Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today I am happy to congratulate Major and Mrs. Brian and Susan Albon, USMC, of Kailua, Hawaii, on the birth of their new baby daughter. Margaret Ellison Albon was born on February 23, 2009, at 11:03 p.m., weighing 5 pounds and 14 ounces. Margaret joins an older brother Joshua William Albon. She has been born into a loving home, where she will be raised by parents who are devoted to her well-being and bright future. Her birth is a blessing.

I want to congratulate Margaret's grandparents Joe and Vickie Chandler of Ninety Six, South Carolina, and Bill and Charlene Albon of Newton, North Carolina. On behalf of my wife Roxanne, and our entire family, we want to wish Brian, Susan, Joshua, and Margaret all the best.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans remain ready to tackle the tough challenges facing our Nation. Getting our economy back on track, providing affordable quality education and health care, and protecting American families are

of concern to every American and every Member of this body.

But there are differences. On the issue of raising taxes, House Republicans are concerned that this would destroy jobs in an already troubled economy. We oppose plans that will continue to borrow and spend. We believe the American people should keep more of their own money and government should limit its own budget.

Fiscal responsibility must mean we limit spending, not just raise taxes in order to build more government. We stand ready to work with our colleagues to make these tough decisions.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. When we invest in the mentoring and education of our children, we provide them a strong foundation for their future success. The National Guard Youth Challenge Program has a proven track record of teaching the leadership, citizenship and life skills that can make a difference in so many lives.

I am particularly proud to have members and supporters of the program here on Capitol Hill today, including General John Conaway, chairman of the National Guard Youth Foundation, and also Colonel Jackie Fogle, Director of the South Carolina Youth Challenge Academy, as they celebrate and bring recognition to the extraordinary work that they are doing on behalf of our Nation's youth.

I am grateful to have introduced legislation that would help expand the resources for these programs to ensure they continue to have a positive impact on the young men and women in our communities. I am particularly grateful to see the plans for success in Guam with Governor Felix Camacho and First Lady Joann Camacho.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Madam Speaker, I wish to offer my condolences and deepest sympathies to the citizens of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria and the families of those who have been killed in recent terrorist attacks in that nation. Just today we have heard that nine security guards were murdered while on duty at an electricity facility near Ziama Mansouriah.

These attacks are a stark and all too common reminder that the Global War on Terrorism is truly worldwide and requires a coordinated and vigilant effort by our Nation and our allies to protect our families and our freedoms. I want to thank the people of Algeria for their efforts and the tremendous cooperation we have shared since the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

I am also constantly reminded of the extraordinary efforts being done by our troops and their families. Their sacrifice is a testament to their courage, their dedication, and their love for our Nation. At this time, our thoughts are with those who have lost their lives in this great struggle against violent extremism and those who continue to stand for our freedoms and for the development of a civil, peaceful society in Algeria for Algerian families to prosper.

Madam Speaker, on February 17th, Mr. Bethea R. Hook of Lexington County, South Carolina passed away. Mr. Hook was a cherished member of his community, and spent his lifetime in service to his country and his neighbors as a member of the Mt. Hermon Lutheran Church, president of the Church Council, a Sunday School Superintendent, and scout master of Boy Scout Troup No. 356 to name just a few of his many accomplishments. He was a leader in his community as the owner of Hook's Flowers and vital to the establishment of the U.S. Highway 1 Flea Market. He was also an active member and former president of the Woodmen of the World.

He answered the call of his generation and served as a Navy Chief Boatswain's Mate during World War II and went on to be an advocate for his fellow veterans as Commander of the American Legion Post No. 7.

At this time, our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Hook's family-- including his wife of 62 years, Margie Eargle Hook, his sons, Norman Bethea Hook and Richard Jefferson Hook, his daughter, Myra Darlene Kinard, and his three grandchildren, Tradd Bethea Hook, Ashley Ann Hook, and Richard Tyler Hook.

Madam Speaker, this Thursday, February 26th, the Palmetto Society of United Way of the Midlands will be honoring their Humanitarian of the Year Award recipient Martha Scott Smith. Martha is State Director for AT&T--Public Affairs in South Carolina and an extraordinary

community leader. Her accomplishments are many and include being the first Black female to serve as chair of not only the American Red Cross Board but also chair of the South Carolina State Museum Board and chair of the Midlands Technical College Foundation board.

As an advocate for philanthropy throughout her community, Martha is a founding member of Women in Philanthropy, a leading advocate with the United Way, and president of the Columbia Urban League guild.

Martha's positive impact on our community goes back to when she was a middle school teacher and was instrumental in the establishment of a gifted and talented student program for Richland School District 1. She's continued to work on behalf of education as a member of the Board of Visitors of Claflin University and the Allen University board.

These days, I am honored that she has agreed to serve as a member of the Second Congressional District's Minority Advisory Board. Her input and perspective are vital to our work to best represent the people of the Second Congressional District.

Throughout her career and in her personal life, Martha has earned a reputation for decency, hard work, and a passion for fighting for the needs of others. I commend her on this extraordinary honor, and look forward to her continued friendship and counsel.

Mr. Speaker, today there's a fiscal responsibility summit at the White House. I hope this summit will be the beginning of important decisions Congress is going to make in order to limit the rising cost of government.

It is disappointing that this summit came after Congress passed a $1 trillion spending package last week that many of my colleagues and many Americans do not believe was the right way to stimulate our economy. Nevertheless, it is vital that we start anew and sincerely to make responsibility the foundation of governing.

We need reforms that protect the services and benefits promised to American families while not growing the burden of taxation, tragic inflation, or the long-term tide of wasteful spending. If we are truly dedicated to protecting and preserving services like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, then, indeed, we must reform them to keep them solvent.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to join in supporting H.R. 44. This bill had actually passed the House last year with bipartisan support.

I want to commend the Congresswoman from Guam for her leadership on this issue. I have had the privilege of traveling with Ms. Bordallo around the world. Everywhere I go, she finds persons of Chamorro descent, people who are originally from the territory of Guam, and you can tell immediately there is deep affection between the people whom she represents and their Member of Congress. Additionally, you can tell how wonderful the people are of Guam by their extraordinary loyalty and service to the people of the United States.

I had the extraordinary privilege last week of participating in a program with Major General Donald Goldhorn, the Adjutant General of the Guam National Guard. I was present with Congresswoman Bordallo and with our colleague, Congressman and Ranking Member Solomon Ortiz of Texas. We were present at the National Guard program where the National Guard of Guam was recognized as the number one National Guard in the United States in terms of percentage of membership of state or territory.

I particularly was very appreciative. I am a 31-year veteran of the Reserves and Guard. I have three sons serving in the Army National Guard, and so I know of the great opportunities that can be had by serving in the National Guard. The territory of Guam has truly come forward to be first in our country of percentage of membership.

It has already been stated, but in my visit last week, we visited the memorial to the Marines who liberated Guam in July 1944. It was extraordinary to find out that, within 1 hour of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the people of Guam were under attack by the Imperial Japanese forces. They seized control of the Island of Guam. The island was inhabited by 22,000 United States nationals. The island was occupied for 31 months. It was very brutal. The people were subject to executions, beatings, rape, forced labor, and forced march. All of the residents were interned in concentration camps in the closing months of the occupation.

This week, I had the extraordinary opportunity to read a book about the occupation by former Congressman Ben Blaz, a retired major general of the Marine Corps. It was very moving to see his tribute. This was a 13-year-old boy who sadly lived his teenage years under the brutal occupation of the Imperial Japanese forces. There are so many facts in there that the American people should know, but one of them that was particularly shocking to me was that there were six Americans, military personnel, who escaped as the Japanese seized control of the island. Five of them upon capture were summarily executed. The sixth person was hidden during the 31-month occupation and survived thanks to the people of Guam.

I also would like to point out that the Guam Meritorious Claims Act of 1945 was passed within months of the cessation of hostilities for the immediate relief of the people of Guam, but there are deficiencies, obviously, that have been discovered in the last 64 years. They need to be corrected.

I also want to point out that, last week, the strategic importance of Guam was recognized by the agreement between Japan and the United States, and 8,000 Marines are being relocated from Okinawa to Guam.

I am, again, grateful to be here. We have extraordinary fellow citizens living on Guam--great Americans. Therefore, I urge that we adopt H.R. 44, which will update a statute that is flawed.

Madam Speaker, our Democratic colleagues have said we need a new approach in Washington that does not rely on tired ideas and politics of the past. So I am curious, what exactly is new and novel about a massive spending package, developed behind closed doors, and devoid of bipartisan input? That is not change. It repeats mistakes of the past.

Instead of trying to borrow and spend our way to recovery, House Republicans have laid out a commonsense, timely, and targeted alternative. Our proposal would create jobs by providing immediate relief to American taxpayers, small businesses, and home buyers. These tax cuts have been tried before under President Kennedy and President Reagan. Each time, they created jobs and led to economic recovery.

The American people are hurting. They care about keeping their jobs, paying their bills, and sending their children to school. They deserve much better than this massive spending bill, which will raise interest rates.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side of the aisle continue to frame the stimulus debate as between doing what they want or doing nothing at all. This is simply not the case, as even the Washington Post reported today.

Since the very beginning of this economic crisis and from day one of this Congress, House Republicans have worked to develop proposals that promote job creation. Our solutions provide immediate relief to American families, small businesses, real estate recovery, and homeowners. Our solutions aim at creating jobs. We can create twice the jobs at half the spending. We can bring our set of proposals to the table in a spirit of bipartisanship. We have done so in recognition of the fact that millions of Americans are in financial distress. We must not keep quiet when we know there are solutions that can create jobs without burdening our children with even greater debt and threatening destructive inflation.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Madam Speaker, yesterday I spoke to some small business owners in South Carolina, including Betty Jackson at The Sunset Grill in West Columbia. They are concerned with the billions in spending some in Congress are proposing. They also know that we need to take action and create jobs. I was grateful to tell them that big spending is not the only solution. There are fiscally responsible solutions that put more money back into the pockets of taxpayers, help American businesses create jobs and help boost our housing market.

Congress does not have to choose between a big spending agenda and no action. We can create jobs while holding the line on spending. We can help small businesses without expanding government.

Our constituents go to work every day to make our communities wonderful places to live and to raise families. We must not forget, when we talk about billions of dollars in spending, that this is the taxpayers' money and not the government's money.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.

Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate my long time friend, Paige Jones Gossett, as she receives the Oath of Office and takes the bench as United States Magistrate Judge for the District of South Carolina.

Known by her nickname Cricket, she is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of South Carolina Honors College, finished as the third highest rated graduate in her law school class, and received nearly every academic award available. Prior to her election as a South Carolina Administrative Law Judge in 2006, she had over ten years of private practice experience as a partner in the Willoughby & Hoefer law firm in Columbia.

I also want to congratulate Chief Judge David C. Norton and the other District Judges in South Carolina for selecting Judge Gossett from a large pool of highly qualified applicants. Her intelligence and temperament are the ideal qualities that we should seek in judicial candidates.

On a personal note, I am particularly grateful for her success which is complemented by the achievement of her husband, my former State Senate Chief of Staff, Jeff Gossett, who is the first Republican Clerk of the South Carolina Senate in over 100 years. They are raising three outstanding children: Jackson Keith Gossett, Ainsley Cooper Gossett, and Anna Katherine Gossett.

Congratulations, Judge Paige Gossett.

Madam Speaker, on January 26th, a long- time friend and favorite son of South Carolina, Austin Cunningham, passed away. In his lifetime--that spanned almost an entire century-- Mr. Cunningham was a successful businessman, a tireless leader in the community, a prolific philosopher, and a mentor. He was a valued advisor to the late Congressman Floyd Spence and Governor Carrol Campbell leading the efforts to reduce capital gains taxes. His steadfast belief in the importance and virtue of service was an inspiration to many, and he left a positive and indelible mark on South Carolina and the Nation.

Staff writer Lee Tant of the Times and Democrat of Orangeburg, South Carolina has thoughtfully developed the following fitting tribute to Mr. Cunningham.

[From the Times and Democrat, Jan. 27, 2009]

Austin Cunningham Dies at 94

(By Lee Tant)

It is hard, if not impossible, to describe the life of

Orangeburg icon Austin Cunningham.

Cunningham, who died Monday at the age of 94, was a

community leader, businessman, writer, lawyer, soldier and

citizen of the year.

He was the definition of a Renaissance man.

His lifetime spanned 18 presidents, 11 recessions, two

world wars and the civil rights movement.

Cunningham was the leader of five companies and in 1998 was

named Outstanding Elder Citizen of the Year for South

Carolina.

A decade later, he was named the Kiwanis Club of

Orangeburg's Citizen of the Year. He also was honored with

the Order of the Palmetto.

Cunningham was involved with nearly everything in the

Orangeburg community. He was constantly willing to be out

front in volunteering and promoting community involvement.

During the 1970s, Cunningham made business trips to Denmark

and Manning while an executive at the Sunbeam Outdoor Co. It

was then he first became interested in Orangeburg. When the

company relocated its executive headquarters to Santee in

1974, Cunningham and his family moved with it.

He said his new home was like an ``island'' because its

residents had to drive at least 50 miles to reach Columbia or

Charleston.

The man who once called cities such as Chicago and New York

home quickly became involved in the community. He joined what

was then the Greater Orangeburg Chamber of Commerce, attended

First Presbyterian Church, and was active in the local

Republican Party.

He retired from Sunbeam to open a Burger King restaurant on

John C. Calhoun Drive in 1975.

Cunningham accepted the chairmanship of the Orangeburg

Regional Hospital's major gifts division four years later.

His work was instrumental in procuring the funding to build

the Regional Medical Center.

Cunningham also became a tireless advocate of the Targeted

Jobs Tax Credit program during the summer of 1983. The

program provided a tax credit for employers who hired

underprivileged teenagers.

During that time, Cunningham served as chairman of the

local Economic Recovery Committee.

To market the program in Orangeburg, Cunningham illustrated

how it not only made good financial sense but also helped the

community.

``Your reward is two-fold. You'll get a good worker for

jobs you want them to do. And when you go to pay your federal

businesses taxes next year, you'll get back 85 percent of

what you paid out,'' he said to encourage local employers.

In the spring of 1984, President Ronald Reagan invited

Cunningham to the White House to honor his efforts in

promoting the program.

Reagan lauded Cunningham and credited him with fostering

partnerships with 77 local businesses that gave 264 jobs to

teenagers in poverty.

``For most of these 16- and 17-year-olds, it was their

first real job. Now that's partnership in action, and

everybody is better off because of it,'' Reagan said.

A July 1983 T&D editorial described Cunningham as ``a one-

man crusade'' that informed the community about the program's

merits. It also noted he was dubbed ``Mr. TJTC'' by the head

of the State Employment Security Commission back then.

However, Cunningham didn't want all the attention and

refused to take credit for it.

He insisted the real heroes were the businesses that hired

the young workers.

He said the success of the program in Orangeburg boded well

for industry and race relations here.

``It's made Orangeburg a better community than it was 10

weeks ago,'' Cunningham said after the program concluded its

first summer.

He served on the People's Assault on Drugs Committee in the

1990s.

Cunningham was also behind getting 132 streetlights

installed in New Brookland as part of efforts by the People's

Assault on Drugs. He said then that drug dealers were

relegated to hanging back in the shadows.

``They can't stand out in the streets anymore. They are not

aggressively stopping people and vying with each other,'' he

said.

Additionally, Cunningham was a patron of the arts.

After hearing the South Carolina State University Choir, he

realized how good it was and, he spearheaded the choir's

partnership with the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra.

This led to an annual concert series in Orangeburg.

S.C. State awarded him its Distinguished Service Award at

the 1995 Founder's Day festivities.

When he was named the ``Outstanding Older South

Carolinian'' of the year by the state Department of Health

and Human Services' Office on Aging in 1998, Cunningham used

the honor to make a push for funding county councils on

aging. The annual Elder Hop event on New Year's Day in

Orangeburg was his brainchild as a fund-raiser for the Meals

on Wheels program.

Born in Washington, he lost his journalist father at age

12. Cunningham went to work in the U.S. Supreme Court as a

page at age 14 and subsequently worked under J. Edgar Hoover

at the FBI. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World

War II. He lost two brothers in the war.

After earning a law degree from the University of Virginia,

he did advanced studies at the University of Chicago and

Oxford University.

He married his late wife Jacqueline in 1946. An infant son,

Paul, died in 1954.

He is survived by two daughters, Manhattan psychotherapist

Kathryn Janus (wife of Jeffrey Janus), magazine journalist

Amy Cunningham of Brooklyn (wife of Steven Waldman), son

Austin Cunningham III, a business owner residing in Swansea,

and two school-aged grandsons Joseph and Gordon Waldman of

Brooklyn. His younger sister, Mrs. Clotilde Luce, at age 88,

still works at New York City's renowned Neighborhood

Playhouse School of the Theatre.

As a longtime author of articles for The Times and Democrat

and other publications, Cunningham wrote from his vast

repertoire of life experiences. He offered insight on

historical figures from George Washington and Abe Lincoln to

Bill Clinton. He spent a weekend in a state prison, at his

own request, gathering material to provide insight on life

behind bars.

Most recently, Cunningham was the subject of a story about

his experience as an usher on the podium at Franklin

Roosevelt's presidential inauguration in 1933.

Also, he was honored this past week by the Orangeburg

County Community of Character initiative. The board of

directors voted to create the Austin Cunningham Orangeburg

County Community of Character award. It will be given once a

year to worthy citizens who exemplify the character traits

that make their communities better places to live, work and

play.

A memorial service for Cunningham will be held at noon

Friday at First Presbyterian Church in Orangeburg. The family

will receive visitors from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Dukes-

Harley Funeral Home.

Mr. Speaker, I have significant concerns

about the spending bill before us this week. How will billions spent on school snack programs and repairs to the Smithsonian Institution stimulate the economy? How will $3 billion being spent for a prevention and wellness fund stimulate the economy?

It is clear that this spending package has become a one-stop shop for every item on a spending agenda--a massive, unprecedented spending bill aimed to bypass the normal appropriations process and subsidize a broad range of existing and new government programs. We must do better, and together we can do better to create jobs.

A targeted stimulus package of tax relief and assistance for small businesses would fuel this Nation's entrepreneurial spirit and help private industry and individuals create jobs. Our focus should be on growing the American economy and not on growing an already massive government.

In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th.