Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 18 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 10:30 a.m.

Madam Speaker, House Democrats are fully committed to ensuring that the FISA law is focused on giving the intelligence community the tools it needs to protect our national security at the same time protecting the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.

We've already passed the RESTORE Act, which modernizes FISA, to address these two critical needs. Today, congressional leaders continue to negotiate differences between our bill and a bill passed by the Senate earlier this year. If congressional Republicans were really concerned about our Nation's national security, you would think they would be sitting at the negotiating table ensuring their concerns are addressed. They've been asked to join the talks, but to date they have refused.

And National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell says that the President is holding up the legislation in order to get blanket immunity for the telecommunications industry.

Madam Speaker, congressional Democrats are committed to strengthening our intelligence community to keep our country safe. And we urge Republicans to put aside partisan politics and work with us on this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it's a great honor for me to be here tonight representing the class of 2006, the freshmen Democrats who were responsible for returning the majority to the Democrats in the last election. I'm particularly proud to be here to talk about the whole area of intelligence and surveillance, which our colleagues from across the aisle spent the last hour talking about.

I don't have props tonight because I look down at the dais and I see engraved in the side of the dais two words that serve as the only props I need in discussing this very important topic. I see the word ``justice,'' and I see the word ``freedom.'' Because that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about the FISA controversy. We're talking about whether the incredibly important principles of justice will apply to the way we treat corporations in this country that choose not to

obey the law. And we're also talking about freedom. We're talking about the freedom of individuals to pursue their private lives free of the worry that they're being listened to for no good reason.

You know, it's interesting to listen to my colleagues from across the aisle. And I don't want to impugn their motives at all. I believe that they, just as we on the majority side of the aisle, firmly believe in patriotism. We firmly believe in securing this country. We believe this is one of our sworn duties.

There is no question that all of us take an oath to secure this country and to protect it, and one of our primary responsibilities is to defend the people of this great country. But the first thing that we swear to when we take the oath of office is to protect the Constitution of the United States. That is our solemn oath. And the Constitution was written primarily to protect the rights of the American citizens. And that's really what this controversy is all about. All of us, every one of us, Democrat and Republican, is primarily concerned about making sure that our citizens are safe. And we want to do everything in our power to make sure that we use every tool that we have at our disposal to make sure that our citizens are safe. But we also want to make sure that every tool in our power is not used to violate the Bill of Rights, the amendments which guarantee fundamental freedoms to our citizens. And that's really what we're talking about when we talk about the FISA reauthorization.

You know, it's interesting; we passed, last fall, a reauthorization of the FISA Act, the Protect America Act, and we passed it willingly. We thought it was a good bill. And here comes the President saying, I'm not going to allow this bill to go forward. I'm not going to allow these important protections for the American citizens to go forward unless we give immunity to the phone companies because the phone companies did what we ordered them to do, essentially, starting with 9/ 11. We asked them to help us provide surveillance of American citizens even though we knew it was against the law, even though they knew it was against the law. We asked them to do that, and, therefore, they shouldn't be held accountable for that.

Well, that's an interesting attitude. And I know that my colleagues across the aisle said all they're trying to do is to protect the trial lawyers, all they're trying to do is protect the trial lawyers. Well, I have another question because there is another side to that point. And I'll address the trial lawyer controversy, or issue, but the other side of that is, why are they trying to protect the phone companies? Why are they trying to protect American corporations that knowingly violated the law of the United States?

Now I don't think that it's really because they care whether the phone companies have to pay millions of dollars in damages. I don't think it's really because they care whether trial lawyers might make a contingent fee. I think the only reason that they are concerned about granting immunity to the phone companies for ostensibly violating the law of the United States is because they don't want the American people to know what the phone companies were doing and what the administration has ordered them to do because in a legal procedure, a lot of that information may come out.

Now they will say, on the other hand, if they get to that, well, this is a matter of national security. And all the legal experts say no, the courts have a way of making sure that no classified information is divulged to the public. But what the administration is really afraid of is not that AT&T might have to pay $100 million. They're concerned about AT&T having to go under oath and say here's what we did, and that somebody will understand that this administration asked them to violate the law, and they knowingly did that. That's what the immunity issue is all about.

Now in terms of the trial lawyers. I know, and I know our leadership has told us, the trial lawyers have never said a word about this issue. This isn't a big deal. You're not talking about a vast number of lawyers who are going to benefit from this. There are only a few companies that did it. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of companies that were reputable enough and honest enough to say no to the government, we're not going to do that, we're not going to violate the law.

So they didn't need immunity because they didn't do anything wrong, and I don't know how many lawyers could actually, and I don't want to use the metaphor I was thinking of, but try to exploit that situation for their benefit, but there are not that many involved. And trial lawyers really have not lobbied this issue at all.

What we are talking about, plain and simple, is the issue of who violated the law. Is there accountability? Is there justice in this country? And this administration, in spite of their protestations of saying Osama bin Laden is out there, he's making phone calls, they're all making phone calls, that that's what we want to protect ourselves from, that has nothing to do with the immunity issue. The immunity issue is history. That's the past. We're concerned about what we do going forward. We're concerned about protecting the American people. We enacted legislation last fall that would do that. The President won't sign it.

So we have a very, very different perspective on this issue. And it's funny because they throw up their hands on the other side and say, I just can't imagine why the leadership of the Democrats is not allowing this to come to a vote, why they won't pass this bill. We need to do it. It's a perfect bill. We need to do it.

Well, I have three answers for them. I think I have already mentioned a couple of them. One is the Constitution. That's the solemn oath that we take when we enter this office. And we are not willing to pass a bill that basically eliminates part of the Constitution.

Secondly is the rule of law. I think we all agree that the rule of law is sacrosanct, that this country would fall if it weren't for the rule of law. And we are trying to make sure here that the rule of law is observed and respected.

And, finally, we're talking about individual liberty, the freedom I talked about at the outset of the remarks, that we need to make sure that if we allow individual liberties to be abridged in this country that it is done pursuant to legal authority, that it is done pursuant to warrants, that it is done pursuant to the government's going to a court and providing reasonable cause to assume that there is some reason to surveil an individual American citizen. That's what this dispute is all about. That's what this issue is on both sides.

And it's interesting. As I listened to the President not too long ago when he was once again trying to use scare tactics to intimidate this body into doing what he wants to do, to protecting him and to essentially helping him engage in a coverup of the activities of the administration and the phone companies, he made the statement that right now terrorists are plotting activities against the United States that would make 9/11 pale in comparison. That's what he said.

And when I heard him say that, my thought was, well, wait a minute. If he actually knows that, that they are plotting something that's worse than 9/11, then I guess he's getting all the information he needs. Somehow, some way he's hearing information. If he can make a claim with that specificity that it's going to be worse than 9/11 and they are planning it now, then maybe he's listening to something. Maybe the intelligence authority that he was using works and he doesn't need this additional authority.

But I don't think that's the case, of course. I think basically what he was trying to say is do this or you die because that's been the strategy of this administration in many cases. Do what we want or you will be in trouble. You will be harmed. Your family will be harmed.

I don't think the American people are buying it anymore. I think they've cried wolf far too often. But that's what we have been dealing with in trying to have a very reasonable approach to providing the type of authority that we agree is necessary to allow us to wage this struggle against terrorist activity. So that's sort of, in an introductory way, what we are dealing with.

And it gives me great pleasure now to welcome another Member of the class of 2006, my good friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Dr. Kagen.

Well, I think the answer to anyone who thinks about it is obvious. No, of course we are listening. And what's more, we're listening pursuant to authority that exists in the law. And when the current law expired recently, the authority to surveil under the prior act did not expire. And, in fact, there have been numerous people who have said we have all the authority we need to protect this country.

You don't have to take my word for it. Experts in the field have testified to the fact that this is not the case. Richard Clarke, who is the former Chief NSC Counterterrorism Adviser under both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush said, ``Let me be clear. Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire. If this were true, the President would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are under effect up to a full year.''

So, of course, there is no reason to believe the ads and the scare tactics that have been perpetrated against Members in the Congress.

Well, obviously we can. And obviously this body did last fall. We passed a very, very reasonable reauthorization of the Protect America Act which did virtually everything that the President wanted, and it provided authority to surveil under reasonable circumstances. It didn't grant the NSC or any other institution the ability to go on a fishing expedition. It retains some oversight, some court control. Again, this is a secret court. But this is the way the law was set up in 1978. It's worked very well since then. There are some tweaks that are needed in this law. We recognize that. We did what the administration requested. All of a sudden, this issue of immunity comes up. And, again, I can't believe that this has anything to do with worrying about whether AT&T pays out millions of dollars. This is not what they are concerned about. I don't think the gentleman believes that either.

I think it's not only reasonable; I think it's our duty to require that because it would be a frivolous act if we just said, well, whatever you did, whether it was legal or not, then we're going to grant you immunity or amnesty for doing that. No, we have to know, in order to grant immunity, whether or not there is a reason to grant immunity. Why would we want to do that if there were no reason to do it?

Well, I think that's exactly the case.

And I don't blame the telephone companies. I think they were in a very difficult spot. When your government asks you to do something and says that the security of this country is at stake, then I suspect that most corporations would comply with the government's request.

Now, these corporations, being the major corporations that they are, with lots of money, with lots of legal advice, lawyers everywhere, would understand that what they were being asked to do might run afoul of the law. And I would suspect that they did make a decision, being in a very difficult spot, I can see, that I either comply with the government, do what they ask me to do, understanding that the government is regulating me; so they would say, okay, I'm really between a rock and a hard place. I can do what the government asks, knowing it's a violation of the law, or I can refuse and knowing that they are regulating me, that my business might be affected some way or another.

But that's all a different dynamic from what we're dealing with. We are dealing with the question of does the Congress have the responsibility to hold anyone, corporation or individual, accountable if they violate the law? And that's what I think we're talking about today and talking about in this long debate.

We have to do this. And I agree with my colleague that what we're talking about here is the oath we took. We took an oath to uphold the Constitution. And the Constitution says that we have to obey the laws of the land and we have to, within

our area of authority, make sure the laws of the land are upheld. And we have to provide oversight for that.

We have been joined by another one of our distinguished colleagues, a freshman Member, one of our most passionate Members from New Hampshire, Carol Shea-Porter, and I yield to her.

If the gentlelady will yield, I would like to reinforce one statement you made. You talked about the fact that we wanted to extend the act for 21 days so that we could make these corrections. It wasn't just that the President threatened to veto the bill and we voted to extend it. All 202 Republicans voted against the extension.

I actually was mystified to watch a news show right around that time, on which they said the Democrats refused to extend the act. I said, boy, is that ridiculous spin. Because we proposed the extension. Every one of the Republicans opposed it, the President threatened to veto it and demagogued it, and yet we were blamed for something we tried to do.

I yield back.

I want to yield again to my colleague from Wisconsin, but one of the things that intrigued me earlier was the notion that somehow we were not interested in security, that we were not interested in fighting the most effective fight that we could against 9/11, and that we were playing politics with the security of this country. That seems to me to be kind of standard rhetoric when we are talking about these matters, when in fact we tend not to deal with what is in the actual law, what the facts of the situation are.

I would like to yield again to my colleague from Wisconsin. We have been joined by another distinguished colleague, Mr. Perlmutter, from Colorado. I would like you all to engage in a colloquy about the issue of politics and just who might be playing politics with a very important matter of national security.

I am going to yield to the gentleman from Iowa in just a second, but I want to ask one question about that, and it is a rhetorical question.

But can you imagine, I want every American to imagine how their lives would change and how their conversations would change if they thought that every phone call they made was being monitored? Just imagine the chilling effect that that would have on every word you say, on your very thought process. You have to be able to put yourself in that situation to understand what is at stake when we talk about this issue. This is not just about nasty people trying to do people wrong. This is about every American having their very being altered by the threat that they are being listened to.

Now I will yield to the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Braley.

There is some other history we haven't talked about tonight yet, and that is the background of this controversy. Because what we fail to remember as we debate this issue, and obviously I think we want to deal with this prospectively, we want to make sure that this country has the power, the government has the power and authority and tools it needs to provide legitimate security for this country.

But this program started right after September 11, 2001, and continued for 4 years before it was exposed by the New York Times. So this was a longstanding violation of the law, a deliberate avoidance of the law by the administration. They could at any time after 9/11 have come to Congress and said, we want some additional authority. But they didn't do that. They knew that it would be tough. Even a Republican Congress at that time might have looked askance at requests to do warrantless wiretapping, so they just did it by themselves for 4 years. Then, when it was uncovered, this Congress under Republican leadership rushed to pass the Protect America Act, a stop-gap measure because, obviously, it was embarrassing and they needed to do that.

But this is a longstanding deliberate ignoring of the law, and this is something that it doesn't matter whether the government sanctioned it; if companies did it and violated the law, as I said at the outset of my remarks standing right behind you, Mr. Kagen, the words described in that dais, justice. And that is what this country has been built on. And this is a longstanding violation that needs to be redressed, and we shouldn't just say, because the government asked them to do something, that it is okay, that they broke the law. Because if that is the precedent we are setting, there is no end to the imagination of horrors that could happen if the government were able to immunize anyone for any violation of the law.

With that, I would like to yield again to Carol Shea-Porter from New Hampshire who has joined us.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush is out of new ideas. Instead, all he has left is blatant fear-mongering, a strategy that his administration has elevated to an art form.

This time, it's the expiration of his Protect America Act that has the President warning of dire consequences, even though his own administration admits that our intelligence community continues to have every tool it needs. Fortunately, the American people are not buying into the administration's latest scare tactics.

It's pretty difficult for the President to now decry the act's expiration when he threatened to veto a 21-day extension earlier this month. If the law was so critical to national security, you would think that the President and congressional Republicans would have done everything in their power to ensure that it didn't expire.

If Washington Republicans were seriously concerned about the future of the FISA program, you would think they would want a seat at the table as important negotiations continue. Instead, both the administration and Republican leaders have refused to negotiate.

Mr. Speaker, no wonder the scare tactics aren't working.

I thank my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the eight American heroes from Louisville, Kentucky, who were taken from us in the prime of their lives these last 5 years.

While they did not serve together, they all shared a special bond of selfless dedication, love of country, and

immeasurable courage. Those noble qualities did not originate when they volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces, but their time serving greatly enhanced and magnified those attributes. In his service, each man proved the valor time and time again, readily meeting every challenge that confronted him with loyalty and devotion. Tragically, and long before we were ready to say good-bye, these brave souls made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for the United States of America, seven in Operation Iraqi Freedom and one in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Still, for all they shared, these men were also characterized by a wonderful individuality: an incredible athlete and officer, a great dad who would have been a great coach, a third generation warrior called to heaven before he could answer another call to preach the Word of God, a peacekeeper in Bosnia who wanted to come home to Louisville and continue to keep the peace in his hometown, an EMS worker known for empathy, an unflappable National Guardsman, a decorated military officer, and a poet and performer who could light up the stage and brighten your day.

Some of these men were known for their sense of humor, others by a sense of purpose, and with each of them, their fellow servicemembers knew they could be depended upon in the most dire circumstances. The men we honor today saved lives, and every one of them is an American hero.

Some of them spent a short time in the military; others spent half their lives in the service. And all gave their lives for this country, for our history, for our citizens, and most of all, for our future.

We are, each one of us, poorer for their loss but infinitely richer for the time they spent on this planet and the contributions that they made to our community and this Nation.

For the families who lost a son, a husband, a father, and for the many who lost a good friend, this is a wound that time can never fully heal. The grief we all share for their loss is not fleeting and demands a memorial of equal permanence. In recognition of these great heroes, I am proposing legislation to rename the Hikes Point Post Office the Iraq and Afghanistan Fallen Military Heroes of Louisville Memorial Post Office in my congressional district, the Third District of Kentucky.

As our friends, neighbors, and I conduct our daily business in our community, this building will stand in testament for the tremendous sacrifice made by eight brave Louisvillians. When their families see the memorial, I hope they are reminded they are not alone in their grief, not alone in their appreciation for the deeds of these men, and not alone in the celebration of the lives of eight extraordinary individuals who gave us everything they had in their short time on Earth.

Sergeant Michael Acklin II, Captain Clayton Lee Adamkavicius, Lance Corporal Robert Lynch, Sergeant Darrin K. Potter, Sergeant First Class Christopher Phelps, Staff Sergeant George S. Rentschler, Petty Officer Third Class Jeffrey L. Wiener, and Sergeant David Neil Wimberg.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to join me in offering these men this honor which will have the same permanence as their positive impact on our country, by renaming the Hikes Point Post Office the Iraq and Afghanistan Fallen Military Heroes of Louisville Memorial Post Office.

Mr. Speaker, the politics of fear are alive and well in the Republican Party. Despite the fact that the House and Senate are actively working to craft a strong new FISA bill, Republicans and the White House refuse to attend the negotiations. Instead, they're insisting that this House simply rubber-stamp a bill that was recently passed by the Senate.

The decision to boycott these negotiations shows that Republicans prefer a political issue rather than a strong new FISA bill.

Democrats are hopeful that Republicans will consider their decision to sit on the sidelines and will instead join us in crafting a bill that protects our country while respecting the fundamental rights of American citizens.

Mr. Speaker, House Democrats passed a bill in November that meets both of these criteria. Then, earlier this month, the Senate passed its own version. As is common procedure here on Capitol Hill, we are now in the process of negotiating the differences between the two bills in order to come up with the strongest bill possible. I would hope Republicans would want to remain relevant and would join us in passing the strongest FISA bill we can.

I thank the distinguished chairwoman from the Rules Committee, a native Kentuckyan and someone who has always stood for the finest traditions of this body.

In November of 2006, the American people decided to give the Democrats the control of the House of Representatives and the Congress. I was fortunate enough to be elected as one of the 43 new Democrats in that class.

And many people have said, in examining that election, oh, we were elected because of the war in Iraq. But that's not what I heard. What I heard when I was campaigning in 2006, and I think most of my colleagues in this class would say the same thing, is we want to return the Government to the tenets of the Constitution. We want to restore the checks and balances that the Founding Fathers prescribed. We want to make sure that this President and every President is held accountable, is not above the law.

So when we came here, one of the things we did was to start talking about article I, which established that all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. We started wearing these buttons, article I buttons, and we offered them to Members of both parties, hoping that this would not be a partisan issue and not be an expression of partisanship but, instead, a respect for the integrity of this institution.

Unfortunately, most of my colleagues on the other side chose not to wear these buttons. They have chosen to make this a partisan issue in spite of the fact that during the last 6 years before we took control of the Congress, no subpoenas were issued against this President. No efforts to hold him accountable were made, in spite of the fact that in the prior administration a thousand subpoenas were offered by the Republican Congress to the Democratic President.

So, unfortunately, this has become a partisan issue when it shouldn't be. To me this is all about institutional integrity, about restoring the checks and balances.

Fundamental to our power, legislative power, is our ability to gather information. If we do not stand up for our right to gather information, then in spite of the fact that my colleagues on the other side have said we may lose our prerogatives if we go to court, if we don't challenge the President on this issue, we will have surrendered our prerogatives; and that is the worst fate that we could commit this body to.

So I would say, in closing, that many people look at polls today and say the standing of the Congress is at its lowest ebb ever, and they say maybe that's because we are not doing anything. I think it's because the American people recognize that we have been negligent in not upholding our responsibilities under the Constitution.

This is an important step in restoring the integrity of this institution and restoring the confidence of the American people in this body in its willingness to respond to the dictates of the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, last week this House came together in a bipartisan fashion to address the economic uncertainty that many of our citizens are facing. President Bush worked with both Democratic and Republican leaders of the House to develop an economic stimulus package

that is timely, targeted, and temporary. That plan, which was passed here in the House last week, will help jump-start our economy by putting tax rebates in the hands of 117 million hardworking middle- and lower-income workers.

We should be proud of the bipartisanship that made this compromise package possible. I would hope that we could bring that same bipartisanship to bear on the continuing war in Iraq.

Last month, the Iraqi defense minister said that his country will not be able to take full control of its security until 2012 and will not be able to defend its borders from outside threats until at least 2018. Democrats do not believe that American troops should be on the ground in Iraq for another decade and neither do the American people. The status quo cannot continue.

I would hope that we could continue to work together to bring this war to an end.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that will bring the Nation closer to providing a world-class education to 2.9 million children with disabilities.

The last few years we have seen significant advances in diagnosis and understanding of students with autism, ADD, dyslexia, Down's Syndrome, and a dozen other common and treatable disabilities. Where people once thought these students were unmanageable and unteachable, we now know that more often than not, the majority of them are bright, creative students who are capable of success when given the opportunity to learn.

In 1975, we took a major step forward with the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA placed many students with their peers, where the bar was raised on their achievements, and we began to discover how truly capable these students were.

Over the last 33 years, educators have revolutionized techniques to help students with disabilities find success, but these tools have not yet made their way into the vast majority of classrooms. And as a result, the system is failing millions of students.

The fact that so many students with disabilities, well over half, now study alongside their peers is a tribute to the success of IDEA. But because most educators have not been given the information, resources, or training to effectively work with students with disabilities, the teachers are getting understandably frustrated, the diverse learners are not being helped, and the rest of the class waits while teachers struggle to deal with situations for which they are simply not equipped. The bottom line is it does no good to put students with disabilities in a classroom with a teacher who has not been given the tools to reach them.

Make no mistake, the teachers are not the problem, but with proper resources, they can be a big part of the solution. Many teachers have not been trained to individualize instruction for these special needs students.

This isn't a straightforward manner of simply developing special curricula.

Spending time with peers is crucial for the development of these students, especially if we want them to attain the social, communicative, and educational skills we know they are capable of.

One area I have focused on is educated children with autism. Without the proper training, misconceptions, such as the Rain Man savant, run rampant. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that the Hollywood depiction is an extreme, with highly functional students with Aspbergers on the other end and every level of functionality in between. The signals are abundant, but recognizing them is not just a matter of common sense.

The untrained educator may not know why a student with autism refuses to make eye contact, suddenly stops socializing, acts out, or completely cuts off all communication. What's more troublesome is that the wrong response, in many cases the normal, logical response, can send a child into a downward spiral.

And what has escaped many is the tremendous scope and urgency of what we're dealing with. Already 1 in 150 children is diagnosed with autism, and the number is escalating at an alarming rate. An analysis of the U.S. Department of Education special education data revealed that the number of students with a diagnosis of autism has increased more than 500 percent since 1993, and by 2014 the number is expected to increase 1800 percent.

We cannot afford to wait to address the needs of these children and others with special needs. That is why I am proposing a new grant program for institutions of higher education working to better prepare general education teachers for success in helping students with disabilities. Institutions would partner with high-need local education agencies to place qualified teacher candidates into the areas that need the most help.

The Teach to Reach grants will give our teachers the tools to properly engage students with disabilities. Truly engaging the students not only improves the quality of learning for special needs students but for everyone in the classroom. These grants will provide just the sort of preparation that is needed. Teacher candidates will learn how to use Response to Intervention, a scientifically based intervention strategy that allows a teacher to pinpoint the specific skills students need in order to progress. They will train in positive behavioral support strategies that will enable them to manage and improve challenging behaviors in the classroom and also learn how to work with their special education and related colleagues to develop and implement individualized educational programs so that students with disabilities will have their diverse needs met.

In classroom after classroom across the Nation, these grants can make the difference between students trapped by misunderstanding and teachers reaching their students and helping them unlock their potential to succeed in school and excel in life.

This program is endorsed by the NEA, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the Higher Education Consortium for Special Education, and many organizations that advocate for the education of students with disabilities.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment so that we may empower our Nation's teachers to reach all of our children.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to thank my freshman colleagues for the very insightful and compelling arguments they raised concerning our budget, the budget proposal by the President for the 2009 fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, I will say that what we are dealing with here is a situation in which those of us who were elected in 2006, freshman Members, so known as the majority makers, came to this Congress because the American people in that election of 2006 thought that the country was going in the wrong direction, and it wasn't so much one thing, I know a lot of people think that we were elected because of the war in Iraq, and certainly that was a factor.

I think more than anything else, the American people collectively decided that the priorities that have been established by the administration that was in office, beginning in 2000, we were taking the country in the wrong direction, that we were spending money, that we were emphasizing things that did not represent the best interests of the majority of the American people. They sent us here, therefore, to set a new pattern of doing business, a new way of setting priorities.

They wanted us to put the American people first. They wanted us to recognize the true needs of this society, to recognize that government is a way of reorganizing and organizing our responsibilities to each other, that we could, as a government, actually create an economy that worked for everyone and not just for a very few, but that we could, again, set the country on a different direction, that we could use the tax revenues that were flowing to the Treasury to empower all people to make the best of their lives, to contribute to a more dynamic society. We really have set a different direction in this Congress, and I think we need to do much more.

But let's think back to 2006 and think about what the American people were confronted with when they looked at Washington. They looked at Washington and they said, we have a government there that is arrogant, that tends to favor the richest people in the country, that tends to favor global corporations, that thinks that if we allow the wealthiest and most powerful people to do as well as they possibly can financially, that there will be a trickle-down effect and it will, quote-unquote, float everyone's boat, and that this is what the proper role of government should be.

The American people said, no, we don't buy that. We've tried that. We tried it under the Reagan administration. We saw then that trickle-down economics does not work. We tried that for a few more years under the Bush administration. We found that, no, that doesn't work because, in fact, what we have seen is that from 2001 to 2006, 100 percent of the income growth in this country accrued to the benefit of the top 5 percent of the population, that, in fact, 95 percent of the people in this country did not see their standard of living increase despite the fact that they are working harder, they are working longer.

The average family has been working, the average household, 95 hours a week. That's two people working more than full time and still not getting ahead. So the American people said to us, we want to go in a different direction. We think that government can be a tool for progress, it can be a tool to create a society that distributes its benefits more broadly, and that we ought to take the position that rather than trying to let this trickle-down theory flow to everybody's boat that we ought to make a society in which everybody has a really good boat, and that everybody can swim on their own. In fact, the way to create a society that truly works over the long term is to empower every individual to be productive, to contribute to society and to have the power and the freedom and the support to improve his or her way of life.

Now we are confronted, once again, with a budget from the President of the United States which does exactly the same thing that they have been trying over and over and over again with very

little success. We have a budget, deceitful in many ways because it pretends to reach a budgetary balance when it really doesn't, and they do it by very deceitful mechanisms, but it sets the wrong priorities.

It takes the money away from programs and policies that actually do empower individuals to improve their lives, to make a better society, to make a stronger economy, and it sends the money once again to basically nonproductive activities. We have, once again, a budget that minimizes and disguises the cost of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us differ very strenuously on our priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We all understand that we have some serious problems in Afghanistan, and we need to focus there. We also understand that we are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq, most of which we will never see. It never represents any investment in our future. It is money that is down the drain.

When you try to compare the benefits of our tax dollars being spent again to promote a vibrant and healthy economy and to help people who need to get their feet on the ground to become productive citizens versus spending money overseas in ways that do nothing to enhance our own standard of living, that we know we have a skewed sense of priorities.

That's what we are going to talk about for the next few minutes, and I am very proud to be here with one of my freshman colleagues, someone who is passionate about the need for this country to work for everyone, someone who is as passionate about working for working families as anyone in this Congress, John Hall from New York.

I am proud to be his colleague, and I would like to recognize Congressman Hall to further this discussion.

I want to thank my colleague.

He referenced the annual profit of ExxonMobil that was reported last week. And I was struck last week on February 1, when I looked at The New York Times on the online version, the list of the headlines of the day, and I thought it was striking because I think it painted a vivid picture of where we are in this world and in this country. The first story was, ``Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo,'' a lot of money, two corporations vying for each other.

The next story, ``U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Sheds 17,000 Jobs,'' the worst jobs report in several years. Then, ``Dozens Killed in Worst Baghdad Attack in Months,'' then ``Kurds' Power Wanes as Arab Anger Rises'' and, then, finally, ``ExxonMobil Profit Sets Record Again.''

I think that was just an incredibly vivid picture of where we are in this world and where this economy stands and how out of whack the priorities of this administration have become. That's why I am so thankful that we are, at least, in control of this House of the Congress so that we can help to set the priorities of this country on a much more sound course.

I know that I have had so many opportunities to stand on this floor and discuss these issues with my colleague from Florida (Mr. Klein). I am proud to recognize him now.

One of the things that is most disturbing to all of us is when you hear deceitful discussion of the financial situation of this country. We sat and listened to the State of the Union address in which the President said if we were to not renew the tax cuts that went into effect in 2001 and 2003, that the average tax increase for an American would be something like $1,200 a year. That is a very clever way of saying what the average tax increase would be. The problem is that the average tax increase would be very large because you are taking all of the people who are making a million, $5 million, $10 million a year, and if we reinstituted those tax rates prior to 2001, the 39.6 percent tax rate, some people at the very highest level would pay $40,000, $80,000, $100,000, $2 million a year more in taxes. So when you average that with the normal taxpayer, yes, it comes to about $1,200 a year.

If you phrased it another way, and that would be the average American taxpayer would have his or her taxes increased by, it wouldn't be $1,200, it would be like $40 or $50, because the average American working family earns $55,000 a year. And that family, if we did not extend the Bush tax cuts, would see their taxes raised by a very small amount. The people at the higher end would pay a lot more taxes. So the average tax increase, yes, it would be a

lot, but the average taxpayer would not see his or her taxes increased. Of course, we are not proposing that in any event.

We have been talking that when we do revisit those tax cuts that we look at the highest income levels. But the point is, when we are getting all of these projections from the administration about what would happen in future years, as my colleague said, if we fix the alternative minimum tax and don't pay for it, and we don't have that additional revenue, yes, we can underestimate the deficit that we will be experiencing during those times. We can make the projections look good 4, 5 years out into the future, but that will not be the case.

One of the things I would like to talk about because Mr. Klein mentioned this, the cost of interest on the national debt, which has increased by an extraordinary amount. According to this budget, it would be $4 trillion just since 2001; $4 trillion based on a $5.7 trillion starting point. So we basically have almost doubled the national debt, the entire history, 220 years of this Nation, we have almost doubled the national debt just in the last few years.

But here is where we really get a vivid depiction of what this means. We are talking about interest on the national debt of $300 billion a year. The entire expenditure on education from the Federal budget is $100 billion a year. Veterans care is less than that, and homeland security even less than that. This is what has happened to the priorities in our budget because of the irresponsibility of this government over the last 7 years.

So this is what we are talking about. This is what we are confronting, and this is why I think all of us in the majority party in the Congress say we need to speak honestly, openly, and intelligently about what confronts us, about the challenges that we face, but also about what has happened over the last few years.

All we ask of the administration is be honest about what you are saying, what you are telling the American people. We will have a legitimate debate with you and discussion about where our priorities should be. But first and foremost, we need to be talking about things in absolute terms and be honest and transparent as we discuss how we are going to spend the taxpayers' dollars.

I am also proud to be joined tonight by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz), the president of our freshman class and a great spokesman for the working families of America.

I thank my colleague and want to yield again to Mr. Hall from New York. But before I do, I just wanted to add that, again, sitting and listening to the State of the Union address and talking about the honesty that we need to have when we have this discussion, and all of a sudden the President for the first time in this State of the Union address takes on the question of earmarks. And all of a sudden he's critical of the Democratic Congress because we had 11,000 or something earmarks. But he never said a word for 6 years while the earmarks expanded to somewhere in the realm of 16,000.

Now we can have debates over earmarks. I happen to think, as my colleagues mentioned, that there are some very valid reasons to have earmarks. And I think they have been demonized probably unreasonably. But all of a sudden the President finds fiscal religion this year under a Democratic-controlled Congress when he was silent for 6 years. And the same is true of his passion now for balanced budgets when over the first 6 years of his administration with the Republican-controlled Congress, he never issued a veto, never threatened a veto of any spending bill as we accrued $3.7 or so trillion more in debt, and he was silent.

All of a sudden now you have to suspect that the only reason is partisanship. That's what we're trying to get away from in this country, and that's what we are trying to get away from as we discuss the priorities of the country. Because, as you said, we're interested in where the rubber meets the road, programs that help the American people, doing the best for the American people and not necessarily what means doing the best for a particular party.

I think what we're seeing, as you mentioned, in the turnout in voters in primaries throughout the country is that's what American people want. They want people who are going to deal with our problems and not deal with partisanship.

With that, I will once again recognize my distinguished colleague from New York (Mr. Hall).

I appreciate him mentioning the field of education because you can have, as I mentioned earlier, two forms of expenditure in government. You can have expenditures that are nonproductive, and one of those, I think, is the war in Iraq. Interest on the debt is another one, because there is no long-term payback to those expenditures. Education, investment in infrastructure, as Mr. Walz was discussing, those are the types of things that over the long run do produce increased revenues for society productivity, and they are the type of investments we need to be focusing on.

And when we look at this budget, the field of education, and I'm on the Education and Labor Committee and we are dealing with trying to decide whether to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act which is already $55 billion below its authorized levels in funding. And the President, once again, has no increases in funding for education in this budget, which means we fall further and further behind.

So while he called his act No Child Left Behind, where, in fact, we are leaving more and more children behind because we are not meeting our obligations to make the kind of investments in people and in an infrastructure that really will pay off over the long run.

And I know this is something that is an entire range of topics that Mr. Klein has dealt with and has had to set priorities in his own legislature in Florida, and I would like to yield to him to advance the discussion.

It's always wonderful to discuss these issues with my colleague on the floor.

And we have just a few minutes left. We have a fundamental decision to make in this country, and it is a basic choice, and that is what the role of government is, what the role of the Federal Government is. And on the one side, I think we have those that believe the role of the Federal Government is to get out of the way and to let whatever happens happen. And the other side, and I think most of us in this room would agree, that there is a legitimate role for the government to try to promote the type of progress through investments and the proper priorities that will make this a better country, and, basically, whether you believe government has a role in setting the direction of the country or whether it is basically just to get out of the way and let the most powerful people and the biggest corporations decide what is going to happen and let kind of a Darwinian atmosphere prevail.

So I would like to allow everyone to close briefly to whatever they have to say kind of related to that fundamental choice we face or to talk about the issue of priorities as we look forward to this budget process again this year.

I would like to yield to my colleague from New York.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I'd like to call on Mr. Klein from Florida for closing remarks.

I thank all my colleagues. And I'd like to end where we began, and that is that when these majority makers, our freshman class, was elected in 2006, we were elected because the country thought that the government of the United States had the wrong priorities, that we needed a new set of priorities, we needed a new direction. We've committed ourselves to that new direction. I think as we approach this budgetary process and all areas that we have to do, we will seek a new direction for the American people.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 45 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, February 7, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, today we will pass a bipartisan economic stimulus package that will help American families and jump-start our growing economy.

Throughout our great country, hardworking citizens are making major sacrifices to make ends meet, cutting back on winter clothes to pay for heat, scaling back groceries to pay for kids' medical bills, or sacrificing college in attempt to prevent mortgage foreclosure.

For 117 million families, 1.6 million in Kentucky alone, rebate checks of $600 per individual, $1,200 per couple and an additional $300 per child will be in their mailboxes by as early as May. This is dramatic departure from the old strategy in which leaders hoped tax breaks for billionaires would trickle down to the people who really needed help.

Hope is a wonderful thing. But as the last 7 years have taught us, it is not effective fiscal policy for most Americans. By targeting those who need help, who we know without doubt will spend and invest and put money back in the economy, we aren't depending on hope; we're providing it.

I urge my colleagues to join me in providing that hope and jump- starting the economy today.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and thank him for his comments and also Mr. Walz for his leadership as well.

I will say, no, the situation in Kentucky is not much different than it is anywhere else in the country, and throughout the campaign 2 years ago and before that, as I talked to people in my district and around the State of Kentucky, what I heard was the same message you have heard. You know, we're working harder and harder, we're struggling, we're doing the best we can, and yet we're falling behind. We're not making progress. Our standard of living is not getting better, not improving.

And I know that we don't want to burden the audience with too many statistics, but Mr. Walz talked about productivity, and one of the most astounding statistics I've heard recently is that 25 years ago, when there was a productivity gain in the United States, workers benefited to the tune of 70 percent of that productivity gain. So for every dollar increase in productivity, workers got 70 percent, owners got 30 percent.

In the current era, that number is down in the 20s. So while American workers are working harder and harder, most of the gain in their productivity is not going to them. It's going to owners. It's going to the corporations, and the workers working harder and harder are not getting the benefit of that.

And we're seeing it day in and day out. And not only that; we're seeing instances in which people who have worked their entire lives, because of emergencies, because of businesses going out of business, are losing their life savings.

I will never forget being at a Catholic picnic one day in 2006 and talking to a man who had worked for Winn-Dixie Corporation. He had worked 28 years for Winn-Dixie, and he had accumulated $150,000 in his retirement plan. Winn-Dixie had gone into bankruptcy. He was left with $30,000. He lost 80 percent of his life savings because of the problems inherent in his corporation, and they had not planned adequately to secure his retirement benefits.

So these have ripple effects. These are stories that are heard by relatives, by friends, by neighbors, and that increases the anxiety throughout society. And this is what I sense that we face in this country today is not just the actual fact of people's standard of living not increasing despite the fact they're working harder and harder, but their faith in the future is declining and faith in the future of their neighbors and their friends because they see the threats to them, and they say what am I working for, what am I trying so hard to accomplish.

Then we had the added specter, as I know one of our colleagues will discuss this evening, of the incredible crisis in the health care system where 50 percent of the bankruptcies that we now experience in this country are due to health care costs and people, again, who have done everything the right way and have lost everything because of bad luck of the draw. They've come down with cancer. They've come down with a serious injury that's preventing them from working.

So as we go across the entire spectrum of American society that's what we find day in and day out. I like to think of government as the way we organize our responsibilities to each other, and in this day and age we do face these very serious choices and very clear choices in how we perceive our economy and what government's role should be.

And the question is, do we reward wealth versus work? And I think this group that was elected in 2006 has a clear position on that; we want to reward work and not necessarily wealth. We want to make sure that when people work harder, they benefit. And we want to make sure that the economy is

fair to everyone and works for everyone. And if we can't do that, then we don't deserve to be representing the American people because we have let them down. And I know that this group is not going to let them down; I know that's why we came here. And I'm proud to be here for that reason, and I'm not going to stop fighting as long as I'm here.

So, I thank all of you for your collegiality and all of your efforts in this behalf. We are part of a great cause for the working families in America, and I'm very proud to be a part of that.

With that, I will yield to my colleague from out west, the site of this year's Democratic convention, Mr. Perlmutter.

Thank you. One of the things that I want to follow up on what you were talking about was we were sent here to solve problems. And I think one of the reasons that we have gotten into the predicament we're in is because a lot of people in the White House and in this Congress thought that you can govern by dogma. And when people say the free market's infallible or that regulation is bad or government should get out of the way and we hear those kinds of dogmatic philosophical statements, a lot of people bought into those. And what we see time after time, and I guess we are all slow learners in this country, but what we see time after time, whether it's with the subprime mortgage, whether it's with Katrina, or in all sorts of areas, with our health care system, is that dogma doesn't do very well when the rubber meets the road. There are real facts that we have to deal with.

So we come here, and I know a lot of people, when we try to suggest that the disparity between rich and poor has gotten too great or that corporations have too much power, think we are playing at class war or we are trying to pit one part of society against the other. And that's not at all what we're doing. And I hope the audience has understood that everybody tonight has talked about fairness and, dare I say it, balance, and we are talking about the fact that in this country over the last couple of decades the economic pendulum has swung way too far to one side. And the marketplace works where there is some kind of balance in power, and now there is no balance in power because the rules are all stacked against every working American.

So we're not trying to say that corporations are evil. I don't think anybody would say that, or that the rich are evil and that they don't care about the working class. But we have a situation in which that pendulum needs to be moved back to the point where everybody shares in the growth of this country.

So as I look at this group, all of whom are committed to solving problems and not necessarily to advancing a dogma, I think that's what the American people expect us to do and I think that's what we are going to continue to work to do.

I would like to yield to my distinguished colleague and friend from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

I would just like to add as maybe a closing remark that one of the things in the area of dogma we talk about, or cliches, we want government out of our lives. Everybody hates government until they need government. That is from the richest to the poorest. We know there's a lot of subsidy to the wealthiest people, the wealthiest corporations. They say they don't like government, but they are always coming here to ask for help when it suits them.

This is one of those times when everyone needs government in this country. Everyone needs the stimulus that we are about to try to provide. It's the right thing, it's the smart thing, and it's the moral thing to do. I think that if we can convince enough people on the other side of the aisle, we will strike a great victory for this country and for the American people. I look forward to doing that in the next couple of weeks.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the S- MINER Act because it will quite simply and without doubt save the lives of innocent Americans. It could have saved the life of my fellow Kentuckian, Jimmy Lee, whose widow Melissa I met this past year. She courageously came to us for help because, though it was too late to save her Jimmy, we still had the chance to prevent more loving spouses from becoming courageous widows.

Yesterday, Melissa and 27 other Kentuckians sent me a letter. Each has lost a father, son or husband in a preventable mine disaster, and each urges the implementation of this legislation.

I found it very interesting to listen to my colleague from across the aisle, the gentleman from Alaska. And he used the term on a number of occasions, a nail in the coffin: And this is what we're talking about.

In my case, today, I'm talking about a letter from 28 Kentuckians who had to put their relatives, their loved ones in coffins and bury them because this government has not done what it can and should do to protect them.

In any event, the White House threatens a veto, not so much because it disagrees, but because the Department of Labor still hasn't implemented the last law. Congress is here to act when bureaucracies drag their feet. And here the consequences of the administration stonewalling are disastrous.

This is one of those choices we face in this era. We face the decision between money and lives. And as I said during the hearing when we looked into the Darby disaster and Sago and Crandall Canyon, we need to have a country and a government that value the lives of the miners as much as what they bring out of the ground. That's what this legislation is all about. That's what we stand here to do. And that's why I congratulate the chairman for his courageous act and his passion for this cause.

So with that, I urge my colleagues and the President to join me in supporting the Supplemental Mining Improvement and New Emergency Response Act. And I urge them to begin saving lives today.

Mr. Speaker, last night this House acted in bipartisan fashion to reject some of the President's harmful budget cuts to important education programs. Had this Congress simply rubber-stamped President Bush's budget, education funding would have been slashed by $1.2 billion, including a 50 percent cut in vocational education and the elimination of every student aid program except Pell Grants and Work Study.

This House rejected those cuts. Instead, we invest $767 million more than the President's request for K-12 education, including targeted increases in special education, teacher quality grants, after-school programs and Head Start. We invested $575 million above the President's budget for technical training in high schools and community colleges. And we provide $1.7 billion more than the President for Pell Grants and other student aid programs.

Mr. Speaker, this new Democratic Congress has prioritized the needs of children and young adults by investing in their education so they can better compete in an ever-expanding global economy.