Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Indiana has lost more manufacturing jobs than any State in the Union. So today I rise to enthusiastically support congressional action on the American Jobs Creation Act. Thanks to impending sanctions by the WTO, Congress will today cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 33 percent, provide $4 billion in relief for AMT, also known as the antimanufacturing tax, and reform the Tax Code to reduce double taxation on U.S. manufacturers that export and do business overseas like so many Indiana companies do.

1.4 million new jobs since last fall is a good start, but let us rev up the engine of the American economy, especially American manufacturers, and create good-paying American jobs by passing today the American Jobs Creation Act.

Mr. Speaker, as the debate begins over the proper way to pay tribute the 40th President of the United States, some argue that the best way to honor the memory of Ronald Reagan would be to permit the destruction of human embryos for scientific research on diseases like that which claimed his life, and while I would never criticize grieving family members who advocate this, anyone else who would use the memory of Ronald Reagan to erode the sanctity of human life would do more to desecrate his legacy than by any other means.

Reaffirming his pro-life views on the 10th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Reagan said, ``There is no cause more important for preserving freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life to all human beings.'' He said, ``We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life, the unborn, without diminishing the value of all human life.'' Let us choose life. Let us honor Reagan. Let us honor his pro- life values by continuing to say no to embryonic stem cell research.

Mr. Speaker, in the midst of our national loss, gain. In the progress of freedom in Iraq, after months of sacrifice by U.S. and coalition forces, yesterday the United Nations Security Council agreed unanimously to a resolution outlining a free and democratic future for the people of Iraq.

By a 15 to 0 vote, which included France, Germany and Russia, the United Nations agreed to declare a formal end to occupation on June 30 and set into motion the process of an interim and permanent democracy in Iraq.

Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, international approval of the progress of freedom in Iraq is a victory for this President and, I would add, a fitting tribute to the President in whose memory we will gather later today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, my favorite Reagan protege in the Congress, for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan will be remembered as a great man and a great American leader, who personified the highest ideals of the American people at home and abroad. After 8 years of his Presidency, the communism of Soviet Russia was collapsing, the American military was rebuilt, the Nation's economy restored, and its moral fabric renewed.

Many remember him as the ``Great Communicator,'' but as the President said many times, he was not a great communicator, he communicated great things. Those were the traditional American values of this Midwesterner turned national leader. They came from the profound Christian faith inculcated in a young Dutch Reagan by his beloved mother Nelle and from his heart. And, as the President said, ``They came from the heart of a great Nation.''

Those ideas were simple, straightforward, and distinctly American. President Reagan believed that freedom depended on limited government. He fiercely advanced the principles of less government, less taxes, a strong military, and a commitment to traditional moral values.

And President Reagan changed the course of my life. While youthful ambition led me to politics, it was the voice and the values of Ronald Reagan that made me a Republican. The Bible says, ``If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?'' Ronald Reagan's great gift was to sound a clear call to return our Nation to the ideals of its Founders, and it was said that when he spoke, people just did not just agree. From coffee shops to tractor seats to high offices in tall buildings, when the American people heard Reagan speak, they said, ``Darn right.''

I had the privilege in 1988 as a candidate for Congress to sit with the President in the Blue Room of the White House and speak to him personally, and on that occasion, that great privilege of my life, I was able to look the President in the eye as he asked me how my campaign was going. I said, ``Mr. President, it is going fine, but I just want to thank you for everything you have done for our country and to encourage my generation of Americans to believe in this country again.''

I said then, and I say again, thank you, Mr. President. May God bless you, as, through you, God most certainly blessed the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember all of the brave men and women that have died serving the United States in the name of freedom. I rise on this day to express my fervent prayers and sympathy to the families and friends of all the American heroes who unselfishly fought for a cause greater than them. I want to specifically highlight those who served in Iraq, recently bringing hope and freedom to a people who have never known it before.

Indiana's Sixth Congressional District lost three brave men during the War in Iraq in 2003, and I want to recognize and honor them. Lance Corporal Matthew R. Smith, of Anderson, died in a Humvee accident on May 10 while serving in Kuwait. Staff Sgt. Frederick L. Miller Jr., of Hagerstown, was killed on a security patrol when terrorists struck his vehicle with an improvised explosive device on September 20 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Chief Warrant Officer Brian D. Hazelgrove died January 23 in an OH-58 helicopter that crashed on its way back from a combat mission near Mosul, Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, these men deserve to be remembered for their great service and sacrifice for the United States, and for the welfare of humanity. My thoughts and prayers are with them and their families each day.

Mr. Speaker, their job was to serve their country. Our job this Memorial Day is to remember them. I hope that their service and sacrifice may be an encouragement to many, as they have been for me.

Mr. Speaker, as many know, for deeply held philosophical reasons, I opposed the creation of a prescription drug entitlement in Medicare. But I never opposed helping low-income seniors or using the private sector to give seniors more buying power to save money on their prescription drugs, which is exactly what became available this week with the new Medicare drug discount card and the $600 credit for low- income seniors. In fact, I hosted five Medicare discount drug fairs across my district, speaking to more than 1,000 of my constituents.

While many have made speeches on this floor and across the country creating anxiety about this new bill, I found it instructive to spend time with seniors. Despite my opposition to a drug entitlement, I felt I had a moral obligation to explain to seniors, particularly low-income seniors, what is available as of this week in the new Medicare drug discount card benefit.

I urge all of my colleagues, regardless of your view of this legislation, to view what is available in this law and to discharge your duty to your constituents to make knowledge available of the new drug discount card and the low-income assistance for seniors.

Mr. Speaker, amidst the violence and struggle that always attends the transition between tyranny and liberty, we have progress in Iraq.

Yesterday, a Shiite Muslim, part of a population that suffered for 30 years under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein, a Shiite Muslim, Iyad Allawi, was named prime minister along with Ghazi al Yawar, a Sunni Muslim, and those two men will lead a free and democratic Iraq.

Mr. Allawi said memorably, in this country that was torn by tyranny for three decades, that he was pledged to establishing a democratic and federal system under which people enjoy free citizenship in a state of laws and freedom. A quagmire, hardly. Difficult, yes. But an ethnically diverse country coming together under the rule of law and democracy is genuine progress in Iraq and worthy of celebrating in this Congress.

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

I rise to relish this debate. It is precisely the type of issue that, as I was a boy first falling in love with the Constitution of the United States, as no doubt the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) did as well, I hoped some day to be a part of here.

I congratulate the distinguished gentleman from Washington State for his passion on this issue, and I believe in his well-intentioned efforts to address what is, unfortunately, an issue that this Congress must continue to confront in the years ahead.

But with regard to House Joint Resolution 83, however well- intentioned, Mr. Speaker, I would offer that it is nonetheless bad policy.

When terrorists attacked America on September 11, I was here in the Congress, and that very next day, I witnessed that it was an elected Congress that responded in the wake of those attacks. Had the 107th Congress been comprised of appointed officials, the legislation we passed would not by definition have carried the same validity. The truth is, it would hardly have been reassuring to the American people immediately following a terrorist attack to see the faces of hundreds of strangers running their government; and, gladly, it did not occur.

The Constitution could not be clearer on this point. Article I states, ``The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen by the people of the several States,'' and that ``when vacancies happen in the representation of any State, the executive authority shall issue writs of elections to fill such vacancies.''

Of this point James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 52, ``As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the House should have an immediate dependence on and an intimate sympathy with the people.''

Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which a dependence and sympathy for the people can be equally secured. In fact, it would be Madison himself who in a speech years later would suggest ``a gradual abridgement of the right to suffrage or to elected representation has been the mode in which aristocracies have been built on the ruins of popular forms.''

That is not what we are about here today, nor would I imply it or suggest it to my friends and colleagues. But I am here to say that this business of the People's House being the exclusive province of the national government where one must be elected by the people to serve is a principle worth defending.

For that reason, despite my admiration for the gentleman from Washington, I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution inasmuch as it does undermine the core principle that this place on this floor should ever be the People's House.

Mr. Speaker, despite the national media's best efforts to minimize the news, I am here to report, as the United States military confirmed in Iraq on Monday, weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq in the form of two separate artillery shells containing sarin and mustard gas, shells that had been used by insurgents to create roadside bombs. A 155 millimeter shell found last week included nearly a gallon of a deadly gas, a drop of which would kill a human being. Not that we should be surprised. Saddam Hussein killed or injured over 70,000 Iraqi Kurds using sarin gas munitions in 1988.

Where are the WMDs? We have been asked again and again. Mr. Speaker, they are where they have always been, hidden in Iraq, within the reach of terrorists, a threat to the Iraqi people, U.S. soldiers, and the world.

Mr. Speaker, it really is a very good question posed frequently on the House floor today, Are we better off today than we were 4 years ago? Let us think.

Four years ago, we had a morally disgraced President in the United States of America in the Oval Office. Today we have a man of integrity, of virtue, of principle, of purpose.

Four years ago, the terrorists planned their attacks against America and our allies. Today, America attacks the terrorists while they cower in the mountains of Pakistan.

Four years ago, Saddam Hussein amassed weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban was in power, and Libya had a WMD program. Today, the Taliban is gone. Saddam Hussein is in a cell. We have found pieces of his WMDs, and Libya has ended its program.

Four years ago, the Clinton recession took hold. Today, last month, 300,000 new jobs.

Four years ago, partial birth abortion was legal in America. Today, that moral horror has ended.

We are better off today than we were 4 years ago.

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

To provide for the common defense is the first object of the Federal Government. I rise today in strong support of the National Defense Authorization Act because it meets that objective.

This legislation with its principal focus on the American soldier earns the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) the well-deserved title Soldier's Chairman, which I believe will stick.

American soldiers with the help of coalition forces have accomplished extraordinary things in recent days, liberated 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, captured and imprisoned a brutal dictator, deposed an evil regime, and American soldiers have carried out hundreds of raids, seizing caches of enemy weapons and munitions, including ominously this week, weapons of mass destruction that were found in Iraq in the form of munitions containing mustard gas and sarin gas.

It is precisely this discovery, as the chairman attests, that concerns me and most Members of Congress most deeply, for the well- being of our men and women in uniform in the theater of operation in Iraq.

I am pleased to say that H.R. 4200 provides an extraordinary amount of resources in the form of force protection: $1.5 billion for chemical and biological defense programs, individual protection, decontamination equipment, chemical and biological protective shelters, just to name a few.

We have most certainly now found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the nature of the munitions we have found suggest there are more stockpiles yet to be uncovered. And putting a primacy on achieving our objective of securing the peace in Iraq must remain our fervent goal; but beyond that, protecting our forces in that theater of operation from exposure to these weapons of mass destruction is key, and the new National Defense Authorization Act achieves that goal. I am grateful for the chairman; I am grateful for every member of the committee on both sides of the aisle for creating this extraordinary legislation.

Mr. Speaker, for months we have heard opponents of the war in Iraq come to the floor of this Congress and ask the question again and again, where are the weapons of mass destruction?

And yesterday the answer came in part, and the silence on the left is deafening. Yesterday the Coalition Provisional Authority announced the discovery of two separate Iraqi munitions wired by terrorists to serve as IEDs in Baghdad which date to the regime of Saddam Hussein and contain weapons of mass destruction, sarin and mustard gas.

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Mr. Speaker, the answer is becoming more clear by the hour. The weapons of mass destruction are where they have always been, hidden in Baghdad, within the reach of terrorists, a threat to U.S. troops, the region, and the wider world, and more than enough justification for our deeds and the courage of our troops in that region.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great enthusiasm for the work of my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), in not only the legislation before us this hour, H.R. 2730, but also the companion legislation, which I truly believe will develop, in sum total, better cooperation between OSHA and employers.

I also believe that these reforms and the predictability that they will encourage will improve workplace safety as they enhance business competitiveness and, at the end of the day, more jobs.

In east central Indiana, small business America has one thing on their mind, and that is looking after employees, but doing that in such a way that we can create jobs and opportunities for Hoosiers. This legislation authored by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and passed by the Committee on Education and the Workforce, companion to the other three bills, will be about that.

First, a word on the Occupational Safety and Health Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act; I know it is a long name, but a simple concept. Mr. Speaker, by simply reasserting the proper role of the courts and the proper role of the independent review panel, what we will do today on the floor of the Congress is, we will affirm that the original intent expressed in the act is renewed and encouraged, and this, in and of itself, will result in greater predictability for businesses, small and large.

Beyond that, I come to the floor today with a great passion for this

issue. During the 107th Congress, Mr. Speaker, I served as the chairman of the Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight; and in hearing after hearing that I chaired I heard of the extraordinary burden that regulatory red tape places on small businesses across America.

A couple of statistics that are informative: For every dollar of direct budget spending devoted to regulatory activity, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the private sector spends $45 in compliance, and these regulatory burdens are, of course, most harmful for small businesses.

According to the Small Business Administration, firms employing fewer than 20 employees had a regulatory burden in the year 2000 of $6,975 per employee which is nearly 60 percent higher than the $4,400 estimated for firms of more than 500 employees. Considering that the U.S. Census Bureau says that small businesses have accounted for 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs in the United States economy over the past decade, this should obviously be a subject of enormous urgency in this Congress, and I commend my colleague for bringing these measures forward to address it.

There has been talk today about an erosion of safety in the workplace. The truth is, though, that under the present administration, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there has actually been a 1 percent reduction in workplace injuries between 1999 and 2002, and even more happy news, worker fatalities have been reduced by over 500 annually during the present administration.

This administration and this Congress and this majority are committed to workplace safety, to renewing that pact between American business and the American worker and common-sense regulation in Washington, DC, but as H.R. 2730 proposes to do today, along with the companion legislation, we must do that in a way that is consistent with a free market economy, that understands the proper role of the courts and the Congress and of regulatory agencies, as H.R. 2730 confirms.

So this bill is about reaffirming the original intent of Congress, which well we should do. It is about improving worker safety and reducing Federal red tape; but at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, it is about jobs, and let us make no mistake about that.

As my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), has said on several occasions in the last several days in various venues on Capitol Hill, maybe you are not for this legislation, maybe you do not have small businesses in your district. Well, we do in eastern Indiana, and cutting Federal regulatory red tape is as urgent a business of this Congress as cutting the onerous burden of taxes on small business owners for revitalizing that small-town, small-business economy that makes my district great and makes America great.

I thank the Speaker and I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, despite the horrendous acts of a few American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, we are winning the war in Iraq. We are investigating and punishing those among our own engaged in wrongdoing. And as the brutality and desperation of yesterday's beheading of an American attest, our enemies know they are losing.

While I support freedom for the good people of Iraq, I support President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld, I respectfully encourage the administration to bring an end to the lurid parade of photographs leaking their way into the national media by immediately releasing all photographic records of abuse of prisoners by American personnel.

Abraham Lincoln said it best: ``Give the people the facts, and the Republic will be saved.'' In this case, Mr. Speaker, the republic that we save may be that free and democratic republic of Iraq in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad was a disgrace, and it grieved the heart of every American who saw it, grief for the families of the Iraqis incarcerated who had endured the indignities and grief for the American soldiers, not those involved. Those involved must and will be held to the strictest account.

It grieved me to hear, as someone who has traveled to Operation Iraqi Freedom twice, I have been at Camp Victory in Baghdad. I have been at Talil Air Base in southern Iraq. I have walked among our soldiers on aircraft carriers and on the ground. They are honorable men and women who each and every day put their lives on the line in a dignified and respectful way as American soldiers ever and always have.

It is for their reputation that I grieve today and why I call on this administration and our own military to put our house in order, hold those to account, uphold the great reputation of the American fighting man.