Floor Statements

Mr. speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 434 and 435. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 434 and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 435.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote No. 426. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act and urge its passage before the August recess.

Breast cancer is so pervasive that it touches every American family. The diagnosis of breast cancer is frightening enough not to have to fight the insurance companies, as has been said before. One in eight women is going to be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime, and it remains the number one cause of death in women between the ages of 30 and 54.

In my congressional district, there are almost 1,500 instances of breast cancer and nearly 300 women die every year. And rushing a woman through a hospital stay after a mastectomy and pressuring her to return to her normal life almost immediately hampers her recovery. That is why it is imperative

that we pass the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act.

We must also support research into better breast cancer detection methods. Mammographies, which is the only tool we have had for 40 years, miss too many women and cannot suffice as our gold standard. But instead of passing legislation to stop drive-through mastectomies or supporting funding increases for research and development, we have become a drive-through Congress, rushing to pass what is politically divisive.

This bill deserves passage.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained on July 20, 2006 and missed Rollcall vote 393. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' for 393.

Mr. Chairman, nearly 150 years ago, after a long and bloody civil war, our Nation recognized that minorities should have the right to participate as full citizens in our democracy. Unfortunately, granting a right in the constitution and enforcing that right throughout America are two different challenges, and 100 years later, minorities still have trouble casting a ballot in some parts of the country. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to put an end to the racially discriminatory voting practices plaguing the South, and other parts of the country. Now 40 years have gone by, and some of my colleagues might tell you that we don't need the Voting Rights Act anymore, that we've fixed the problems, and that every adult citizen in this country has the same opportunity to cast his or her ballot.

While I truly wish that were the case, I'm here to tell you that racially discriminatory voting practices are still alive and well in many parts of the United States. For a clear example of why the Voting Rights Act remains relevant and necessary, take a look at Robert Kennedy Jr.'s exhaustively researched article which just ran in Rolling Stone Magazine--I ask unanimous consent to insert a copy of the article into the record. In his article, Robert Kennedy, Jr. lays out a clear pattern of voting irregularities in Ohio in 2004, many of which disenfranchised African American voters in particular. Together, these irregularities may have even played a part in the outcome of the election.

Mr. Chairman, from Buffalo to Rochester, my district is home to some of the most significant moments in the history of the civil rights movement. In 1847, abolitionist Frederick Douglass began circulating the North Star in Rochester, New York. The paper won acclaim from the local printer's union, gave Mr. Douglass a platform to spread his message of civil rights, and demonstrated the successes possible for free African Americans. In July 1905, the Niagara Movement held a meeting in Buffalo during which W.E.B. DuBois authored the Declaration of Principles. This document would later become the basis of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, our Nation's most prominent civil rights organization.

I am proud to represent a district with such a rich history in civil rights, and am fully committee to ensuring that the protections that courageous activists from Buffalo and Rochester worked so hard to achieve are diminished.

North Star bore the motto, ``Right is of no sex--Truth is of no color--God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.'' I hope that motto will guide my colleagues as we consider legislation to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. Our democracy relies upon the ideal that everyone has an equal voice in each election, and the Voting Rights Act has been a vital component in ensuring that this ideal is enforced. Our Nation has come a long way in protecting the voting rights of minorities, but we still have a long way to go.

To weaken the Voting Rights Act would weaken our democracy itself, and everything we stand for as Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and especially appreciate the good work that she and Mr. Castle have done.

With the President's action today, and he always keeps his word, he condemned tens of millions of Americans and their families and everybody who loves them to suffer needlessly, and all the while they know their government, when given the opportunity to help, decided to do nothing.

I remember this kind of mugwumpery before. I remember when organ transplants came about. Everybody said, oh, no, we can't do that. If God didn't want you to have a good liver, you can't get one from somebody else. The same thing with blood transfusions, all the way through. Why in the world do we always have such a know-nothing, antiscientific government body that tells our scientists what they can do and can't do?

As one of the scientists in this House, I am appalled at the fact that my country is falling behind in scientific research. I am astonished that we are telling scientists what they can and cannot study. It bothers me that scientists in other countries don't want to come here to study anymore because of the way that this has happened.

If we fail to override this veto tonight, we are putting this country back another 200 years. Perhaps not that much. But any of you who believe that voting for that one bill yesterday and wanting to vote for the second will cover you at home, let me tell you that is not true. Science knows better. Science will bear out that we do not have the lines we need for research, and you will pay the price, I hope, in November.

Mr. Speaker, Aristotle once said ``All who have meditated on the art

of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.''

With this wisdom in mind, I rise today to honor an outstanding New York State teacher, Lynn Astarita Gatto, and to congratulate her on being chosen as a recipient of the 2006 Disney Teacher Award. Ms. Gatto is a second grade teacher at Henry Hudson Elementary No. 28, a school located in my Congressional district.

Each year a select group of teachers across the country are chosen as Disney honorees by a group of their peers that includes representatives from leading educational institutions and former Disney award honorees. This year, 44 winners were chosen out of a field of over 75,000 teachers. Ms. Gatto was among this elite group and is being acknowledged for her creativity, innovative teaching methods, and ability to inspire students.

An educator for over 30 years, Ms. Gatto has devoted her life to the betterment of children. Her life-long service warrants particular praise because she has spent the majority of her career in an urban school largely made up of children from low-income families and those struggling with poverty. Ms. Gatto has chosen to focus her energy on students with differing abilities and has provided them with the tools needed for building successful futures.

In addition to her innovative work at Henry Hudson Elementary, Ms. Gatto has published articles in teacher journals, contributed to academic books, and written science modules for elementary school students. Each spring, she teaches a course at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education on the theory and learning of elementary science. Ms. Gatto was also recognized in 2004 for her excellence in teaching when she was chosen as the New York State Teacher of the Year.

Mr. Speaker, I once again ask that you join me in congratulating Ms. Lynn Astarita Gatto on being selected as a Disney Teacher Award honoree and for her tireless efforts to empower her students. She is a role model to educators, and an inspiration to us all.

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

(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, for all those who will in future years look back on the vote we take today as a window into the soul of this Congress, for all those who will see the approval or defeat of this bill as a testament to how committed this body was to the ideals from which our Nation draws its strength, for them, let me be very clear. On this day, the Republican majority shamelessly played politics with our most cherished principles.

From the very beginning, this resolution and this so-called debate has been about one thing and one thing only: election politics. Six months before our midterm elections, Republicans are falling back on the one play that has worked for them time and time again. They are sowing fear in the hearts of the American people and labeling any individual or organization that doesn't take its marching orders from the White House as a threat to our Nation.

Think of what we have heard from leading Republicans over the past few days. They have called the disclosure of the SWIFT anti-terrorist program a ``disgrace.'' They have accused the newspaper that first wrote about it, the New York Times, of forcing its, quote, arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda on the rest of the country.

Mr. Speaker, if all this is true, then I have no choice but to conclude that our President, President Bush himself, is a disgraceful, arrogant, left-wing elitist, because it was Mr. Bush who leaked this story. Mr. Bush, as well as numerous top-ranking members of his administration, have proudly discussed their efforts to eliminate the finances of terrorists for 5 years. Not two weeks after September 11, 2001, President Bush told the world the United States had ``launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network.'' Such claims have been made time and time again, not just by the President but by every top Republican official in power.

What is more, no fewer than 20 current and former administration officials spoke to New York Times reporters about the SWIFT program. Where do you think the Times heard it? The article that started this all could not have been written without their active help. What the New York Times did, as well as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and newspapers throughout the country through news services, was to

publish a story which had, in effect, already been published a thousand times over by the White House itself and had even been on the Internet.

The end result is a Republican administration intentionally leaking a story, as they did to Judith Miller of the New York Times who was then their heroine, both publicly and privately, and then punishing the newspaper for reporting on its leaks. In such a context, the notion that one of our newspapers violated our national security last week is ludicrous on its face.

Think of this degree of Republican hypocrisy and then consider this: the bill before us claims to stand against leaks. But it comes 6 years into an administration that has always been willing to leak even the most sensitive information if it thought it would benefit from it politically. It is the height of irony to think that when the Bush administration sought to silence critics of its pre-Iraq war intelligence claims, it chose to leak the classified identity of a CIA agent, as well as previously classified components of a national security estimate to, of all places, the New York Times. But it did so, and it did so willingly.

Where were the resolutions of protest from the majority during that scandal? Did we have any expression of outrage over the leaking of a covert agent who, I am told, not only jeopardized her contacts with the CIA but the entire intelligence network itself because people would not trust us anymore? Where were the resolutions of protest about that? Nowhere.

Where was the outrage when a national security asset, as well as all of her contacts in the intelligence community, were put into danger? There was none, because Republicans deemed that was a permissible leak, and it was profitable.

The Republican outrage we see today stinks to high heaven because the leak of Valerie Plame's identity last year came from high-up, the highest ranks of its own White House. And when all the contradictions inherent in this bill are laid bare, we can see what it is actually all about.

Republicans need to change the subject of the real debate everyday people are having in the country. That debate is about the wisdom of this 3-year, $400 billion war in Iraq that is still claiming American lives even today. It is about the numerous scandals of its own creation that the majority is scrambling to explain away. It is about the fact that Republicans have been entirely unwilling to exercise any form of meaningful oversight over the programs implemented by Congress and the White House with disastrous results to our Nation. It is about the very direction that America will take in the years ahead.

Democrats are eager to debate all of these issues. But Republicans, as we see today, are interested only in inventing enemies to point fingers at and turn the public against. And to do so, Mr. Speaker, they are willing to jeopardize even our most basic and fundamental principles. They are willing with this bill and with what they have and will say on the floor today to make it the province of Congress to dictate to our cherished independent media what it can and cannot report about and what it can and cannot say.

But blaming the messenger is nothing new in this country, Mr. Speaker. The first time a newspaper was punished by an elected official was in 1735 when a New York publisher wrote unflattering things about the Governor of the New York territory and was put in jail. Only a few decades later, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by Congress to silence those who opposed American involvement in a war with France.

But to today threaten retribution and legal action against virtually every news organization in this country simply to gain a few points in the polls? It is a debasement of this Congress and a desecration of our Nation's ideals.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle and in the White House have a right to be worried about what lies ahead for them, but what they do not have the right to do is to politicize our national security. They do not have the right to hypocritically and arbitrarily decide when the Nation has been endangered by a leak and when a leak is entirely acceptable. And they most certainly do not have the right to reshape this Congress into a body concerned with, in truth, little more than political retribution against an equally arbitrary ``enemies list.''

The American people expect this majority and this administration to guard information, not punish newspapers from writing about it after it has been officially revealed at the highest source of the government. Think about that for a moment. The President of the United States time after time after time has bragged on this program and yet pillories the New York Times and other papers for writing about it.

The citizens of this country understand that at the end of the day, the job of protecting our national security falls on the shoulders of our elected officials, not just on journalists whose primary duty is to objectively report on the world around us. Our citizens expect this body to do much more than it is doing here today. They expect it to follow a higher calling. And they are right.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 seconds to say I am sorry this House did not care about the leaking of Valerie Plame to that extent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of clarification, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if my colleague has more requests for time?

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that I can amend the rule to allow the House to consider a resolution introduced by Financial Services Ranking Member Barney Frank instead of the press-bashing resolution made in order under this rule.

I ask unanimous consent to print the text of the amendment and a description immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, the Frank substitute resolution expresses Congress' support for intelligence and law enforcement programs that track terrorists and terrorist finances and are conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate Congressional consultation.

Vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can consider this resolution instead of H. Res. 896. Again, vote ``no'' on the previous question.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, this morning, we are certainly on an important appropriations bill, but I would like to spend my time this morning talking about a portion of the bill that we were not able to get into the bill.

Last week, the American people watched as the majority led the charge against the estate tax. Republicans argued they were doing it for the benefit of small businesses and independent farmers. But the majority could not provide even one concrete example that supported their claim. No farm has been found, no small business has been found that had to go under because of the estate tax.

What the Republicans were really interested in was the 3/10ths of 1 percent of Americans who pay the tax, super-rich families, 18 of whom have spent a combined $490 million over the last 10 years in their quest to make the estate tax disappear. Today, I would ask my friends in the majority to compare that sum, $490 million just in lobbying costs, to the amount of money a full-time minimum wage earner makes in an entire year, which is $10,712.

The minimum wage has not been increased in 9 years. Because of inflation, it is effectively at its lowest level of purchasing power since 1955. And this majority wants to keep it that way.

In fact, last night, in the Rules Committee, the majority refused to allow an amendment to this bill that would have increased the minimum wage, so we won't have the chance to debate it here today.

Contrary to the claims of Republicans, minimum wage earners aren't just teenagers. Indeed, 46 percent of them are over the age of 25, and 35 percent are the sole wage earners for their families, many of them working two and three minimum wage jobs to put some food on table.

Despite what Republicans will say today, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that an increase in the minimum wage would either increase poverty or cost small-business jobs. In fact, the studies that are available show the opposite to be the case. Twenty States have higher minimum wage standards than are federally required. A Center for American Progress study found that, between 1998 and 2003, small business employment in those States grew at an average of 9.4 percent. In contrast, it grew at an average of only 6.6 percent everywhere else.

There is also no established connection between increases in the minimum wage and an increase in poverty, contrary to the rhetoric. Once again, the opposite is true. Obviously, when you increase salaries in a way that does not decrease employment opportunities, the increase in the minimum wage helps people to rise out of poverty and gives them more spending power.

Finally, consider that 81 percent of all the respondents in America to a January poll said raising the minimum wage was an important priority in their mind. If only 19 percent of Americans aren't thinking about it, that is overwhelming.

And so, Madam Speaker, my Republican friends find themselves in a bind. In their steadfast and determined opposition to even a moderate increase in the minimum wage, they cannot claim to be speaking for the American people. They can't claim to be speaking on behalf of the available evidence, either, because that evidence indicates that an increase in the minimum wage will help American workers and the economy, not hurt them.

Republicans can't really claim to be speaking for anyone, anyone except, that is, the small group of rich business groups who have dedicated a tremendous amount of time, energy and money to fighting a minimum wage increase. It should not come as a surprise, of course. Ultra-rich special interest groups were the reason that they worked so hard to overturn the estate tax last week, and we really shouldn't expect anything today that would be different.

Madam Speaker, what we are seeing is a democracy that has been broken, par for the course from the party that recently tabled the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Our elected officials are supposed to base their decisions on the will of the people, but this leadership cares only about the will of a few rich businessmen.

We all know that our democracy was designed to keep this House responsive to the needs of the public, but history shows us that this leadership listens only to well-paid lobbyists and is willing to do almost anything to ensure their agenda is implemented. For years, they have repeatedly assaulted the process, abusing rules and the ethical standards of this Congress to get what they want, no matter the price.

When Democrats opposed a repeal of the estate tax last week, we did so because we believe those who have benefited the most from our society have an obligation to give the most back. This week, I think we saw that, with a great gift of Warren Buffett, one of our richest persons and citizens, to help the people at large, not just in America but throughout the world.

I ask my Republican colleagues, is that the American dream for you? Or is it one where people cannot get a raise in their minimum income to be able to take care of their families? Is working 40 hours a week for poverty wages the American dream for you? Or is it the belief that honest workers will be given an honest chance to build the life for themselves that they deserve?

We have not forgotten that dream on our side. We are going to continue to stand united behind Americans as they pursue it. We also stand for an open and honest democratic government that will demand it. And we will not rest until we have made this House the People's House once more, because the citizens of this great Nation deserve no less.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the

gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 seconds simply to say that the workers who need it most, 57 percent of the benefits of the wage increase will go to families with working adults in the bottom 40 percent of the income scale. It is true that people are trying to raise families on the minimum wage.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

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

I have no further requests for time, and I will close with an urge to my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule as a protest against not being able to raise the minimum wage. The idea that if we were to raise that 50 cents would cause such inflationary spirals in this country is so laughable that I am surprised anybody would even try to contemplate such a thing, or that in order to have to pay somebody an extra dollar an hour you would go out and buy a many thousand dollar machine. I cannot imagine any businessperson in the country to be that incredibly dumb.

The fact of the matter is that we simply have got our foot on the necks of those people, and we cannot worry about them because the concerns of this Congress are for the rich and not for those who are struggling to make it.

Even if there are young people trying to pay their way through college, for heaven's sake, give them a better break. The college tuition costs have gone up higher than almost any other thing in the country. That is one of the reasons it always breaks my heart on the death rate and wounding rate in Iraq, because so many of the young and men and women who went into the Guard and Reserve did so in order to be able to get an education.

I think it is deplorable that this country cannot provide better education opportunities for its students without having them to put their lives on the line, but that is the circumstances we find ourselves in.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

The gentleman is correct, and I believe 43 States have had the wisdom to try to raise the minimum wage because we simply cannot get it done here.

It should not be the luck of the draw where you are living whether the minimum wage is going to be raised or not. It is a responsibility we have and a responsibility, frankly, most people are tired of watching us shirk.

With that, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule because of the minimum wage.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my Republican colleagues for providing the American people with

the clearest possible demonstration of just how stark the differences are between the priorities of our Nation's two major parties.

We have before us a bill whose sole purpose, the sole purpose is to funnel as much as $1 trillion over the next decade to a mere handful of our Nation's richest families.

It is telling that Republican leadership is so committed and so determined to see this legislation through that it called an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee last night to make sure it reached the floor this morning, even though it will not take effect for 4 years.

Now, let me tell you a bill that will expire is the Voting Rights Act, but we could not deal with that. This is the Republican definition of a national emergency, to get as much money as we can to the richest among us. It is not unprecedented national debt. That does not bother them. The struggling middle class? No. Or the fact that tens of millions of Americans scrape by from paycheck to paycheck, scrape by without health insurance, without help and, in many cases, without hope.

To get this bill to where it is today, the Republicans had to ignore the needs of virtually every American citizen. The repeal of the estate tax will benefit less than 1 percent of the people in this country, but those few individuals that it helps will profit handsomely.

Take Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, who recently secured a retirement package worth almost $400 million, and who last year made more in a single day, probably in a single hour, than the average American family makes in an entire year. Lee stands to gain up to $211 million from this legislation that he will not pay taxes on.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the officers of the Cabinet will not do so badly either. Together they will pocket anywhere from $91 million to $344 million. Just the Cabinet.

People like these are among the three-tenths of 1 percent of superrich Americans who pay an estate tax, and that is it. The other 99.7 percent do not see a dime. Such an astonishingly lopsided outcome is to be expected when we realize who is actually behind this bill.

A recent report from the group Public Citizenry revealed that 18 of the richest families in America, families worth a combined total of $185 billion, have been conducting a concerted and clandestine campaign on its behalf for a decade. We are talking about families that are heirs to the fortunes of families like Wal-Mart, Campbell's Soup and Mars, Incorporated. These 18 families, Mr. Speaker, have spent $490 million in the last decade in their effort to pass this bill. Imagine that, $490 million to lobbyists, and if it does pass, their investment will certainly have been worth it because over $70 billion will be headed their way.

For years, supporters of a repeal of the estate tax have claimed that the people they really want to help are America's small businesses and farmers. Well, as is so often the case, that is a lie. Small business families rarely, if ever, pay estate taxes, and the American Farm Bureau, one of the leading proponents of this repeal, has failed to provide even one legitimate example of a family that lost its farm because of estate tax requirements.

This is the kind of government Republicans have used their time and power to give us, Mr. Speaker. Multibillionaires say, jump, and the majority says, how high?

Bills like this are so outlandish and so entirely justifiable, they would be comical if they were not an assault on the strength of our Union, which is, I might remind everyone, at war.

Consider the opportunity cost of this bill. For the up to $1 trillion Federal that this leadership plans to give away, we could fully insure every single American who does not have health insurance, all 44 million of them. Think of that. We could fully fund the Medicare part D prescription plan. We could pay for all military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then we could use the money left over from that to fully fund No Child Left Behind, and, finally, give every child in America the education the President promised when he took office.

The sad thing is that what we have today is exactly the kind of legislation Americans should expect the majority, whose leader has bragged about never having voted for an increase in the minimum in his 25 years in politics, that is what we should expect from a party that would not allow the Congress to adjust the minimum wage for inflation, a party that would have, over the decades, permitted it to remain at the pathetic $3.35 an hour.

I would challenge my friends on the other side of the aisle to try surviving on that one for a month, Mr. Speaker, and think about the trillionaires who are going to say this is chump change to them, and they do not care. But the notion that they would say if taking away the taxes of the very rich would stimulate the economy, while increasing the pay of the weakest among us, the people who are least paid, will hurt the economy, is an absurdity on its face.

Mr. Speaker, this is a telling moment for this country. It is a moment in which this leadership clearly demonstrates once and for all what its priorities are. It is making the decision that educating our children is not worth the investment, that ensuring our parents and grandparents receive the prescription drugs they need is not worth the investment; that fixing our broken health insurance system is not worth the investment; that curbing our crushing national debt is not worth the investment; but investing in the ultrarich is worth every single dime that can be squeezed out of the Federal Treasury.

The bill embodies the very definition of ``America for Sale.'' Today's Republicans are alone in this belief, Mr. Speaker. Great leaders throughout the history of our Nation have understood that our collective strength lies in our support for the working and the middle class. They have understood that the extreme polarization of wealth this majority is ushering in is fundamentally bad for America, and among those who believe that are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

I implore my friends on the other side of the aisle, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our military, for the sake of common decency, defeat this bill and begin again to work for the people of this Nation and not against them.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, a member of the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel.

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), who was denied an amendment in the Rules Committee.

I too have no further requests for time, so I will close.

Mr. Speaker, I think what we ought to call this tax is the Paris Hilton tax. Paris Hilton, once this is passed, will be able to jetset again around the world buying herself more bling and more little dogs to carry around in her purse, and probably never work a day in her life.

But while we are helping Paris with her problems, I think we need to think about the poorest among us, those people working two and three minimum-wage jobs every single day simply to try to keep themselves alive and that we have turned our backs on now for over a decade.

So I urge all Members of this House to vote ``no'' on the previous question so I can amend the rule and allow the House to vote on the Miller-Owens bill to increase the Federal minimum wage for the first time in almost 10 years. The bill is identical to the minimum-wage language included in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that was supposed to come to the floor this week, but was pulled by the leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment to the rule provides that immediately after the House adopts the rule for the Paris Hilton bill, it will bring H.R. 2429 to the floor for an up-or-down vote. The bill will gradually increase the minimum wage from the current level of $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour after 2 years.

Mr. Speaker, it is time we started to help workers, instead of making the very rich in this Nation richer. And I want us to stop this nonsense that we are doing this for poor farmers. Nobody can come up with a name of a poor farmer. And we will ask the State of Indiana to give us a list of all those people who went under because of this tax.

But we are considering another massive tax cut for our Nation's wealthiest. And to make matters worse, it is done the same week that the leadership of the House blocked legislation to increase the minimum wage for those who need the help the most.

America's low-income workers need our help, but millionaires don't. We are losing our middle class. One of the best things we can do to help the low- and moderate-income families is to increase the minimum wage. It has been, as I said, a decade since it was voted to increase, and it was signed in law in 1996 with the last increase in 1997.

After adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1955. The purchasing power of the 1997 increase has eroded since then by 20 percent. A full-time minimum-wage earner working 40 hours a week makes $10,700 annually, an amount that is $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The minimum wage now equals only 31 percent of the average wage for the private sector and the nonsupervisory workers, and that is the lowest share since the end of World War II.

Mr. Speaker, can there possibly be any doubt that we are long overdue for another increase in the minimum wage?

Leadership in this House has managed to implement numerous tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, including this billion dollar budget buster that we are considering today, but turns its back on those who work the hardest and are paid the least, those with no lobbyists, those who struggle to make ends meet every day. They don't have any lobbyists but us on their side. And I think it is time for Congress to step up to the plate and help those who need it most, not just those with the fattest bank accounts.

And those who say an increase in the minimum wage will hurt business and economy are plain wrong, and facts argue just the opposite.

So I urge all Members of this body to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we can help 7 million-plus American workers who will directly benefit from an increase in the minimum wage.

And let me close by saying this is a very sad day because I believe this bill will pass. And I think this Congress of the United States will go on record as saying that we don't care about those people other than those who can hire the lobbyists and do everything that they want to do.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Ms. Brown.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor three champions of medical research and health care innovation in this country, Doctors William Bonnez, Richard Reichman and Robert Rose, virologists in the Infectious Diseases Division of the Department of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC).

The URMC has a long legacy of medical innovation and groundbreaking research. These three doctors have continued that tradition with their research into the human papillomavirus (HPV), laying the groundwork for the recent FDA approval of a cervical cancer vaccine that will protect against two of the most prevalent cancer-causing strains of HPV.

After years of research and clinical trials during the 1990s, Doctors Bonnez, Reichman, and Rose were able to create a ``virus-like particle'' that imitated the real papillomavirus. Though it was not infectious, the virus-like particle induced the immune system to respond as if a real virus were launching an attack. This breakthrough at the URMC, created the foundation for other scientists to build upon. The fruits of URMCs basic research were reaped on June 8, 2006, when the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil, the vaccine designed to block strains of the sexually transmitted HPV known to cause 70 percent of cervical cancer cases.

Every year approximately 5.5 million people contract sexually transmitted HPV infections from their partners. In fact, three out of every four sexually active people will get an HPV infection at some point during their lifetime. In some age groups, such as sexually active men and women under the age of 30, it is estimated that 40 percent of people are currently infected. HPV causes about 9,700 new cases of cervical cancer in women annually. In addition, each year, cervical cancer kills nearly 4,000 women in the U.S. and more than 288,000 women worldwide. Through the work of Doctors Bonnez, Reichman, Rose and others, we will see these statistics drop dramatically in the years ahead, and millions of lives worldwide will be saved.

As a microbiologist I understand the critical importance of developing new vaccines to fight the diseases that plague our Nation and countries around the world. And when there are major medical breakthroughs, like the approval of Gardisil, we should celebrate the years of basic research that went into development of this life saving vaccine. That is why it gives me great pleasure to come before the House of Representatives to recognize and pay tribute to the tireless efforts made by three doctors--William Bonnez, Richard Reichman and Robert Rose--at URMC.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the accomplishments of James (Jim) Williams, Director of the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT program. After a strong tenure heading up US-VISIT, Jim has agreed to take on new challenges as Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service in the General Services Administration.

Jim is a selfless public servant, and has been an effective leader at the Department of Homeland Security. US-VISIT is a continuum of security measures that keep America's doors open and our Nation secure. US-VISIT begins overseas, at the U.S. consular offices issuing visas, where visitors' biometrics are collected and checked against a database of known criminals and suspected terrorists. When the visitor arrives at the port of entry, US-VISIT use the same biometrics to verify the person at the port is the same person who received the visa.

Jim understands that strong security measures, when done right, keep the Nation secure and open to legitimate travelers and tourists. He has had the vision and follow-through to oversee the installation of biometric entry procedures at 154 land border ports of entry and at airports and seaports with international arrivals. In turn, US-VISIT has processed nearly 60 million visitors to date, and denied entry to more than 1,100 criminals and immigration violators. At the same time, US-VISIT has not affected wait times at the border and in some instances has actually reduced inspection times. These accomplishments have been appropriately recognized by the ten members of the 9/11 Commission, who gave US-VISIT the highest grade on their final report card.

Thanks in large part to Jim and the team he has assembled, we now have 21st century tools to address our emerging security challenges. These tools are allowing the U.S. to deal more effectively with threats of terrorism, while keeping us competitive in the global economy. I know that Jim will be missed at US-VISIT. I have enjoyed working with him over the past 2 years, and would like to wish him well as he takes on new challenges at the General Services Administration.