Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this bill puts a big bow on a holiday gift for the Wall Street contributors who get special treatment in the provisions of this

bill. Once again, here in the holiday season, it is all about stuffing the silk stockings.

These people want to gamble with our money. When these big banks win, they get to keep all the money; but when they lose, they look to the taxpayer to bail them out. It was wrong to do so before, and this bill removes key reforms that are vital to preserving our financial system and our economic security.

We ought not yield to the big bank contributors who, at the same time, this same bill frees up additional money for individuals to pour into campaigns and pollute our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the public lands provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that we are considering this morning. This is important to the security of all of our country, even if there are some provisions with which I have significant disagreement.

I am pleased, while the focus is on our national security--important, especially, to families in San Antonio, whom I represent in what we know as ``Military City''--that with this bill we are joining another aspect that is very important to Bexar County, which is the Alamo part of Bexar County, the Alamo City as well. This bill includes a provision that I passed here in the House on June 3 of last year to expand the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. San Antonio has a unique collection of Spanish colonial resources, the largest of any place in the United States.

Since the House passed this legislation, it has lingered in the Senate; and now, through bipartisan agreement, we have included it in this particular piece of legislation, along with some other parks and natural resource matters. The legislation will now allow us to move forward with our World Heritage status for the Missions, and it will protect our cultural heritage and advance our economic future in San Antonio.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are shutting down this House early today, and they are shutting it down with the same happy talk and tax cut hocus pocus that they began this Congress with 21 months ago, last January.

That is when Speaker Boehner reserved H. Res. 1 for a form of Miracle-Gro. They were going to sprinkle around Miracle-Gro tax cuts-- more special interest tax breaks on everyone--and they would grow money faster than it could grow on trees. They have given us so much talk and so many press conferences about how they would do away with all of these complex special interest provisions that Republicans have spent years writing into law for their buddies--into their Tax Code--and we would all have brighter smiles and, certainly, fatter wallets. All of that joy, all of those wonders, would be accomplished debt free. We wouldn't have to borrow another dime from the Chinese or the Saudis or from whoever would lend it to us. We would get all that and more with their proposal.

Unfortunately, their old time medicine show started brightly, but it fizzled out rather quickly.

No Democrat stood in the way of their introducing and voting in the Ways and Means Committee on a tax cut Miracle-Gro elixir. There is no reason they couldn't have brought it out here on the floor on any day the Speaker wanted to consider Miracle-Gro. Yet we are here today, closing out, and H. Res. 1 says on the Republican Web site that it is still reserved for the Speaker, as is most attention to any major issue in this country reserved, because these folks don't want to work here in Washington. Instead, we get to this sorry bill today that is before us that provides more debt, more complexity, and more sweetheart deals.

When we consider the difficult budget choices, Republicans claim that we just don't have enough money. As much as they would like to provide full funding for Alzheimer's research, for cancer, for multiple sclerosis, for diabetes, for Parkinson's, we just don't have the money. We would like to do more to prevent the many forest fires that are spreading across the country--wildfires of all types--and provide the National Weather Service better funding to deal with the dramatic changes in our climate and our weather, but we just don't have the money to do that.

And what about our roads and bridges? We can't figure out a way to fund them, even to this time next year, because we just don't have the money.

Yes, we would like each child to be able to accomplish their full, God-given potential, but we just can't afford to fund from pre-K to post grad. But somehow we can afford more Miracle-Gro today--$500 billion taken right out of the debt, added to the debt.

I am for--and I know the gentleman is for--a pro-growth, pro-job creation set of government policies that focus on workforce development, on having the research in medicine and technology not only to find cures but to produce another round of jobs.

If we lack the Federal resources to do that, we certainly don't have the Federal resources today to hand out one bonus after another, as their bill does, to corporations with special interest provisions that will ultimately fail our economy.

This bill that we have does everything that they said their tax elixir would not do. It borrows money from many to give money to a few who already have the most. This represents the first installment in new national debt, a big chunk of the more than $1 trillion that these Republicans told us they wouldn't bury us in, but they proposed the first big installment today. They continue a Tax Code that is riddled with special interest tax preferences and giveaways while making a bonus depreciation provision that even failed as a temporary stimulus measure.

The only jobs that this bill is really designed to protect--and the reason that it is here right now before they rush to the airport--are the jobs of the Republican Members of this House of Representatives, and they sure do a good job of trying to accomplish that.

We ought to reject this package that is motivated solely by a looming election for a Republican majority whose biggest contributions to job creation in America have cost us dearly. They stand steadfast against the proposal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and one business group after another tells us will grow this economy--that is immigration reform--because they can't overcome the Know Nothings within their party who stand against the reform that we know would grow so many jobs.

Of course, their major accomplishment that they can point to right now out of this Congress was when they put the country on Cruz control, and it cost us $24 billion in economic growth. Reject this bill.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I respect all of my colleagues on the tough decisions that we are asked to make today.

I believe that America must use our military might any time that our families face an imminent threat. Though ISIS, like a number of terrorist groups around the world, would like to kill more Americans, our military leadership has made it clear that ISIS does not represent such a threat today. It is a regional threat without the capacity to do the harm it would like to do.

Rejecting this one amendment does not mean doing nothing about ISIS. The President already has the necessary authority to respond to this savagery when Americans are murdered.

Now the President's response, however, has been expanded, and he proposes a full-scale war. This amendment establishes a new objective for this broader war--to end the civil war in Syria that has already consumed almost 200,000 lives.

Approving this amendment is the one vote that has been requested to enable this broader war--but without a declaration by the Congress to approve that war and without knowing what commitment those in the region will really make in order to fight this war.

I got a communication from a constituent of mine in San Antonio. Her name is Gloria Flores, and she tells me this. She poses some questions that are not being answered today in Washington.

``In my view,'' she says, ``ISIS is just one more extreme group which, if destroyed, will be replaced with another group . . . I don't say `boots on the ground' because that phrase . . . takes away from the terrible toll that will affect a family if its son or daughter is killed. My nephew . . . was killed in Afghanistan, and we are still mourning his death . . . Any armed force should consist of almost entirely Middle Eastern soldiers. Why should American kids,'' she asks, ``carry the load for Saudis, Jordanians, et cetera?''

Why, indeed.

But this purported coalition does not carry its own load. Others may appear in photos. They may cheer from the rear, but nearby countries are not risking their young people in ground combat. In one case, we even have a neighboring country that will not even permit us to launch an attack by air from its soil.

With the number of our U.S. military on the ground already approaching 2,000 in Iraq and with General Michael Hayden, the former NSA and CIA head, expecting 5,000 by the end of the year, the danger of escalation is very real.

Now, I do find it difficult to understand, with its hostility to Christians and brutal disdain for our American values, how Saudi Arabia can be a place for training anyone--certainly no Syrian women learning to drive there.

Ultimately, I believe that this resolution has to be evaluated on whether it secures our families in a stronger way. I think it entangles us in a conflict that we cannot get out of as quickly as those trained Iraqi soldiers dropped their uniforms and their guns.

Today is Constitution Day. Let us use our constitutional powers to consider a declaration of war before this entanglement.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Middle Eastern tragedy in which this resolution will further entangle America is directly related to the wholly unnecessary Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq. Having learned so little from the sacrifices of that conflict, the Congress now approves greater involvement in a Syrian civil war that has already taken almost 200,000 lives.

The administration has affirmed this very day that what it is talking about

is definitely a war, a declaration of war, while it seeks to avoid this Congress declaring that war, a Congress in which too many of the people's representatives fear making a decision today on whether to declare war.

Instead, we vote on an amendment here to authorize the administration to do what it is already doing in Jordan, while declining to consider a vote on what it should not do without specific congressional authorization.

Reliance on resolutions approved by this Congress on this floor over a decade ago, in 2001 and 2002, is very instructive. First, it shows the dangers of open-ended authorizations. Resolutions such as the one we have today will not only govern the actions of President Obama but future Presidents as well.

Second, once begun, this Congress, even under Democratic control, has shown little ability to contain war. Third, despite billions expended and with courageous Americans on the ground, the results over more than a decade of trying to successfully train Iraqis and Afghans is not particularly encouraging; indeed, the reality is the American taxpayers have been compelled to pay for the arms for our enemies as well as for our allies; nor do we have any explanation today as to how taking a few Syrians for training in Saudi Arabia--a country with its own brutal history of regular beheadings, financing extremists around the world, and opposing democracy most everywhere--how that will work better than our previous training on the ground with Americans.

Rejecting the resolution today does not mean that we should do nothing. When Americans are brutally murdered, the President already has the necessary authority, which he should use forcefully, to go after these barbaric murderers. There is a significant difference between confronting the savagery of ISIS and initiating a multiyear war in the region.

With the steadily growing number of U.S. military on the ground in Iraq now approaching 2,000 and recurrent demands from the same people that led us wrongly into Iraq in the first place that we add even more on the ground, the danger of escalation is very real.

Now, with our military leaders conceding that ISIS is a regional threat, it would kill as many Americans as it could--if it could--just as is true of some of the terrorist groups today in Africa; but, with it being a regional threat, not a threat to our homeland today, the question arises of why the countries in the region--who are more directly impacted from ISIS--why aren't they providing the bulk of the resources necessary to confront it?

They are always content to have Americans kill as many of their enemies in their centuries-old conflict as we will kill. They would let the Americans do all of the bleeding and all of the paying for this conflict. A photo-op with 40 countries does not an army make.

Ultimately, this resolution, like our previous unwise invasion, will make our families less secure, not more secure, and that should be the ultimate test of our actions.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the Needs not Weeds Act is a pretty catchy title. I think it could fit on a bumper sticker. In fact, perhaps it already has.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this proposal has only a little to do with weeds and nothing whatsoever to do with the needs of our neighbors who are trying to move out of poverty and into the middle class of America, the people that are down there on the bottom economic rung that are trying to climb up another rung or two. This Congress is indifferent to their needs. You might say their hopes have just gone up in smoke.

On the very day that we are considering this proposal, we are being called upon by the same folks to approve a companion Republican resolution that once again cuts resources for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, indeed, not one, but two cuts, a cut of $14 million each year from the TANF contingency fund on which about a third of the States have relied on for assistance in this recession to help people find jobs and provide other services and an additional $15 billion cut annually from TANF research funding.

Those are the dollars that permit us to determine whether our tax dollars are being spent effectively in developing new approaches for job training and other services.

You have got to wonder what these Republicans are smoking. How can they tout their supposed commitment to preventing waste and, at the same time, insist on eliminating the very dollars that are designed to prevent waste and help us determine whether our tax dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively?

From my experience in this Congress, I understand that facts will be ignored by Republicans when they conflict with Republican ideology, but, in this case, abandoning any research concerning how our tax dollars are being spent makes no sense; indeed, it makes no dollars and cents.

Mr. Speaker, these nearly $30 million in cuts continue the Republican effort to reduce the real purchasing power and dollars available for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. They follow a prior cut of over $300 million in employment assistance and cash benefits through the TANF program.

This is all amidst the growing inequality in this Nation. We have the lowest level of poor families receiving direct cash assistance from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in almost 50 years. In my own State of Texas, only about one in every 24 children receive TANF assistance directly, and, when they get it, they don't get very much.

This is the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty. Isn't it time that we renew that effort in a meaningful, reformed way, instead of waging war on those who are in poverty?

Time and time again, my Republican colleagues have refused to enact a long-term reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program; instead, they favor these short-term extensions like this 3-month extension that we are considering in the continuing resolution.

Each of those short-term extensions offers them an opportunity to stereotype the poor, the old welfare Cadillac image. Just blame the poor for being poor.

I support every reasonable effort to reduce fraud and abuse. I don't oppose this bill. What I oppose is dealing with the peripheral instead of tackling the substantive problem of helping folks climb out of poverty into the middle class.

As was mentioned, on one of these short-term TANF extensions, we previously focused on prohibiting poor people from the evil of withdrawing their funds from a strip club or casino. I supported that.

This one will prevent them from using their TANF cards at a place that sells marijuana. Well, perhaps in December, when we are back on the next extension, we can prohibit them from using their funds and withdrawing them at a massage parlor or a Cadillac dealer or maybe with the space aliens out in Area 51 in New Mexico.

I meet with these families. I have met with them in San Antonio, Lockhart, San Marcos, and Austin. For the most part, they are hardworking families. In many cases, they have hit a bad bump in the road. Today's bill does nothing to address the tattered safety net that we have in this country which is increasingly more hole than net.

Each year, we do less and less for those who struggle while the gap continues to widen between those who have little or nothing and those who are incredibly wealthy.

I believe that poverty should be viewed as a major national problem that needs resolution by us working together, not a weapon to just score more political points at election time.

I think the real poverty that is at stake this week is the poverty of cooperation, the poverty of seeking a bipartisan answer to the struggles of so many American families.

As long as this Congress ignores the hard work of developing solutions to help those in our communities that are most disadvantaged, we will have less as a Nation to celebrate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor AVANCE, Inc. and to recognize its 40th anniversary of service to families and children in Texas. This outstanding organization was founded in 1973 to provide family support services and education to parents. AVANCE began in one room of the Mirasol Housing Project on the West Side of San Antonio with a handful of families and has grown into a national organization with sites across the country.

Every day, AVANCE's staff works tirelessly to ``Unlock America's Potential'' by strengthening families in at-risk communities through effective parent education and support programs. This effort has changed the lives of thousands of Texas families, leading the way for stronger, healthier communities; a sharper workforce; and increased educational attainment.

AVANCE has successfully capitalized on parents' inner strength and innate love for their children to help them become the best teachers and stewards of their children's growth and success. AVANCE works on the principle that parental education alone is sometimes not enough; an effective intervention must build parents' resilience, interpersonal connections, networks, and access to education, jobs and other opportunities. True parental engagement empowers parents to become advocates for their children and families.

Studies have shown the effectiveness of AVANCE's two-generation approach. In an external study designed to assess whether participation led to changes in education and socio-economic status, results showed that the AVANCE program has positive effects on families long after they graduate--especially for the most disadvantaged families. Parents had dramatic increases in educational attainment, better jobs and home ownership.

Congratulations to AVANCE President and CEO Richard J. Noriega and the AVANCE Board of Directors. Today, AVANCE has active sites in the Texas cities of San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Waco, Del Rio, San Juan and in the Rio Grande Valley as well as in several other states.

Mr. Speaker, I join with our community in expressing congratulations and deep gratitude to AVANCE for its more than four decades of exemplary service and dedication to the families of Texas. We wish you many more years of success toward fulfilling your mission of Unlocking America's potential.

Mr. Speaker, a sign: ``Not our kids, not our problems,'' held angrily by a mob, shaken with ``go home,'' to a group of little children who have made a perilous journey to this country. That really epitomizes what the Republican approach to this problem is.

They care about these children so much that their proposal is to tell them to get out of here just as quick as they can, before they can present their claims that they were trafficked, or that they suffer a return to violence, murder, and rape at home.

The second thing they do, instead of unclogging our broken immigration system, is to say we need more semiautomatic weapons and military uniforms on our borders to greet these little children.

Finally, they say to another group of students, those who have told us ``I have a dream,'' our DREAMers, that they want to turn that dream into a nightmare and send them away also.

I think that is the wrong approach. It is time for them to get off Cruz Control and join us for comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 15, which we have been promised consideration on for so long, to address this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask him to yield to the unanimous consent request so we can deal with this immigration problem in a comprehensive manner.

Mr. Speaker, who are these young people across America that these Republicans would deny a dream, whose lives they are so eager to disrupt tonight?

Maria Rocha is one of them. She came here as a 3-year-old. I have rallied with this young, articulate woman in San Antonio for reform on several occasions. The first time Maria even knew she was an immigrant was when she was unable to apply for college financial assistance, so she worked three jobs. And because of the President's DACA executive order, she was able to graduate from UTSA. Now, she is teaching kindergarten.

Another is Sheridan Aguirre. He was brought here as a 1-year-old. He told me:

I was encouraged to go to college, but my legal status made

it difficult for me to plan. Two years ago, I graduated as

valedictorian of my high school and entered UT, where I have

a 3.77 grade point average. Because of the President's

executive order, I work, I own a car, I pay my rent, I can

travel, I am sustainable, and I can live without fear. I need

DACA so that I can go to graduate school and fulfill my

career goals. Repealing DACA would be a huge step backwards

for our country's history.

Republicans would deny the right to learn, the right to work--and they would deny the dream. They would deny the hope for these young people and thousands of others across this country, who pledge allegiance to America, and have so much to contribute.

You may call this amnesty. I call it a hope for our country. You can call it conservative. I call it wasteful. It wastes talent that this Nation needs.

We need to reject this mean-spirited legislation that would deny rights to these young ,people who are already contributing to our country and can give it so much more. We can't afford this wasteful bill. I urge its rejection.

Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the do-nothingism of the 19th century, the anti-immigrant fervor of that time, is alive and well here today in the House. Republicans are overwhelmed with fear. They are fearful of immigrants. They are fearful of little children at our border. But I think most of all, they are fearful of their own shadows--fearful that if they try to deal with any of the major problems that our country faces, that they might suffer political losses. So it is not only know-nothingism, it is do-next-to-nothing that prevails today.

Even when the Republican chair of the Homeland Security Committee last May obtained unanimous committee approval for a bill that he said would secure our border, Republicans were afraid to have it debated on the floor of the House for fear that it might lead to real comprehensive immigration reform, reform that was approved by the United States Senate over a year ago for which they have offered us nothing but excuses, one excuse after another as to why we could not permit a majority of this House to consider the best way to reform our broken immigration system.

Affording full participation to our DREAMers, students who came here long ago as children through no fault of their own without a visa, will not only benefit them as individuals to achieve their all, but it will create jobs and grow our economy. I met with these DREAMers. They have tremendous potential to give back to our country. Some want to deny that opportunity.

What about these children at our border? Aren't they all God's children? Aren't they our children? Don't all children deserve a chance to survive without exploitation and violence and terror? We are not asking that every one of these children be permitted to stay in the United States.

We are not asking for amnesty, but how about just a little decency, a little civility, a little humanity, how about just following existing law, going after the smugglers, and providing the supplemental resources needed to see that their rights are protected?

I believe that children who came here seeking refuge in this country at least deserve a fair adjudication, not to be met with the barrel of a gun and a one-way ticket back without considering whether they are justly in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a young Honduran girl the age of my granddaughter, who fled domestic violence and kidnapping. The document is from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and it is entitled: ``Voices of Central American Youth--Why They Are Fleeing Their Countries.''

Laura, an 8 year old girl from Honduras fled domestic

violence and kidnapping. Laura was living in Honduras with

her aunt while mother was in the U.S. working to provide for

her family. One day a man she called ``step-father'' who was

an ex-boyfriend of her mother's, kidnapped her from her

aunt's care. Laura's mother in the U.S. said she could not

report the kidnapping to authorities as they would do

nothing. This step-father beat Laura daily with belts and

pieces of wood, resulting in bruises, bleeding, and leaving

visible scars on her body. On multiple occasions, he also

threatened to kill her with a gun. The step father finally

threatened Laura's mother that he would kill the Laura if her

mother did not send him money. Laura's mother was finally

able to save and send a large amount of money to the step-

father and Laura was able to escape to come live with her in

the U.S. A child like Laura might apply for asylum.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, can the Chair provide advice, so that my colleagues will understand what it was in reading the title and the source of the document that described the tragedy of this little Honduran girl seeking refuge in our country, constituted debate, rather than simply identifying the title?

Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, without any guidance to my colleagues as to how they can present documents within the rules of the House without reading the title and the source of the document, can the Speaker describe anything about my remarks that differed from any of the other remarks that were given by my colleagues, other than the reading of the title and the source from Lutheran Services of this young girl who sought refuge in our country?

Madam Speaker, as a former State supreme court justice and now as the ranking Democrat on a subcommittee whose responsibilities include child well-being, I ask my colleagues to avoid the easy political path advanced by those who claim they would help vulnerable children by deporting them. We must say ``no'' to those who would hold up needed Homeland Security funding unless we agree to blame the victims--stripping these desperate children of their vital right to be heard.

Let's heed the good counsel of ABA President James R. Silkenat. He says:

The U.S. finds itself at a critical crossroads. The American Bar Association has long recognized the special vulnerabilities of children. We oppose any diminution in the rights available to Central American children under the law. It is imperative that children's immigration cases be conducted in the presence of an adjudicator. In addition, added resources are needed to reform and bolster our system for immigration adjudication, a system that has been severely short- funded for many years.

Shortcutting justice for children cuts short justice for abuse.

Mr. Speaker, across America, there are many young couples devoting time to determining the name of their newborn--a happy experience--but I can tell you there is no couple in America that devotes more time to selecting names than our Republican colleagues.

Much of this session, that name-making has been about naming post offices, because if they weren't naming post offices and beginning to rename post offices, they would run out of excuses for doing nothing on the great challenges that our country faces. But the essence of Republican name-making creativity is directed toward bills like this. They are so good at applying names to their bills and so sorry at what goes in the bills.

Today's Child Tax Credit Improvement Act only lacks the fact that it represents no improvement for the working poor. It neither improves the child tax credit nor improves the lives of millions of children living at or near poverty.

Under this bill, a single mom with two children who works full-time at the minimum wage loses almost $2,000 a year. This bill does deserve a name. I think the best one would be the ``Pushing More People Into Poverty Act,'' since its net effect is to push 12 million people, including 6 million children, right into poverty or deeper into it. That includes 400,000 veteran and Armed Forces families who would lose all or part of their child tax credit.

The Republicans may curse Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty on this big anniversary for it, but they continue to wage a war on those in poverty, especially America's most needy children.

A leading advocacy group, First Focus Campaign for Children, reports that our Federal investment in our children has fallen 60 percent faster than overall Federal spending. This analysis shows that small children are

the big losers in the Federal budget battle because their voices aren't heard the loudest.

We know that every single dollar that these Republicans add to the national debt--and they propose to add about a trillion dollars to the national debt with these unpaid tax breaks--every one of those dollars is another trillion dollars of excuses when it is time to renew the Child Health Insurance Program next year, or CHIP; when it is time to invest in early education and Head Start; and when it is time to invest in preventing child abuse, strengthening our adoption system, and having a family-nurse partnership to work with these young families. Those are the excuses, while one House Republican group calls all of these welfare.

Let's vote for children and against this act.

Madam Speaker, this week, even as the House is approving seven different bills to fight the scourge of child sex trafficking, the cry to strip rights and protections from some children persists.

Indeed, at the very same time that our Republican colleagues were speaking here on the floor about doing whatever it takes to protect vulnerable children, they were demanding that immigrant children be sent back immediately.

The support for exploited children which existed across this aisle must extend to children who were born on both sides of the border.

Sadly, fear and hysteria are creating a steady drumbeat to remove legal protections against trafficking for children who are simply seeking refuge here. Exploited children should not be politically exploited.

No, we cannot accept every one of them. We are not asking for amnesty, but how about a little human decency, a little humanity?

How about just following existing law and supplying the resources to see that it is effectively implemented?

Today's bill is another element of a Republican agenda that has consistently weakened our Federal commitment to educational opportunity.

I agree with the American Council on Education which said:

``The Federal Tax Code is no substitute for the Pell grant, Federal Work-Study, and other Federal student aid programs.''

Republicans have voted again and again in this Congress to cut these investments in our future. House Republicans approved a budget that would eliminate $90 billion of Pell grants, would deny 125,000 students Federal Work-Study assistance, and would have reduced funding for Hispanic-serving universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Now the Republicans come to the floor and are really boasting of the fact that this particular version of the bill does not cut Federal tax incentives for education as much as they wanted to.

As originally introduced by my colleague from Tennessee, this bill would have denied 5 million Americans every year an opportunity to use education tax incentives that exist under current law. They would have slashed assistance under the act by $5 billion a year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. And so they went back and tinkered with it a little bit, and they are here today to brag that they have a D-minus bill and that is better than the failing bill that they offered initially.

I understand that after years of opposing this particular incentive, they might want to change course. They all voted against the improvements, the changes that I authored in 2009 for the American Opportunity Tax Credit. They have consistently opposed the concept of refundability, that is, assisting those students who might not have a tax liability as big as the amount of the credit. And it is progress that they have come around to supporting the credit at all and the concept of helping those at the bottom of the ladder.

But while they have reduced the depths of the serious cuts that they proposed only a few months ago to these tax incentives, they have not stopped the bleeding. They deny assistance to many students across America who are assisted by our current law. That is why, as my colleague Mr. Levin pointed out, a group of educational institutions, whether it is Hispanic colleges or Christian colleges or land grant colleges, they all oppose this bill. They have said, and again I quote:

``The bill would negatively impact many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit under current law.''

That is what the educational experts say. And that is because the bill eliminates a guarantee under existing law called the Lifetime Learning Credit. It is eliminated entirely for so many students, and it is important to understand who those students are because I have seen and talked with them at places like San Antonio College, ACC, and St. Philip's College.

What kind of person are we talking about? Someone who is a single mother, who has a child to take care of, and continues to work trying to get her associate's degree first, to move out of a low-wage job into a better job, and then go on to UT or somewhere else, but she can't get it all done in 4 years; a mid-level worker who wants to shift industries and needs to upgrade his or her skills for a job in the new economy. They have to work and go to school at night. They can't get it all done in 4 years. A recent college graduate who says, you know, in order to get the job I am best qualified for, I am going to

have to have a master's degree. But they are denied assistance and the opportunity to climb up the economic ladder of success, not by the existing law, but by the changes that the Republicans proposed today.

All these students lose out. The impact is serious. According to the Department of Education, about half of all students pursuing a higher education attend part time, which inevitably extends the time it takes for them to complete the degree.

Eliminating a tax incentive for higher education that takes more than 4 years away will deal a blow to nearly 2 million students across America who claimed the Lifetime Learning Credit, or they did in 2013. Of these, about a million earn less than $40,000 a year. That is who is being cut by this.

I have legislation that over 100 of our colleagues have joined to do all the streamlining they talk about, but to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent and to ensure that we don't cut out benefits to students who are counting on these benefits. We need to reject this bill.

We need to reject this bill that still comes up too short for too many students. We need to let them succeed in today's global economy and ensure that students have the support that America needs to be competitive and successful.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a special responsibility to protect vulnerable children. This is bipartisan legislation that takes some important, though modest, steps toward meeting that responsibility by addressing three issues: combating the exploitation of at-risk children, promoting permanent homes for foster children, and strengthening international enforcement of child support obligations.

With a bipartisan, bicameral agreement between the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, this legislation combines modified versions of three bills that we previously passed here in the House earlier in the session. This measure has been endorsed by a number of important child advocacy groups, including the Children's Defense Fund, the Child Welfare League of America, and Voice for Adoptions.

I was pleased to work with Chairman Camp, Ranking Member Levin, and certainly Human Resources Subcommittee Chairman Reichert, as well as our colleagues in the Senate, as we came together with bipartisan agreement on this legislation.

There are still provisions in the bill that I think could use improvement,

including the fact that an important program that helps link children in foster care to relatives, called Family Connection Grants, is extended only for a single year; but I think that even with some of its limitations, this legislation does make a positive difference in the lives of many children, particularly those who are vulnerable to sex trafficking.

When children come into foster care, they already have issues. They have suffered abuse or neglect. They have been exploited. They have suffered. They have a sense of isolation, and they often feel that they have been removed from one home and put out in a place with which they are not familiar. They are especially at prey for sex traffickers and are targets in that condition.

This bipartisan legislation attempts to combat trafficking in the foster care system by screening at-risk children and providing services, when necessary; by reporting the incidence of trafficking so we will have a clear indication of that among foster children; and by expediting the location of children who run away from foster care.

Additionally, this bill attempts to help children live more normal lives while in foster care by allowing them to more fully participate in the activities that most children enjoy, such as playing sports and an occasional sleepover at a friend's house.

This legislation also extends and adopts changes in the Adoption Incentives program to encourage States to find permanent homes for children in foster care, which is certainly the best approach. The bill increases the program's focus on promoting the adoption of older children in foster care.

It also, for the first time, provides an incentive for States to increase the number of children leaving foster care to live with a legal guardian. It includes a provision that I authored ensuring children won't lose their eligibility for Federal guardianship assistance if the guardian dies or becomes incapacitated.

Finally, the legislation would take necessary steps to implement a very important international treaty on enforcing child support obligations abroad so that leaving this country doesn't allow individuals to leave behind their responsibility for the children that they parented that are here in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, we still have much to do to ensure that the well-being of vulnerable children is receiving the attention that it deserves, but I think this is a good start with this bill. I urge its passage and swift action by the Senate in accord with our agreement to see that it gets to the President's desk soon for signature.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass), who cochairs the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth. I don't know another Member of this Congress who has expressed more concern in going all over the country to work and seek improvements in the lives of our foster children.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to join in the accolades for our chairman, Dave Camp of Michigan, and to particularly recognize the key role he played in helping to create our child abuse commission, which is currently holding hearings. They had the first one down in San Antonio, in my district. They will be going to Michigan, and they have been in Florida. I think they are collecting data that will provide us another opportunity to act, to deal with some of the same issues that we are concerned with today. I appreciate the leadership that he has shown and, certainly, that Mr. Reichert has shown.

I am pleased that among those groups that we have heard from is the American Academy of Pediatrics, which plays such a leading role. They say that this legislation is an essential step in improving the health and well-being of foster youths and in expanding their access to appropriate permanency options. The Children's Defense Fund was important in this legislation. It emphasized the importance of permanent placements for children as they leave care and of empowering our older youth. I believe that this bipartisan legislation is a good step forward.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, would you report on the time I have remaining.

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

I am so pleased tonight to hear one colleague after another indicate that they are ready to act in a bipartisan way on this issue and that it should be a bipartisan commitment to addressing the vulnerability of our children. I think that needs to apply to all children. This legislation that we are considering at the moment is one of seven bills that we are going to approve here in the House today that deal with trafficking because trafficking remains a serious problem here and around the world.

Several of the bills that we are considering recognize that there is an international dimension to this problem. Therefore, I would particularly urge my Republican colleagues and all of our colleagues tonight to remember next week the statements that are being made this evening and to be as concerned about the vulnerability and the exposure to the trafficking of those children who have recently sought refuge in our country as we are about foster children or any other children in our country.

While the sex trafficking prevention in this bill addresses, specifically, problems within the foster care system, the scourge of youth sex trafficking extends far beyond this population. As we are all well aware, we have had a recent influx of children come across our southern border, many of whom have been abused at home, abused along the 1,000-plus-mile track, and could be subject to abuse or to being involved again in sex trafficking.

Polaris, a group that works to help end modern-day slavery, notes that undocumented immigrants are ``highly vulnerable'' to sex trafficking due to their ``lack of legal status and protections, language barriers, limited employment options, immigration-related debts, and social isolation.'' Most of these vulnerabilities are amplified when the immigrants are children. We have an obligation in this Congress to take their unique situation into account and provide them with the protection and the care that they deserve.

The steady drumbeat to remove the very protections that help vulnerable children from becoming sex slaves or remaining in slavery is wrong, and that is why 37 Latino organizations, including MALDEF, the National Council of La Raza, and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, among them, all have urged this Congress to assure due process for these kids rather than stripping away rights that this Congress provided in current United States law.

A diverse group of faith leaders, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Sojourners, and the National Association of Evangelicals have joined with these Latino groups in calling to assure that these children are not denied their due process rights, and that they do not have rights guaranteed by American law today taken away next week.

Over 50 child development experts from around the country, many of the same people that supported our effort in today's legislation, wrote this Congress yesterday and urged that we change course before we put thousands of traumatized children into danger. They describe an expedited screening process that would leave children in danger. It is the expedited screening process that applies today to Mexican children, and it is flawed.

Children who fear trafficking, or were previously trafficked, can be returned to Mexico to reenter that trafficking trade and come back again. We shouldn't subject the Central American children to the same process, yet, that is what has been recommended today.

I am concerned about what happens to children along the Green River,

about what happens along the Potomac River, about what happens along the Colorado River, but I am also concerned about what is happening to the many who have just crossed the Rio Grande River.

When children are asked about whether they have been trafficked by a police officer, who may not speak their native language, in a rushed interview in what may be a chaotic situation in a detention center that is much like a police station, where someone who just abused them or who may actually have been involved in the trafficking and smuggling process is nearby and can perhaps overhear these tales, they will be reluctant to articulate the sexual trauma, the very private trauma to which they have been subjected.

These children who have been traumatized, in some cases, multiple times, who may well have left their native country because of abuse, deserve to be interviewed and evaluated in an environment that takes into consideration their youth, their vulnerability, all of the factors that we have been talking about on this piece of legislation, and the other six pieces of legislation that the House is about to approve.

These children deserve the same type of protections, not an intimidating environment that is made all the more unfamiliar to them by virtue of the fact that they are in a land that they have never been to before.

This special treatment does not occur and happen if you have an expedited screening process. That is why we unanimously passed the guarantees that are in the 2008 law. If we want to protect these children, we should abandon a plan to throw out these children by the wayside by abandoning those protections.

I believe that we shouldn't let our desire, the fears of some, perhaps the hate of others, to result in the quick deportation of children and return them to a live of sex slavery. They are vulnerable children. We don't assure them amnesty. Certainly, we cannot accept every child that wants to enter this country.

I am not in favor of amnesty, but I do think we need a little humanity, a little human decency, and that those children deserve the same respect and due process as any child that we are talking about tonight.

So I am pleased that we are making progress on this piece of legislation and another six bills. I think they are an important step forward in dealing with a serious international problem. But it is critical that this interest in bipartisan concern for the vulnerability of children extend to those children who are now in my home State, and about whom we will be talking in the few days that remain in this Congress, and that we apply the same kind of standard then as we are applying tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.