Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in the days leading up to the congressional vote on whether to go to war in Iraq years ago, Fortune magazine had an article headlined: ``We Win--What Then?'' The article said that a prolonged war in Iraq would make American soldiers ``sitting ducks for Islamic terrorists.''

Another national magazine at that time, U.S. News & World Report, had an article headlined: ``Why the Rush to War?'' Now that war has been frequently referred to as possibly the greatest foreign policy mistake in U.S. history.

The night before the Iraq war vote, a television station in Knoxville ran a poll showing 74 percent in favor of the war, 9 percent against, and 17 percent undecided. I was one of six Republicans who voted against going to war. For 3 or 4 years, that was certainly the most unpopular vote I ever cast. But slowly, slowly, slowly it ended up being the most popular vote I ever cast.

We were basically conned into that war by a group of neocons, so- called neoconservatives, whom George Will once described as being ``magnificently misnamed'' because they were really the ``most radical people'' in this city, meaning Washington.

In addition to our disaster in Iraq, we have now been at war in Afghanistan for 17 years, seemingly permanent, forever wars that have cost us trillions of dollars and caused many thousands of Americans to be killed or maimed. What a waste.

President Reagan once said that we should never go to war unless there were no other reasonable alternatives, and then only as a very last resort.

We have had too many leaders who never went to war themselves, such as the new National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who seem far too eager for others to go to war so these chicken hawks can feel more important or think of themselves as modern-day Winston Churchills.

Now we seem to be rushing into another war in Syria. I am thankful that conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan are questioning this new rush to war. At some point, with a $21 trillion national debt, we have to realize there are limits to American power.

Civil wars and really terrible things are happening all over the world--in Africa, in the Middle East, and in other places--all the time. As President Kennedy said at the University of Washington in one of his most famous speeches, with only 4 percent of the world's population, ``we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity-- and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.''

Most of the time, a military solution is the worst solution. There are many other ways we can help people who have been harmed: through humanitarian, religious, or charitable organizations, or through the United Nations.

Pat Buchanan wrote that President Trump is being ``goaded into war'' and that Congress should ``debate our objectives in this new war and how many new casualties and years will be required to defeat the coalition of Syria, Russia, Hezbollah, Iran, and the allied Shiite militias from the Near East.''

Tucker Carlson said that we need to ask some skeptical questions now, at least in part, because Secretary Mattis said in February that we have absolutely no proof that Assad used the chemical weapons he was accused of using last year. He added that there is no real proof Assad did chemical attacks this time because such an attack would really help only the rebels fighting Assad, and they also have chemical weapons, and they have been described as Islamic terrorists, although we are supporting them. Mr. Carlson pointed out that Assad had every reason or incentive not to use chemical weapons in a civil war his government basically had already won.

President Trump was elected in large part because he promised to get us out of these very unnecessary wars in the Middle East. Almost everything we have done in the Middle East over the last many years has been wrong. There has been fighting going on there for several thousand years. Throughout history, other wars have been started over incidents or information that turned out to be false or greatly exaggerated.

We do not need nor can we afford to get into another trillion-dollar war in the Middle East without first making absolutely certain that it is in America's interest to do so and that it will not make the Middle East even more messed up and chaotic than it already is.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, in February of 2016, I spoke on this floor in tribute to Dean Stone shortly after he retired from his full-time position as editor of The Daily Times newspaper in Maryville, Tennessee.

Dean Stone worked for The Daily Times for an astounding 67 years, serving as sports editor; managing editor; and then starting in 1988, until 2016, as the top editor.

He was always very proud that he gave our great Senator Lamar Alexander one of his first jobs when Senator Alexander was in high school in Maryville.

Dean Stone was the standard of journalistic fairness and integrity in my district and a towering figure in east Tennessee.

Unfortunately, he was unable to enjoy a long retirement, as he passed away several months later at the age of 92.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of a bill that I have introduced to name a very unique 800-foot-long bridge on the Foothills Parkway in his honor.

This bill is a fitting tribute to Dean Stone because his story and that of the Foothills Parkway will be forever linked in history.

First authorized by Congress in 1944, the Foothills Parkway was intended to be the Tennessee companion to the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was built to link the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with the Shenandoah National Park.

Construction on the Foothills Parkway did not begin, however, until 1960; and in the early decades, a few detached sections of the highway were completed.

Despite this progress in the early years, construction of the 16-mile stretch between Walland and Wears Valley, Tennessee, became plagued with problems. A 1.5 mile section in the middle of this segment, which eventually became known as the ``Missing Link,'' featured rugged terrain that was extremely difficult to build upon.

Construction was further complicated by the discovery of minerals in the soil that could cause damage to the environment.

Despite these complications, my staff and I worked hard to keep the project alive. In my early years in Congress, we obtained a $3 million appropriation to resurface and maintain existing sections of this parkway.

I was pleased that I was able to include $8.6 million in the Federal highway legislation, T-21, which was signed into law in 1998, and then the 2005 highway bill contained another $7.5 billion to continue this project.

In 2016, the Department of Transportation awarded $10 million toward the completion of the parkway, and the State of Tennessee committed to providing an additional $15 million match to fund the final paving of this project. During these years, Dean Stone was a key ally in this process. It was then that the histories of the parkway and Dean Stone became permanently linked.

Dean Stone didn't just write in support of the Foothills Parkway. As chairman of the Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission and as president of the Foothills Parkway Association, Dean worked hard to convince people of the need to complete the missing link. Within the next year, the missing link will be no more, and that section of the parkway will finally be open to the public. Dean Stone was probably the indispensable man in getting this section of the road completed.

The Daily Times has stated that one main task remains. What is still needed, according to The Daily Times, is ``proper acknowledgment of the Blount Countian who persisted over the years in encouraging, insisting, cajoling, and convincing the powers that be the `missing link' could be, should be, and would be connected.''

My bill, H.R. 3469, would name the longest bridge in the missing link section of the Foothills Parkway as the Dean Stone Bridge. This particular bridge is an 800-foot engineering marvel similar to the famous Linn Cove Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway. New technological advances have allowed the construction of a bridge that floats around the edge of the mountain rather than tearing into it.

There is no doubt that the elegant curves of this bridge will be the iconic feature of the Foothills Parkway. Naming it after Dean Stone is a fitting tribute for all that he did for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and for this region. In fact, it is fair to say that no one individual did more for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park over the years--through many, many years--in promoting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in many different ways.

I have a beautiful photograph that Dean Stone took of the Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountains in my office here in Washington even today. My only regret is that Dean Stone did not live long enough to see the completion of the missing link, but I take heart in knowing that soon millions of people will be able to benefit from the fruits of his labors as they drive over the Dean Stone Bridge and see the glories of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Mr. Speaker, in his column yesterday, Pat Buchanan wrote that, through most of its history, the Republican Party was the high tariff party, favoring tariffs rather than income taxes. He wrote that those tariffs helped the U.S. to become the strongest industrial power in the world.

In the 1950s and 1960s, 53 percent of American jobs were industrial based, many of them white collar. Now only around 10 percent are in manufacturing, and many thousands of college graduates are working as waiters and waitresses or in other low-paying jobs and living with their parents.

Fears of a trade war are being greatly exaggerated. We have been in a trade war for many years, and we have been losing. With only 4 percent of the world's population, we buy almost 23 percent of the world's goods.

Every country wants into our markets, and we have tremendous leverage on trade that we haven't been using. President Trump's proposed tariffs apply only to two products. I commend him for his effort to try to protect American jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the rule that brings this bill to the floor. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me this time. I want to also commend the gentlewoman from Missouri for introducing this very important legislation.

According to the Department of Justice, more than half of sex trafficking victims are 17 years old or younger. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there was an astounding 846 percent increase from 2010 to 2015 in reports of suspected child sex trafficking. They found this to be ``directly correlated to the increased use of the internet to sell children for sex.''

This is something I have been concerned about for a long time. Before I came to Congress, I was a criminal court judge for 7\1/2\ years trying felony criminal cases. Far too many of those cases involved sexual abuse of minors. I was told my first day as a judge that well over 90 percent of defendants in felony cases came from father-absent households. Certainly family breakdown has been a major factor--maybe the major factor--in almost all serious crimes we have had through the years.

But certainly another problem is that we have addicted our children to the computers. Now, almost everyone is addicted to computers, iPads, iPods, and screens of all types. While some technology has been good, it has also in some ways been very harmful to many in our society.

In an article entitled ``Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?,'' psychologist Jean M. Twenge wrote in the Atlantic magazine: ``If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something--anything--that does not involve a screen.''

She wrote that too much time on the internet has caused teenagers to be more subject to mental problems of all types, even depression and suicide. While this advice pertains to teens, I think it really applies to everyone. Even most adults today would be healthier, both mentally and physically, if they spent less time staring at screens.

Today, technology has made many things easier, but, unfortunately, this includes the crime of child sex trafficking. This is very important legislation, very necessary at this time, and I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, one of the kindest, sweetest women I have ever known passed away in Farragut, TN on February 5.

My Aunt Lib, Lillian Elizabeth Duncan Keck, was 96. She led a long, full, active life and touched thousands in good and positive ways.

She was born in Huntsville, TN to Flem B. and Cassie Duncan, the seventh of ten children who were raised to adulthood. Two others, twin sisters, died shortly after birth.

Aunt Lib moved to Knoxville after graduating from Huntsville High School in 1940. She graduated from National Business College and worked for C.M. McClurg Co. in Knoxville Tennessee, Eastman in Oak Ridge, and U.S.O. Headquarters in the Empire State Building in New York City.

After World War II, she taught special needs children in Knox County and retired as a speech and hearing technician in the Childrens' Special Services Division.

Her most important role was as a loving wife for 60 years to my late Uncle Kenneth Keck who worked for 42 years for the phone company, and as mother to four children, Sandra, Kenny, Ricky, and Susan. She also had seven grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and one great, great grandchild.

I remember Aunt Lib best as one of the hardest campaigners my father ever had in his three races for Mayor of Knoxville and especially in his first (and closest) race for Congress in 1964.

My Dad and Aunt Lib were the sixth and seventh of the ten children my grandparents raised, so they were especially close in age and in many other ways.

They both enjoyed telling the story of the time the basketball manager at Huntsville high school forgot my dad's uniform on a visit to another school, so my father had to play wearing Aunt Lib's uniform.

Aunt Lib was a lifelong Presbyterian and lived by the Golden Rule. She was kind to everyone.

This Nation is a better place today because of the life she led and the examples she set for everyone who knew her.

Mr. Speaker, the spending bill we will vote on later today will pass because there is something in it for almost everyone, but there is nothing fiscally conservative about it. It busts all the budget caps, adding $300 billion over the next 2 years, when spending was already going up anyway. There are no pay-fors or offsets for the disaster billions, as we have done in the past.

I repeat, there is nothing fiscally conservative about this bill. Our deficit for the last fiscal year was an astounding $666 billion. This bill makes it certain that this fiscal year it will be even higher. This bill raises our national debt limit when our debt is already a mind-boggling, incomprehensible $20 trillion. This bill puts us on a path to a $30 trillion debt in a very few years. I say again, there is nothing fiscally conservative about this bill.

The easiest thing in the world to do, Mr. Speaker, is spend other people's money, but this is getting ridiculous. There is an old saying about spending like a drunken sailor. Even drunk sailors never spent money this recklessly.

I will say once again and close by saying, there is nothing conservative or fiscally conservative about this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I sent my first paycheck as a bag boy at the A&P--$19-and-some-odd cents--to the Barry Goldwater campaign. I was 16 years old.

I have been involved in almost every major Republican campaign in my State and nationally since then. But the Republican Party I grew up in was the fiscally conservative party. I wish it still was.

But we will pass a spending bill today that is everything but fiscally conservative. Our national debt is now over $20 trillion. This bill will speed us down the road to $30 trillion.

Our deficit last year was $666 billion. This bill will make it even higher this year. There is nothing fiscally conservative about this bill. Spending was already going up.

Now we are busting the budget caps and adding another $300 billion more. Anyone who supports this bill cannot accurately say that they are fiscally conservative.

It is very sad to me that the Republican Party I love is now going along to get along and spending many, many billions that we simply do not have.

Mr. Speaker, in today's Washington Post, there is a major story on the front page of the Style Section about a young woman name Sarah Pool.

One of the headlines says: ``Sarah Pool, 31, has a baby and a job, and loves them both, but she fears she will be paying off student loans till the day she dies.''

She got loans totaling $60,000 but now owes $69,000. She is quoted as saying: ``I keep paying, but it is like pouring into a bucket with no bottom.''

Mr. Speaker, for several years, I have been speaking out about how harmful the Federal student loan program has become for many, many hundreds of thousands of students and families around this country.

In May of 2015, I wrote an article for the Washington Examiner newspaper with ideas about how to bring down the cost of college. In that article, I quoted hedge fund manager James Altucher, who wrote: ``We are graduating a generation of indentured students.''

An Ohio University economist, Richard Vedder, wrote a book several years ago entitled ``Going Broke By Degree.''

In the February issue of Chronicles magazine, which will be out in just a few days, I have another article; and in that article I say that student loan debt in the United States is now $1.48 trillion. That incredible sum is a heavy drag on the economy and a burden on young people, and Federal intervention in education is the cause.

It wasn't always this way.

In June of 1965, I began working as a salesman at the Sears store in Knoxville, receiving a 10-cents-an-hour raise over my job as a bag boy at the A&P. At Sears, my wage was $1.25 an hour. I was required to wear a suit and tie, and I was very proud of that job.

I worked full time that summer and usually around 20 hours a week after I began my freshman year at the University of Tennessee in late September.

After I had worked at Sears for 6 months--I didn't realize I had been there 6 months--I was called to the office for the first time. I was very concerned, to put it lightly. I met David Weaver, who was my same age, 18, at the escalator. I told him: I bet I was hit by one of those Hallmark shoppers--one of the mystery shoppers Sears had at the time. He told me he had just been called by a very angry woman to whom he had sold the wrong color of paint. David said that he was scared and that he had diabetes, and when he got too nervous, he would pass out. I can remember that conversation as if it happened yesterday.

Much to our relief, we had been called to the office so management could give us good news: because we had been working at Sears for 6 months, they were giving us a nickel-an-hour raise.

It shocks students at the University of Tennessee today when I tell them that tuition my freshman year was $90 per quarter, $270 for the academic year. By my senior year, it was $405. I remember hearing our minority leader, Mr. Hoyer, say that when he started at the University of Maryland, it was $87 a semester. Almost no one left college in those days with debt unless they had bought a car or made some other major purchase. Students certainly did not go into debt for tuition because they could all work part time, as I did, and pay all their school expenses.

Now, over 44 million Americans carry student loan debt--some of those debts reaching into the six figures.

Readers Digest recently published an article in the December/January issue entitled ``The Student Debt Racket.'' The authors quote one student who owes $90,000 as saying: ``My loans are a black cloud hanging over me. I am a student debt slave.''

Colleges and universities began heavily promoting student loans in the late sixties and early seventies. They were able to tamp down opposition to tuition and fee increases by telling students: Don't worry, we will just get you a loan.

Then, because loans were available, many schools began raising tuition at two and three times the rate of inflation each year, and have continued to do so.

I remember reading an article about 3 years ago in The Post which said that student tuition had gone up 4\1/2\ times the rate of inflation since 1985. Now the cost of higher education has soared to such great heights that universities are bragging if they hold the annual increases to 2 or 3 percent. They never consider reductions, not even miniscule ones. Thus we have another example of how Big Government liberalism helps the few at the top while harming the many down below.

The Federal student loan program has made the owners of some loan servicing companies very wealthy and has been a boon to most college administrators and tenured professors; and all of this at great expense to students and their families.

When the Knoxville News Sentinel lists the highest paid people in east Tennessee each year, they are almost all at TVA or UT. Yet the pattern continues to repeat: Liberals find a very small group of people who are having trouble paying for something, then insist that the only solution is to let the Federal Government ``help.'' But whenever the Federal Government subsidizes something, the costs simply explode because most of the incentives or pressures to hold costs down vanish.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would say this is why Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank star, has said: If you want to make college really expensive, make it free.

Mr. Speaker, almost every member of Congress says a need in their district is more good jobs. Good business people that provide good jobs are not recognized enough. That is why I rise today to recognize the 100th Anniversary of the Hydraulic Institute and pay tribute to the exceptional role that pump manufacturers have played in improving the delivery of water to American homes, American industry and American agriculture over the past century. Today, pump systems touch the lives of every American and the Hydraulic Institute has a central role in developing the policies and standards needed for safe, reliable and efficient pump operations.

On April 18, 1917, the nation's leading pump manufacturers met in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago for the purpose of forming a trade association that would ``promote friendship and cooperation among manufacturers in improving overall pump performance.'' The Hydraulic Institute provides the technical expertise required to set pump standards that reflect the evolving priorities of society.

In recent years, energy efficiency has emerged as a national priority and the Hydraulic Institute has worked closely with the United States Department of Energy to improve the efficiency of pumping systems. These systems now account for over 20 percent of domestic electrical energy use and the standards, laboratory testing and labelling advanced by the Hydraulic Institute will ultimately save consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

Pumping systems protect our communities from flooding and fires, deliver drinking water to our homes, irrigate our farms and bring water and fuel to American manufacturers.

As the Co-Chair of the Congressional Clean Water Caucus, I am keenly aware of the role that pump manufacturers play in providing safe, clean, affordable water to our citizens. It is my honor to stand today to acknowledge the 100th Anniversary of the Hydraulic Institute and to wish their continued success in advancing standards that improve the lives of every American.

Mr. Speaker, In honor of Mrs. Johnnie Elizabeth Hammontree Myers, I would like to celebrate the amazing life she lived with my colleagues and others.

Johnnie was a long time close, personal friend to both me, and my father, Congressman John J. Duncan, Sr. There couldn't have been a stronger supporter of the Republican cause.

Born in 1919, in Greenback, Tennessee, Johnnie was brought up attending Pine Grove Presbyterian Church where she would become an elder, clerk, and life time member.

She volunteered her time in the community as well. She was a past chair of the Loudon County March of Dimes, president of the Loudon County Republican Women, and was the first female vice-chairman of the Loudon County Republican Party.

She was a staunch, dedicated Republican, but more importantly, she was a strong Christian and truly patriotic American.

When she wasn't serving her church, or our community, she was enjoying life to the fullest.

She cheered on the University of Tennessee men's basketball team as often as she could with the season tickets she held since 1962.

She also loved to embark on trips to new places including Hawaii, Alaska, Israel, and Europe.

Johnnie is an example to us all to live life each day with humility, compassion for others, and grateful hearts. She will be greatly missed by me, my family, and our community.

Mr. Speaker, this Nation is a better place today because of the life that Johnnie Myers led, and I hope that many people will read this tribute honoring one really outstanding woman.

Mr. Speaker, one of the finest men I have ever known, Jim Haslam, turns 87 today.

Mr. Haslam is one of the greatest leaders Tennessee has ever had, and he is certainly our greatest philanthropist.

He came to the University of Tennessee at the age of 17 to play football for the legendary football coach, General Robert Neyland. He played on some of the greatest teams in Tennessee history, teams that won almost every game, losing only four games in the 3 years that Jim Haslam played.

In 1958, he bought a small gas station in Gate City, Virginia, on the Tennessee line. I believe I read at one point that he paid just $6,000 for that four-pump station. Through much hard work and long hard hours, he slowly built that one little gas station into the Pilot Flying J chain. He is still involved in the business today.

We frequently tell people in the military: Thank you for your service.

That is a good thing to do. However, we don't show nearly enough appreciation for people who start small businesses, turn them into bigger businesses, and provide good jobs for people and their families.

The Pilot Flying J Company now has over 750 travel centers in 43 States and in Canada, and provides jobs for over 27,000 people. Very few people in this world can say that they are providing jobs for 27,000 people.

Jim Haslam has now contributed over $100 million to the University of Tennessee. He and his family have contributed very large sums of money to almost every good cause in east Tennessee, in addition to the university.

He and his wife, Natalie, do not just contribute money. They are very active in all sorts of civic and charitable groups in Knoxville.

He is also a very patriotic man and has great love for this country. He served his country in our Nation's military.

He is one of the biggest contributors to the Republican Party in this Nation and is personally involved in many campaigns. He has been a very good friend and supporter for both me and my late father, and I am very grateful to him.

Most important of all, Jim Haslam has been a good family man. He and his late wife raised three children. Then, many years ago, he married Natalie, a longtime friend; and between them, they raised six outstanding children.

One of his sons, Bill Haslam, is our great Governor in Tennessee and a chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

His other son, Jimmy Haslam, now leads the Pilot Flying J Company and owns and operates the Cleveland Browns football team.

Through hard work, honesty, dedication, and simple human kindness, Jim Haslam has lived the American Dream. He has touched thousands of lives in good and positive ways. This Nation is the greatest country in the history of this world because of people like Jim Haslam. This Nation is a better place today because of the life he has led. I salute him on his 87th birthday and give him best wishes for many, many more.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from New York started this debate with an amazing statistic when she said that over 1,500 small banks and financial institutions have been forced to merge or be acquired or go out of business altogether since the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill.

Those of us who opposed the Dodd-Frank bill at that time said this would happen, and that is exactly what happened. The big have gotten bigger.

I read recently that the five largest Wall Street banks had 22 percent of total deposits in this Nation before Dodd-Frank, but last year, when I read the update, they now have 44 percent of total deposits.

There is a big government, big business duopoly that controls too much of the life of this country, and in every overregulated industry, it ends up being consolidated and controlled in the hands of a few big giants, and that is what has happened in this case.

I remember when my wife and I bought our first house. We signed about two or three pages many years ago. Three and a half years ago, we bought a lake house, and we had to sign over 100 pages of documents that, being a lawyer and a judge, I knew that all it was was meaningless paperwork for bureaucrats and lawyers.

This is important legislation. I have had many bankers across the State of Tennessee who have told me how harmful and how difficult it has been for the smaller institutions to comply with all the rules and regulations and red tape.

Mr. Speaker, we need to pass this bill, and I urge its support.

Mr. Speaker, several times over my 29 years in Congress, I have wondered whether there are any fiscal conservatives at the Pentagon. It seems that the Defense Department is just like every other gigantic bureaucracy. When it comes to money, the refrain is always more, more, more.

On November 14, the House passed what one Capitol Hill paper described as a $700 billion compromise Defense bill. It was $80 billion over the budget caps and many billions more than even President Trump had requested.

I opposed almost all the major initiatives of the Obama administration, but it was false to say that the Defense Department had been depleted or eviscerated during those years or that now we must rebuild the military. In fact, public relations experts in future years should conduct studies about how the Defense Department has been able to convince the public it has been cut when it is now getting more money than ever.

Defense Department appropriations have more than doubled since 2000. In addition, the Department has gotten extra billions in several supplemental or emergency appropriations bills.

The military construction bill is a separate bill that has added another $109.5 billion over the last 10 years. It would be hard to find any U.S. military base anyplace in the world that has not had several new buildings constructed over the last few years.

In fiscal year 2016, we spent over $177 billion on new equipment, tanks, guns, et cetera. We have spent similar amounts for many years. Most of this equipment does not wear out or have to be replaced after just 1 year.

It is ironic that the only President in the last 60 or 70 years who has tried to rein in defense spending is the only President in that period who spent most of his career in the military.

In Evan Thomas' book, ``Ike's Bluff,'' when told by his top staffer that he could not reduce defense spending, President Eisenhower said if he gave another star to every general who cut his budget, ``there would be such a rush to cut costs, you'll have to get out of the way.''

The book also quotes Eisenhower as saying: ``Heaven help us if we ever have a President who doesn't know as much about the military as I do.''

Therein lies an explanation for a big part of what has caused much excessive and/or wasteful defense spending and the willingness, even at times eagerness, to go to war and support permanent, never-ending wars.

Only 18 percent of the current Congress has ever served in any branch of the military. Members are afraid that if they do not vote for an increase in defense spending or if they question waste by the military, some demagogue will accuse them of ``not supporting the troops.''

It would be a huge understatement to say that I usually do not agree with New York Times editorials, but the editorial board, on October 22, published an editorial entitled ``America's Forever Wars,'' pointing out that ``the United States has been at war continuously since the attacks of 9/11'' and now has ``troops in at least 172 countries. . . .''

The board wrote that so far, the American people have ``seemed to accept'' all this militarism, but ``it's a very real question whether, in addition to endorsing these commitments, which have cost trillions of dollars and many lives over 16 years, they will embrace new entanglements. . . .''

The New York Times added that ``Congress has spent little time considering such issues in a comprehensive way or debating why all these deployments are needed.''

Backing these words up was a cartoon in the October 25 issue of Politico, a Capitol Hill newspaper. The cartoon showed six Senators sitting at a hearing. The first Senator, reading a newspaper, says: Who knew we had troops in Niger?

The second says: Heck, we don't even know how the military budget gets spent.

Finally, the cartoon shows a Senator saying: War is hell. I say we just give the Pentagon an extra $80 billion and call it a day.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, himself a veteran, as am I, wrote on October 23: ``But there is something else at work here: the slavish veneration now accorded the military. You can see it every time someone in uniform testifies before Congress.''

Since now that less than 1 percent of the people serve in the military, it may be that many people who never served feel, perhaps even subconsciously, that they must bend over backwards to show their patriotism. However, it is not unpatriotic to oppose wasteful defense spending or very unnecessary permanent, forever wars.

President Reagan once said: ``Our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.''

We have far too many leaders today who seem to want to be new Winston Churchills and who are far too eager to send people to war. No true fiscal conservative could ever justify spending many billions more than even President Trump requested.

Our national debt recently went over the $20 trillion level. A few days ago, it was reported that the deficit for fiscal year 2017 was $666 billion. This fiscal year, it may be even higher.

Conservatives used to be against huge deficit spending. They also used to be against massive foreign aid. Much of what we have been doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, training police and farmers, repairing electrical and water systems, even making small business loans, is pure foreign aid.

Many of our foreign interventions have been done under the auspices or authority of the United Nations.

Conservatives used to be the biggest critics of the U.N. and world government. Most of our so-called ``coalitions'' have been funded almost entirely by American taxpayers.

Most interventionists at some point resort to a slur referring to their opponents as isolationists. This is so false.

Traditional conservatives support trade and tourism and cultural and educational exchanges with other countries and they agree with helping during humanitarian crises.

They just don't believe in dragging war out forever, primarily so defense contractors, think tanks, and military bureaucrats can get more money.

One last point: We have far too many officers. In Scott Berg's biography on Woodrow Wilson, it says during World War I, we had one officer for every 30 enlisted men.

Eisenhower once said we had too many officers when there were nine enlisted for every

officer. Now we have one officer for only four and a half to five and a half enlisted (varies by branch).

This is very expensive, both for active duty and retirement, but it also makes it much more likely that we will get involved in every little conflict around the world and/or continue basing troops in almost every country.

We simply do not have enough money to pay for defense of so many countries other than our own nor the authority under our Constitution to try to run the whole world.

Mr. Speaker, it has been proven all over the world that the most wasteful, least economical, least efficient way to spend money is to turn it over to the Federal Government. If this was not true, then places like Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela would be heavens on Earth. Socialism simply does not work.

Money left in the private sector does much more to create jobs and hold down prices than does any money turned over to government. A business that continually wastes money and operates inefficiently will eventually go out of business.

A government agency that wastes money or operates inefficiently just uses that as an excuse to ask for higher appropriations. This is what the tax cut bill is all about: an effort to leave more money in the private sector, where it will create jobs and hold down prices.

Wealthy elitists come out ahead, even under our socialist, Big Government systems. Lower income people come out better when more money is left in private hands to create jobs and hold prices down.

College graduates often wonder why they can't find good jobs. In large part, it is because our Federal, State, and local corporate taxes are too high, and this has caused us to lose millions of good jobs to other countries.

Mr. Speaker, we need lower taxes.

Mr. Speaker, my late father was the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee when the last tax reform was passed in 1986. I know personally how difficult it was then to bring all the competing interests together. Everything looks easy from a distance.

Everyone in this Congress would write a slightly different tax bill if given the chance to do so, but we can't have 535 different tax bills. Even Chairman Brady would probably change some things if he had complete control over it. I would favor some slight differences, but this is a great bill, overall, for middle-income people. We need to do more in the future to cut spending along with it.

Kevin Brady is the right man at the right time. I think he has done a masterful job in bringing this bill to the floor. No other bill will do more to help keep jobs in this country. No other bill we can pass in this Congress would do more to help more people than this one will.

I urge the bill's passage.