists?

The fact is that this is a failed policy that gets worse every day.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and at the conclusion of my remarks I will yield control of the time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. Chairman, this is the antidisplacement amendment. It is a substantive amendment to current law included in the appropriations bill. Under current law when units are destroyed, made no longer fit for occupation, for habitation, which have had a section 8 voucher inhabitant, the section 8 voucher stays on and can be transferred to another unit as a matter of right.

This bill adds two words, purely substantive. It is not a financial issue. It adds the words ``under lease,'' which means a unit which had been occupied by a section 8 tenant, if it becomes occupied and 2 days later is then subject for demolition, that section 8 voucher is lost to that community.

What we have is this. Communities are dealing with the issue of an overconcentration, in some cases, of low-income people. We all pay at least lip service to the notion of at least genuine integration in our society: racial, economic and in other ways. We have programs that try to promote this, and they often mean let's destroy some of the units that have been too densely packed together for lowest income people and spread them out.

What the addition of the words by the Appropriations Committee does, and it didn't go through the authorizing committee, is to say to a community, when you engage in this process of better distributing and better integrating people, you may lose some of your overall capacity to serve people. That is a terrible choice to put to people. You should not tell a community because you do not want such concentration, you will then be able to accommodate fewer low-income people. That is part of our problem.

You know, there was a time, Mr. Chairman, when urban renewal was known in the black community as Negro removal, because what it meant was you tore down the buildings where all the low-income people lived and you built no replacements.

We now have a policy that say yes, tear down some of them, thin them out, reconfigure them, make them more habitable, but don't have that result in an overall loss of those units which are available for low- income people.

The addition of those two words, ``under lease,'' means more than already is the case; because we have not achieved perfection and the achievement is ideal, we will lose some of the units in communities that decide to deconcentrate poverty and race, will have to pay the price to some extent of having fewer section 8 units available

than before. I think that is a very grave error.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) to control that time.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who doubts the wisdom of the constitutional requirement that important officials be confirmed by the Senate before taking up their jobs should ponder the disastrous example of John Bolton, whom the Senate declined to confirm as Ambassador to the U.N., and who received a recess appointment from President Bush. His tenure has been disastrous, leading to a diminution of American influence and a failure to accomplish legitimate American goals.

Like many other Americans, I greatly regretted the fact that Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown recently gave a speech strongly critical of America's role regarding the U.N., but my regret was aimed not at Mr. Brown for giving the speech, but at the Bush administration, and specifically Ambassador Bolton, for actions that led to the speech. As a Member of Congress, I am troubled by the fact that I have to agree with the substance of a speech so sharply critical of our Government, but I believe that Mr. Brown did us a service in speaking out, because it may alert my colleagues in Congress and the American people in general of the need to press for a change in the disastrous policies that Ambassador Bolton pursues in the President's name.

In the Washington Post on Monday, June 12, Sebastian Mallaby wrote a thoughtful and persuasive piece about the Bolton record. Because the current situation regarding our representation of the U.N. does so much damage to legitimate American interests, Sebastian Mallaby's column is particularly welcome and I hope will be strongly considered by President Bush, Secretary Rice, and other policy makers in this administration. It is also very important for those of us in Congress to understand his points and I ask that his column be printed here.

[From the Washington Post, June 12, 2006]

At the U.N., Bluster Backfires

(By Sebastian Mallaby)

Last month President Bush issued a rare apology. ``Saying

`Bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the

wrong signal,'' he confessed. ``I think in certain parts of

the world it was misinterpreted.''

Well done, Mr. President, you've understood that bluster

can backfire. Now how about sharing this insight with your

ambassador to the United Nations?

John R. Bolton, the ambassador in question, has a rich

history of losing friends and failing to influence people. He

was notorious, even before arriving at the United Nations

last year, for having said that 10 stories of the U.N.

headquarters could be demolished without much loss; he had

described the United States as the sun around which lesser

nations rotate--mere ``asteroids,'' he'd branded them.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Senate refused to confirm

Bolton as U.N. ambassador. ``Arrogant,'' ``bullying,'' and

``the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps

should not be,'' Sen. George Voinovich called him.

Bush sent Bolton anyway, bypassing the Senate by appointing

him during a congressional recess. It soon turned out that

dismissing foreign ambassadors as asteroid dwellers was

merely a warm-up. As soon as Bolton got to New York, he blew

up the preparatory negotiations for a gathering of heads of

state, insisting that the other 190 members of the world body

immediately agree to hundreds of changes in the summit

document.

If Bolton had picked a fight on a worthwhile issue, this

might have been justified. But one of the chief aims of his

edits was to eliminate all mention of the anti-poverty

Millennium Development Goals, even though these targets for

reducing child mortality and so on are inoffensive. After a

week of Bolton-induced bureaucratic battles, Secretary of

State Condoleezza Rice weighed in, explaining that the

administration actually had nothing against the development

goals. When the summit convened, Bush himself had to declare

during his speech that he supported the targets that his

ambassador had repudiated.

Bolton's next triumph was to demand U.N. reform, or rather

to pretend to do so. An effort to create a credible human

rights council was underway, but Bolton skipped nearly all of

the 30 or so negotiating sessions. Then, when the negotiators

produced a blueprint for the new council, Bolton declared it

unacceptable, leaving furious American allies to wonder why

he hadn't weighed in earlier to secure a better outcome.

``The job now is to get clarity on what the U.S. wants,'' the

British ambassador said icily. But what Bolton really wanted

was quite clear: to allow the negotiations to falter and then

to condemn whatever they produced, throwing red meat to his

U.N.-hating allies on the right of the Republican Party.

Next, Bolton blundered into U.N. management reform, an

issue that may soon precipitate a crisis. The top U.N.

officials, led by Secretary General Kofi Annan, had laid out

a menu of radical changes, designed to eliminate useless

conferences and reports and to move staff to departments that

most needed them. Bolton added his own brand of bluster to

this plan: If poor countries carried on resisting management

reforms, rich countries would stop paying for the

organization. The deadline for agreeing on reform is the end

of this month, but no breakthrough is in sight. Officials are

wondering what to do if U.N. checks start bouncing.

Not many reformers at the United Nations believe that the

budget threat achieved anything. To the contrary, Bolton has

so poisoned the atmosphere that the cause of management

renewal is viewed by many developing countries as an American

plot. And if Bolton carries through on his threat to cut off

money for the United Nations, the United States will be more

isolated than ever. Refusing to fund U.N. officials who are

planning for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur is not a

winning strategy.

Last week the U.N. deputy secretary general, a pro-American

Briton named Mark Malloch Brown, went public with his Bolton

frustrations. He pointed out that the United Nations serves

many American objectives, from deploying peacekeepers to

helping with Iraq's elections. Given this cooperation, the

powers that be in Washington should stick up for the United

Nations rather than threatening to blow it up. They should

not be passive in the face of ``unchecked U.N.-bashing and

stereotyping.''

This merely stated the obvious. If you doubt that U.N.-

bashing and stereotyping goes on, ask yourself what gallery

Bolton is playing to--or check out the latest cover of the

National Rifle Association magazine, which features a wolf

with U.N. logos in its eyeballs. But Malloch Brown's speech

didn't seem obvious to Bolton. ``This is the worst mistake by

a senior U.N. official that I have seen,'' he thundered in

response. ``Even though the target of the speech was the

United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United

Nations.''

Which would suit Bolton and his allies perfectly. But it

should not suit Bush, at least not now that he's grasped that

bluster can backfire. Arriving at the U.N. summit last

September, a different Bush greeted the secretary general and

gestured at Bolton; ``has the place blown up since he's been

here?'' he demanded, teasingly. Well, it's now time for the

new Bush to acknowledge that Bolton's tactics aren't funny.

The United States needs an ambassador who can work with the

United Nations. Right now, it doesn't have one.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership. She has been a consistent leader in helping cities' economic development. I want to point out this seems to me a particularly odd thing to do. Cities which use this are not getting additional funding. They pay it back.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding.

I was hoping to be able to offer an amendment, but we ran into a CBO scoring problem and I was told that therefore it would not be supported. I deeply regret this.

There is in this bill a very good set of provisions in general, expanding the ability of the FHA to be responsive. It came from work we did in the authorizing committee. Frankly, I was surprised to see it plucked in part from the authorizing version and stuck into this bill. It is authorizing language. On the whole it is a good thing. The Appropriations Committee took from the authorizing committee much of what we did, but they did not take everything. Now, they are entitled, obviously, to pick and choose, but there is one grave omission here. One of the things this bill will do will be to give the FHA the authority the ability to extend loans to people who might be of lower credit risk. That is, it will try to help get to people who might not have been able to get loans by stricter standards. That is a good thing. And it says that those people will have to pay a higher upfront fee. It could be as much as double, from 1.5 percent to 3 percent of the loan, and they will also be forced to pay a higher fee going forward. With people who are just starting out, I will accept the need to do that.

What my amendment would have accomplished, and it was something we were ready to do in the authorizing process and we lost the ability to do that, it was to say that a low income borrower, a borrower with some credit

risk, who was meeting his or her obligations after a period of 5 years would be eligible to get back the extra money. In other words, without that provision the Federal Government is going to be something of a predatory lender. It will lend money to the lower income people with the higher credit risk and charge them more for that loan. Now, as a starting point that might be a reasonable idea. But once a borrower in that category, having borrowed the money, has demonstrated over 5 years a capacity and willingness to make the payments, why does the Federal Government continue to penalize that person?

People have said, well, there might be some losses here. If there are losses, why should the responsible low income borrower be forced to bear all that cost? Why should that not be shared among all the borrowers? Why should the cost of paying for those loans that may default, a small percentage but there will still be some, why should that not go for everybody?

So right now if you are getting the maximum FHA loan, it is irrelevant to you if these people default. We are making the poor pay for the poor. You are making in this a predatory lender of the Federal Government. Without the amendment that I was told would not be accepted, so I will not push it here, low income people who borrow money from the FHA will be charged more upfront, they will be charged more going forward, and no matter how well they meet their obligations, no matter how responsible they are, they will continue to pay more for the loan. The poor pay more under this bill. And what the CBO said as well, there is a certain element of subsidy here for the low income borrowers, and this would increase the subsidy. That is right, for the low income borrowers.

I do think it is worth to trying to reach out to the lower income people, and I understand this means that some will default, but I do not understand why one low income individual or 10 or 20 low income individuals who meet their obligation ought to be the ones who bear the burden for those who do not. Now, as I said, I understand, because CBO said it was going to score it negatively, I was not going to be able to get it adopted. But I hope, to the committee, that this will not be the end of it.

Please, we are talking, Mr. Chairman, about ending predatory lending. Without the language I was talking about, we, the Federal Government, become an entity that charges you more if you are poor than if you are wealthy, that charges you more if you are in the low income bracket because you are asked to shoulder the burden of people in the same bracket who will default. That is unworthy of us. It also, of course, retards the very purpose of the bill because you say you want to expand home ownership by reaching out to people and then you charge them more because they have to pay not only the price of their own home but they are going to be saddled with the price of other people in their income level and their credit rating level who default.

That is an inappropriate thing for the Federal Government to do. And while I accept the fact that I cannot get this accepted now, I hope we can talk about this.

By the way, the overall bill will raise money for the Federal Government. This would simply reduce it by a small amount. That is the least we can do for low income people.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, like my colleague from New York, I am glad we are getting something additional. This is symptomatic of this bill. It will provide too little money for a lot of very important programs.

And we will be told, yes, it is a good program, but we do not have the money. I believe the members of the subcommittee did the best possible job. I commend them for doing the best possible job in the circumstances.

The problem is that the majority created the circumstances. This is the consequence of too many tax cuts with wars at the same time, and a budget that then leaves too little money. So in case after case after case, we will be told, you are right, that is a very important function, we do not have enough money.

This particularly troubles me because I would like to build the consensus in the country for the kind of vigorous law enforcement that we need to protect ourselves in the face of this new threat.

When the oversight board on civil liberties and privacy that the 9/11 Commission recommended is starved for money, you lose the opportunity to achieve that balance that would increase support for law enforcement.

And while no one says it is a bad idea, except maybe the Vice President, but he did not say that openly, I just guessed, no one says that it is doing a bad job. There is too little money left because the priorities are tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and then everything else gets stiffed.

And this is an example of a very good program. The committee did the best it could, and the amendment of the gentleman from Connecticut makes a bad situation somewhat better. I am glad that it is here, but we are in this situation because this is an example of the price the country is paying for a very distorted set of priorities.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman, who has been a leader in this fight.

Madam Speaker, I disagree with the bipartisan House leadership criticism of the FBI's search of a Member's office. I know nothing specifically about the case, except that the uncontroverted public evidence did seem to justify the issuance of a warrant.

What we now have is a Congressional leadership, the Republican part of which has said it is okay for law enforcement to engage in warrantless searches of the average citizen, now objecting when a search, pursuant to a validly issued warrant, is conducted of a Member of Congress.

I understand that the speech and debate clause is in the Constitution. It is there because Queen Elizabeth I and King James I were disrespectful of Parliament. It ought to be, in my judgment, construed narrowly. It should not be in any way interpreted as meaning that we as Members of Congress have legal protections superior to those of the average citizen.

So I think it was a grave error to have criticized the FBI. I think what they did, they ought to be able to do in every case where they can get a warrant from a judge. I think, in particular, for the leadership of this House, which has stood idly by while this administration has ignored the rights of citizens, to then say we have special rights as Members of Congress is wholly inappropriate.

Mr. Chairman, I am here to confess my reading incomprehension. I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one. Now, it violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered.

So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture. Now, it may be written in high German, and that may be why I have not been able to discern it, but there is no greater contrast in America today than between the free enterprise rhetoric of so many conservatives and the statist, subsidized, inflationary, protectionist, anti-consumer agricultural policies, and this is one of them.

In particular, I have listened to people, and some of us have said let us protect workers and the environment in trade; let us not have unrestricted free trade; but let us have trade that respects worker rights and environmental rights. And we have been excoriated for our lack of concern for poor countries.

There is no greater obstacle, as it is now clear in the Doha round, to the completion of a comprehensive trade policy than the American agricultural policy, with one exception, European agricultural policy, which is much worse and just as phony.

Sugar is an example. This program is an interference with the legitimate efforts at economic self-help in many foreign nations.

So I appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Arizona and the gentleman from Oregon. Here is a chance for some of my free-enterprise- professing friends to get honest with themselves, and now maybe we will see some born-again free enterprisers in the agricultural field.

I thank the ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, first the criticism of the procedure. This is a difficult and complex bill. It has no business being before us under suspension of the rules. It ought to be subject to amendment and unrestricted debate. It's not like we didn't have enough time.

And to show our commitment to democracy by muffling it here serves no good purpose. But we do have the bill before us. I plan to vote for it after some conversation in which I hope I can be joined by the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, let me explain my basic reason. We were told when Hamas won that election, tragically, when the majority of the people of Israel were ready to make significant concessions, had already begun to do that, an historic moment when Israel was ready to make significant concessions for peace, they were totally repudiated. We were told, well, don't overinterpret that election, because the victory of Hamas, which in percentage terms wasn't as great as in the Parliament for a variety of reasons, but we were told that victory for Hamas was not simply from people who agreed with their rejectionist, hateful philosophy; but it was probably because they were so much better than Fatah at delivering services.

To some extent, we got the explanation, frankly, for congressional earmarks. Why do Members here like to earmark? Because they can go deliver the goods to people back home and then get votes from people who don't agree with them. That is, we all know, why we have earmarks.

Well, I don't want Hamas getting any more earmarks. I don't want to contribute to a situation where Hamas can deliver the goods because they are well funded, and then can convert the good will they earned with that money into votes for rejection.

That is why I fully support a strict refusal to fund Hamas. And people say, well, you will be punishing the Palestinian people. I have heard the argument before. There are a lot of differences, but there is one common thing.

When this House helped override the veto of Ronald Reagan against sanctions against the hateful, racist regime of South Africa, we were told by many that we would be hurting the people of South Africa, and that was true. The average South African, the average black South African who was victimized by apartheid was, in the short term, victimized by sanctions. And we did not apply sanctions only against the racists who ran the government; we applied sanctions against the whole country.

It is sometimes the case that appropriate public policy will have short-term negative effects. But here is our problem, as I say. We have been told that Hamas won that election in part because of its skill at delivering goods and services. That means if you support peace, it is very much in your interest not to aid Hamas's ability to deliver goods and services.

So I fully support the part of the bill that says, no aid for Hamas. I have to say to some of my friends, I do also want to warn the President, as some of my liberal friends have come here to defend his right for flexibility in the foreign policy, please be warned that that is a very temporary alliance.

Mr. President, please don't assume that your allies here arguing for your flexibility will last much longer than tonight. But I also am very skeptical of those who say, well, let's give the money so they can have better schools. Let's give the money so they can learn reconciliation, et cetera. No, I don't think a Hamas government is going to allow that. So I am very much in favor of this bill insofar as it says, no, we will not contribute to the further political growth of Hamas. I want that government to fail and fall. And that does mean, as it did with sanctions in South Africa, some short-term pain, although this bill, more than it has been described by its opponents, does allow for humanitarian aid.

Let me say for those of my liberal friends who mourn for the President's flexibility: Don't you know that whenever we grant waivers, no matter how complicated the process, they are waived? There is nothing about a requirement of a Presidential waiver that ever stops the President from doing what he has done. The President can certify that Abbas was pregnant if he had to to get the bill through, and he would do it. The history of waivers is they have been no obstacle to what policy is.

But here is my problem, and I would ask the gentleman from California to respond in this way, I agree that we shouldn't aid Hamas. But this bill says we should only aid any entity if it becomes democratic or has taken steps to become democratic and to become transparent. Now, I am all for democracy and transparency, although their immediate benefit is a little unclear in the Middle East right now. But I believe that if there were a strict interpretation of this criteria, we could not have helped the Camp David Peace Agreement with Egypt which was neither democratic nor transparent, nor is Jordan, nor was the PLO and the PLA before Hamas.

Let me put it this way: If Abbas' team had won instead of Hamas, I believe there might have been an argument that they don't meet the criteria. So I would ask the gentleman from California, how strictly are we going to interpret these criteria? Can he give me some assurance that these criteria will not be so strictly interpreted that you would make it impossible to deal with the very imperfect regimes that we are going to have to deal with?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I thank the gentleman. Reclaiming my time, I hope as this process goes forward in the less restricted other body that we can clarify that and sharpen it. I will say that with regard to the international financial institutions over which the committee on which I serve has jurisdiction, we struck from the bill the requirement of democracy as a prerequisite for peace in the Middle East.

Let me also note, by the way, I was struck, the gentleman from Virginia lamented the inclusion in the provision in this bill which some of the opponents have denied existed. It is kind of an odd thing. The poor provision is attacked by people who don't like it and denied by people who do. That is the provision allowing aid to the president of the Authority. The bill does provide that the aid can go to President Abbas to make peace, not just for his personal security.

So I disagree with the gentleman from Virginia. It is that amendment and some of the other amendments that we have had in there. So I will be voting for the bill at this point in the spirit the gentleman from California has mentioned, namely that, yes, we say ``no'' to Hamas because we have no interest in funding Hamas so it becomes more politically popular in support of its rejectionism. But we do not interpret this bill as being an obstacle to negotiations of the sort that we have with Egypt, with Jordan, with

Arafat, certainly no winner of the civil liberties award from anybody.

With that assurance of the gentleman and the hope that we can refine this as it goes forward, I will vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, since congressional districts were realigned in Massachusetts in 1992, I have had the honor of representing a large number of Americans who trace their ancestry to the Republic of Cape Verde. As with other Americans who trace their ancestry to other nations, the Cape Verdean Americans who live in my district are very proud of their ancestral homeland, and are very much interested in my working to preserve good relations between our two countries. In the case of Cape Verde, that is very easy. The Republic of Cape Verde from the day of its independence has maintained a degree of democracy, respect for individual freedom, and respect for human rights that is very impressive. In the nature of things, people tend to hear bad news about other continents, countries or regions. But while it is important for us to give attention to those places where correction is needed, we should not by silence about successes let people think that there are none. I recently had the chance to read a very impressive study by Dr. Bruce Baker and Professor Roy May of Coventry University in the United Kingdom, entitled Cape Verde: The Most Democratic Nation In Africa?

In the acknowledgment to their report, the authors answer this question in the affirmative--We believe that the country fully lives up to the title of the most democratic nation in Africa.

Sensible space limitations prevent me from asking that their entire article be printed here. I do note that it will soon be appearing in a leading academic journal on African affairs. But given the importance of refuting the notion that democracy is somehow unsuited to African countries, a justification occasionally put forward by defenders of autocracy, I do want to quote some important passages here from their article:

One of the most striking indicators of Cape Verde's democratic maturity has been the ease by which power has been transferred, with defeated governments and their supporters accepting the electorate's verdict. Since the country's 1991 transition to multiparty democracy, Cape Verdeans have changed their government three times.

Deputies from both main parties believe the National Assembly to be effective in adversarial debate. Civil and political rights are enshrined in the constitution and widely respected in practice. The judiciary is regarded as independent and therefore free of political bias.

Mr. Speaker, the authors acknowledge that democracy of Cape Verde, as is true everywhere else, is not perfect, but they stress that there is an overall democratic atmosphere in Cape Verde in which those lapses can be pursued by people interested in improving the situation without fear of repression or retaliation.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to call attention to the thriving democracy in the Republic of Cape Verde both because it deserves attention in itself, and is a counter to those who argue that somehow democracy and respect for basic human rights is a western doctrine that cannot travel to other parts of the world.

Mr. Speaker, the Cape Verdean Americans whom I represent are very proud of their homeland, as they should be. It is entirely appropriate that the Bush Administration recognized the flourishing democracy of Cape Verde, among other aspects of that nation's governance, by making it one of the first recipients of funds under the new Millennium Challenge foreign aid program.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to observe a surrender. Once again, our moderate Republican colleagues will hand over their tin swords to the Republican leadership. They are very predictable, and they are my friends, and it is nice to have predictable friends. On every important issue, the moderate Republicans have an unfailing three-step approach to the issue: ineffectual protests, abject surrender, and denial.

Now, they told us for a long time that this budget did not have enough funding for important domestic programs. Indeed, as part of this rule, we have what is called a self-executing rule, which adopts a resolution to mollify the consciences of the Republican moderates. Those are easily mollified.

My colleague from Massachusetts said the gentleman from Florida said facts are stubborn things. Facts are very different from the moderate Republicans. They are the very opposite of stubborn things. They are among the most pliable thing known to man or woman.

So they have a resolution which says, in the summary, it recognizes the need to increase the President's Labor-HHS appropriation by not less than $7 billion. It recognizes it. It does not do it. It just recognizes it, and on the basis of being able to recognize what they claim is a defect, they are going to vote for this, and that is the deal that is made. Now, I would have liked to have debated their resolution, but it is self-executing.

People watching, I know we are not supposed to refer to them, but we do not address them directly, but we can explain things to them. It gets a little complicated. People might wonder what do we mean by a self-executing resolution. In this case, it allows the moderate Republicans to execute their own moral principles. That is what is self-executing. It allows them to come forward and say, we wish we had more money for poor people, and we have a resolution that says there is not enough money for poor people, and we will vote for that budget that does not have enough money for poor people because we said it does not have enough money. On that, some people consider themselves to have shown independence.

If that was the spirit of independence that motivated this country 250 years ago, that would be the British flag up there and the representative of the Crown. So I hope we defeat this sham, and maybe the moderate Republicans will grow some spines.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, well, I will say this. I would say enough would be what the moderate Republicans said, $7 billion more for Labor-HHS. The problem is that they said that was enough, but it is not there. So I would be satisfied if my moderate Republican friends simply lived up to their own declaration.

Mr. Speaker, again, I was simply quoting the moderate Republicans, for one thing.

Secondly, that claim for responsibility and this assumption that they would get the job done would be more impressive if we thought that they in the Senate were going to agree to something.

So, in fact, we had a problem earlier this year where bills passed in somewhat different form in the House and the Senate were signed into law despite the Constitution, and we now know why, because whether it is lobbying and ethics reform or the budget or immigration, the Republican House and the Republican Senate cannot get together.

I will have to say to the gentleman from Florida that beating of your chest and talking about how responsive you are as to beat the moderates into submission would be more impressive if I thought you had any chance of getting an actual budget signed by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most effective advocates for housing for people of moderate and low income to have served recently in our federal government is Nicolas P. Retsinas. Mr. Retsinas now directs the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, and he recently published an extremely important and cogent article in the Boston Globe, on May 5. One of the great mistakes that is made by people who talk about housing policy is to talk as if we are concerned only with promoting homeownership. Homeownership is a very important thing, and increasing the number of people who enjoy it is a desirable goal. But it is also the case that tens of millions of Americans for a variety of reasons, primarily economic, are unlikely ever to be homeowners, and if we do not pay attention to the need for a good stock of affordable rental housing, we will be condemning large numbers of our fellow citizens to substandard lives in many ways. Under the current Administration, as Mr. Retsinas points out, Federal policy badly neglects the needs of those who must rent.

It is true that a bias in public policy against renters unfortunately predates the Bush Administration, but it is this Administration that has greatly exacerbated it by its assault on the various programs by which we provide rental housing at affordable levels for moderate and low-income people. Using his literary device of talking of ``Owner- World,'' and ``Renter-World,'' Mr. Retsinas notes that, ``Today parts of Renter-World constitute a desperation sector of America. Poor people, crammed into too-small apartments, struggle to pay for food, rent, transportation, and medical care.''

Mr. Speaker, given Mr. Retsinas' experience in administering housing problems, his great scholarly expertise in this subject, and most of all his compassion and understanding of the needs for rental housing as part of a comprehensive national housing policy, I ask that his important article from the May 5 Boston Globe be printed here.

[From the BOSTON GLOBE, May 5, 2006]

The Endangered Land of Renter-World

(By Nicholas P. Retsinas)

Welcome to Renter-World, home to more than 34 million

households. Renter-World denizens, aka tenants, comprise all

ages. Eighty percent of all twentysomething households rent;

so do 4 million senior households. Tenants come in all

socioeconomic strata: Twenty percent of renters earn more

than $60,000 a year; another 20 percent earn less than

$10,000.

Yet a myopic Uncle Sam barely sees Renter-World.

Instead, Uncle Sam focuses on Owner-World. Owner-World

captures the federal tax breaks: The homeownership tax

deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes top $100

billion a year and are rising rapidly.

Owner-World also captures the federal attention: For almost

100 years, starting with a 1918 Department of Labor campaign

and continuing through Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal,

Bill Clinton's National Homeownership Partnership, and George

Bush's Ownership Society, the federal government has been

promoting homeownership. Today 69 percent of households own a

home--an all-time high.

From Uncle Sam's vantage, that statistic marks success.

Homeownership is the American ``dream;'' the crucial first

step on a family's pathway to the middle class. A homeowner

amasses equity, so that one day he can own a piece of

America. That vested interest spurs involvement in schools,

in neighborhoods, in political life. Just as important, the

home gives the owner a financial cushion. Even if owners do

not reap the windfall of a superheated market, the home can

still be a hedge against inflation.

Indeed, we are a nation of immigrants who have marked the

exodus with a series of papers: green cards, citizenship, and

mortgages. The ``American dream'' may be a three-bedroom Cape

on a tiny lot, but immigrants have come here for that dream.

So Uncle Sam's myopia is understandable. He expects renters

to move on--to become owners. That is what they too expect.

Renter-World, however, is in trouble.

Even though we are building new rental units, we are not

adding to the net ``affordable'' (a euphemism for cheap)

units. That supply is shrinking. Between 1993 and 2003, we

lost 2 million low-rent units from the rental inventory. At

the same time, rents are rising, especially for newly

constructed units.

Consider the plight of the lowest income renters: 70

percent pay-more than half of their income for housing. The

National Low Income Coalition could not find one county

in the United States where a minimum wage worker, paying 30

percent of his or her income for housing, could afford a one-

bedroom apartment.

As for the government rent subsidies aimed at alleviating the hardship of low-income tenants, those too have shrunk.

The war on terror and the war in Iraq have pushed them off

the agenda.

Today parts of Renter-World constitute a desperation sector

of America. Poor people, crammed into too-small apartments,

struggle to pay for food, rent, transportation, and medical

care.

To paraphrase Linda Loman, lamenting the plight of her

husband, Willy, in ``Death of a Salesman'': ``Attention must

be paid'' to these renters.

The reason is pragmatic.

In the past, Renter-World has been a gateway to Owner-

World. Low-income workers, renting for a few years, have

saved up enough for the downpayment on a house, and, with

scrimping, have kept up with mortgage payments. But today's

renters cannot so easily make that leap. The Big Box shelver,

married to the fast food waitress, may want the American

dream. They may have left family thousands of miles away to

seize the dream. But without some housing relief, they will

never leave Renter-World.

And the promise of America, the dream for millions of

Americans, is to leave Renter-World. That first mortgage--

often the first mortgage for a family--constitutes step one

in the economic mobility we value. High rents trap families,

anchoring them on the bottom rung of the ladder that we want

them to climb.

For the sake of the renters, and of the nation as a whole,

Uncle Sam must pay attention to Renter-World.

Mr. Speaker, it is an important duty of all of us who serve here to pay respect, to express our gratitude, to join in the sorrow of those and their families who are serving this Nation in a time of war. I have tried very hard to do that whenever the occasion occurred. I have attended funerals of young men who were killed, and in one case a man not so young.

I was pleased on Saturday to attend a welcoming home ceremony for one young man who returned. I attended a ceremony to see off a group of Guardsmen.

The merits of the war are irrelevant when it comes to honoring and expressing our gratitude to those who have served.

Having said that, I want to say that I deeply regretted that yesterday, Tuesday rather, I felt called upon to vote against a bill that was presented here under the suspension of the rules which allowed for no serious debate and zero chance of amendment, a bill which in part protected veterans' funerals from the disruption that they have encountered. And it is true that a particularly contemptible group of bigots are harassing people at some funerals. And we have every right and under the Constitution the power to stop it.

Sadly, a badly overdrafted bill was brought forth with no chance for us to amend it. And I do not think we honor our veterans by failing to honor our Constitution. So I had to vote against the bill. Part of the bill, if it had been in part, if we could have amended it down, I would have proudly supported, the part that would have said you cannot have a demonstration in which any individual is willfully making or assisting in the making of any noise that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of the funeral, memorial service or ceremony on a military cemetery. But the bill went before that.

The bill says that for 60 minutes before a funeral and 60 minutes after, within 500 feet of the cemetery, you can't hold up a sign that might be offensive to people. You can't picket. It doesn't just say noise. It says diversion, and it defines it, any picketing, the display of any placard, banner, flag or similar device.

When we had an outrageous effort to intimidate a Danish newspaper because they exercised the right of free press and published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which many Muslims found offensive, some people, apologists for this outrageous behavior against the newspaper, said, well, you know it is free speech. But free speech has to be respectful. Free speech has to be within limits.

No, it does not. Free speech is not respectful speech. Indeed, the American Constitution, the principle of free speech precisely protects the right of despicable people to be obnoxious. If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in free speech.

In fact, the particular group of vicious people who have been disrupting the funerals have as their major goal getting rid of people like me, gay men and lesbians. They particularly hate us. But I will not allow their bigotry against me and the reaction against that to be used to reduce the protections of our Constitution.

The parts of this bill that say that if you try to disrupt a funeral you are going to be prevented, they are fine. But telling people that 60 minutes before or after a funeral, within 500 feet of a national cemetery, they can't picket or hold up a banner, that is not free speech. That is not what we fight for.

I have defended previously the right of the Nazis to march in Skokie, to the great horror of victims of the Holocaust, or survivors of the Holocaust.

I told the Muslims who tried to coerce the Danish press that no matter how offensive they found that cartoon, freedom of expression meant that no government should stop you from being offensive.

Disrupting a funeral, of course you should not do that. We should not allow ourselves, through restrictive legislative procedures, to act against an admitted evil, the disruption of those ceremonies, in ways that could undermine the Constitution.

So I hope this will come back from the Senate in a form I can vote for. I would have voted for part of this bill; but I cannot, no matter how despicable the bigots who are defaming this Nation and disrupting cemeteries, I will not allow their behavior to be used as an excuse for undermining the right of other people in other places to hold signs. People holding signs within 200 feet of a cemetery, a half hour after a funeral that some people find offensive, that is free speech. And the way to counter that is to counter that. So I regret very much, in fact, Mr. Speaker, and I don't mean to look for sympathy here. I had an operation here last week. I had a stent, and I was supposed to return early Tuesday to have the stent removed. I delayed my return because I wanted to attend this funeral of the young man who was killed. Obviously, the discomfort of my stent was nothing to what people face who are in Iraq. But I simply want to testify that I will do everything I can to continue to honor these people, but that does not require us to demean the first amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, the recent death of John Kenneth Galbraith brought to a close one of the truly great careers in both the intellectual and political history of our country. As an economist, as a teacher, as a writer, as a creative public official, and drawing on all of these and more, as a tough-minded and effective activist for social justice, John Kenneth Galbraith made enormous contributions to the quality of life in America.

Appropriately, he was memorialized in the Washington Post recently by one of his most important comrades in arms, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who shared with Ken Galbraith not just a friendship, but the effective pursuit of the roles I have just described, substituting of course Arthur Schlesinger's historical work for Ken Galbraith's economic contributions.

Drawing on their collaboration on so many issues over more than 60 years, Arthur Schlesinger concisely and deftly reminds us in his essay of what citizenship in a democracy is at its best. I ask that this article be printed here.

J.K. Galbraith's Towering Spirit

(By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.)

Edmund Burke once made a famous prediction. ``The age of

chivalry is gone. That of sophists, economists and

calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is

extinguished forever.'' Some years later Thomas Carlyle

disdained economists as professors ``of the dismal science.''

The profession has indeed done little since to disprove

Carlyle and to refute Burke. But neither Burke nor Carlyle

foresaw John Kenneth Galbraith.

In the first place, Galbraith was the tallest economist in

the world. That reinforced the boldness with which he

confronted the establishment and its ``conventional wisdom.''

Salvation, Galbraith argued, lies in the subversion of the

conventional wisdom by the gradual encroachment of

disquieting thought. ``The emancipation of belief,'' he

writes, ``is the most formidable of the tasks of reform, the

one on which all else depends.'' He was the republic's most

valuable subversive.

His skills were not confined to economics. He was a

diplomat, politician, bureaucrat, satirist, novelist,

journalist, art collector, and man of the world and wit, and

he took disarming delight in each role. I met him as a

Washington bureaucrat during World War II. We discovered that

both of us were born on Oct. 15, 9 years apart, and we became

grown men who were, in height, 13 inches apart. The

convergence of thought--I do not remember a disagreement--is

the only compelling argument for astrology that I know.

His brilliant deployment of subversive weapons--irony,

satire, laughter--did not always please the more sedate

members of his profession. But it vastly pleased the rest of

us. Ken used the whiplash phrase and the sardonic thrust for

several purposes: to reconnect academic economics, walled off

in mathematical equations, with human and social reality; to

rebuke the apostles of selfishness and greed; and to give the

neglected, the abused and the insulted of our world a better

break in life.

He challenged the national conscience with a series of

thoughtful books, provocative interviews, merry rejoinders

and lethal wisecracks. The Bush presidency led Ken to muse

aloud that it had caused him to think thoughts that he never

thought himself capable of thinking. I asked, ``For

example?'' Ken replied, ``I begin to long for Ronald

Reagan.''

Galbraith was never less than opinionated, and his opinions

were often deflationary and sometimes devastating. He was the

master of the unconventional wisdom. How, in view of his

elegant unmasking of pomposity, hypocrisy and shame, can we

account for the broad and indeed ecumenical range of his

friends and fans--stretching from left to right; from tall to

short; from Bill Buckley to Arthur Schlesinger (and Ken more

or less induced the last two characters to be fond of each

other)?

Within this tall fellow bristling with opinions there

resided a rare kindness of heart and generosity of spirit. In

Mr. Dooley's phrase, Ken not only afflicted the comfortable

but comforted the afflicted. In a quiet way, without fanfare,

he helped more people, promoted more noble causes, sustained

more fragile spirits than almost any of us have known, giving

of himself and his substance with grace and concern.

Underneath his joy in combat, he was a do-gooder in the dark

of night. There is another reason why Ken was so generally

loved--his wife of 69 years, Catherine Atwater. Kitty was an

intrepid lady, having stood up to Ken for more than half a

century. Together they created a welcoming household.

John Kenneth Galbraith has left us, and the sum of human

valor, wit, irreverence, sympathy, compassion and courage has

badly diminished when we need them most.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure during my years of representing Southeastern Massachusetts to work with Fernando Garcia. Fernando Garcia is a leader in the business community of Southeastern Massachusetts, and has been particularly active in affairs of the large Portuguese-American Community that contributes so much to that part of the state and indeed to the state as a whole. I had the pleasure a few years ago of visiting the Azores in the company of Mr. Garcia and the then Mayor Fred Kalisz of the City of New Bedford, and I have worked with Mr. Garcia on a number of occasions since then on matters of particular interest to the Portuguese-American Communities. At a time when we are talking about immigration, it is important to note that Mr. Garcia, like so many others who have been such important contributors to the life of Southeastern Massachusetts, is an immigrant who was born in the city of Sao Miguel, in the Azores. I note that he knew no English when he arrived here at the age of 11, and like the overwhelming majority of immigrants, strove to become proficient to the point where he is now a significant community leader--in English while of course retaining his facility in Portuguese.

Mr. Speaker, the sort of civic activity that Fernando Garcia exemplifies is a very important asset and I was pleased to read the excellent article about him in the Fall River Herald News, appropriately in the Business section since as the owner of Fall River Ford he is a significant leader in that segment of the life of his community.

Mr. Speaker, as an example of the important positive contribution made by immigration to this country, I ask that the article from the Fall River Herald News about Fernando Garcia be printed here.

[From the Herald News, Apr. 14, 2006]

A Fall River Prince

(By Kathleen Durand)

Fernando Garcia said it's easy to be a good corporate

citizen in a wonderful environment and community like Fall

River.

The owner of Fall River Ford, Garcia will be recognized by

the Prince Henry Society tonight for his many acts of charity

and service to the community. The Fall River chapter as its

Portuguese-American of the year. Similar honors will be

bestowed on Thomas Alves, a plumber, by the New Bedford

chapter, and Joseph de Melo, an attorney, by the Taunton

chapter. The three will receive their awards at a dinner at

the Century House in Acushnet.

Garcia said the Prince Henry Society is made up of people

of Portuguese heritage, including both immigrants and native-

born Americans. The primary function of the society is to

promote education, he said, and it has given hundreds of

scholarships worth thousands of dollars to deserving

students.

A member of the Fall River chapter, Garcia said he was

totally surprised to learn it has named him Portuguese-

American of the year. ``Every member of the chapter is

deserving of the award. It's a small chapter but it gives

constantly,'' he said. ``It's the first chapter that has

women members who have added to the vision of the society and

made it better by their input and views.''

Garcia came to New Bedford from Sao Miguel, Azores, in 1957

at age 11. He said he knew no English. ``One of the things

I've tried to do over the years is to never forget the

hardships and sacrifices immigrants must make,'' he said.

``We try to instill that in others and make their journey

easier by avoiding the pitfalls we had.''

The New Bedford schools had no bilingual program at that

time, so Garcia learned English at Our Lady of Mount Carmal

School. After four years there he said he was able to

navigate through the public schools. He went on to the

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he was president

of his class as a sophomore and a junior. He majored in

business and foreign languages and his class, the Class of

1969, was the first to graduate from the Dartmouth campus.

``Then it was out into the business world, and I haven't

stopped since,'' he said.

In October 1998 he said he saw a great business opportunity

in Fall River. Ford Automotive Co. was about to close a

dealership due to prior failures. Garcia said with proper

management and dedicated employees, he was able to

restructure it so that it now ranks in the top 10 Ford

dealerships in New England, employs about 100 people and

generates annual sales of more than $75 million.

``I'm delighted with the growth I've been in the 7\1/2\

years I've been here,'' Garcia said. ``There are so many good

people. I find it impossible to say no to worthy causes.''

In business and in life, Garcia said he believes in

integrity, character and in always keeping his word.

Garcia said Fall River Ford is most grateful for the

courtesy and patronage of the community.

``I am very proud to be Portuguese,'' he said. ``On the day

I received my citizenship papers I was as equally proud to be

a Portuguese-American.''

Garcia is involved in numerous activities aimed at

improving the quality of life in this region. He is chairman

of the Executive Business Council at Charlton Memorial

Hospital, a member of the board of the President's Council at

the hospital, a member of the board of the local chapter of

the American Heart Association, a member of the community

advisor board of the Diabetes Association and a board member

of the development council for HealthFirst Family Care

Center.

Before he bought Fall River Ford, Garcia was a national

sales manager for Rusty Jones, an automotive appearance

maintenance program. He than founded All-Neads Insurance of

New Bedford. When he bought Fall River Ford, he gave his co-

workers at All-Neads the opportunity to buy the business.

Without them, he said, the business would not have achieved

the success it did.

Madam Speaker, that last discussion actually interested me. The question would be, what penalty would a Member of Congress face if, having left a classified briefing, that Member disclosed information that turned out to be false?

You know, in libel, truth is a defense. Perhaps when it comes to disclosing classified information that comes from this administration, falsity would be a defense on the grounds that if it was not true, who is going to be hurt?

The gentleman from Florida talked about oaths. I want to talk about one that I took, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, because the Rules Committee is interfering with my ability to do that. We have one of the most serious constitutional issues facing this country now that we have faced in a very long time: the assertion by the President of the United States that because of terrorism, he basically is freed from restraints.

He has announced by the way, remember, it is not directly relevant to this bill, but he has announced that as President he may order the imprisonment for an indefinite period of time of an American citizen, and that citizen has no recourse to any tribunal to disprove any charges against him, and there may not be any charges lodged.

That is one of the things he said. In that same breathtaking assertion of untrammeled power, he says he can order the wiretapping of any American citizen; and it has gone beyond, as was brought out in the questions by the Judiciary Committee of the Attorney General, even within America. I think that is a dangerous abuse of power.

I believe we are able to protect ourselves against terrorists, and we should protect ourselves against these murderous fanatics, but I believe we are able to do that while still observing the Constitution. And I want to be very clear. I want to give law enforcement power. I believe law enforcement, they are the good guys, but they are not the perfect guys.

You give the good guys power, but you give it to them in a series of balances and restraints. You do not give them untrammeled power. The President has announced that he has carried out a program of wiretapping invasion of the most private moments of any American, with nobody else given any involvement, no warrants.

Now the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) presented to the Rules Committee a very thoughtful amendment that would reaffirm that we want to go by the law of 1978, that would repudiate one of the most outrageous and, I am going to use the technical term here, ``cockamamie'' arguments I have ever heard; namely, that when all of us voted to justify, to authorize the force against the Taliban in Afghanistan, we were somehow authorizing warrantless wiretapping.

You know, I want to say to the people who say that, follow one of my rules. In a political debate, no matter how convenient it seems to you, please do not say anything that no one believes. It will not be helpful. No one believes that. But we now this have situation where the bill that includes some of the money that carries out the warrantless wiretapping is before us.

People may think warrantless wiretapping is fine. I think it is a violation of the Constitution. But they should not be controversial. Should not this House of Representative be able to vote on that subject?

The gentleman from California presented a bipartisan amendment dealing with wireless wiretapping, reaffirming what some of us think; that there should be restraint, repudiating the outrageous argument that the Afghan resolution okayed it. And you have, Madam Speaker, and your party, refused to allow the House to vote on it. That is the disgrace. That is the abuse of the Constitution.

We are not even going to be allowed to vote on an amendment that would deal with this central constitutional question. And I would just say in closing, we are now in the process of instructing the people of Iraq about how to ruin parliamentary democracy.

As they see you deny us the right to vote on this central constitutional question, I say again what I have said before: if anybody from the Iraqi Parliament is watching our procedures, please do not try this at home.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

First, I guess I didn't know we would get in great detail about what was cockamamier than what; but when I used that phrase, I was referring specifically only to one argument: the argument that the Afghanistan force resolution authorizes. That is all I said.

I repeat, anybody who makes that argument is, let's use a Southern expression, had too much moonshine. Beyond that, I understand the gentleman thinks it is okay for warrantless wiretapping. The question is not wiretapping, but warrantless.

But my question is this: Why can't the House of Representatives vote on it? By what right does the Rules Committee arrogate to itself the right to

extinguish debate? I expect that there will be differences.