Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, at the President's second inaugural, last January, he said, ``A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause, the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. We will always honor their names and their sacrifice.''

The other day I introduced a bill called the Welcome Home GI Bill, to recognize the returning veterans of Iraq's and Afghanistan's theaters of war, to give them the type of compensation that they have deserved.

Now, a little history. We all know about the GI Bill. The fact is that the GI Bill was passed approximately 11 months before the end of World War II, signed by the President of the United States. Even before the war was concluded, the GIs from that war knew what the GI Bill was going to be.

And it helped them on health care and education and buying a home. It helped them put themselves on the road to their civilian life, but also put America back on the road coming home from that war.

And the truth is that every Congress, every Congress, at the end of hostilities has had a package of compensation for its veterans. Going back to the War of Independence, disabled veterans received a pension. There has not been a military engagement that the United States Congress, as the voice of the American people, has not designed a package for its returning vets; and it is high time that the 109th Congress follow the great tradition of every Congress before and begin to think what we will do for the vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two weeks ago I met the Marine Corps 2nd Battalion 21st Regiment. I had seen them off 7 months earlier, and greeted them at Rosemont Horizon Arena in the Chicago suburbs, and saw those families. And one father said to me in a very poignant way, that this reception was a lot different from the reception he received about 35 years ago when he came home.

Now, what I have done in this package, which we have put together now with 15 sponsors, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Illinois Chapter has endorsed and supported, is three parts: education, health care and housing.

In the area of education, today, full benefits would be around $36,000 in 3 years under the Montgomery GI educational benefits, and you would have to pay $1,800 to get that $35,000.

The Welcome Home GI Bill is 75,000 over 4 years, and you do not have to pay $1,800 to get that educational benefit because, in the view of the legislation, your service is your contribution. You do not have to pay $1,800 to receive an educational benefit, whether that is for college, 4 years of education, whether it is for job training, whether it is for postgraduate work, that benefit you earned by your service.

Second, if when you come back, your place of employment does not provide health care; or if because you went off to war, when you came back your health care was canceled, you and your family will get 5 years of TRICARE health care, the gold standard and the gold-plated health care that you are provided on active duty.

Today, vets get, if obviously if they are hurt or are in poverty, they get the veterans health care system. We are going to provide them the TRICARE system that they get as if they were active duty, for them and their families.

Third, we provide today a mortgage insurance for a home. The hardest part of getting a home is actually the down payment. It would be a $5,000 contribution towards the down payment on their home. TRICARE health care for 5 years if your employment does not provide it or you lost it for you and your family, $75,000 for 4 years of education to pursue job training and education and you do not have to contribute $1,800 to get that. Your service provided that. And, lastly, $5,000 for a down payment on a home. That is in my view the minimum of what we can do for the returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is provide them that sense of compensation. It is a welcome home for the GIs. Every Congress has done it in the past.

Lastly and more importantly, today we have a disparity between the benefits between National Guard and Reserve and regular enlistees. We eliminate that disparity between Reserve and active duty because you saw the same experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. So Reserve and National Guard get the same benefits as the regular enlistees have received. It eliminates that discrimination.

As I always say, we do not owe our veterans a favor, we just have to repay one. The Welcome Home GI Bill has now received the support of the Illinois chapter of the VFW. I look forward to the support of others. We will be submitting the bill next week.

Mr. Speaker, this past Saturday at All State Arena in Chicago, it was my honor to participate in welcoming home some of America's most recent heroes--the brave men and women of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment--to their families, friends and a deeply grateful nation.

Following a seven-month tour in Iraq, it was a privilege to join in thanking these intrepid Marines for their service and sacrifice to our Nation. They served at the center of one of the most unstable and dangerous regions in Iraq known as the ``Triangle of Death.'' The unit compiled an impressive service record, including the capture of more than 600 insurgents, and secured the delivery of life-saving medicine and humanitarian supplies. Those who observed that this particular unit never appeared to sleep while seemingly defending every position in the area understood why these Marines are known as the ``Mad Ghosts.''

The reunion I attended at All State Arena was filled nearly to capacity with proud Illinoisans awaiting their loved ones. Welcoming them home, however, was incomplete as thirteen Marines of the 2nd Battalion did not return to their families. This void is a solemn reminder of the unit's sacrifice to fight for democracy in Iraq.

I look forward to the day when all of the men and women of our Armed Forces return home to the same kind of warm reception that the 2nd Battalion received this past Saturday. Until that day, we will continue to commit our complete and unwavering support to our troops as they continue fighting for liberty and to preserve today's fragile democracy in Iraq. We will keep them in our thoughts and prayers and continue working to bring them home to their families.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois, I thank each of the Marines we just welcomed home for their valor and service, and I remind my colleagues that the freedoms we hold dear depend on the courage and honor of U.S. troops like those who follow the example set by the Mad Ghosts of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment.

Mr. Speaker, another major security breach involving the personal ID theft of 180,000 GM and MasterCard credit card holders should wake up Congress to deliver tough national standards for protecting Americans against ID theft. But this recent outbreak of 180,000 GM and MasterCard credit holders' ID is on the heels of Choice Point, Bank of America and Lexus-Nexus and shows there are too many fraud artists posing as individual businesses and too many individual consumers whose identity is now being stolen and used against them.

According to the Privacy Rights Center, up to 10 million Americans are victims of ID theft each year. They have a right to be notified when their most sensitive health data is stolen.

In response to this problem, there have been bipartisan solutions offered to address it. The gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez), the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), and I have introduced the Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act as one piece of legislation. Our legislation requires consumers to be immediately notified when their personal data has been stolen or acquired by an unauthorized person and imposes tough new penalties on violators.

Mr. Speaker, Americans want, need, and rightfully expect Congress to protect them from the prying eyes of identity thieves and give them back control of their Social Security numbers and personal health information.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this legislation.

After 4 years of record deficits and $2 trillion in new debt, one would think that the Republican majority would have a better understanding of what bankruptcy is. They are lucky this law does not apply to their actions in the last 4 years.

Instead, we have a bill that promotes one bankruptcy code for the wealthy and another for the middle class.

Case in point: The bill preserves the ``Millionaires Loophole,'' used by the wealthy to hide up to $1 million from creditors and courts into offshore accounts known as asset protection. Everyone should be subject to the same law and the same standards, not one set of rules for the wealthy and one for middle-class families. If one can afford a high- priced lawyer to set up an asset protection trust, they are a lot better off in bankruptcy than a middle-class family struggling to pay off large hospital bills. More than half of all bankruptcies result from catastrophic medical bills.

Mr. Speaker, rather than deal with the health care crisis or making college affordable, this legislation protects wealthy deadbeats from the same standard imposed upon every middle-class American. We should have one rule, one standard in the law of bankruptcy law that applies to every American regardless of income and regardless of wealth or position.

Madam Speaker, this country is dangerously close to a real biological crisis. Yesterday we learned an American company mailed a deadly avian flu strain to 37,000 laboratories in the United States and around the world as part of a routine test kit. The potential error is a reminder of the real danger of a flu pandemic and the millions of deaths it could cause. It also reminds us of the responsibility as a Congress and as a Nation to improve our ability to produce and distribute flu vaccine and to prepare for the pandemic.

The Flu Protection Act, which Senator Bayh and I introduced, would help ensure that enough vaccine is produced each year, fund research to combat avian flu, and require the development of contingency plans in the case of a pandemic.

The impending crisis must encourage this administration to take action now. Earlier this month, President Bush took an important step when he authorized a quarantine to stem the spread of avian flu.

In a letter that Senator Bayh and I will send today to the White House, there are other steps the President can take without legislation. He can increase our vaccine stockpiles, help States and cities prepare for the crisis of a pandemic, and provide the incentives for vaccine manufacturers to increase their production.

Madam Speaker, yesterday's announcement reminds us that the next flu pandemic is just around the corner, and the time to act is now. Congress and the President should not wait for this disaster to reach our shores before acting to protect this Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill to name this courthouse the Robert Matsui Courthouse. I cannot think of anything more fitting, as others have said, the notion of a courthouse where justice is weighed and issued for a person who had injustice done to him and never lost his sense of right and justice. It would have been easy for Bob to be angry, but he always sought fairness both personally and professionally.

I think it is quite fitting and it has a sense of poetic justice that we are naming a courthouse for a gentleman who was not treated fairly at one time by his country, but who always sought fairness and justice and equality throughout his life. It is fitting to remember him this way, someone who will always be part of our family here; and I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui) for allowing us to be part of his family.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 8, which continues, in my view, the policies by the majority of three tax cuts, in 4 years, with four straight record-breaking deficits that have added $2 trillion in 4 years to the Nation's debt. And here again the majority offers $850 billion of tax cuts to the wealthiest families in this country.

When you get in a hole that is $2 trillion deep, rule one, stop digging. If you cannot figure that out, you cannot produce any more when it comes to economic growth for this country or jobs or resolving the health care crisis or the educational crisis we have in the country. My view is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result is a sign that you have lost your bearings.

This bill will do nothing to stimulate the economic growth or savings, which is what we should be focused on, rather than further shifting the tax burden from wealth to work.

We could be debating and using this time on simplifying the code. Just 2 weeks ago there was a report out by the IRS and others showing that $350 billion a year goes unreported in taxes where people are not complying and cheating.

We have a Tax Code that rewards and initiates a culture of cheating and penalizes those who abide by the rules. That is where we should be focusing, on simplifying the code and taking away the incentive to cheat, which is what we have today in our code.

With all the economic challenges we are facing today in the area of health care, energy, education, eliminating the estate tax, fully eliminating, should be the last of our priorities. But the Republicans will soldier on and continue to fight until taxes are eliminated for the very last multimillionaire. Instead of helping the wealthy avoid taxes, we should be helping middle-class families save for their retirement.

That is a true deficit we have in this country, a retirement and savings deficit. The savings rate is at its lowest level since the 1930s, lower than any other industrialized nation. Millions of families are financially unprepared for retirement.

Given this reality, why are we debating the elimination of the estate tax instead of real tax reform and a savings agenda for the middle class.

Are holding the interests of the wealthy and special interests above the hopes and dreams of the middle-class families the kind of values we want our Tax Code to reflect?

As late former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, ``We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.''

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt which one this bill will achieve.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) was up here a moment ago talking about the price of pharmaceutical products and how they have been rising and increasing and ever going up, three, four times the rate of inflation.

There was this report done by AARP the other day that was covered in USA Today and on the news about how pharmaceutical prices had in the last year gone up close to about three times the rate of inflation.

The truth is, over the last 5 or 6 years pharmaceutical products have gone up somewhere close to four times, three times the rate of inflation. And every one of us know people in our district who go to get their prescriptions filled. They got them last month or they got them 2 months ago, same pills, same amount of dosage, nothing different, and the price is up 40 bucks. And there is nothing to explain how that went up $40. And senior citizens who are on a fixed income, families who are on a fixed income and they have a sick child cannot afford a health care cost that is rising close to three times or four times the rate of inflation.

Now, last Congress, Democrats and Republicans came together, not because it was a Democratic idea or not because it was a Republican idea, because it was the right idea, to offer reimportation of pharmaceutical products, allowing people to go to Canada and go to Europe to buy pharmaceutical products that are 50 percent cheaper than they are here in the United States, or go to England, go to Ireland.

All over Europe and Canada the same drugs that we find on our shelves at our local pharmacy are 50 or 40 percent or 60 percent, depending on what you want, cheaper than they are here. I have on my Web site in my congressional office a Costco in Chicago and a Costco in Toronto. And the same Costco, we compared the same pharmaceutical products most used by senior citizens for arthritis, blood pressure, other types of medications they need. And the Costco in Canada offers, on average, 52 percent savings for the same products that you could buy at Costco in Chicago.

We are separated by a little over 200 miles. But they saved 50 percent on their needs of their medications, whether it is Lipitor or other type of products. And why? Because it is the only product in this country that is a closed market, forcing American consumers to pay a 50 percent premium for the products that their dollars spent paid for the research.

We developed those drugs here in this country. We gave a tax credit to these companies to develop those pharmaceutical products, and we have the dubious honor to pay a 50 percent premium over Canada and Europe. So what has happened is that the American senior citizens, the American taxpayers, are subsidizing the poor, starving French and German and Swiss and Dutch. We have got to come to an end to this and allow people to have the access to the free market.

We are going to negotiate and discuss China trade, other types of trade deals where everybody here is going to talk about free trade except for one product. What? Pharmaceutical products, the product on which the United States pays more than it does on television, more than it does on consumer electronics, more than it does on food, more than it does in other areas. Why? Because we have a closed market.

What we are trying to do, Democrats and Republicans are trying to allow the principles of the free market to work, bringing competition and choice to bear. If you did that, then the American consumer and taxpayers would see a dramatic drop in their prices. And we are not being allowed to vote on that. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry is giving you the best government they can buy. They have stopped us and the ability to bring that vote. If we did, we would pass that vote here. We would pass it in the Senate.

But the American people are on to what is happening. They know that we need to deal with this because we cannot continue to subsidize the rest of the world, both on the research side and on the price side; and that is what is happening.

We know it is safe because over a million seniors a year go over the border to Canada. We turn them into illegal drug runners. Go over the border to Canada and a billion dollars worth of trade and get their pharmaceutical products, and not one of them has ever gotten sick.

But what we are talking about is bringing Canadian cattle that we know is tainted, some of it, with mad cow disease. Now that we allow in. Accessing pharmaceutical products in Canada, Lipitor, other drugs on the Canadian market that is 50 percent cheaper, that is against the law. That policy has been brought to you by the United States government.

It is time to allow Democrats and Republicans to come together to bring common sense policies and the principles in government to work. Principles in business, businesses always allow competition. They find the cheapest price they can. We can get cheap prices and stop having the taxpayer subsidize too high a price.

My colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), and I have introduced this legislation. Other Democrats and Republicans are on it. And, again, it is not about politics. It is not about partisanship. In the last Congress, 88 Republicans and 153 Democrats came together, passed it, not once, not twice but three times. We will do it against this year.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on a point the gentleman made of what we hear from our constituents. That is this notion that people are just trying to be honest and just trying to do something that is honest.

The fact is we all know the sense of frustration that we are hearing from our constituents is that the Tax Code has created a culture that has rewarded cheating and penalizes those who play by the rules.

That is what we have today, and that is a problem, that is a frustration that we hear from people.

When we were on Easter recess, there was a report by the IRS showing that there goes about $350 billion of unreported income, which would wipe the deficit off by three-quarters of this country. People who are hiding income, playing games, not reporting it, forcing the middle class to pay an ever-increasing amount of money, they are basically cheating. We know it is going on. They think the $350 billion is a low number.

It is getting worse as the tax code has gotten worse, and yet we are putting middle class families further behind on health care bills, college costs, trying to figure out how to save for their retirement and a tax burden and a tax code that does not do justice to what they are trying to do as parents and as a family.

So we have a code that rewards cheating. It promotes a culture of cheating and a code that on the other end is the middle class family. It penalizes those who play by the rules and try to do the right thing by their family.

Everybody has got something that they have proposed so I do not want to be outdone. I have also done something to that effect, but I not only have done it by legislation, I do it in my office.

One little story. I run a tax assistance program clinic in my congressional office every Saturday. We have the big four accounting firms, the accountants from the banks. It is called a tax assistance program. It is run as an entity. We house it in my congressional office. We advertise about it.

Every Saturday from 8:30 to 11:30, we actually help people fill out their taxes. We do it for two-and-a-half to three months a year. This last year we did about 1,132 taxes for individuals with families, returning on average $1,900 in earned income tax credit deductions, tax deductions they would not have gotten because nobody else would have filled it out. I say, if you can fill out the EITC tax code, you can go to graduate school. You do not need to do it. It is the most complicated form. By comparison, I want you to know, if you are a corporation and try to get the export-import loan agreement, it is 12 questions, but for the earned income tax credit, it is over 200 questions. We fill it out.

We also do college assistance, and we have back in my district about $10 million in different deductions and credits that exist in the code they would not have gotten, and after three months in a row every Saturday 45 different families show up. We turn on average away 15 families because we cannot help do them, and we make them first in line the next Saturday. But we do that every Saturday for three months. We did our last one last Saturday. We run these clinics so we know firsthand how these go besides the one I do for myself.

Second, I have introduced legislation called the simplified family credit. It takes the earned income tax credit, the per child deduction and the dependent care and takes 200 pages of the code and 2,000 additional pages down to 12 questions. It collapses all of those deductions that exist for families earning somewhere between $15,000 to $50,000 down to 12 questions. It would save a huge amount of money that ends up because of waste and abuse in the code because it is too complicated.

There are estimates of about $6 billion dollars, and if you simplified it, not only would you save money, but for people who have chosen to work and do right by their children, you have a tax code that was on their side, not on the side of folks who are trying to get lawyers and accountants to try to figure out how to basically game the system.

Any reform should understand that people are in the moderate income, $50,000 and less, should have a code that is simple for them to use.

So I have introduced what I call the simplified family credit that takes those three credits, the earned income tax credit, the per child and the dependent care and puts it down to 12 questions.

We run the clinic in my office to help families fill out their taxes and the tax forms, the 1040, and get them the type of deductions that we are talking about.

I want to stress, every one of us, we have people hit by the AMT. People come around and it is going to be Friday, they are going to be all in downtown Chicago and the neighborhoods and around the State and around the country. Their heads will be shaking because they know this code was not designed with them or their families in mind. It was designed for those who can afford lawyers, accountants and lobbyists. Those are the people that are benefiting by this code, and this code does injustice to people who are trying to do right by their families.

We need a code that not only understands the trials and the challenges of the middle class family but finally reflects what they are trying to do for their kids rather than what the lobbyists are trying to do for their interests. That is what we have to do when we reform this code is put it back on the working class and middle class families who are trying to do right for their families.

I want to thank the gentleman for this time and organizing this, especially as Friday looms in people's eyes and they have to face literally around the kitchen table all those bills. It is not meant for nine hours of unpleasant time trying to fill that out. We can do better.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. With his passing on April 2nd, the world lost one of the most influential and inspirational leaders of our time. He was a great leader, a man of peace, and a source of hope to millions across the globe.

Pope John Paul II was born Karol Josef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland on May 18, 1920. He made history by becoming the first Slavic Pope and the first non-Italian Pope in more than 400 years. He traveled more than any other Pope in history, visiting over 130 countries and 900 Heads of State.

The Pope's strong will and vision were instrumental in delivering hope and inspiration to people around the world. As a young man in an oppressed country, he courageously protected all people from oppression and tyranny. Under his reign, Pope John Paul II served as an important symbol that helped bring about the fall of communism throughout Europe.

Particularly important for Poland, he was an outspoken advocate for human rights. His peaceful message of human rights and religious freedom resonated among Polish Catholics, ushering in Poland's peaceful revolution in their fight against communist rule.

Pope John Paul II ministered to all people through his personal example of sacrifice and collaboration. He worked tirelessly to spread the message of compassion, courage, and sacrifice that inspired millions. Pope John Paul II brought together and forged dialogue between people of different faiths, promoting cooperation and peace. He was the first Pope to visit synagogues and mosques as well as areas of conflict, including the Holy Land.

When the world most needed his eloquent voice, he inspired us. When the world needed his prayers, he prayed for us. When the world needed his guidance, he showed us the way. Mr. Speaker, he will forever be remembered as a tireless promoter of peace for all people and regions of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today on behalf of the more than 4,000 of my constituents of Ukrainian descent in the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois on Chicago's northwest side. I am also pleased to join with my colleagues in the House to receive the recently inaugurated President of the Republic of Ukraine, His Excellency Viktor Yushchenko during his first official visit to the United States, in a joint session of Congress.

I applaud President Yushchenko for his courage and vision and for his leadership in the ``Orange Revolution'' that peacefully brought freedom and democratic reforms to Ukraine late last year. The people of the Ukraine, and indeed all across the globe, were relieved when the President survived an assassination attempt that nearly claimed his life and subsequently persevered among tremendous resistance to the dramatic reforms he championed.

My hometown of Chicago is home to more than 100,000 Ukrainian Americans who have been instrumental in helping advance the increasingly important alliance between our nations. The Ukraine's prosperity, independence and openness to the West are of vital economic, cultural and strategic importance to the global community.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues and all Americans in congratulating President Yushchenko for his triumph. I wish him and the Ukraine continued prosperity and success in advancing the ideals of democracy and freedom in that nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Thresholds Psychiatric Rehabilitation Centers on the occasion of their 20th Annual Golf and Tennis Benefit. I am proud to represent this distinguished organization and I hope that the Congress will join me in recognizing their outstanding contributions to the field of mental health rehabilitation.

As one of the nation's largest non-profit providers of mental health and recovery services, Thresholds provides a critical service to members of the community that struggle with mental illness, as well as their families. Over 5,000 Chicago residents benefit yearly from the services provided by this impressive organization.

Thresholds provides a comprehensive program of therapeutic support, case management, education, job training and placement, and housing. With 30 service locations and more than 75 housing developments in the Chicagoland area, Thresholds helps restore independence, dignity and respect to people with mental illness.

Offering outreach programs, residential services, youth and adult education, and services for homeless, deaf and jailed patients, this valuable organization has established itself as one of the nations most successful and respected psychiatric recovery centers.

I am also pleased to recognize Thresholds as an innovator and model in the field of mental health. Experts from Thresholds carry out research and regularly publish valuable research papers, and several mental heath centers around the world have replicated Thresholds' success.

Thresholds and its extraordinary doctors and staff are regular recipients of awards in the mental health field. The 2004 Celebration Recovery Award was bestowed upon CEO Dr. Anthony Zipple's, and Dr. Jerry Dincin was awarded Honorable Mention for Lifetime Achievement by Eli Lilly's 2004 Reintegration Awards. These represent only a tiny fraction of the awards presented to Thresholds.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to have Thresholds Psychiatric Rehabilitation Centers in the Fifth District. I wish them the best at their 20th Annual Golf and Tennis Benefit, and I hope they continue their 45-year history of serving mentally ill patients and their families in the Chicago area for decades to come.

Offered By: Mr. Emanuel

Amendment No. 1: Page 507, line 6, strike the close

quotation marks and the period at the end.

Page 507, after line 6, insert the following:

``(f)(1) The trustee may avoid a transfer of an interest of

the debtor in property made by an individual debtor within 10

years before the date of the filing of the petition to an

asset protection trust if the amount of the transfer or the

aggregate amount of all transfers to the asset protection

trust within such 10-year period exceeds $125,000, to the

extent that the debtor's beneficial interest in the trust

does not become property of the estate by reason of section

541(c)(2).

``(2) An asset protection trust is a trust settled by the

debtor, in which the debtor has a direct or indirect

beneficial interest or under which the trustee may distribute

property to or for the benefit of the debtor, and as to which

a restriction on the voluntary or involuntary transfer of the

debtor's beneficial interest in the trust is enforceable

under applicable nonbankruptcy law. For purposes of this

subsection, the following are not asset protection trusts:

``(A) Retirement funds to the extent that those funds are

in a fund or account that is exempt from taxation under

section 401, 403, 408, 408A, 414, 457, or 501(a) of the

Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

``(B) Charitable trusts.

``(C) Qualified trusts under section 529 of the Internal

Revenue Code of 1986, and other educational trusts, funds, or

accounts.''.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Jin Lee for his recent appointment to the Northeastern Illinois University's Board of Trustees. Jin Lee has been an outstanding citizen of the Fifth Congressional District, and he will be a tremendous asset to Northeastern Illinois University as a member of its Board of Trustees.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Lee's distinguished career included management positions with Ace Young Company, Daewoo International America Corporation, and Lorenzo Import-Export Company. He was also

the Executive Director of the Chicago Korean American Chamber of Commerce and remains a prominent member of the City of Chicago's Human Relations Task Force. In addition, he served on the Asian American Advisory Councils for both the Illinois Secretary of State and the Illinois State Treasurer. Since 1997, Jin Lee has also served as the director of business planning and development for the Albany Park Community Center.

Hard work and determination were the hallmarks of Mr. Lee's early life. When he was 14 years old and without a working knowledge of English, he moved with his family to the United States from South Korea. He quickly mastered the language and subsequently earned a Bachelors degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mr. Lee's reputation for hard work and determination are widely recognized and respected. He has received numerous honors and awards including Loyola University Chicago's' Leadership Certificate, the Illinois Secretary of State's Certificate of Application, and membership in the Asian American Hall of Fame.

As he begins his 4-year term as a member of the Board of Trustees for Northeastern Illinois University, I am confident that Jin Lee will continue to serve the people of the Chicago area with steadfast dedication, just as he has proven in years past.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois and indeed the entire city of Chicago, I thank Jin Lee for his many outstanding contributions to our community. I wish him continued success as he begins a new challenge and extend my heartfelt congratulations on his appointment to the Northeastern Illinois University Board of Trustees. I am proud to represent Mr. Lee and Northeastern Illinois University in the Fifth Congressional district and am confident both he and the university will find their partnership to be mutually productive and rewarding over the next four years and beyond.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the achievements of one of Chicago's great educators, Dr. Constantine P. Kiamos, former Principal of the Steinmetz Academic Centre.

Steinmetz Academic Centre stands in the heart of Chicago's Belmont- Cragin neighborhood, and has served the people of this community for over ninety years. Dr. Kiamos retired from Steinmetz last year after two decades of distinguished leadership, and was recently honored at a school event.

During his tenure, Steinmetz underwent many changes, including a major increase in enrollment. Through all of the changes, Steinmetz maintained its commitment to providing students with a high caliber education.

Dr. Kiamos has always believed in the importance of public education. Before he was the principal of Steinmetz Academic Centre, he served as Principal of Lovett School; Assistant Principal at Carpenter School and was a teacher at Medill Elementary.

Steinmetz's mission is to provide equal access to education for all students in an environment that is intellectually, physically and

emotionally stimulating, and to develop productive citizens competent in academic and life skills, accepting of themselves and others, and capable of lifelong learning. Dr. Kiamos' leadership and teaching style was an important factor in carrying out this mission.

Over the years, Steinmetz has provided many opportunities for students to excel, through programs such as the Illinois State Scholars, Advanced Placement classes, the Academic Decathlon team, the Chicago Debate League and competitive sports teams. Many of Steinmetz's students who took advantage of these opportunities have excelled and achieved tremendous progress in a wide variety of fields.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois and indeed all of Chicago, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing a lifetime of service and dedication to our community by a great Chicagoan, Dr. Constantine P. Kiamos, and Steinmetz Academic Centre that he so proudly served.