Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast rollcall votes 194-206 on May 24, 2006, because I was unavoidably detained on official business in the Seventh Congressional District of Georgia, at a constituent policy event on fundamental tax reform. Had I been present I would have cast the following votes: On rollcall No. 194, I would have voted ``aye''; On rollcall No. 195, I would have voted ``aye''; On rollcall No. 196, I would have voted ``aye''; On rollcall No. 197, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 198, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 199, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 200, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 201, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 202, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 203, I would have voted ``aye''; On rollcall No. 204, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 205, I would have voted ``no''; On rollcall No. 206, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, today there are roughly 45 million Americans with a disability, many of whom are forced to rely on public assistance because they cannot find or keep a job. Of people with disabilities, approximately 5.2 million receive Social Security Disability Insurance, 3.5 million receive Supplemental Security Insurance, and 1.3 million receive both.

By tapping into the potential of a person with a disability through a job opportunity we can help them to become taxpaying citizens who can help to power America's economy and strengthen our communities. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Bobby Dodd Institute (BDI) in Atlanta, Georgia, and was able to witness first-hand the power of employment for disabled individuals. BDI offers a variety of vocational services including employee development training, computer and customer service training job readiness classes and daily living courses.

For this reason, I salute the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) Program. JWOD provides employment opportunities to Americans with disabilities by using the purchasing power of the Federal Government to buy products and services from participating, community-based nonprofit, agencies dedicated to training and employing individuals with disabilities.

The JWOD program serves 40,000 people with disabilities nationwide, and last year it generated approximately $280 million in earned wages, and nearly $1.5 billion in products sold.

In Georgia alone, approximately 1,000 people with disabilities earned almost $3 million in wages last year as a result of JWOD. These numbers vividly demonstrate the difference that can be made in both the economy and the lives of Americans with disabilities. This is a program that truly makes a difference in lives of people with disabilities, and today I am proud to offer my commendation for all of these noble and inspiring efforts.

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the subcommittee chairman for bringing this to the floor with Ms. Harman.

I rise in support of H.R. 4954. While this legislation contains many important provisions, it also includes the language of H.R. 5029, a bipartisan proposal I introduced earlier this year to authorize the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. DNDO is tasked with the job of developing a multi-layered global nuclear detection architecture designed to detect and prevent a nuclear attack before it gets here.

Madam Chairman, this is not an easy task. Despite claims by some to the contrary, we have heard numerous times in hearings and briefings by experts that existing technologies do not fully or effectively detect nuclear material. It is not available yet. And yet we are trying to insist that 100 percent of them be checked for nuclear material. The technology we have today will detect bananas, kitty litter, and tile, just as it does low-level radioactive material. There is new technology on the scene.

This bill includes support for a transformational research and development program to bring major improvements in the technology detection and the cost and ease of use. I also want to point out that this bill directs DNDO to deploy successfully tested technologies to ports of entry within 1 year of certification.

The key to next-generation systems is the likelihood that they will produce lower false alarm rates, thus minimizing disruptions to port operations. Rather than disrupting the flow of commerce to pull open a container of kitty litter, we ought to have the new technology, and we have got to be patient for it to be here.

I want to reiterate that this legislation takes a significant step forward in our Nation's efforts to counter nuclear and radiological threats. As such, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Shays for offering his amendment, and I support his efforts to enhance our Nation's ability to detect the movement of illicit nuclear material at foreign ports before it reaches the United States.

Also, like the gentleman, I believe in testing and validating a detection system's performance before we fund a large-scale deployment, as a great deal of money can be wasted on systems that do not work as advertised.

I believe the gentleman's amendment could be improved if we stipulate that the technology tested in the pilot program goes beyond that which has been used in the ICIS program in Hong Kong. We should look to validate the performance of other more advanced systems, which I should note is the goal of the language for a radiation detection pilot program for high-volume domestic ports, which is already in this bill.

My hope is that the foreign pilot program in this amendment will be strengthened by incorporating next-generation technology and that coordination of this amendment with the domestic pilot program will be considered during conference. This approach would, I believe, build confidence among our foreign partners in the technology and help us expand our detection capabilities around the globe.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast rollcall votes 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38, on March 9, 2006, because I was traveling to the State of Georgia. Had I been present I would have cast the following votes: On rollcall 34, I would have voted ``yea''; on rollcall 35, I would have voted ``yea''; on rollcall 36, I would have voted ``nay''; on rollcall 37, I would have voted ``yea''; and on rollcall 38, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding this time, and I want to commend both Chairman King and Chairman Sensenbrenner for being able to work together and bring this legislation to the floor. This is not a perfect bill, but it is a very, very good start.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4437 and urge my colleagues to

join me. While much of our Nation's attention is rightfully focused on hostilities abroad, I am pleased that the House is working to uphold the other half of its responsibility to protect the American people, namely, the prevention of dangers here at home.

It is widely acknowledged that issue one of illegal immigration must be addressed on two major fronts, the first of which being the prevention of illegal entry into the United States, and the second, concentrating on finding, documenting and in most cases deporting illegals already within our borders. The bill before us addresses both of these contentious points.

It appears that protecting our borders has drawn the ire of some, including our neighbors to the south, who have called our effort today ``disgraceful and shameful'' and question whether the economic prosperity of our country will be adversely affected by our actions.

My response is that until they fully grasp the concept that a lack of control at the border allows in not only those seeking a better life in this country but those also seeking to destroy us, I, for one, will respond that the United States has a sovereign right and responsibility to protect its own domestic interests as it sees fit.

I agree with the assessment of many regarding the positive contributions of those from other nations, without whom many components of our economy could be hurt.

But, frankly, today's debate is one of security, not commerce. If we are to believe that our immigration laws simply have no value, as our current policies would have us believe, should we then simply throw them all out, the entire lot of immigration law? I hope not.

The American people want economic prosperity, high-quality goods and low prices, all of which I support. My concerns, however, are very simple. If we fail to secure our borders, to prevent the entry of individuals illegally into this country and to uphold the rule of law, then we waste our time worrying about the strength of our economy, for an attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, carried by a terrorist who brought that weapon across our borders, would certainly destroy it all, and preventing that scenario, which is the mission of my subcommittee, the Homeland Security full committee and the Congress as a whole, should be reason enough to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am a co-sponsor of this legislation and I rise in strong support of H.R. 4096, the Stealth Tax Relief Act. A couple of years ago, I got a call from my daughter who asked, ``What is the AMT and why is it sneaking up on people like me?''

As a proponent of tax reform, I hear phrases like that every day describing the AMT as part of ``a tax code so out of control that now it is sneaking up on the middle class and threatening it with an unintended stealth tax.'' And while that phrase might indicate that the code is an animate entity, it is also a fact that ``the AMT, since its enactment in 1969, has been significantly modified in 1971, in 1976, in 1977, in 1978, in 1982, in 1986, in 1990, in 1993, and in 2001.''

These facts send a clear reminder that we have created a complex, convoluted monster of a tax code that is constantly being amended with special provisions targeted to treat Americans differently. The intentional harm that the current code is causing in terms of lost economic growth is bad enough. Now it appears we have to worry about the unintentional harm the code inflicts as well.

The AMT is a case study of our chaotic code--it forces Americans to perform two tax calculations, using two completely different set of rules, and it's so difficult to understand that most taxpayers have to hire someone to figure it out. And the reason we have the AMT is because the code is used to promote various goals through preferential tax treatment. Because people were taking advantage of those incentives, and reducing their income taxes, the AMT was created to make sure wealthy people didn't reduce their income taxes too much. Now, it threatens the entire middle class.

Mr. Speaker, I support every effort to improve this tax system and I strongly support Mr. Reynolds' bill to extend AMT relief for millions of U.S. taxpayers for an additional year. But the AMT is just a symptom of a twisted tax code that is now so broken that it routinely results in these kinds of unintended tax consequences and undermines hardworking American workers every day.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast rollcall votes 555 and 556 on October 28, 2005, because I was unavoidably detained on official homeland security policy business in Atlanta, Georgia. Had I been present I would have cast the following votes:

On rollcall No. 555, I would have voted ``yea''; on rollcall No. 556, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, the President's tax commission has completed its work and sent its report to the Treasury Department. When this started 8 or 9 months ago, I said as often as I could that I wish you would not appoint a commission because the only thing that I have seen commissions do in my lifetime is raise taxes. Only on the rich, of course.

Well, guess what: This commission has decided to raise taxes only on the rich. They chose not to do anything bold. They took a tax system that you and I have come to know and love and kept it in place and did nothing to do the exciting things they could have done. The FairTax bill, which I have introduced, would have changed much of what we know about the tax system. For example, the commissioners knew that 22 percent of what we currently pay for at retail represents the embedded cost of the current IRS. You are paying the tax cost and compliance cost of every one of the thousands of corporations and businesses that it took to make that house. The only way a business can pay a bill is through price and consumers are the only taxpayers in the world. They chose to ignore that and leave us disadvantaged in the global economy with a 22 percent tax component in our price system. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS, would have ended that. The Tax Foundation has concluded that in 2003 we spent $203 billion just complying with the Tax Code. We spent 6.6 billion man-hours. They chose to ignore that. Getting rid of that cost would add a 2 or $3 trillion tax cut over 10 years to create jobs and create wealth. They chose to ignore that. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS, would have eliminated that.

They knew, as we know, that currently 2 to $3 trillion is in the underground economy, not paying taxes. They chose to leave that in place and not change that by keeping the IRS in place. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS and taxing consumption, would have taxed the underground economy.

They knew, as we know, that there is today in offshore financial centers, in dollar denominated deposits, $10 trillion. These are deposits that want to be in dollars for safety and they want secrecy. If we were to get rid of the IRS, those dollars would be in our markets and our banks and our credit unions. And we would not have the bankruptcies of Delta and Northwest and United and future bankruptcies to come because their pension plans are not up to par because the driving up of the markets with those $10 trillion would have saved them. They chose to ignore that and did nothing bold.

The President has made a very clear case that Social Security can drown us all. What he did not say was that Medicare was four times as bad as Social Security. They constitute for us today and our grandchildren a $75 trillion problem. Let me put that in perspective for you. If you started a business on the day Jesus Christ was born and lost $1 million a day through yesterday, it would take you another 719 years to lose $1 trillion. $75 trillion.

The FairTax changes the way we gather money for Social Security. Instead of taxing 158 million workers to pay for the retirees, we tax 300 million Americans every time they buy something and 50 million visitors to our shores to save those programs in 15 years by doubling the size of the economy in 15 years. The tax commission chose to ignore that.

Mr. Speaker, it is sad to put all of that effort into play for so many months and come up with such a predictable result, which is to raise taxes on the wealthy. This is not going to change anything. They pointed out in an article in today's paper, two of the commissioners, that the last major simplification was in 1986 and they reduced two levels of taxation and eliminated many deductions. They further pointed out that it has been amended 15,000 times since then. Do they believe that future Congresses are not going to be the same if you have the income tax in place? I think they are wrong. I think they missed a wonderful opportunity to do something bold for our economy and something bold for our country and it saddens me.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast rollcall votes 478, 479, and 480 on September 21, 2005, because I was unavoidably detained on official business. Had I been present I would have cast the following votes: on rollcall No. 478, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall No. 479, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall No. 480, I would have voted ``aye''.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast rollcall votes 415 and 416 on July 22, 2005, because I was unavoidably detained on official business with President George W. Bush in Atlanta, Georgia, at a roundtable discussion on retirement security for future generations of Americans. I was also unable to cast rollcall votes 417, 418, and 419 on July 25, 2005, as I was traveling on official legislative/policy business. Had I been present I would have cast the following votes: On rollcall No. 415, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 416, I would have voted ``yes''; on rollcall No. 417, I would have voted ``yes''; on rollcall No. 418, I would have voted ``yes''; and on rollcall No. 419, I would have voted ``yes.''

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

I was actually here when NAFTA was passed, and I voted for it. And I represented northeast Georgia, where all the textile mills closed over the next 10 years. When we voted on NAFTA, the unemployment rate was 6.0 in Georgia, and 10 years later it was 2.8. They did not have textile jobs, but they had jobs.

I spoke with President Clinton about it, and he said this is a jobs bill. And I said, Mr. President, this is not a jobs bill. Jobs come and jobs go. They go to cheaper fingers. It is a modest foreign policy agreement between two increasingly friendly countries that share a 2,000 mile border.

I actually own a plant in Mexico. You can pay them 58 cents an hour. But you pay them on Friday and they do not show up on Monday, and it gets very expensive as a businessman to rehire and retrain your workforce every Monday. So we now pay them $5.50 or $6.00 per hour, plus health care and profit sharing. And they are buying houses, planting grass, and buying American products. This is what happens in the world. You make their economy better, and they buy more American products. And we should continue to do that.

This is a modest foreign policy agreement between America and five countries plus the Dominican Republic that will make them safer and us safer in our hemisphere.

In one of the speeches that Chris Patton made, who was the last British Governor of Hong Kong around the time of NAFTA, he said ``If a spaceship had come from some foreign galaxy and landed in the teepee huts of North America or the typhoid streets of London or the warring clans of France,

they would have concluded within a millisecond that China would rule the world for centuries. China had discovered gun powder, the printing press, and had a rich and engaging culture. And then she built a wall around herself and history told a different tale.

Free trade agreements are about tearing down those walls.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, also known as CAFTA. While CAFTA countries also enjoy duty-free access to U.S. markets for the majority of their products through U.S. trade preference programs, these countries often have high tariff and nontariff barriers for U.S. exports.

Under CAFTA, barriers to U.S. exports in these countries would be drastically reduced. More than 80 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial exports and over half of U.S. farm exports to Central America would become duty-free immediately with the agreement's enactment, and the rest would be phased out over time. CAFTA would also benefit the State of Georgia, which I represent, by providing new market access for our State's products.

CAFTA will also help the U.S. and CAFTA countries compete with China, a growing economic force in the world market. Seventy-one percent of apparel from CAFTA countries currently enters the United States using U.S. yarns and fabrics, while only one-tenth of 1 percent of apparel from China enters the United States using U.S. yarn or fabric.

Mr. Speaker, this body must pass CAFTA and give the United States the same access to the markets in South America that they have to ours.

Mr. Speaker, this week I organized a subcommittee visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help our Members learn about efforts to support the DHS mission to prevent bioattacks. We were briefed on aerosolized anthrax and botulinum toxin, among other things, and also the horrible things that terrorists could do with these deadly pathogens.

While the CDC is focusing on how our enemies could attack us, our military is focused on who may attack us. Among those who would attack are those held at Guantanamo Bay. These detainees are a far cry from the innocent millions who lost their lives at the hands of Stalin, Hitler, and the Khmer Rouge. These are terrorists who would put the botulinum toxin I saw on Monday in the food our families eat. If we had specific information this bioweapon was about to be used in one of our towns or cities, we would not hesitate to question and detain those we believed had information on such a plot. And that is exactly how we must always act because we are certain there are enemies out there that mean us grave harm. The American people expect us to be uncompromising in our mission to ensure the security of our citizens.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise to recognize our guest chaplain, Dr. Johnny Hunt, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia.

It is a remarkable life story. He spent time many years ago in jail, and on a snowy night in January of 1973, he met his Lord and he spent much of the last 32 years on his knees. He travels the country speaking on behalf of his beliefs and his faith. He has built a remarkable church in Woodstock, Georgia, with 14,000 members.

Since his life has changed, he has changed the lives of thousands of other people at First Baptist and has made it his goal to tell as many people as possible about the new life that can be experienced through faith and spiritual guidance.

Today, the First Baptist Church of Woodstock serves the community in a number of ways, conducting Sunday services, providing mission training for trips abroad, providing daily child care, conducting English-as-second-language classes, and allowing individuals the chance to discuss a variety of issues affecting daily life.

His inspiring prayer will remain with us, and his dedication to the ministry will always be appreciated. I am very proud to have Dr. Johnny Hunt serve as our chaplain to the House today.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me this time. I congratulate the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) for working so well together in the interest of national security to bring this measure to the floor.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1817. History has provided us with many examples of leaders who have taken the steps to ensure the safety and security of the American people. Today this House takes its place in that historical record through consideration of an unprecedented measure that authorizes the activities of the new Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to authorizing over $34 billion in funding for DHS operations in fiscal year 2006, this legislation calls for DHS to accelerate its efforts to identify and deploy homeland security technologies and creates mechanisms by which State and local leaders can effectively communicate with Federal homeland security officials.

As the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack, I have been tasked with overseeing the Department's efforts to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States using nuclear and biological weapons. I cannot think of a more devastating event both in terms of loss of life and economic fallout than an attack on this country involving a weapon of mass destruction.

H.R. 1817 refocuses the mission of DHS to follow a similar path. First, this legislation authorizes full funding of 2,000 new border agents. It is no secret that much of our Nation's 7,000 miles of border with both Canada and Mexico are vulnerable to illegal crossings. The addition of these agents will strengthen our Nation's ability to protect those borders and to prevent terrorists from smuggling nuclear or biological material into our country.

Prevention, however, should not be limited to our borders, and H.R. 1817 authorizes approximately $200 million in funding for a new nuclear detection office which will play a substantial role in coordinating the overseas nonproliferation efforts of the Federal Government. Moreover, H.R. 1817 provides nearly $140 million in funding for the Container Security Initiative and requires DHS to conduct a risk assessment of each foreign seaport that is designated as a CSI port. While we should do everything possible to ensure that the free flow of commerce between countries is not inhibited, we cannot ignore the possibility that terrorists may use foreign seaports to transport weapons of mass destruction into our country.

We cannot simply wait at home for terrorists to come to us. These efforts must be conducted in areas of the world that have, or can obtain, weapons of mass destruction but lack the responsibility of ensuring that such weapons do not fall into malevolent hands.

Mr. Chairman, government has no greater responsibility than that of protecting the rights and freedoms of its citizens. I urge my colleagues to join me in taking an additional step forward in this effort by supporting H.R. 1817.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time, and I rise in opposition to the Thompson substitute.

As the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack, I want to point out that the minority's substitute proposal is not, contrary to its billing, complete, especially in the area of nuclear terrorism.

Mr. Chairman, while some consider the probability of nuclear attack to be low, I fear that this lax position could have devastating consequences on the United States. If a terrorist organization were to smuggle and detonate a 10-kiloton nuclear device, which is not unreasonable for a basic terrorist bomb, in downtown Manhattan, it would immediately kill more than half a million people. The consequences, however, would not stop with the tragic loss of life.

The New York Stock Exchange could lose trillions in business transactions alone and the world's financial markets would be immediately crippled. Cleaning up the radioactive mess could cost billions, if not trillions, of dollars and take years to complete. We could, in essence, witness a total economic meltdown in the United States.

The Thompson substitute does little to prevent such a catastrophe. H.R. 1817 does.

Section 105 of H.R. 1817, for example, authorizes funding for a Nuclear Detection Office within the Department to coordinate and advance weapons of mass destruction detection efforts domestically as well as abroad. The Thompson substitute does not.

In addition, section 213 of H.R. 1817 revises the 2002 Homeland Security Act to ensure that the appropriate analytical expertise is employed by the Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection in the Department to discern specific threats involving use of nuclear weapons or biological agents to inflict mass casualties. The Thompson substitute does not.

Furthermore, section 214 of H.R. 1817 establishes an entity within the Department that will be responsible for alternative analysis of threats to ensure that the government's efforts at our borders and at foreign ports to prevent the importation and subsequent use of nuclear weapons or biological agents are actually effective. The Thompson substitute does not.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine a scenario whereby this government has to answer the question of how we failed to prevent an attack by terrorists using a weapon of mass destruction on the American people. Such an attack is much too important and too critical for our national security to simply include it as a footnote in a 220-page substitute. I can assure my colleagues that my subcommittee will, in the coming months, vigorously work to produce legislation that focuses on the Department's attention on preventing such catastrophic terrorist events.

H.R. 1817 is not the final word on this issue, but it is an important first step, and as such, I encourage my colleagues to join me in opposing the Thompson substitute and supporting H.R. 1817.