Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the importance of America's Catholic schools and share my support for House Resolution 657.

As a product of Sacred Heart School in Lake Worth, Catholic parochial education was a major part of my life and that of my family. My father first attended Sacred Heart himself as a teacher and then moved on to Cardinal Newman High School to work as coach and science teacher.

At Sacred Heart, I was taught how to be a better citizen because of their focus on discipline and moral values. I often fall back on lessons learned during my formative years--especially in the case of November 22, 1963. I was in 4th grade and our teachers asked us to pray for our Nation and for our assassinated President. Though the shock of the

tragedy could have easily given way to anger among the faculty at Sacred Heart, it instead encouraged us to focus on a compassionate tone by praying for our country and the Kennedy family.

I am and have always been a strong proponent of public education. But by the virtue of its very nature--publicly funded schools cannot offer the type of spiritual education that Catholic schools have long provided. In search of a complete education with the ideals of trust, faith, understanding and compassion, many families are turning to the structure, discipline and academic standards of Catholic schools. Parochial schools in the United States are also responsible for educating students from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, including many who are non-Catholic.

I think one of the unique aspects of Catholic school education is the opportunity to care for the material and intellectual needs of the child in a community atmosphere. By offering an education centered on values, the faculty in Catholic schools can create an interactive setting between parents and students that is geared toward long-term healthy character and scholastic development for all enrolled children.

Please join me and my colleagues as we celebrate the contributions of Catholic schools following National Catholic Schools Week.

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's tirade on trade. He says there is too much coming in, but they consistently vote against any going out. They do not assist us in the trade policy that will bring balance to trade.

What have we done positively? Let us talk a little bit about the economy. GDP is up. The stock market is nearing 11,000. Not since 9/11 have we seen such a robust economy. Consumer confidence is up. Gas prices are subsiding. Unemployment in Florida and the Nation is the lowest it has been in decades; and the Nation is at an all-time high in prosperity index. We have had job creation; and, yes, we have had tax relief, giving people their own money back to spend in their communities. That is leadership.

If you listen to the other side of the aisle, it is a pity party, it is pessimism, it is negativity, and it seems to spawn itself to a defeatist attitude whether it is about the war in Iraq, or the health of our economy. We have got a lot to boast about, and I think it is important that national leaders stand up and talk about the great things that are happening in this country. I applaud what we have done. Reflective in the numbers we have shown leadership, the Nation is stronger than ever, our economy is better than ever, and I think we all ought to wish people a Merry Christmas as we head into a prosperous season.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of Mr. Fitzpatrick's excellent bill, H.R. 2892, that would remove the Federal Housing Administration's reverse mortgage volume cap.

I was a former realtor before I entered the Congress, and my district is the fifth largest Medicare eligible senior district in America, so this is critically important to their ability to live in their homes that they have tended to and built up over the years. It allows them to stay in their communities and their homes and remain healthy and vibrant in their community.

FHA's reverse mortgage program reflects the very best of FHA, and the elimination of the loan cap represents an appropriate and welcome adjustment to the program. Launched in 1989, FHA's Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program was designed to be an innovative new mortgage product that would allow seniors to tap into their home equity in a safe and affordable manner. Previously, the only way for the homeowner to get cash from their home was to sell their home or borrow against it and begin making monthly payments. A reverse mortgage is a product that allows a homeowner age 62 or older to get cash by tapping their equity without having to make a monthly payment or sell their home.

As I mentioned earlier, their home is their nest, their safety net, a place where they feel independent, secure and feel that their lives still have value and worth. Staying in their home allows them to bring their children and grandchildren into that home, oftentimes the place where they raised those very children. This type of mortgage can be useful to couples who wish to use their homes to pay off medical bills, purchase a vacation home or give to their children or grandchildren as part of a living will.

There are nearly 35 million Americans over 65 years of age, and by 2010, the number of elderly individuals is expected to jump to 40 million and then reach 50 million by 2020. Even more dramatic is the growth of older seniors, persons age 85 and older. Over the next 35 years, that number is expected to quadruple from 3.5 million to 14 million, those over 85.

So I want to thank Mr. Fitzpatrick for his excellent work on this bill. Certainly it is a good bill for Floridians, and I know Pennsylvanians as well. I also want to thank Chairman Mike Oxley for his hard work as well as Mike Fitzpatrick in bringing this important piece of legislation to the floor, and I urge my colleagues to support the measure.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) for bringing this timely and important issue to the floor. I also want to give credit to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), who has been a long champion of trying to correct this inequity. We have been working in a bipartisan fashion to find a solution to this problem. We have heard repeatedly about tax cuts for the rich. During one of our hearings, I happened to ask the panel, what is considered middle class in your community? To his credit, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) said, well, it depends on where you live. And that was a very true answer, because if you live in a high-cost community like Manhattan, or Chicago or Los Angeles, or West Palm Beach, your middle class may be a lot different than somebody from rural America.

What the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) attempts to do, though, is deal with the people that really, truly are working on the margins. The AMT will actually hit married couples. It will reduce from $58,000 for married couples to $45,000. They would be impacted by the

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for yielding me time and commend her for bringing forward this resolution, this resolution of both sorrow and outrage.

King Abdullah said it best when he expressed his country's collective outrage by declaring the world must join in the war on terror. The world must join in the war on terror.

I know at times countries are loath to engage on issues that they feel are not theirs, but we are now starting to see a global and collective problem that must be dealt with. We have seen recently in France horrific rioting in their streets, not necessarily tied to al Qaeda, but it is by a radical Muslim group that is feeling oppressed and put upon.

When I went to the Vatican for Pope John Paul's funeral, I spoke to the head of the Vatican state, the president who is a Cardinal. He suggested too one of Italy's greatest growing menaces is a gathering of radical Muslim extremists who are taking root in Italy, and he fears for the country and for the stability in the region.

Other groups like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Islamic jihad are excited when incidents like an Amman, Jordan occur because they feel that they have us on the run.

We recognize that there are so many people of Muslim faith in the world, Arabs and others, who truly believe in peace and tranquility and the best that life has to offer for their children; but there are those who distort the Koran, as the gentlewoman has clearly suggested. They distort the meaning of the higher purposes and they use that to twist the logic and convince unsuspecting young people that in order to attain an ultimate joy in heaven that they too should commit acts of violence, of suicide.

This is a sad commentary on those innocent people who choose a desperate path of destruction based on the tutelage of someone who simply does not care. Interestingly enough, many of those who are training the suicide bombers stand aside and watch as other innocents kill themselves convinced they are doing something right. How sad that they have twisted the minds of individuals to the degree that they would not only kill themselves but kill other human beings, and they sit there and watch and celebrate after the fact.

We are joined together as the United States of America in this battle not because it is one of our choosing, but it is one we accept based on our ability to help guide and govern the world to a safer, better place for all people.

The Middle East and other places have been rocked by turmoil over decades, but now this greater and growing menace of al Qaeda threatens friends, allies and, yes, even enemies. Even people that may not agree with us on certain geo-political issues may find themselves sacrificed at the hand of this evil group of people.

So I join with King Abdullah in his declaration; and I urge Members of Congress, I know there are political and partisan battles going on, I know there is disagreement on the war in Iraq, I know there is a tendency to sit here and criticize constantly our Commander in Chief, but there is one thing for certain, if we are going to divide, we will not conquer. If we are going to criticize publicly and openly, then we will not give our troops in the field the strength to fight the battle ahead.

However and whatever reasons we came to Iraq, we now know that it is not just about Iraq. The World Trade Center bombings in 1993 and 2001 were not about our presence in Iraq, because we were not there then. Al Qaeda knows no boundaries. They know no group that they will not willingly sacrifice for their higher mission. And when they detonate a bomb in a wedding ceremony among fellow Arabs, among fellow Muslims in order to prove a point that they simply can, indicates how sad and despicable this group is.

So I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and members of the committee who found it appropriate not only to signal our displeasure but to record in the annals of the Congressional Record, because I know in my heart if we stand together we will, in fact, beat this scourge around the world and save humanity.

Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Nevada and thank the gentleman from Illinois for their kind introduction of our good friend and dear former citizen and resident, Ulysses Samuel Cleveland. Many of those listening to the testimony may recognize the name and they are struggling to remember where they heard the term Punta Gorda, Florida; but I can tell you August 13 was a startling day in Punta Gorda when Hurricane Charley approached landfall and did significant damage to our constituents. U.S. Cleveland was one of those who suffered the loss of his home. He was in the process of rehabilitating it and retrofitting it, because one of the unique features of U.S. was the fact that he made a lifetime commitment out of caring for his son Dallas who has Down's Syndrome from birth.

So not only was he a native of the region, not only was he a veteran of our Nation, not only was he the assistant postmaster of our community, not only had he spent 83 long years as an active member of our community. He also showed the full measure of devotion to the children, his own particularly, who had been brought into this world with a challenge, a challenge so many other families face.

This past weekend I happened to be in Palm Beach County where they were having the Down's Syndrome Walk, families celebrating the lives of their children who have been challenged, but with the support and strength of their family they have been able to overcome that adversity. U.S. was a father and a principled citizen who gave his devotion to both family, community, and always above self, which was the hallmark of American patriots.

It was noted that Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower credited his unit with saving the D-Day landing at Normandy. We mentioned him coming back home. One of the great things about Florida, and of course it is a State now with 16 million people, but the year of his birth there were very few. Florida was an emerging little area in the south of the United States, and our population was not what it is near today, and certainly he was part of that beautiful community, Punta Gorda, in Charlotte County.

And so today we do rise as we do so often to commend the life's work of citizens who are deserving of this high honor. We do not name post offices after everyone, and it is not always the fact that they may have been postal employees. But this significance to Mr. Cleveland was the fact of his devotion to family, devotion to community, devotion to Nation, and of course being a historian for Punta Gorda.

Those in southwest Florida know this beautiful community of ours, and they know full well of his devotion to that community. By cataloging the photos of early days, he was able to, as was mentioned, co-author two volumes of a local history book called ``Our Fascinating Past.'' These are the hallmarks of a great and giant man.

Unfortunately, he passed away this spring due to complications from pneumonia. He was married to Yvonne Cleveland who preceded him in death, and he is survived by three sons, Max, Keith, and Dallas.

I thank the members of the committee, my colleagues, for allowing us to present this bill to the floor and for their expedition in bringing it to the floor. I would like to thank my district director, Dick Keene, who lives in the Punta Gorda area for his work on this bill and also Jeffrey Ostermayer for helping us bring about this tribute to a fine American. I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the chairman of the committee, for bringing this bill to the House floor so quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time and for his hard work in this Herculean task of trying to make this agency better.

Thankfully, homeland security has worked. Our Nation is safer. My gripe, though, is FEMA. Four storms hit Florida, and FEMA was ill equipped. In my opinion, it is ill equipped because it resides in an agency that should be focused solely on terrorism and homeland security.

FEMA should be able to respond to the needs of a natural disaster that we have experienced.

Immigration has been mentioned repeatedly. Immigration is out of control. We recently read in the paper that employees of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service are facing misconduct charges ranging from bribery

to exchanging green cards for immigration in return for sexual favors. It is not enough that we have illegal immigrants running around unfettered, we also have them committing serious crimes.

Daniel Rodriguez Mendoza, a 21-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, was recently responsible for killing the mother of two children in a traffic accident in West Palm Beach, Florida. He did not have a driver's license. He had no papers, and four times he had been previously ticketed for driving without a license. Each time, he was let back into the community, even after immigration officials were notified of him, but failed to do anything.

Then there is the 20-year-old young man in my district who was hit by a truck while riding his motorcycle in a small town on Father's Day. He is now hospitalized, paralyzed from the chest down. The illegal alien who paralyzed him was caught, charged with the accident and then, regrettably, released, and now he has disappeared and has not shown up for his trial.

Mr. Speaker, we are debating today money for the Federal department now responsible not only for protecting us from terrorism but also from illegal immigration and for helping in disasters. We need to make sure this money works.

We should not have to be dealing with inept disaster programs and dysfunctional immigration enforcement. And I think most of my colleagues here would agree.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to support the gentlewoman's efforts and those of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart). We all in south Florida are working. I thank the gentlewoman for highlighting this. Katrina did start in Florida. People have been impacted. They have been hurt, and they deserve the same consideration as our colleagues and neighbors in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

Madam Speaker, I want to particularly thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman McCrery) and the gentleman from California (Chairman Thomas) and others for their collaborative efforts in helping the victims of Katrina. It has been a horrific time for America to witness on TV what those fine folk in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana have endured.

It really brings out the best in America, the character, the courage, the ability to help their neighbor, and here on the floor, we are providing relief by virtue of the Tax Code.

I want to specifically thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), our colleagues who brought to the committee a very urgent need of helping Floridians as well.

The three States that were dramatically impacted have been visualized on TV, but Katrina did start off the coast of Florida, off the Bahamas and made its way through southern Florida, Dayton, Broward Counties. They suffered significant damage. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), our colleague, as well lent a

hand in trying to see that our constituents were brought whole in this effort as well.

The chairman was specific in providing targeted relief for those that were directly impacted by the storm, and we applaud that. No tax relief measure should be a grab bag for others to dip into simply because they thought they were close to a proximity of damage.

In this bill, we establish criteria that there is significant and real damage, not perceived, not illusory, but real damage. Forgiveness of debt if, in fact, your home has been decimated and you have to discharge the mortgage obligation, relieving that would be a gain under the Tax Code for a person that has not only lost their home, had their mortgage foreclosed but is being considered by the IRS for gain on that asset simply because they got a forgiveness of debt.

Ability to reach into your IRA for the specific use in this emergency. The IRA is an important asset for future financial strengthening of all persons' assets. So we do not let people just go into the account, but it is strictly provided for on the case of emergency.

So I applaud this bill. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), my colleague, I know has suffered himself personally. We are delighted that we worked in a bipartisan spirit to bring about relief for the very people that have suffered so much.

Mr. Chairman, as co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus and an original author of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification measure included in this bill, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3132, the Children's Safety Act of 2005.

Mr. Speaker, we have all heard the names: Jessica Lunsford, Jetseta Gage, Sarah Lunde, Megan Kanka, Jacob Wetterling, just to name a few. All beautiful children carrying with them the hopes and dreams of every young child in this country. All taken away from their parents and their futures, killed by sex offenders.

This is an important piece of legislation we are faced with today. It is probably one of the most tragic things any family will ever deal with. While Katrina, the hurricane, and Judge Roberts are much in the headlines, below the fold seems to be daily an occurrence of a violent act against our children. It is time we get tough.

I have said repeatedly that in this country we track library books better than we do sex offenders. This bill, thanks to the good efforts of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and others, seeks to correct that.

This bill is not a knee-jerk reaction. We have worked over 1 year on this legislation with the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children, the U.S. Department of Justice, and other Federal agencies.

It is horrific that in this country we are experiencing these untold tragedies throughout our Nation; but we can do better, and in this bill we will do better.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and his staff, Mike Volkov, for working tirelessly to produce this comprehensive child protection legislation. This bill has indeed many fathers and mothers. It is for the children, though, that we work and we labor.

I have often said this bill is a labor of love. Yet it is a labor of shame that we have these kinds of incidents of violence and tragedies affecting our kids.

I would like to thank Bradley Schreiber, my legislative director, who has worked so many hours in trying to perfect and work alongside staff to make this legislation possible; Ernie Allen from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; John Walsh from America's Most Wanted, who has led a crusade for well over 20 years since the death of his beautiful son Adam in Florida. John Walsh has brought a scrutiny to child protection legislation unlike any other human being.

Finally, and most important, I want to recognize the victims' parents. It is their hard work and determination, their tears and their frustration, and their fears for their other children that has brought this bill to the floor so quickly. They took away from their own tragedies a chance to help fellow Americans protect other children; and for that we are entirely grateful.

Mr. Chairman, these are not petty criminals. These are sex offenders, and they must be dealt with accordingly.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment.

Sex offenders are the worst in our society. They prey on our children as if they were cattle. The idea that they will voluntarily register needs to be thrown out the window because they simply will not.

Time and time again we have seen experiences where these people realize that the microscope of society is upon them. So they move and they try to relocate into other communities. Our States, our 50 States, many are border States whereby if they are in Tallahassee, Florida, it is very easy to go to Valdosta, Georgia, very easy to get a new job and a new occupation.

That has been the problem with the laws. We cannot properly track these offenders. We cannot follow their whereabouts. And if we do not have a strict punishment on them, they simply will continue to move about the country and prey on vulnerable children in other States.

For God's sake, if I come to Washington, D.C., and want to get a Blockbuster movie, I have to get a new registration card. I have to put down my credit card, my driver's license to rent a movie. And if I fail to return the movie, they charge me for the movie. There are penalties for violating simple rules of video rentals, and my colleagues would have us believe, oh, let us not be too harsh on these people.

Jessica Lunsford was buried in a garbage bag by a known sex offender who failed to register. Oh, let us not give him a 5-year minimum mandatory. Let us not inconvenience him, John Couey. Let us not cause any unnecessary paperwork for John Couey, while Jessica Lunsford is in a plastic garbage bag.

We have to have a driver's license in the State in which we live. We have to have a license tag in the State in which we reside. It takes us 48 hours to get our cable installed. But, God, no, let us not inconvenience by mandatory punishment if a sex offender fails to report.

They are instructed before they are released of the obligations of their sentencing. They are told they must report in the new State. They are given adequate warning. For far too long we have opened up our jails and said hope you are better and then lost track of them. I said it before, we track library books better than we do these criminals, and it is time we balance the scale of justice in favor of our children.

I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I wish the perpetrator would have thought about the penalties before they committed the crime. The minimum mandatory may tie the hands of judges, but it will, in fact, tie the hands of the predator. They know full well before they are released what the requirements are, and if there is confusion, it is the perpetrator's fault. I do not want it to be relied upon the victim to say the victim should have known he may have been a perpetrator but we were not registered.

Mr. Speaker, I would like us all to tone down the rhetoric and start thinking of the victims. I watched Cokie Roberts yesterday, a proud Democrat, from one of the legendary Democratic families of this Nation, on Fox News, not casting aspersions, not seeking to blame anybody. She had personal tragedy in that they had lost their homes. But she was calm and considerate and thoughtful and reasonable, asking us to come together as a Nation to help the victims of this hurricane.

We have other leaders going on TV calling the President dangerous. After 9/11, we joined hands and prayed. We were considerate, courteous, and, most important, we were Americans. We had four hurricanes in Florida, so I know what it is like to be damaged by a storm.

What is worse after this event is the damaging words of our colleagues disparaging the institution, disparaging the President, and bringing shame on this House. Our victims and our families deserve better.

Let me thank the gentleman very, very much for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to commend the rule. I was somewhat disappointed, as expressed by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), on the lack of a couple of amendments that we were attempting to insert in the bill dealing with Haiti. Haiti is a tragedy. There is no other way to describe it. They are kind, wonderful, hardworking people who are desperate for a solution to their ever-growing controversy. No matter whose side you believe in, no matter what you thought of past presidents or future presidents, the one thing that is abundantly clear to most of us is that Haiti is drowning in despair. The people have been ravaged not only by political unrest and upheaval, natural disasters, hurricanes and other things and what I was trying to do in the amendment was to provide a new concept much like a Peace Corps, taking Haitian citizens who are now here in the United States who are learning a free economy, learning to be teachers, police officers, pharmacists, to create a structure in the State Department, in cooperation with NGOs, to use those talents and capabilities to help bring some stability to Haiti.

I know we have tried and the White House both past and present have injected significant amounts of resources to try to help the island. For whatever

reason, one side pits the other, the lack of any clear-cut direction, and I believe to some degree the Haitian people lack trust in some of our motives and motivations, which is why I thought of this concept of bringing people who now had learned about the free market concepts of America to send them back to Haiti for a limited time so that they too could use that talent that they have learned here in the United States to help their brothers and sisters in Haiti try to build an economy, build an education system, build a health care dynamic, and try to create a pathway for their future.

We have seen billions, honestly, squandered in Haiti from one regime to the next. None seems to be better than the last. And at the same time, the people in Haiti are starved, some are imprisoned. An election is contemplated, and I do not know how in the world we will structure an election based on the current chaos that is evidenced in Haiti. However, many of us, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), many people in the room, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), I am just naming a couple people. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) I know has had a unique and particular interest in this area. We may come from different political parties, but I think our motives are pure at least on the point of view that it is about the people of Haiti, not about whoever is running the country.

So I commend the bill and of course will support the very important endeavors of our Committee on International Relations as they work across the globe to try to bring unity of purpose to a very complicated and convoluted and dangerous world. But for this Member from Florida, my heart really does truly go out to the Haitian people. I pray that in the days ahead we come up with some significant ways in order to look at the concerns some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have relative to our intervention or activities in Haiti and try to put aside some of our animus towards recognizing that unless we get our act together the people of Haiti will still be starving, they will still be dying of disease, they will still be cleaning up after hurricane debris, and they will still be wondering what is their future to be like.

So I want to thank all who have participated in the debate. I want to thank Members, both Republicans and Democrats, who have submitted amendments yesterday that were not included in the rule. But I can assure my colleagues that we will continue to endeavor to see that our points of view are brought forward either in this vehicle or future vehicles as we move down the road.

Mr. Chairman, let me thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Chairman Duncan) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) for all of their work in helping us improve the quality of life in Florida.

This provision in this bill is critically needed for the State of Florida and for our national treasure, the Everglades. It is being polluted. It is being destroyed. And much like a patient, it is waiting for emergency surgery. This bill finally allocates, after many years of attempts, to fund the necessary reconstruction and replumbing of Florida's Everglades, specifically, the Indian River Lagoon, which is a project of massive proportion that is important to the restoration of the Everglades and cleaning up our tributaries, our lagoons, and our estuaries.

I want to thank our local and State and Federal parties who have worked tirelessly to ensure this plan would be included in the bill. My constituents in Martin County have come on repeated occasions to our Nation's Capital at their own expense, to plead for funding for this important Indian River Lagoon Project. They have organized rallies. They have written letters. And they have passed on themselves a half- penny sales tax to show their commitment is not only through deeds but through fiscal actions.

So they have taken it upon themselves to assist in raising the necessary moneys to complete this project. I want to thank the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Jacksonville District, who worked tirelessly with our State partner, the South Florida Water Management District, Governor Bush and the cabinet have worked and have weighed in on this issue, and I have to thank the White House as well for paving the way to make this very, very important financial commitment to the restoration of America's treasured Everglades.

The committee has listened to me many, many years pleading for this project to be included. I thank them for listening. Time now is for action, for not only the House to pass WRDA, to include the Indian River Lagoon, but for the Senate to act accordingly and bring this to fruition. I thank all parties involved, and I hope we have a very strong vote in support.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentleman from Illinois, and all who have joined together to bring this proclamation to the floor, House Concurrent Resolution 160.

Let me turn to the third page of the bill. I think it is important, because some people do ask the question why do we seem to continue to try and repeat history or review history, and I think this section of the bill speaks volumes of the purpose of this resolution. It states, History should be regarded as a means for understanding the past and solving the challenges of the future. It also suggests that this celebration of the end of slavery is an important and enriching part of the history and heritage of the United States.

Often in the early morning hours, I find myself jogging down the Mall. I end there at, or at least my halfway point is the Lincoln Memorial, Abraham Lincoln's shrine, if you will, to what I believe is one of the most noble and great acts of any American President who, despite popular opinion at the time, took the battle to those who would ensnare and harbor our brothers and sisters in slavery. An evil part of our history unfolded back in that decade and that century, to free these people from this wretched, wretched behavior of our past.

So today it is about obviously looking backwards in time to try and paint a portrait for young people today to suggest never ever again should this type of behavior be ever allowed in a free soil with free people and that we learn from this tragedy and this horrible dark period in our history the lessons that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that they are and should be given liberty and justice. I thank all those parties who are involved in this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in outrage over a reported deal to pay the runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, half a million dollars.

Jennifer Wilbanks, purported to have been kidnapped, blamed Hispanics, worried her parents, cost untold hundreds of thousands of dollars and the compassion of millions of Americans concerned for her well-being, all in a stunt, a stunt that is now going to earn her one- half million dollars. This is insane. It is outrageous.

Police officers, firefighters, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts combing the country for this girl that we assumed was taken from her family and her fiance shows up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then apologizes in a tearful manner that she misled people. And now we are going to pay her half a million dollars.

This merely increases the likelihood that misguided and deranged young people will do stupid things in order to profit, and we fall prey to their pranks. I urge any media source thinking of paying her to reject the negotiations and treat her like the criminal she is.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 262 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Amendment No. 19 Offered by Mr. Tancredo

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 267, the King of Iowa Amendment, I inadvertently voted ``no''. I meant to vote ``aye.''