John Abney Culberson

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me tonight in voting for this important bill to keep our word to the American people. Keeping our word to our constituents is one of our most important responsibilities, and the President and those of us who ran to secure the southern border promised that we would see this wall built in those parts of the border where it makes sense.

We are relying on the good judgment of our sector chiefs down on the border to tell us whether a fence makes the most sense or a wall or perhaps a weir dam in places on the Rio Grande River where you simply dam up the water. Where the local sector chief believes that is probably the best way to secure the border, we are going to follow that recommendation.

But this $5 billion that is set aside in this bill for construction of border fencing and a wall is consistent with what the full Appropriations Committee did this summer. We debated this extensively, Mr. Speaker. We all talked about this. This is not a new number. This is something that the full committee voted on and approved when the Appropriations Committee voted the Homeland Security bill out of committee this summer.

This is consistent with what the committee did. This keeps our word to our constituents, and we are also keeping our word to those Americans who suffered as a result of the disasters in California with the wildfires and the flooding that occurred from the hurricanes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen again for his support of the people of southeast Texas who suffered from Hurricane Harvey. It was my privilege, as the Representative from District Seven in west Houston, to help spearhead that recovery package for Hurricane Harvey that brought together the delegations from Florida and Texas.

Mr. Speaker, we put together, with the chairman's help, the largest hurricane recovery package in the history of the United States and made sure that the people who need that money got it as soon as possible. That is another reason it is so important to pass this bill to make sure the flood-ravaged people of Florida get the help they need.

Above all, this is about keeping our word to our constituents, something I have been proud to do in representing the people of west Houston in District Seven for 18 years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important piece of legislation tonight.

Mr. Speaker, the Founders entrusted the power of the purse to the Congress because it is the most effective and powerful check and balance in our Constitution. It is vitally important that this Congress work to pass these appropriations bills in their full detail. We cannot continue to operate under a continuing resolution, which just allows the executive branch to run unchecked.

These bills have been carefully negotiated. These bills allow the public to see how our hard-earned tax dollars are being spent. These bills enable the Congress to have some real authority over the executive branch.

In the 18 years it has been my privilege to represent the people of west Houston, and to chair a subcommittee on appropriations, I was able to work together with my colleagues in putting together the largest hurricane recovery package in the history of the country, working together to make sure that our laws are enforced and that the Department of Justice is following the law, enforcing the law, and securing the border.

These things can be done through the power of the purse, through the responsibility we have as Members of Congress, as appropriators. It is essential we pass these appropriations bills and do so in a bipartisan way.

I have always worked closely with my colleagues throughout the State of Texas and throughout the country, regardless of party, because we are doing it for the good of the country. As Mr. Crowley said in his remarks and you can detect by the response in the House, we all work together arm-in-arm as patriots. Let's pass these appropriations bills in detail when we come back here in the next year when the CR runs out in February.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In 18 years, it has been my extraordinary privilege to represent the people of District 7. I have had the world's best role model as a Congressman.

My predecessor, George H.W. Bush, was the first Congressman to represent District 7. He, just as he was to Roger Williams and as he was to Kevin

Brady, has been not only a role model to me, but an adviser who helped to guide me when I first decided to run for office.

He has always been there for me to offer advice every step of the way. He is an extraordinary role model. Everyone who knew him understood immediately that they were in the presence of someone extraordinary.

As Mark McKinnon remembers: ``George H.W. Bush will be remembered by history as a deeply accomplished public servant. But the many of us who were lucky enough to pass through his orbit will remember him for his uncommon grace and love toward family and friends.''

The editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly once said of George H.W. Bush that it is clear there is a narrative that runs through the Bush family: ``be polite, treat people decently.''

This came from his father and from his mother. They passed it on to their children.

He remembers: ``Every encounter I ever had with George W. Bush, whether it was Governor Bush or President Bush 43 or ex-President Bush, he was the same guy. He is very much his father's son, and all of us who are parents hope that whatever else we don't do right, the thing we do do right is to convey the fundamental values of who we are and who we're supposed to be to our kids.''

One of the things that survives about George Bush, the elder, is the fact that he passed along to his own children that same decency, that same line of decency that he learned from his parents.

In fact, Jeb Bush once said: How great is this country that it could elect a man as fine as our dad to be President?

If we remember what George W. said as he accepted the Presidential nomination in the year 2000, President Bush 43 said, as he accepted the nomination: ``My father was the last President of a great generation, generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps, and delivered us from evil. Some never came home. Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work and built on a heroic scale highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances, the strong foundations of an American century.''

George H.W. Bush brought the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion, successfully managing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the end of the Soviet Union without provoking violence from communist bitter enders.

In the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush established that on his watch America would not retreat from the world but would intervene decisively when the global balance of power was in jeopardy.

His life was spent in the service of his Nation, and his spirit of conciliation, common sense, and love of country will stand him in strong stead through the ebbs and flows of posterity's judgment. On that score, George H.W. Bush was a uniquely good man.

In a political universe where good men are hard to come by, there was bipartisan consensus a quarter century after he left the White House. We will miss this great, good man, and America and Texas are far, far better that he lived and he served his Nation so well.