Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Salaries and Expenses

Project Amount: $750,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Alcoa, 223 Associates Boulevard, Alcoa, Tennessee 37701

Description of Request: The funding will be utilized to develop infrastructure servicing the new Pellissippi Research Center on the Oak Ridge Corridor.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: COPS Law Enforcement Technology

Project Amount: $750,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Maryville, 404 W. Broadway Avenue, Maryville, Tennessee 37801

Description of Request: The Blount County Communications System will provide interoperable communications of all departments in Blount County; interoperable communications

with surrounding counties; an increase in range covering parts of Blount County that is currently deficient; portable radio coverage within buildings; and, reduced maintenance costs by operating one instead of many independent systems.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSAA)--Health Facilities and Services

Project Amount: $1,350,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: UT Medical Center, 1924 Alcoa Highway, Knoxville, TN 37920

Description of Request: The funding would be used for renovation and expansion of the Family Medicine Building and Clinic at the UT Medical Center.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Buses & Bus Facilities

Project Amount: $500,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee, Post Office Box 51650, Knoxville, TN 37950

Description of Request: The funding would be used to purchase transit vehicles in order to provide reliable transportation to the residents of Knox County.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Buses & Bus Facilities

Project Amount: $750,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Blount County, 341 Court Street, Maryville, TN 37804

Description of Request: The project seeks to improve 2.23 miles of Morganton Road by widening the road to 12 foot wide travel lanes with 3 feet wide improved shoulders on either side, to make intersection improvements at certain roads to enhance sight distance and to facilitate turning movements, to add acceleration and turn lanes at specific intersections, to make needed drainage improvements, and to improve rideability and safety by restructuring.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Higher Education (includes FIPSE)

Project Amount: $300,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Maryville College, 502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville, TN 37804

Description of Request: Maryville College proposes to develop an innovative, experiential-based program in science education that will benefit undergraduate students, faculty, pre-secondary/secondary students and their teachers throughout the Southern Appalachian region. Through initiatives that range from tightly focused out-reach programming to summer research-based opportunities for students and teachers, the college will significantly expand involvement in basic research, the education of undergraduate scientists, and the education of younger students and their teachers.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information for project requests that I made and which were included within H.R. 3288, the ``Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman John Duncan

Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSAA)--Health Facilities and Services

Project Amount: $200,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Clinics of Hope, USA, 1064 Hayslope Drive, Knoxville, TN 37919

Description of Request: The funding would be used to develop three free medical clinics in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. The clinics would serve those who are under two-times the federal poverty level. The requested funds will be used for initial start-up of the three clinics and for the first year of operation.

Madam Speaker, today I wish to pay tribute to a beloved pastor from my District who was one of the most tireless servants of the Lord I have ever known.

I knew Rev. Bob Bevington--affectionately called Brother Bob by all-- from the time I was a small boy. He was the advisor to the Christian Student Organization when I was in High School, and I had tremendous admiration and respect for him.

Most especially, I admired his unwavering faith during the passing of both of his sons. The pain of losing two children is unimaginable, but Brother Bob relied on his creator during those dark days and showed us all that God can help us even through terrible and tragic times.

Brother Bob's impact on my District is incalculable. He started the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church in 1951, and his calling to

preach the Word had no limits. The Church continued to grow, and in 1971 Brother Bob launched the Knoxville Baptist Christian School, which is still going strong today.

Knowing that there were more people who needed to hear his message than his pews could hold, Brother Bob also published many newsletters and newspaper columns and launched a radio ministry called the Revival of the Air in 1948. Broadcasts continued right up until his passing.

While eulogizing Brother Bob, the current Pastor of Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church, Brother Tony Greene, spoke of Brother Bob's legacy, saying ``From this church have gone hundreds of soul winners, preachers, and missionaries. At this church have preached the mighty voices of the 20th century.''

He continued, ``Just hours before his Homegoing, the Lord allowed Brother Bob the strength to do one final radio broadcast. What a testimony of faithfulness to the end! A life well-lived, to the finish. `Well done, thou good and faithful servant.' ''

In a recent tribute to Brother Bob, a commentator in the Knoxville News Sentinel appropriately wrote, ``Maybe the words `good and decent' don't tell the whole story. Brother Bob, you were one exceptional man.''

Madam Speaker, the passing of Brother Bob Bevington is a tremendous loss for my District, his wife Mary Lou, daughter and son-in-law Marilyn and Bob Russell, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many other family and friends and the thousands of people devoted to his message of loving the Lord. I want to call his service and faith in God to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record and thank him for showing us all the way to a better life.

Madam Speaker, today I wish to pay tribute and celebrate the long and successful life of one of my District's most devoted community leaders and academics.

Dr. Floyd E. ``Jack'' Bowling recently passed away at the age of 98. Dr. Bowling was beloved in Athens, Tennessee, one of the finest communities in the State. For the past 50 years, he called Athens home and full-heartedly devoted his time to bettering his beloved Tennessee Wesleyan College.

Dr. Bowling served Tennessee Wesleyan College not only as a teacher and administrator but also as its most important fundraiser and benefactor.

His impact on the college is evident as one strolls its beautiful campus. He had a special passion for athletics, and through Dr. Bowling's own donations and fundraising, he was almost solely responsible for Tennessee Wesleyan College's new baseball field and stadium, which rightfully bears his name.

He was also greatly responsible for the school's tennis complex and gym bleachers and used his own money to create the college's first computer lab.

Everyone had the deepest admiration and respect for Dr. Bowling. Great communities and institutions of higher education around the Nation are made so only by selfless and devoted persons like Dr. Bowling.

The current President of Tennessee Wesleyan College, Steve Condon, recently told the Daily Post Athenian Newspaper, ``Virtually everything he touched, every person he engaged, every project he attempted and every colleague and student he mentored was better off because of his light. He was a gift from God to all of us.''

We can all only strive to be remembered in such a way.

Dr. Bowling's service was not confined to Tennessee Wesleyan College's campus. He has long been a supporter of the McMinn Living Heritage Museum and United Way of McMinn and Meigs Counties. He also served as president of the Kiwanis Club, where he was a longtime member.

Madam Speaker, the passing of Dr. Floyd E. ``Jack'' Bowling is a tremendous loss for the Athens community, Tennessee Wesleyan College, his family and many friends, and the multiple causes he has championed over the years. I call his service to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record and thank him for being an example to us all.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as the ranking minority member on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, I have been asked to speak on this resolution, and I rise in support of House Resolution 907, a resolution--as the gentleman from Washington State just described--a resolution recognizing the Grand Concourse on its 100th anniversary as the preeminent thoroughfare in the borough of the Bronx and an important nexus of commerce and culture in the city of New York.

The Grand Concourse is a rare blend of history, culture, and infrastructure that has accommodated the likes of Babe Ruth, Stanley Kubrick, and Edgar Allan Poe. The Grand Concourse also plays host to the iconic Yankee Stadium, Loew's Paradise Theater, and the Concourse Plaza Hotel. Few roads in our Nation's history have reflected the personality of the local culture better than the Grand Concourse has done for the Bronx.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this very timely and appropriate resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I wish everyone would listen to these words from a column in the current issue of the American Conservative magazine. This column says: ``We ran Saddam out of Kuwait and put U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia, and we got Osama bin Laden's 9/11. We responded by taking down the Taliban and taking over Afghanistan, and we got an 8-year war with no victory and no end in sight. Now Pakistan is burning. We took down Saddam and got a 7-year war and an ungrateful Iraq.

``Meanwhile, the Turks who shared a border with Saddam, have done no fighting. Iran has watched as we destroyed its two greatest enemies, the Taliban and Saddam. China, which has a border with both Pakistan and Afghanistan, has sat back. India, which has a border with Pakistan and fought three wars with the country, has stayed aloof. The United States, on the other side of the world, plunged in. And now we face an elongated military presence in Iraq, an escalating war in Afghanistan, and potential disaster in Pakistan, and being pushed from behind into a war with Iran.''

And then in the December 3 issue of The Washington Post, it says: ``President Obama's new strategy for combating Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan fell on skeptical ears Wednesday in next-door Pakistan, a much larger, nuclear-armed state that Obama said was `at the core' of the plan and had even more at stake than Afghanistan. Analysts and residents on both sides of the 1,699-mile border expressed concerns about Obama's plan to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan.''

And on that same day, The Washington Post had a headline that said: ``A deadline written in quicksand not stone.''

Now, I think most Americans feel that 8 years in Afghanistan is not only enough; it's far too long. After all, we finished World War II in just 4 years. Now under the President's most optimistic scenario, we are going to be there another year and a half, that's 9\1/2\ years, and we're going to be there, we have 68,000 troops there now. They want to add 34,000 more at a cost of $1 billion per thousand per year, which means over $100 billion a year.

The Center for War Information says we've already spent almost a half trillion dollars in war and war-related costs in Afghanistan at this point.

And then I would like to ask, Who is in charge? Because this weekend on the interview program, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates said, Well, the year and a half withdrawal plan presented by the President at West Point really doesn't mean anything, that we're going to be there probably another 3 or 5 more years. That would bring our time there to 11 or 13 years. That is ridiculous in a country like Afghanistan, a very small country where we are fighting a very small force that has almost no money.

And then I understand from one of the previous speakers that President Karzai said that he needs American troops to be there another 15 or 20 more years. Well, he wants our money, that's for sure, like any gigantic bureaucracy. And what does any gigantic bureaucracy want? They want more money and more employees. So the Defense Department, being the most gigantic bureaucracy in the world, is going to continue to want more money and more personnel.

But when we have a $12 trillion national debt and almost $60 trillion in unfunded future pension liabilities, Madam Speaker, we simply can't afford it. We have to start putting our own people first at some point. It's not going to be long before we're not going to be able to pay our Social Security and veterans' pensions and things we have promised our own people with money that will buy anything, if we keep spending hundreds of billions for very unnecessary wars.

Now, I would like to mention just a couple of things about Pakistan. In the Los Angeles Times on November 1 in a story about Secretary Clinton's visit to Pakistan, it said: ``At a televised town hall meeting in Islamabad, the capital, on Friday, a woman in a mostly female audience characterized U.S. drone missile strikes on suspected terrorist targets in northwestern Pakistan as de facto acts of terrorism. A day earlier, in Lahore, a college student asked Clinton why every student who visits the U.S. is viewed as a terrorist. The opinions Clinton heard weren't described in voices of radical clerics or politicians with anti-U.S. agendas. Some of the most biting criticisms came from well-mannered university students and respected, seasoned journalists, a reflection of the breadth of dissatisfaction Pakistanis have with U.S. policies toward their country.''

This is a country, Madam Speaker, that the Congress in a voice vote at a time when almost no one was on the floor, most Members didn't even know it was coming up, voted to send another $7.5 billion in foreign aid to Pakistan on top of $15.5 billion that we've spent since 2003 there already.

This is getting ridiculous. A country that we are sending billions and billions and billions in foreign aid to, and it's becoming so anti- American, and they don't appreciate this aid at all. We simply can't afford to keep doing these ridiculous and very wasteful expenditures. And I will say again, we need to start putting our own people first once again.

Mr. Speaker, according to press reports, we are now going to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, in addition to the 68,000 already there. The Pentagon tells us it costs $1 million a year for each soldier there, or $1 billion for each 1,000. This means we will be spending over $100 billion a year on top of the almost half a trillion we've spent on the 8-year-old Afghanistan war already.

I know that, like any gigantic bureaucracy, the Defense Department always wants more money and more employees, but this is getting ridiculous. And fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. On top of all this, we still have 120,000 troops in Iraq and are still spending megabillions there. And the Pentagon is so bureaucratic that we are told it will take several years to fully withdraw, if we ever do.

President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex, but I think even he would be shocked. This is all about money and power, but we can no longer afford to lose so many lives and spend and borrow so much money.

Mr. Speaker, the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has unleashed tremendous religious violence against the Christian community there.

According to the London Times, ``In the chaos after the U.S.-led war invasion of Iraq in 2003, Christians found themselves targeted by Islamic terrorists.''

Archbishop Paul Faraj Rahho said Christians in Iraq faced three bad choices: either they fled, converted to Islam, or risked being killed. Then in 2008, Archbishop Rahho himself was kidnapped and murdered.

These horrendous human rights violations and crimes against Christians in Iraq were brought to my attention by one of my constituents, Susan Dakak, a civil engineer who is a native of Iraq. Iraq's Christian Ambassador, the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, my constituents tell me, is doing almost nothing to call attention to the plight of these people.

The U.S. should do more to aid the Christian minority in Iraq. At least one-third, maybe closer to one-half of these Christians, have fled the country. They should be allowed to return. The killings, kidnappings, and religious persecutions must stop.

The U.S. Government should substantially reduce our aid if Christians are not allowed to freely express their religion in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, people all over the Nation are upset and angry about five of the Guantanamo terrorists being scheduled for trial in New York.

This is happening only because President Obama issued an executive order in the early days of his administration stopping the military tribunal process. The Congress, both House and Senate, voted by large margins in 2006 to try these terrorists by military tribunals.

This could have been done in Guantanamo, but President Obama overruled Congress by his executive order and the Defense and Justice Departments then started the process of bringing the terrorists to trial in this country. This will result in very large legal and security expenses that would not have been necessary if these men were tried at Guantanamo.

To try all of these terrorists here--the first five and others later--creates a very unnecessary security risk for untold numbers of people.

I hope President Obama will listen to the outcry of the American people and not continue to insist that all of these terrorists be tried in the United States. The families of our victims deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we could buy off every warlord in Afghanistan for $1 billion.

Fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it in foreign countries just because it is being done by our biggest bureaucracy, the Defense Department.

We have now spent $1.5 trillion that we did not have--that we had to borrow--in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years is long enough. In fact, it is too long. Let's bring our troops home and start putting Americans first once again.