Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Webster's Dictionary defines hypocrisy as a false pretension to personal qualities or principles not actually possessed.

Politicize is defined as to make the subject a political discussion or dispute. Progress is defined as moving forward, advancing, developing.

Now, of those three words, I can pick out two that occur regularly in this Chamber as the minority party perfects its blocking maneuvers. Unfortunately, it is not progress.

Let us talk about hypocrisy. Four Members of the minority party took the same trip with the foreign agent that the Democrats keep crowing that the majority leader took. Another Member of the minority party filed travel papers clearly stating that a lobbyist paid for her trip, but then corrected the papers after reporters asked about them and chalked it up to human error.

Yet the minority leader continues to insist that the ethics problems her party has trumped up is a Republican issue. I think that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, lest their own walls begin to crack.

The minority leader's staff has not properly disclosed their own travel 12 times. A Democrat member of the ethics committee reported that a registered lobbyist paid for a trip she took to Puerto Rico. Two other Democrats did not even disclose that they went on the same trip. The minority whip took ten trips paid for by private parties that he never disclosed.

If you listen closely, you will hear the tinkling clatter of cracked glass falling on the ground outside the minority leader's office.

It is regrettable that the shameless hypocrisy of the liberal wing of the minority party in this Chamber chose to politicize the ethics committee. The reasons for doing this are simple: The liberal wing of the minority party knows that they have no agenda, no ideas, and frankly no leadership. So they are striking out against a successful majority leader who has brought forth an agenda, continues to offer ideas, and continues to lead his party.

The liberal wing of the minority party, still stinging from their losses in November, especially in the great State of Texas, are going after the majority leader. He must be doing something right to account for all the vitriolic slander aimed at him.

The liberal wing of the minority party had to create a distraction in hopes that the country would not notice that the Republicans were busy passing bipartisan legislation to create jobs, to help small businesses, to strengthen our borders, and craft a comprehensive energy policy.

So what do we do now?

The minority party will not let the ethics committee meet so the majority leader can clear his name. For the good of the House, the ethics process has to be above partisan politics. The Republicans have been willing throughout these long months of blustering from the obstructionist party to work towards a solution for the ethics committee to do its work.

Maybe returning us to the rules of the previous Congress will be acceptable to them, maybe not. I guess we will find out as the minority leader is sweeping up the broken glass resulting from her shattered strategy of personal attacks, personal destruction, and personal slander.

Mr. Speaker, it may come as a surprise to the minority leader and her liberal followers in this Chamber to learn that when I am back in the 4th District of Kentucky I am not asked why I support the majority leader. I am asked why the liberal Democrats insist on obstructing progress in the House.

My constituents want to know why the so-called progressive party opposes legislation to create jobs, to lower the cost of health care, to secure our borders, to fortify our military and to strengthen Social Security for future generations. And now my constituents want to know why the liberal Democrats will not let the majority leader appear before the ethics committee to clear his name.

It appears to my constituents that the liberals are afraid the majority leader, a man who does not stand in violation of any law, will clear his name. And then what happens? The minority leader and her followers will have to explain why they wasted America's time assassinating the character of the majority leader rather than working in Congress to help our country.

I think the answer is already clear.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this special order.

Mr. Speaker, this is an exciting time in the history of the United States, in the history of the world, and in the advancement of freedom.

This afternoon a member of minority made a statement that this war was not a war of choice. Contrary to that opinion, which certainly one has a right to share in this body, I would remind all Members of this House and the people that this was in fact a war that was chosen by Osama bin Laden and even before that by people like Saddam Hussein, those who have subjugated and terrorized their people for decades and even generations.

Osama bin Laden turned his hatred on America after we responded to the request of the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. His aggression was one of the key sparks in the current activities that we find ourselves engaged in right now.

This is a decisive time. In fact, we face the most serious threat to our freedoms and our liberties that we have faced since the end of the Second World War. We are fighting an enemy who has proven it will use whatever violent means necessary to further its cause. Indeed, we are not going to lose because of military strength, but we would lose only if the people of the United States have a loss of resolve.

My encouragement is to stay the course. As we see the development over the past several months around the world there are many, many things to be hopeful for. We recoil in horror at the report of suicide bombers and strolling into crowded markets or onto packed buses and detonating themselves. Are they primarily focusing on our soldiers? No. The preponderance of causalities are attacks on their own people. In fact, this is not an insurgency in the classic sense. It is led by frankly a group of thugs, people filled with hatred, bitterness, criminals by any measure of merit, killing innocent men, women and children.

We watch in stunned belief when such a terror group announces it has taken hostage Americans or others who are innocent, working in Iraq peacefully to make it a safe place. A place where people can wake up in the morning, go to work, provide for their families, and then come home for a peaceful dinner, which so many of us, the vast and overwhelming majority of citizens in the United States, enjoy.

But our hearts swell glancing at pictures of the 8 million Iraqis who risked their lives to vote for a better way of life, one that does not include violence and brutal dictators. Every person who had the courage in his or her hearts to dip his or her finger in the purple ink on January 30 to vote in Iraq's first democratically held elections in decades, took a courageous stand for freedom and liberty and we applaud that.

I proudly joined my colleagues yesterday to pass the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Budget which we approved 388 to 43. The supplemental provides for $76.8 billion in defense spending for pay, benefits, supplies and equipment for our troops because we will assure that our troops have the training, the tools and the equipment that they need to carry on to victory in this war.

We needed to move quickly to secure this money and we could not afford to wait for the budget process to wind its way to a finish. The military has told us they needed the funds by May 1 and Congress just cannot move that quickly on the entire defense appropriations bill.

The supplemental is money well spent to show our soldiers that we fully support them and that we are doing everything we can to provide for their safety. It shows our commitment to both our allies and also we show our enemies that we mean business, that we will continue to fight. We will pursue them in every corridor where they exist and, finally, win this war on terror.

This is not a fight we will lose, again, I reiterate because of military strength or lack of it. It is a fight that we can only lose if we choose to walk away, and we must not walk away.

This is a revolutionary time throughout the world. In the entire latitude 10-40 window, the doors of freedom are opening for the first time in decades, for the first time in history in some cases. We are seeing the fruit of the valor of our men and women in uniform in the developments in Lebanon, the developments in Egypt, the developments in Saudi Arabia. It is an exciting

time. It is exciting to see the values of the United States being carried forward, not being imposed but being embraced. Those are not a value of culture but a value of freedom and liberty, the dignity of the individual, the rights of every human being to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I am proud of what the Iraqi people are doing after the bombings that have come on recruiting stations, on stores, on schools, on polling places. What we are seeing happening is an exciting thing, and that is the next morning the recruits are coming back. The next morning the security forces are coming to work. The next morning the police are on patrol. They are beginning to stand up and it is imperative that we stand with them.

We will continue to be strong and defend liberty so that other people may have the same freedoms that we enjoy.

I want to thank my distinguished colleagues who are here today with me to discuss the supplemental, the impact that it will have on our continued war on terror, one that we will see all the way through to victory.

Mr. Speaker, right now I would like to yield to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his aggressive and energetic leadership in the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services. In the 20 years that he has served in the House, he has seen the end of the Cold War, of one dramatically large threat replaced by an even more pernicious threat with the rise of global terror and asymmetric threats.

This is a decisive time in our history, and it is important that we stand together as a people. I regret the occasional rhetoric that we hear even in this body that tears down the efforts of our leaders, of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to effectively carry out their mission.

But there is also a mission at home that we have. As the dynamics of the threats to the United States have changed, it intruded upon our lives on September 11, the protection of our homeland, of our communities, of our children and our families. It is a critical, critical priority.

It is now a special opportunity to introduce a distinguished member of law enforcement who is also now a distinguished Member in this body from the State of Washington. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert), who has established a great record of persistence, the ultimate captor with a great team of law enforcement people of the Green River Killer, who also brings profound insights into law enforcement and port security, homeland security, domestic law enforcement and is now adding great value to the entire people of the United States here in the House. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington State and also salute all members of law enforcement, our fire, EMS and first responders who are working literally around the clock to make this Nation safe.

Indeed, I want to salute our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. My former comrades, classmates, former comrades when I was an enlisted soldier and those who I went to the military academy with and served on active duty with, who are still serving this country today. I applaud your efforts. We love you and we thank you for the sacrifices that you are making to give us a safer tomorrow, a safer Nation, a safer future and hope for the world.

In our have it now, you deserve a break, have it your way society we can easily forget that all true freedom came at a great price. It came with persistence. It came with faith. It came with hope and real hope is not what we see now. Hope is something that we do not yet have, that we are waiting for, that we are pursuing aggressively with great hunger, and that freedom ultimately, as all true freedom came, with the shedding of blood, the willingness to lay down our lives for our friends.

In the prior generations, that has been done willingly, acceptingly, and now we have a great generation that has raised up to defend this Nation to prepare and protect this country for our children and grandchildren as they come forward.

There is a liberal intellectual elite in this country that say the people of the Arabic world are not capable of embracing freedom. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. As one who has learned to love the Arabic culture over the last 27 years, I have seen in ordinary men and women that spark of desire for freedom, a desire to be free, a desire to give their children hope and opportunity and freedom and to grow up in a safe community, to be able to pass on the tenets of their faith, to live with a future that is secure, a future that has promise.

Let me share with you another perspective, another view. I want to share some excerpts from an e-mail that I received from my neighbor down the street. His name is Colonel Charlie Waylon, and he is a reservist.

Working as an emergency room physician, he answered the call after September 11 to join a special forces unit first in the liberation of Afghanistan.

Then he came back again in Operation Iraqi Freedom and is now on his third tour in theater, willingly serving, making a difference in the lives of our soldiers and Marines but also making a difference in the lives of the Iraqi people.

He is a colonel, and his son reports soon to Fort Benning, Georgia, for infantry basic training. They, along with the rest of our soldiers, are constantly in my prayers and my wife Pat's prayers. It is e-mails like this that I receive on a regular basis that convince me that we are doing the right thing, and not only that, that we are winning.

Before my friend went to Iraq, he was asked three questions by one of his neighbors: Are we winning? Is it worth the price? Are we accomplishing anything?

Having spent some time now in theater for the third time, he says the answers to all three are an unequivocal yes. Let me say that again. It is an unequivocal yes.

What gives him that authority to speak is his experience on the ground, having seen that situation develop over time.

First, let us focus on the big picture. We are not engaged in a war in Iraq itself, the main war on the ground. We are engaged in a war of world views, one that does not value freedom, one that values hatred and closed societies over openness and freedom and true discourse; one that does not value the true dignity of the individual, the preciousness of all life but discards that for the sake of a theology of hatred. It does not represent the center of mass of people in that part of the world.

The fact that the Iraqis would rise up and go to the polls in numbers greater than turnout in elections in the United States of America says the man and woman on the street cares deeply, deeply about embracing this opportunity for freedom. Who are we to walk away from them in their time of need right now?

We are now fighting a counterinsurgency, and it has two goals. One, it wants to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iraq which has just held its first session, and try to run the United States out of the country.

What needs to be clear is that we are not alone in facing this enemy. 70 percent of the eligible voters in Iraq turned out for the election. Outside the Sunni Triangle that number approached 85 percent. In my district in the 2002 election only 38 percent of the registered voters turned out to vote. Who are we to criticize those efforts of those valiant people?

We all mourned when we heard that a bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police training center and killed 120 recruits. But if we can find one positive aspect in that needless tragedy, that atrocity, it is that 120 Iraqis felt safe enough to even sign up to become police officers; that they had courage to invest their lives, to lay their lives down, to put them on the line to protect their families, their communities and ultimately their nation. And the exciting thing is that the men come back the next day. They come back to serve because they understand what is at stake.

Moderate Shiite clerics are not asking us to leave Iraq. The Kurds are not asking us to leave, and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are not asking us to leave. They want us to stay, to stand by them while they train up, while they become strong and stabilize their own country and bring forth their flavor in terms of their culture of the freedoms that they are taking hold of.

Let us look at what has been achieved so far by those detractors of the policy of this country who have said that this war was a war of choice. It was imposed upon us, I might remind them.

And I would also state, Mr. Speaker, that since in the last year Libya has denounced weapons of mass destruction and opens its doors to the United Nations weapons inspectors, it has opened its doors to Western trade, a desire to become part of the community of nations, and it has renounced terrorism. A former perpetrator of terrorism has repented of that and now are beginning to walk in a new direction, seeing the inevitability of the rise of freedom in the Middle East.

In the fall of 2004 Afghanistan held free and open elections. Women who under the rule of the Taliban could barely leave their homes walked freely to polling places and voted.

In January Palestine elected a national leader in a United Nations supervised election in which women also voted. We are hopeful that the situation with the Palestinian people will lead to a free government, a peaceful government that can coexist alongside the democracy in Israel.

Also in January the Iraqis held their unprecedented election, and again, women voted in overwhelming numbers.

One of my West Point classmates shared with me in a confidential e- mail his perspective on seeing women coming to the polls to vote. He saw elderly women, young mothers with their children clinging to them standing, ignoring the ordnance flying about them, who had the courage to take hold of this once in a lifetime, once in a generation, once in a century opportunity to make a difference, to transform what had been an oppressive atrocity ridden, closed society in which the individual did not matter, but only to feed an appetite of megalomaniacal power of a dictator. That has been cast down. These people are seizing that opportunity.

The unfolding events in Lebanon and Syria's declaration that it will begin withdrawing from Lebanon is an outstanding indicator that as we stay the course and we link arms with freedom loving peoples in that part of the world, that we will see peaceful resolution to the challenges that we face, and these terrorists will be repudiated for the inhumane individuals that they are.

My friend ends his e-mail by stating that it is not just men and women who are helping lead their countries toward a brighter future. Women who spent years living under dictatorial regimes that demanded their silence are stepping up and playing a major role in the spread of democracy.

He says, and I quote, I want women fully enfranchised throughout this part of the world. I want them voting. I want them involved in government because in my opinion, he states, if they are, this will be a safer, saner and less militant world.

As we transition to other topics relating to this, I would like to introduce a distinguished colleague of mine, a member of my entering class in the Congress. He is the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul). He brings a very pertinent record of professional achievement into this body, and can speak with an authority on a wide variety of issues related to the global war on terror.

Prior to being elected to the United States Congress, Mr. McCaul served as an Assistant United States Attorney whose charge was counterterrorism investigation and prosecution in the great State of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his profound words. No more powerful words can be spoken than those of a mother who has lost a son, whose blood was shed literally to protect our freedoms, the lives of his fellow men.

In the words of our Lord, We share no greater love as a person than he who lays down his life for his friends.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Chairman, I found the rhetoric on the budget particularly interesting over the course of a wide variety of issues. One near and dear to my heart is the issue of veterans care. I can speak to this issue with a great deal of authority that very few of my colleagues in this body can as a member of the American Legion, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division Association, a member of the Army Ranger Association and a member of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy.

Being both a former enlisted solider and an officer who served here and abroad, I am concerned that we keep our commitment to our veterans, those who have laid their lives on the line and in many cases borne a great price to pay for the freedoms that we have here to have this dialogue.

Unfortunately, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation that is going around the public right now, I found this unfortunately being passed out to veterans in my own district, that completely disregards the facts in favor of what I would consider a shameless play at political power.

The facts speak to themselves. As a former numbers person, I would like to point out that in the chart that we referenced, that spending per veteran has increased dramatically. Indeed, total veterans spending in the 2006 budget is $68.9 billion. There are considerable monthly payments for veterans, and the budget provides $31.7 billion, an increase of $877 million, for veterans' medical care and other discretionary spending.

These increases in this budget carry on a commitment to our Nation's veterans that, over the past 11 years, has been reflected in veterans spending since 1995 when Republicans took control of Congress.

We can see that the rhetoric from the past is hollow from when there was a Democratic majority in this body and also a Democratic administration.

What we have seen since Republicans took control of the House is a steady increase, particularly after President Bush was elected, in making sure that our veterans' needs were cared for. Spending for veterans' medical care has increased 85 percent, from $16.2 billion to $29.9 billion. Indeed, the number of veterans receiving care has increased from 2.5 million veterans to 4.8 million, a 92 percent increase.

The facts speak for themselves. And, again, the shameless rhetoric is hollow.

Education benefits, under the Montgomery GI bill, have more than doubled during this same period and total per veteran spending has increased by nearly 103 percent.

I respect our national leadership. I respect the leadership of our party, the leadership in this Congress who has led the way, not with hollow words, but with straightforward actions to take care of the veterans in this United States who I am proud to represent.

Since we took control of Congress in 1995, we have made tremendous strides in improving benefits for our Nation's 25 million veterans, and we will continue to do that into the future with new strides in technology, reaching out to cover those who have legitimate needs who have served our country and served in harm's way.

Moreover, the Republican Congress has expanded eligibility for medical care in 1996 and 1999. That has increased the number significantly. In the end, this budget provides significant relief for veterans who have served. I am proud to support it. I stand with our leadership; I stand with the veterans in this Congress who are rightfully supporting this budget.

Mr. Speaker, I truly believe that the hunger for freedom is a deep yearning in the hearts of all people. Freedom from oppressive regimes, freedom from living in fear, and freedom from an invasive hatred that turns neighbor against neighbor.

We watched 8 million Iraqis risk their lives to vote for their own government, and we witnessed Palestinians choose a course of diplomacy with Israel rather than continuing a course of terror. In Lebanon, we are seeing the seeds of liberty being sown as people take to the streets seeking the power to control their own lives.

Democracies are not born overnight. For our own security and future, we must be resolved in our support for people who want a governing structure rooted in personal liberty and that compliments their own country's culture. I take heart in believing that we are pursuing the right course of action as I remember the brave faces of Iraqis smiling behind a purple finger raised in defiance of terror, oppression and hatred.

Mr. Speaker, I am impressed with the fact that America is a land of vision and opportunity. My wife's grandparents came through Ellis Island and began literally with nothing. By the second generation, both had become professionals and had made a great impact on their local economies, passed that on to the third generation with their children, adding value, working to create jobs in the long term. I think the exciting thing of the values of this Nation is the people who have come here from every ethnic background, from every nation on this Earth. The great diversity has one thing in common, that is, a unity of vision, of opportunity, of purpose that can be accomplished when we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

When I look at the numbers right now in this Nation from an unemployment standpoint, we stand at 5.2 percent, which is one of the lowest unemployments in the industrialized world, particularly in light of the fact that we are involved in a war that was forced upon us by global terrorists. When I look at the challenges that this Nation has faced, there has been a great turnaround during the last 4 years. More than that, when I look to my own district, to the Fourth District of Kentucky, and the tremendous steps forward that have been made in the manufacturing economy, that have been made in technology and in the creation of jobs and in the development of industry and health sciences, I am excited about our future. I am excited about the potential for our young people to move forward and have the opportunity to create their own future, to create jobs, to start small businesses, to follow in the opportunity that I had when I finished my military service.

After a time in industry, I chose to pursue that vision to start my own company and then end up helping other companies create jobs. I think one of the great things that we see a need for right now is to continue to remove the burden of regulations, to remove the burdensome Tax Code, to remove the impediments to individuals at every level of our economy, from starting their own businesses, from creating jobs in our communities, that will stay in our communities, to keep capital investment in those communities.

I think there are several steps that are important. First, we need to bring about meaningful tax reform. I believe that the tax cuts that were enacted in the last Congress need to be made permanent so that people can keep more of what they earn. I think it is important that the so-called death tax be completely eliminated. The reason why is it has nothing to do with the super-rich. It has to do with jobs in our communities, local farmers, small family farmers, people that own family businesses that have gone on for generations, to make sure that they have the opportunity to keep those jobs in the community. That is a tax that is pernicious.

Indeed, what it does is it hurts the very people it is intended to help because it removes the capital from our local economy. Another thing that is necessary for us to do is to make sure that small business owners have the flexibility to overcome a burdensome Tax Code. If they see the opportunity in a good year to take advantage of capital investment to improve their competitiveness, to increase jobs in the local community or protect the jobs that they have, they should have that flexibility; and I would like to see the ability to expense capital investment made permanent rather than renewing it as we have been doing over the past 18 years.

Education is an important area as well. We need to open up the tremendous opportunities to entrepreneurship that we have in our economy. I met recently with a new division of Northern Kentucky University, a pioneer in the University of Kentucky system. They have their own school of entrepreneurship now to encourage this creation of jobs in the local economy, to show people how they can start a business, how they can add value, how they can help people create a nest egg and a job that will last for the long term and create other jobs that will strengthen our community.

It is also important that we continue to invest in our university systems and vocational and technical education. The reason for this, working with public-private partnerships, working closely with our local communities from the Federal Government is to assure that we are staying on the cutting edge of technology innovation, looking for opportunity for the long term.

In addition, it is also important that we look at reforms that will allow small businesses to function. We need to bring about meaningful health care reform. What does that mean? Small businesses need to have the ability to band together and form associations to reduce the cost of health care. I found in my own business that my premiums, if I had not been elected to Congress, were going to increase 50 percent, from $1,200 to $1,800 a month, just for my family and my business. That is unconscionable. We need to encourage these small businesses and enact regulations that will allow them to cover more of their employees, more of our employees in the long term.

In addition to that, we need to bring about meaningful medical liability reform as part of this health care reform. The reason for that is, first of all, to stop driving our doctors out of practice in many States. For example, in Kentucky we have lost one-third of our OB- GYN doctors in the last 5 years due to medical liability costs. But at a small business and job creation level, it will be a job creator if we have some meaningful liability reforms, not only to keep our doctors but to keep the cost of health care provision low so that we could cover more of our employees and also be more competitive in the long term.

In the end, there are a variety of steps that we can take. I am very excited about the potential of the American people. We have shown in a time of national adversity now that we can compete, that we can have a strong economy, that we can create jobs; and when I look at one of the largest employers in northeastern Kentucky, a very prominent steel mill that is creating jobs, that is hiring, that is competing effectively in the world economy now, I know that we are going to be successful.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.

I believe that our founders would stand aghast if they saw the size and the reach of the Federal Government and how it has grown over two centuries. Certainly times have changed, but the cost of government continues to rise. Archaic processes, lax accountability and a lack of connectivity, and often competing agendas on top of that, consume more and more dollars and waste untold billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

My colleagues have shared horror stories of how these dollars have been wasted, but this afternoon I would like to offer a prescription for reform. The solution is not simply removing regulations, it is not simply identifying programs where we feel pain or see pain, it is, rather, we need to change as a government, as a people, and as regulatory agencies, how we think about the spending of this money, how these processes are run and, ultimately, how the citizens of the United States are best served.

King Solomon said in the Bible that there is nothing new under the sun. Successful businesses, successful service organizations have applied principles for decades that have cut billions and billions in waste. They have improved our ability to compete internationally and made many of our businesses and aid organizations the envy of the world for efficiency and for effectiveness. I might add that these are in the private sector.

I think there are several steps that need to be understood, four key ones in bringing about any rational change to our government. They are simply this: we need to identify, we need to simplify, we need to accelerate, and we need to automate.

To identify means simply that we need to get to reality. We need to understand where these problems are before we can make a decision about what to fix or what to change. As we have seen so many times here in Washington, knee-jerk legislation is often the reaction to a symptom rather than the root cause of our problems. Instead of helping people, it often creates problems that hurt the very ones who are intended to be helped. I believe that the old saying, ``The greatest source of inspiration is desperation,'' needs to be applied in our institutions. We need to get beyond what we think the governing process is, how we think our agencies work and understand how they really work, see what reality is and see those opportunities to take steps out of the process, time out of the process, and resources out of the process. In the end, what it will do is bring about great benefit when we get to that reality.

That means simplifying. Over and over again it has been shown that if we challenge the way we think, if we challenge our assumptions, we can assure, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to spend the people's money more wisely and ultimately can increase service, increase the breadth of service and reduce costs. Our Armed Forces have shown that in the transformation they are undergoing where they are massively multiplying combat power, but keeping the size of the active military the same.

The Navy has shown with its carrier task force that it can actually take a carrier task force out of operation and actually increase the ability to project combat power into a theater of operations.

These principles applied there, applied in business, need to be applied to our agencies that are serving our citizens as well.

Once we identify those improvements, we can accelerate them. Change will speed up. We have seen it applied in the medical arena; we have seen it applied in factories, where processes that took days and weeks can be reduced literally to hours or minutes. It gives back flexibility, it reduces the cost and the overhead that is necessary to serve people, and ultimately provides a better return to the taxpayer.

Finally, once we have achieved that, it is time to automate. So many times, we have spent billions of dollars on projects, system integrations in the government that have failed, that have never been implemented because people never challenge their basic assumptions of why they were doing what they were doing, and they automated inefficient and ineffective processes.

All that did to the agencies was allow them to commit error and increase waste more efficiently, which is an ironic contradiction. We have agencies that do not communicate. In the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for example, nearly 20 information systems do not communicate with each other on the tracking of aliens. This is unbelievable in an age of connectivity when international organizations have real-time information around the world. Major retail distributors can take the purchase of one single item on the other side of the world and have it documented in their system within seconds of that transaction taking place at a cash register.

Likewise, we need to bring about a greater level of connectivity to reduce waste. Another benefit that would come from that is increased security as our agencies are able to share information more effectively. It also reduces error that causes increased costs and also increased anxiety and burden on American citizens who are depending on government services for their lives. I think that in the end we want to increase our capacity to serve our citizens without increasing the amount of money that is being spent. Adding more money will simply add more problems in the long run because we are not dealing with the root causes, Mr. Speaker.

For example, 9 percent of the food stamp allocations or spending on food stamps are incorrect payments. Fundamentally, that is nearly $3 billion in wasted taxpayer dollars. By having some simple improvement to the process with real-time information systems, off the shelf, used today in the commercial world, we could give that $3 billion back to the taxpayers whose money it is.

We also speed up the turnaround. In our district as we have inherited a great deal of Social Security claims, there is a great need and a necessity to help our senior citizens, to effectively keep our promise to them. They do not

need to be standing in line or waiting for weeks or months for casework to be completed. Using state-of-the-art technology not only would we save the taxpayer money but we could serve them effectively and nearly immediately.

In closing, nothing is going to change until we learn to see the ground differently. We need to observe opportunities and zero in on them, orient on the thousands and thousands of small opportunities in government to bring about improvement and change. We need to decide that we are going to exercise the will that is necessary to bring about that improvement, and then we need to act energetically, persistently, and patiently. To do otherwise assures one thing, Mr. Speaker, that is, that this problem will grow, that Federal spending will continue to grow, that the waste will continue to grow and eventually strangle the United States Government.

If I were working in my former profession, helping manufacturing companies to compete, I would say that the United States Government, my client now, is sick and is filled with waste that can be taken away with simple principles applied to return to healthy agencies, healthy fiscal status, and ultimately to strengthen our agencies and our ability to serve our citizens in the long run. Little by little, we can see the same kind of effective transformation that our military has gone through, that is coming out of the Cold War era. There is nothing new here, simply applying proven principles that other institutions have applied successfully for decades.

If the gentlewoman will yield further, in response to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, the distinguished gentleman has a long and illustrious career of leadership advancing the values of his party. He is widely respected

nationally and certainly in his home State. We have seen ample evidence of that expansion of government service to serve his constituents. I respect the gentleman's contributions to this body and its history.

Yet at the same time, I think that it is important that we set aside partisan rancor. This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem. This is an American problem. It is important that bureaucratic agendas be put aside, that party agendas, partisanship and rancor simply moving for control over debate and taking away that time for necessary dialogue be brought into the context of what the American people sent us here to do.

I believe that it is important in the remainder of the time that we have before the gentleman speaks that we look at the problems that are being faced today. As you so effectively pointed out in those examples, our citizens on the street have seen over and over again examples of waste, examples of fraud, examples of abuse.

Much of the waste, the majority of that waste, is not ill-intended. We have thousands and thousands of very dedicated civil servants. I have met very few in my entire career of public service, whether in the military or in government, who were not dedicated and committed and worked very hard. Rather, the issue that I was addressing, which the gentleman missed, was the issue of process, processes that have grown up, processes that are not connected, processes that do not communicate effectively. These are not partisan issues. These are simple issues of accelerating the ability to make decisions more effectively and to reduce costs.

I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Class Action Fairness Act, and I speak as a former small business owner who has watched industry damage, jobs lost and costs increased across the entire spectrum of our economy here in the United States.

This legislation will put an end to trial attorneys' forum shopping to find a friendly court where settlement awards will line their pockets while hitting victims and consumers in their pocketbooks. For too long, we have watched State courts try to manage a crush of cases that have been increasing year by year and that should have never entered the courtroom. These frivolous lawsuits frankly are merchandising the process of justice, making a profit for the few for the expense of freedom, liberty, and justice for the majority of people in this country.

Overall, class-action filings in the United States have increased 1,000 percent in the last 10 years, yet there has been no increase in capacity in our courtrooms, and the net result of that is to assure that our courts are slowed. There is a tremendous backlog of legitimate cases that need to be heard, and we are doing our citizens a disservice, again while a few make a tremendous amount of money, and the alleged victims in these cases collect nothing in damages of any substance.

In some jurisdictions, class-action filings have increased 4,000 percent, virtually bringing the legal system to a halt in those areas. Let me repeat that because it is such a significant number. Class- action filings in some jurisdictions have increased 4,000 percent. Mr. Speaker, this has become a money game, indeed a monopoly; ironically, very similar to the game of Monopoly.

If we look at the chart to my right, we can see how that game is played. Those who are profiteering in this business come up with an idea for a lawsuit. The next thing they do is find a plaintiff to play that off and then finally make allegations. In fact, legitimate rules of evidence need not apply here to simply get a forum to create press and public opinion. And finally, they are free from rule 23 to begin shopping these cases.

I have seen it in a variety of industries. I have seen it hurt our veterans in many ways while lining the pockets of just a few plaintiff attorneys in just a few States, and at the end of the day, business is impeded, jobs are going to be lost, and are lost in a wide variety of sectors.

Let us look at an example of a variety of these claims. Blockbuster, the video rental company, had a claim against it. $9.25 million were paid to the attorneys who were bringing forth that case. What was the benefit of it to the alleged victims in that case? Free movie coupons. This is an injustice. It is a misuse of our legal system, and frankly, I believe that that money was unethically acquired by those attorneys utilizing the judicial system in an inappropriate way.

The Bank of Boston case, $8.5 million were paid to attorneys, and indeed, some of the plaintiffs at the end of the settlement had to pay legal fees to cover the damages.

What happens to us? Our employers are hit. Our health insurance and liability policies in small business go up. Ultimately, plaintiffs' attorneys win and the consumer loses. Every Member of this body loses. The American citizen loses.

Unfortunately, the result of this class-action process, what it has become is it makes many of these settlements pass on to consumers considerable hikes in goods and services. It limits our access to markets, and frankly, it limits our ability to compete in the global economy for us, right now. This is bad for us as consumers and in business and for citizens.

The Class Action Fairness Act offers solutions to judicial loopholes that are abused by a minority of trial attorneys. It does not impede the filing of any legitimate claim nor does it prohibit legitimate claimants from seeking redress from a company that has harmed them. Let me make it clear. We are not preventing anybody from having a right to redress for legitimate damages. We are simply preventing a scourge that is hurting our Nation and our economy now.

The Class Action Fairness Act allows Federal courts to hear cases that involve true interstate issues while preserving the State courts for true local issues, which is as the founders built it into the Constitution.

This is a good bill. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support it.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote No. 18, I was unable to cast my vote. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted ``yea.''