Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to share in the celebration of LCpl Mathew Liberto's homecoming. Mat serves honorably with the 3rd Battalion, 14th Marines, 4th Marine Division out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has just returned from a deployment to Al-Qaim and a forward-operating base near Waleed on the Syrian border.

Today, his employer, New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company (NJM) is officially welcoming Mat home with all the pomp and circumstance deserved by a great American hero. He will be honored for his service along with his fellow employee, Joseph Bethea of Morrisville, Pennsylvania, a National Guard Flight Operations Sergeant with the 150th General Support Aviation Battalion of the 42nd Infantry Division. Joe also recently returned from deployment to Iraq.

I commend these gentlemen for their commitment to the ideals of freedom and liberty and to the sacrifices they have made that make it possible for those ideals to exist in our lives today. I also commend New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company, which is today treating these men to a hero's welcome. Not only did the employees of NJM take the time to correspond regularly with their deployed colleagues, they also sent them and their units care packages. This compassion and community is the strength of our national fabric, and it is an honor to share their story for posterity.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield a moment to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan).

Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the chairman's acceptance of the amendment. I will just spend 30 seconds just for the edification of the membership of the conference as well what the amendment does.

This amendment harkens back to the days when, not too long ago actually, the various Federal Government agencies, when taking part in international conferences overseas, would send upwards of 70, 80, 90, 100, over 100 members of their Departments or agencies to these various conferences, spending, obviously, an excessive amount of taxpayers' dollars. And as we've heard from both sides of the aisle in an appropriate manner, we are here to set priorities. And I agree with the effort on both sides of the aisle, and that's exactly what this amendment does. It says let's pick a reasonable number, in this case it's 50, a limitation as to the number of members of any agency to go on these international conferences.

This amendment has been accepted in the past, and once again I appreciate the chairman accepting this amendment. I'm not sure whether the ranking member is also in agreement with it as well.

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

I thank the gentleman from Arizona. I support his amendment because it does bring both fairness to the American farmer and also to the American taxpayer, and it does so by dispelling certain myths that are out there.

This program started in 1933 as an emergency program that was supposed to be temporary. Well, 70, 80 years later and this temporary program is still with us. It started out as a program that was supposed to be for the small farmers, like we have in the State of New Jersey still, actually, and yet we find that three-quarters of the farmers are getting 10 percent of the program. The small farmers are just getting a slice of it. It is supposed to be going out for the small farmers and the farmers who are only making a small income, to help the family farm, yet we see that the average income of these farmers for the large sales are making $199,000.

This amendment helps to dispel the myth to make sure that we get a program that actually helps the family farmer and helps the American taxpayer at the same time. I support the amendment of the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am pleased to come to the floor today with my colleague from New Jersey, Morristown, and also my other colleague here as well from Connecticut, Christopher Shays, as we propose an amendment that will ask the FAA to basically more closely consider how their proposed airspace redesign plan will impact upon the quality of life of the residents of the State of New Jersey, from Connecticut, and also from the State of New York as well.

Now, we all recognize that the skies over our area are more crowded than ever before, and air travel is, obviously, a worthy goal. But the FAA must make noise and air pollution a top consideration whenever they work to redesign their airspace.

Residents of the communities across the five States are facing a threat now to the quiet of their communities and also to the value of their homes as well. The residents of my area, the Fifth District of New Jersey, are especially concerned about this. Just recently we held what you call a town meeting of sorts, and nearly 1,500 people came out to the public hearing up in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and that was just about a month ago. And they came out to voice their concerns directly to the FAA.

The FAA received comments from all present, but wouldn't it have been a lot better if the FAA had taken those comments before they drafted their preferred alternative? The citizens who came to that meeting left with a deep concern that the FAA just is not listening. So this amendment is really here to help force the FAA to listen to those people in the area.

So as noise in these communities increases, there is a very real possibility that the values of their homes are going to decrease. Residents are concerned their communities are going to be drastically affected by the fact that the FAA is simply trying to save 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes from the travelers' air time.

So, in conclusion, we are simply asking now through this amendment that the FAA reconsider their preferred alternative with an eye towards protecting the communities and considering that at the same time that they consider the air travelers as well.

Mr. Chairman, I recall last term in the 109th Congress in the Budget Committee where I served the gentleman from Minnesota who's no longer with us, Mr. Gutknecht, who made a point with regard to spending by this House and Washington, D.C. You know, in that committee you could always put up charts on the wall with regard to spending, chart A on mandatory spending or B on discretionary spending or health care or other spending. You would put them all up there. And Gil one time went through all the charts and he said, now, can you put up the chart of all the people and lobbyists that come down to Washington to ask for a reduction in their program and spending? And of course they put up a blank screen. Of course, Gil's point was, no one ever comes to Washington, no lobbyist ever comes before the House or committee and says that their program should see a flatlining or a reduction in their programs. And that's really the point here tonight, and it has been all last week.

We are here to set the priorities because everyone that comes to every Member of Congress looks for us to spend more on them, and so we must set priorities because they won't do it for us. So just as the American family has to set priorities, we do. Just as the American family says, we're not going to buy a cable TV system and a Dish TV system and a satellite TV system, we're going to set priorities, pick one if we can afford it. Maybe we can't afford it at all. And when it comes to heating our house, we're not going to have electric heat and hot water heat and coal heat and gas heat. We're going to pick one, hopefully the most efficient. That's what families do. And we would hope that Congress does the exact same thing with the money. Set priorities.

And this amendment really just calls us on doing that, looking to see, not a 6.7 percent increase but a 6.2 percent increase and try to set priorities.

Now, the other side of the aisle says, well, we are being stingy with all these programs if we are not able to go up by a 6.7 percent increase.

I would suggest to the other side of the aisle maybe they are not looking at the right side of the ledger, the right side of the equation. Look at the families who have to pay for all these inefficient, duplicative, and unnecessary programs that they want to spend taxpayer dollars on. Look instead at the American family when it comes to education.

When it comes to education, well, if they do successfully pass the largest tax increase in U.S. history, which they are about to do, the American family is going to have to see their educational spending cut. The American family is going to have to decide whether they can send all of their children to college or not.

The other side should look at the issue of health care for the American family because what they want to do is tell the American taxpayer, you have to cut your spending on health care. Maybe you have a child that needs new braces or glasses or something like that. Well, with their tax increases, the American family is asked to cut their spending.

How about housing? The other side of the aisle would say the same thing. Maybe it is a young family trying to start off to save enough money to buy their first house. Well, the other side of the aisle would like to raise their taxes on them so that they can put these duplicative programs through, and they will not be able to afford their housing.

Finally, most importantly, after the other side puts on all these burdens when it comes to cutting the taxpayer with regard to education or health care or housing, the biggest burden is on time. When the Democrats raise the largest tax increase in American history on the American family, what they are also doing is taking away time from the American family because now families which weren't working two jobs now have to work two jobs. Families that weren't working overtime before now have to work overtime just to pay for the extra burden that this government in Washington, under Democrat leadership, is imposing on them.

So the most basic thing we could all look for, time with our family, is being robbed, is being taxed, is being taken away from the American family just so we can implement what the Democrats see as necessary, but truthfully we have shown are not priorities, truthfully are unnecessary, duplicative, hugely increased, inefficient programs.

Let's focus again back on the American family. Let's focus again back on allowing them to have time with their family and put the burden where it should be.

I support this amendment and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do so as well.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for coming to the floor this late hour, although on the west coast it is just early evening, and so we welcome all those who partake in these forums that we have that are educational to not only the American public, but also to our colleagues who may be in their chambers learning a little about SCHIP as we go along.

I was listening to your opening comments, and you were right on point on this one, as you are always right. I have great respect for your ability to have a strong grasp of the situation on a whole slew of topics. I sort of focus on certain areas like the U.N., which is one of my pet peeves, or financial services, or education and No Child Left Behind. But I know whether on the floor or at home, I can watch and be assured that you are covering thoroughly a topic of importance to the American people. And SCHIP is one of those topics.

You were just beginning to address the issue of the number of children that will be on SCHIP and the direction that the government is going in this area. Your chart makes the point abundantly clear.

Red is usually a warning sign to people. When the red flashers go off or the red lights flash, you know something is amiss, and I guess you chose the appropriate coloration of your charts that something is amiss.

We see back in 1998, less than a decade ago, a little over a quarter of the kids in this country were under a government-run plan, and now we are looking to see almost three-quarters of the children in this country under a government-run plan.

That is fine. That would be fine if you thought that the U.S. government, if Washington is in the best position to take care of and administer the health of our children.

But you know, you don't have to listen to The Official Truth Squad here on the floor each week to know that things are oftentimes amiss when it comes to the efficiency and the accountability of the Federal Government.

Heck, just look a couple of years ago when the whole issue of Katrina was coming on, there was railing from both sides of the aisle, rightfully so, when we realized that the Federal Government couldn't get into an area where it had an obligation to, and that is, to help out people in a tragic situation, whether it's home settings or others or in a health situation.

Likewise, I think I recall there was railing again against the Federal Government when, again, in an area that the Federal Government does have a distinct responsibility, and that is taking care of our veterans and our men and women who are in the military or returning back from the military to the facility just down the road a piece from here, and there was a question as to the conditions of those medical facilities and whether we're giving those brave men and women all the facilities and care and comfort and proper medical care that they deserve.

Yet, when we know that all those problems exist, there are some, especially from the other side of the aisle in this House and certainly on the other side of the aisle in the Senate, who would say that the solution to the health dilemma in this country is not by turning it back to a patient-doctor relationship, but instead of turning it to a Federal Government/doctor-patient relationship. So we are going in the wrong direction with regard to that.

I'd like to come back to that in a moment or two, but at this point I yield back to gentleman if he would like to speak.

The last point you make as far as the area of intrusiveness of the Federal Government and how they are sometimes basically out of step with what is appropriate between the normal doctor-patient relationship, maybe that's because the Federal Government and all governments in general always lag behind the private sector, whatever field you might consider, as far as innovation and moving ahead and new areas.

I mean, think about it. You can go to the store tonight and buy any item that you possibly want, whip out your credit card and slip it through a machine. Within seconds that transaction is created, and they know your credit rating and whether you have money in that bank account to pay for that item. It's all done just in the blink of an eye.

Go to your local town hall or go to the IRS or go to anybody else like that and see whether they are up to date with that technology, and you will find out they are not. Those are okay, because that's not a life-and-death situation. But you, as a physician, know that when it comes to a life-and-death situation, or we all know, that we want our children and our spouses to be able to have the most up-to-date, the most innovative, the most advanced technology available to them.

I think that is going to be found on the marketplace of ideas that is in the general marketplace, as opposed to the convoluted, Byzantine system that we call this, the Federal Government.

Mr. Ryan just stated that what the Federal Government is attempting to do here, with the expansion of this program, as we come to the floor tonight, we mark approximately the sixth month of control of the Federal Government under Democrat leadership. As we mark this sixth month, we have seen the largest expansion in taxes, the largest tax increase in U.S. history. I guess, as we discussed here on the floor tonight about the Democrat plan for the expansion of the SCHIP program, we see the largest expansion intrusion into the family and personal life by the health system, by the expansion of the SCHIP system.

The point I just wanted to make, though, is take a look at how the system has worked so far with respect to the system, the distribution of money to the States. If you go back to I guess it was 1968 or 1969, the first couple of years under the Nixon administration, and he came up with a program of distributing money to the States that was called revenue sharing. That was a new idea at the time, and after a time we realized it didn't really work exactly the way Nixon intended it to do. In fact, he tried to do it in certain areas like education and was never able to get it into legislation. Yet the same sort of idea here, in the original version and the version that will be coming out in the Senate as well.

In a similar situation that we can all relate to, say you have four kids in your family, and you are going to give them all $40 to spend each week. So you give each one of your children $10 each. So here, Child One, Two, Three, Four, presumably you have better names than that for them, here is $10 each. You each get to spend it on anything you want during the course of this week. But, mind you, when the weekend comes, if you don't spend it, if one of the other ones here happens to go over their budget, and you didn't spend it all, what we are going to do is redistribute those funds to the other child there.

What do you think that your kids are going to do? I would imagine that each one of them is probably going to go out as soon as they possibly can, spend that full $10, and maybe even spend $11 just hoping that there will be some money left over from their siblings there to spend it.

Well, children, not to make the comparison here to the States, but the States here are a lot like children in

this situation. This system was set up with $40 billion initially spread out to all the States. It was done, you might say, as fair as the Federal Government goes, as far as how many children may be in the program versus how many children are under other programs. But what happened immediately after that, when they told the States, now, look, if you don't spend your money, we are going to take your leftover money and send it to the other States? Well, initially, in the first couple of years, a number of States did not spend all their money. In 2001, only 12 States exhausted their entire allotment. However, once they saw how that all came down, in 2006, 40 States used all available funds. In that same period of time, unused State funds dropped from $2 billion to only $170 million.

So, finally, in this past appropriations, we had to step in, because there was too few States not spending all their money, too many States spending it. So we had to come up with spending of an additional $393 million that was recently appropriated to address the 2007 shortfall. That just goes to show you one of the inherent problems in the system and the way it has been administrated in the past and, I believe, will continue under this system as well.

I know that the gentleman from Wisconsin would be able to elaborate on this in much more detail, but in the best case scenario, would that the Federal Government be awash with cash right now, and would that we had no mandatory spending problem going on in the Federal Government right now, maybe some people would want to sit down right now and say, how can we spend our extra dollars around the country?

But as the gentleman can elaborate in much detail, and we have seen in the Budget Committee for the first months of this year, testimony after testimony after testimony, expert after expert after expert from all spectrums of authority, we are now in that situation where we find ourselves with the Federal Government and mandatory spending going out of control. There are legitimate groups within that that the American public would agree with, or those that we should be targeting, to make sure that they do.

The aged, the poor, the infirm, who desperately need medical care and are not able to cover it by themselves and are not fortunate enough to be able to work any longer, and who are not working now and covered by an employer plan, and did not unfortunately

work for a company that provides for a company-sponsored plan after their termination at work, those are the people that the American public would ask that's where our focus would be.

But do we find ourselves in our situation right now where we can say that we have all the other mandatory spending under control that we can address this now?

If the gentleman would yield, And lest anyone following this get confused when we talk about the tax increases, the gentleman from Wisconsin set it out and you followed up with quite some detail, as far as the tax increase necessary in order to pay for those entitlement expansions over time. That would be in addition to what we have already seen has occurred during this first 6 months in office.

In other words, we have already seen the largest tax increase in U.S. history. And the current tax increase means that 115 million taxpayers are going to see a $1,716 increase in their tax bill in just a couple years; 84 million women would see their taxes go up by $1,970; 42 million families with children, which is what we are down here talking on the floor about right now, those children, trying to be sure they have health insurance. Those 42 million families with children will see an increase of over $2,000 in their taxes already this year because of what the Democrats have done. And what you are speaking of is going to be in addition to and on top of that.

In trying to just throw some numbers to the percentages that you were throwing out there before as far as this expansion of children that will come under this program now, those children who may be just living across the street from us who their dads or moms work for a company right now that provides them insurance, all of a sudden those companies don't provide it anymore because now the government, we are going to pay for it.

Or those children who have parents who have retiree benefits and are getting insurance for them now, they will no longer have to get it from their retirement pension programs; the government, meaning taxpayers, will pay for it.

The CBO just came out with some numbers on this, and real numbers means that for the first, just the expansion of the program as far as additional dollars means 600,000 new children who used to yesterday have coverage under the private sector will now look to the taxpayer to pay for it; and another 600,000 children yesterday who had insurance, whether through pensions or their parents' employers, will now look to the Federal taxpayers. So 1.2 million children. Now, that is under the House version. That number, I haven't gotten a CBO estimate yet, would be even greater under the Senate version as far as children expanded into this program who are already covered.

We are number one in a number of things, in the number of taxes that we pay and the number of taxes that the Democrats are going to make us pay in the future as well.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I appreciate that. I will shorten my remarks to approximately 30 seconds to say, I thank the chairman for accepting the amendment. I thank the previous subcommittee chairmen as well for accepting similar which we have done in the past, which simply says to set priorities. When we have Federal agencies send Federal employees overseas for conferences, we should put a realistic limitation on it, and this one, I think, does, at 50 employees of any Federal Department or agency for any single conference occurring outside the United States.

Again, I appreciate the chairman's acceptance of the amendment.

While this is an amendment that I have proposed to other appropriations bills, I believe it is especially important that it be included on this bill.

Since 2000, HHS has spent over $435 million on conferences and spent $88 million just last year. Government-wide spending in those same years was over $1.5 billion.

In 2002 HHS spent $3.6 million to send 236 persons to the AIDS conference in Barcelona.

In 2004 HHS spent $500,000 to send 140 persons to the AIDS conference in Bangkok.

In 2005 HHS sent 300 employees to a dioxin conference in Toronto.

Last year the agency sent delegations of 200 or more to 54 separate conferences.

Many of these conferences are now covered online, allowing interested parties to attend without expensive plane tickets, meals, and hotel rooms.

An identical amendment was included in the House-passed version of the FY05 appropriations bill but removed in conference. I cannot help but think of the possibly tens of millions of taxpayer money that could have been saved in the past few years had this language become standard.

I trust that the new chairman will work to include the amendment in the conference agreement--we must inject some sense into HHS. This amendment will only limit international conferences, just a small step in reigning in an agency that seems to think its job is to talk about problems instead of working to solve them.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I will yield.

I will. I will just extend that 30 seconds to approximately 1 minute, though, because I just want to make a point on this amendment.

I very much appreciate the chairman for accepting this amendment. What this amendment does, as we have said all along, is it sets priorities, and it does on two areas that are extremely important to the Fifth Congressional District and the State of New Jersey and the entire Nation as well. And that is that we set priorities by increasing funding in two very important areas.

One is to the National Cancer Institute for additional cancer research by $10 million. And another area of extreme importance to the State of New Jersey for the rising number of children being born with autism, to direct an additional $10 million for research in that area as well.

I will just give a couple of statistics: one in 150 children, and it used to be one in around 10,000, is now diagnosed with autism. Every day 67 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, which translates into a new case almost every 20 minutes. Autism is becoming the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the United States. That was the purpose for putting that in these amendments, and I thank the chairman for agreeing with us to the importance and seeing that additional funds go to these very worthy causes.

Mr. Chairman, I am offering an amendment that would take $49 million from an account that was zeroed out in the President's budget request, and transfer it to two Institutes at the National Institutes of Health that I believe need additional funding--one working to fight cancer, and one working to fight autism.

Since President Nixon unofficially declared war on cancer in his State of the Union Address of 1971, much progress has been made in the area of cancer research. Over the past three and one-half decades, science has continued to break down barriers in the fight against this disease. Today, cancer is no longer the mystery disease that it once was, and researchers know infinitely more about the prevention, detection, and treatment of the disease than ever before.

All this research is beginning to bear fruit. Fewer people died from cancer in 2004 than in 2003 and the American public is witnessing declining rates for most major cancer types, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer. But there's much more work to be done.

I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for increasing the budget of the

National Cancer Institute in this year's bill. I just think that we can do a little more. And this is an obviously higher priority with far broader application to the American people.

We can also do a little more to fund research for a serious problem facing the country: autism.

According to Autism Now, the largest autism foundation in the country: 1 in 150 children is diagnosed with autism; every day 67 children are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, which translates into a new case almost every 20 minutes; and autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the United States.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in my home State of New Jersey, the rate of new autism spectrum disorder cases is the highest in the country. One in sixty boys in New Jersey is affected.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would also increase the budget of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke by $10 million. This Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is the organization within the Federal Government that is primarily responsible for organizing the research into autism.

The account that this amendment would take from was proposed to be eliminated entirely by the administration, as it has demonstrated to be duplicative and ineffective. My amendment retains some funding in that account, but reduces it. If these appropriations bills are about priorities, I ask that we make research on cancer and autism a priority, above duplicative and ineffective programs.

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

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word

Madam Chairman, I rise to support the gentleman from Georgia in his amendment. And the overall focus of his amendment is to do two things, first of which is what Congress should be asked to do by all of our constituents in all our districts from all across this country, and that is to take their hard-earned dollars that they send to us in the form of tax revenue and to prioritize them into the most efficient manner and into the most efficient programs and into the most efficient methodologies in order to get those programs effectuated for the good of the citizens. And that is what this amendment does.

In accord with the opinion of the administration, there are a number of programs now in existence essentially attempting to do the same thing. Here with regard to education, essentially trying to lift up the quality of education in this country, a laudable goal obviously; secondly, to lift up the quality of teachers in the classroom, again a laudable goal obviously. But we are asked to prioritize this to make sure that those dollars actually get to those programs and effectively down to the teachers, where it can do the most good. The gentleman from Georgia's amendment would do just that.

One of the fundamental flaws in the No Child Left Behind program is to take away the issue of authority and local control from the frontlines, and that is the classroom and that is the teacher, and shift it someplace else. The fundamental flaw with No Child Left Behind is to say that the parents should not be involved in making the decisions or the teachers should not be the ones making the ultimate decisions on how we educate our children, but it should be the bureaucrats down in Washington and unelected at that.

We need believe that the focus should be shifted back to the parents, back to the teachers, for those who are the people on the frontlines, those are the people who are having the day-to-day interaction with our children.

When you think about it, if you have kids in school or if you have neighbors with kids in school and they have a problem in the classroom, where is the first place that they go to to try to resolve that problem? They go into the schoolhouse and into the classroom and talk to the teacher. They want to get to the bottom of it right then and there. And ultimately it is a matter of making sure that that teacher is the best qualified teacher that you can actually have in that classroom.

Parents do not go to Washington, DC, and speak with the U.S. Department of Education to try to resolve some difficulty they have in their classroom. Parents do not come down here to speak with the Secretary of Education to deal with difficulties they have in their classroom. They go to the teacher. And they sit down and work things out to try to get to the heart of it and the root of the cause of the problem.

And the gentleman from Georgia realizes this. And he realizes that in order to make a better classroom where more learning can occur, where we can have better schoolhouses and classrooms, where we can raise up the quality of education, it is to raise up the quality of our teachers. The gentleman from Georgia's amendment does just that by ending programs that are ineffective, ineffectual, and don't get the job done, and transfers them over to those programs that do get the job done. In this matter we should all be commending the gentleman and support his amendment.

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

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that mirrors the President's budget request to eliminate funding in the bill for the Alaskan Native Education Equity Program. By so doing this, it will save our Nation's taxpayers $33.9 million.

Now, as with many of the programs that you will be hearing us discussing both yesterday and today and in the future, this program does, in fact, support a worthwhile goal, and that is providing additional educational services to Alaskan Natives. The services provided to Alaskan Natives that are students through this program, however, are redundant of many of the other types of programs that are provided through various other agencies, most notably through the Department's other education programs.

See, our funding priorities must be exactly that. When we come together as a conference and then as a body to support appropriation bills, we are called upon by the American taxpayers to set those things, priorities, just as the American family budget is created each day, each week, each month in American families across their country and they sit down at their kitchen table to decide what are their priorities when it comes to spending their hard-earned dollars.

They have educational interests in mind as well. They may have children that they have to decide whether they're going to be sending them to college this year or next, to a high-priced college or a moderate-priced college, et cetera. They have to set priorities when it comes to how much money will they be able to set aside in their savings account for educational purposes. Or if their kids are in a K-12 system, whether it's public school or private school, likewise, the American public has to set their own priorities, decide how much money they can set aside if they choose to send their kids to a private school. Or if their kids are going to a public school, how much money will they set aside so that they can spend on their children when it comes to educational purposes for extracurricular activities or supplements to the school program.

American families are called upon to do this every single day, every single week of the year with their budget. And all we are asking right now is that the U.S. Congress and the Senate do the exact same thing with their hard-earned tax dollars that they've entrusted to us. In this matter, what we are doing is saying we have several programs, the same laudable goals. We are eliminating one and shifting the dollars to the another so that the program gets done.

I would now like to bring my colleagues' attention to a recent report by the Nonpartisan Tax Foundation. This report details how much money each State taxpayer contributes in Federal dollars and how much money each State taxpayer receives back. This is very interesting, especially if you come from the State of New Jersey, as I do.

According to this report, Alaska, which is the subject of this amendment, ranks second in the Nation, getting $1.80 back for every $1 that the

taxpayers up there pay in Federal taxes. In contrast, my good State of New Jersey ranks dead last. We receive back a paltry 63 cents back for every dollar that a New Jersey taxpayer sends to Washington. What does that mean? That means that New Jersey taxpayers, working just as hard as the taxpayers up in the great State of Alaska are, are sending one dollar in with their paycheck each week, or multiple dollars as it is. But at the end of the day, when they see how Congress appropriates those dollars, New Jerseyans find out that they're only getting back 63 cents on the dollar.

Conversely, we look up to Alaska, the subject of this amendment. How much does every taxpayer get back from the dollar that they contribute to the good of the country and the State? They get back $1.80. It's a fairness issue, quite honestly, Madam Chairman. Where are our dollars going?

And with the new Democratic majority passing the largest tax increase in American history recently in its budget, the burden on New Jersey taxpayers will only continue to rise. Yet at the same time, we are providing nearly $40 million for redundant services in a State that is already nearly on a 2-1 ratio on every dollar that it sends to Washington.

Let me just finish this thought.

I am not yielding. I am finishing my thought.

Madam Chairman, and I will be brief, we must remember that every dollar that we send to Washington comes out of that proverbial ``family budget'' that I referenced before. So when duplicate programs like this come before us, we should put ourselves in the shoes of the family in the same situation.

So, do you think that families would go out, families from the other side of the aisle would go out and spend their hard-earned tax dollars on a month's worth of groceries and then go out and eat every single night of the week? I don't think so. That would be duplicative. They would be spending money on the exact same thing. American families don't do that; neither should Congress. That doesn't make much sense to me, Madam Chairman, and quite frankly, neither does the funding of multiple Federal programs do the same.

Madam Chairman, there are two amendments at the desk. The amendment that I was speaking on is my amendment, which goes to the issue of Native Alaskans. The gentleman may be referring to another subsequent amendment that will later on refer to Native Hawaiians. It's the same page, same line, same dollar amount, so I can understand the confusion.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

And let me just begin to reference the chairman's comment as far as whether we should be excluding one set of children from this. Well, that's exactly the point; I believe that we should not be excluding any children. And the language in the bill that is before us right now excludes the children of 49 other States.

As the Representative of the Fifth District of New Jersey, I am concerned. I come to the floor because this underlying bill excludes the children from the State of New Jersey with this special extra funding. Let me assure the gentleman there are children with special needs in the State of New Jersey, and there are children with special needs in the State of Wisconsin as well.

They are excluded from the Alaska Native Education Program. I am trying to bring fairness to the overall program, which is also what the administration is trying to do.

Let me make that point by sharing with you this comment. The Alaska Native Education Program is authorized by the ESEA of 1965 and they are subject to the reauthorization. But the administration was not recommending reauthorization and, accordingly, funded it at zero. The administration, as do I, recognizes the importance of ensuring that the Alaska Native students receive appropriate educational services. This request is consistent with the administration policy of increasing resources for high-priority programs by eliminating small categorical programs that have a limited effect, such as this.

In addition, the services provided to Alaska Native students through this program are redundant with many of the programs through the Department's Indian Education Program already being funded.

School districts that wish to implement programs and services tailored to the educational and cultural needs of the Alaska Native students are able to use funds already provided under other Federal programs in the 2008 budget. That includes $1 billion in direct support for the education of Indians and Alaska Natives in addition to the significant funds that are provided to those students who receive services through broader Federal programs; grant programs such as title I grants to local educational agencies and special grants.

Further, let me point this out as well: Alaska Native students will also benefit in addition to $1 billion that I also already referenced. They will also benefit from the Department of Indian Education Programs, which provide more than $118 million, $118 million, in formula grants to school districts and competitive grants for demonstration and professional development programs as well.

You see, these programs already serve as the Department's principal vehicle for addressing those unique educational and culture-related needs which the gentleman from Wisconsin is referring to.

The bottom line is there are already programs established that address those concerns that the gentleman from Wisconsin raises. The administration recognized this and already requested appropriations of $1 billion overall, plus the $118 million in special formula grants.

So it is our position, in line with the administration, that we do need to address those specific needs of those children who are in unique circumstances such as we find with Native American Indians in Alaska. But we do not need to do it in a redundant manner.

Finally, I would just conclude by saying the gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. We do not want to have children not being educated, regardless of what State they come from, whether it is from New Jersey, the good State of Georgia, the good State of Wisconsin or Alaska. But we are not doing the children any favor whatsoever if we do not appropriate the dollars in a manner that effectively gets that job done. This amendment works to effectuate and ensure those kids get properly educated.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I would just make reference to the gentleman from Hawaii. I believe he misstates the intent of the legislation here when he says that the intent is to make sure that Alaska or Hawaii, and this bill is only on Alaska, does not get a dime. As my testimony indicated, Alaska will continue to get more than a dime, as the President's budget request included $1 billion in direct support for the education of Indian and Alaskan Natives. That is more than one dime.

Native Alaskans will also get $118 million in formula grants to school districts, competitive grants for demonstration and professional development programs. That is more than one dime.

Finally, to the gentleman from Hawaii's first point, which he agreed with the previous comment that education is best done locally and that the folks of Alaska know best about how to educate their children and the folks from Hawaii know best how to educate their children, I would presume he would agree the people from New Jersey also know how best to educate their children.

I would ask the gentleman from Hawaii, if he truly believes that, would he support our initiatives and my initiative in the LEARN Act to allow States to opt out of the cumbersome regulations of education from the Federal level and keep their dollars in Hawaii and keep their dollars in Alaska so they would be in the best position to educate their children.

Mr. Chairman, is it appropriate for the speaker to say that the people from New Jersey should be electing----

I make a point of order.

Is it a violation of parliamentary decorum by suggesting that a Member not be reelected in the State of New Jersey?

Parliamentary inquiry.

Is it appropriate political decorum for a Member to say that he represents his State in a better manner than the entire delegation of another State represents their State?

Further parliamentary inquiry.

Is there a manner in which I can rephrase the question so that the Chair will be able to answer the question or comment on the previous speaker's statements?

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part.

I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding for just a moment.

As the Representative from the Fifth District of the State of New Jersey, I remind the gentleman from Alaska that the State of New Jersey has 13 congressional Representatives from both sides of the aisle. And so when the gentleman from Alaska makes reference to our Representatives from the State of New Jersey not doing their job and not appropriately representing the people of the State, I remind him that it is an accusation not against simply this one gentleman who is standing at the microphone right now proposing this one amendment, but it is an entire body of 13 gentlemen from both sides of the aisle who I say, and I commend both Representatives from the Democrat and the Republican side of the aisle, for appropriately and admirably representing the good citizens from the State of New Jersey.

My colleagues from the other 12 districts do not need to be defended against these rash accusations by the gentleman from Alaska. But I do come to the floor now to appropriately defend them, nonetheless.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

I also take up the comment that the gentleman from Texas was just making reference to which the gentleman from Alaska stated in his statement what was ``my money'' or it is Alaska's money. Well, maybe that is the problem we have had in this Congress for too long, even when Republicans were in the majority and now that the Democrats are the majority, too. Too many Members of Congress see the dollars that we appropriate here not as the taxpayers' dollar, but see it as their very own personal checking account. Maybe that is the fundamental problem that we have with why we spend more and more each year.

I remember when the Democrats were running for office this past election. They were railing against the Republican Party, that we were the party out of control, spending more and more and more. If they were elected to office, they would come here and rein things in when it came to spending. And I served on the Budget Committee when the Democrats were in the minority, and how they railed against us from the other side of the aisle. And at times I even agreed with them on some of the charges that they made, that we were spending too much money.

And now when the Democrats take control, what do they do? Give us the largest tax increase in U.S. history, and we see spending continue to go through the roof. Where do those dollars come from? They come from American taxpayers, from the family budgets, from men and women in Alaska and New Jersey and across this country, working hard just to get by, and yet they are being forced by the Democrats' tax increases to send more dollars here to Washington.

When the gentleman from Alaska comes forth and says it is ``my money,'' maybe that is why in some respects when there are projects that are appropriated such as bridges to nowhere and the like, the American public says that is our dollars going to Washington, and it shouldn't be looked at for just such frivolous things as this.

The amendment that's before us right now is an appropriate amendment to say that the hard-earned tax dollars should go to programs that are necessary but be spent in an effective manner.

Members from all 50 States see the need to educate our children. Members from all 50 States, including the State of New Jersey, see the need to deal with the issue of Alaska native students, and that is why this administration has already requested appropriations of $1 billion for that, $118 million in other categorical aids such as that. So all we are doing is saying make sure that those dollars that come from New Jersey and elsewhere are spent effectively.

Finally, to close on this point of ``my money,'' maybe the gentleman from Alaska was not listening at the opening of my comments when I said that New Jersey taxpayers send a dollar to Washington and only get 63 cents back on the dollar, whereas his constituents, yes, they do much better. They send a dollar to Washington and then they get $1.80 back.

I would ask the gentleman from Alaska and other Members from the Democrat side of the aisle, where do they think that other 80 cents on the dollar is coming from? I will tell you it's coming from the good, hardworking taxpayers from the State of New Jersey and Connecticut and New York that are donor States to States like Alaska, that we are subsidizing their programs.

I would ask the gentleman from Alaska to refrain from, therefore, referring to it as his money. It is the taxpayers in the Fifth Congressional District and the rest of New Jersey, whether you're in a Democrat district or Republican district, who are helping fund these programs.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I will not use the whole 5 minutes. I just want to make one point.

The gentlelady from Minnesota, I believe, who was just speaking, I want to concur with a portion of her remarks with, A, the remarks with regard to the physical problem with childhood obesity in the country, and that is of a concern nationally. And, B, the problem that she set out with regard to NCLB not funding to the level necessary so that school districts across the country are put in what you might call a catch-22 situation.

And a catch-22 is, okay, do we, A, comply with NCLB? In which case we spend a lot of our own money on tests, fourth and 8th grade reading and math tests; or, B, if you don't comply with it, then of course you get written up in the local newspaper because your school failed, or your school didn't do very well on the test and you've become an underperforming school. And, instead, provide the funds where you would like to put them, which may well be in physical education programs.

So I concur with her comments on that and suggest that the solution to the problem may be multifaceted. Part of it is the gentleman's amendment right here can be one aspect to address it. And I support the gentleman's amendment to make sure that the dollars that are coming from the Federal Government go to those programs that are effectively getting the job done, including the issue of physical education and childhood obesity and what have you. And just like all the other amendments, I'm sure the gentleman will concur that you want to make sure that the money goes to those programs that really accomplish something, and are not duplicative.

The other aspect of the problem, however, is with NCLB and the burden that they put on the schools as saying, do I do this or do I do that; do I comply with NCLB, or do I do what I really want to do locally? And I think the answer to that is to say this: NCLB is just too top town, ordering the schools, basically you've got to do this or you've got to do that when, with all due respect to all the educated, I'll say bureaucrats, who are in the U.S. Department of Education and in all due respect to the Secretary of Education, a very nice lady and well- intentioned, the people who really can decide where the dollars can be spent best is the teacher in the classroom, the local school board in conjunction with the parents. They know whether their school has more of a problem in the area of childhood obesity than other schools. I find that, from the studies that I've seen, that it is in certain areas of States and certain demographic regions as opposed to other ones. Those are the people who really know how to decide these things.

And so I would concur with the gentlelady from Minnesota and suggest that the solution is, A, put the money where the dollar should go to effectively; and, B, get out from under the rubric of NCLB and just let the schools, the teachers, the parents, the local school boards first and foremost make those decisions, because they know best.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise right now to offer what really is a modest amendment with the hopes of returning some degree of discipline to the annual appropriation process. When the President submitted his budget request, he proposed the elimination of a number of programs that were duplicative and unable to demonstrate effectiveness or otherwise not worthy of the priority of spending American taxpayers' money.

Generally speaking, with the savings achieved from eliminating ineffective programs, we can use it to do things such as pay off the debt or support programs that have a proven track record of success. I guess that last line I should reiterate: To support programs that already have a track record of success.

As I also often do, I will refer this back and make the analogy back to the American families' budget. This is really no different from what American families do every month at the proverbial dinner table. Think, for example, when it comes to TV. If a family is paying for both cable TV and DirecTV, or what I have in my house, Dish TV, chances are that they would probably decide which service suits them best as a family, and then cut one or both of the other services out. You only need one service coming into the house; cable, Direct, Dish or what have you. That is what a family would do; prioritize them.

Mr. Chairman, given the content of our spending bills, if the Federal Government were a homeowner and how the Federal Government operates now, well, it would pay for both the cable TV, the Dish and DirecTV, and the cable at the same time, satellite, all three or four coming into the house.

If the Federal Government were a family and they continued to operate as they do right now, they would probably decide that they were going to have gas heat in their house and oil heat in their house and electric heat in their house and wood heat as well. It would probably pay to dig for its own water and have a well in the backyard, all the while continuing to pay for city water coming into the house from the front.

That, unfortunately, is how the Federal Government operates itself. I think it is time to change. We do a disservice to the American people by not eliminating duplicative and ineffective programs. It proves that the Federal Government is unaccountable. By increasing the size of the U.S. budget, it takes that money, again, out of the family budget by sending it to Washington as tax dollars.

So the amendment that I am offering now would only reduce this by $2.3 million, out of a $607 billion appropriation. I used the paper before while I was sitting here trying to figure out how much of a percentage of that is. That is a .0002 percentage point reduction. I think what it does do, more importantly, is to make a statement that there are truly areas within the Federal budget where money can be saved.

What my amendment does is restore funding to the level requested in the President's budget. The administration zeroed this account out because it duplicates other Federal programs. The Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers, the MSFW, Program provides discretionary grants to make comprehensive vocational rehabilitation services available to migrant and seasonal farm workers with vocational disabilities. Now, if I ended right there you would think, well, what is wrong with that?

Well, according to the OMB, here is the problem: This program serves the exact same population and provides the exact same services as another separate Federal program already is doing, and that is the Vocational Rehabilitation State Grants Program. The acronym is VR. The authorizing legislation for the VR State Grants Program contains provisions in it to ensure that State VR agencies must reach out and serve all individuals with disabilities within the State. That includes minorities and unserved and underserved populations.

So what this means is that under the MSFW program, which is what we are talking about here, the Federal Government is in essence micromanaging, if you will, what essentially is a State and local government issue that is provided Federal funds through the VR program. The VR State Grants Program in the bill already is expanded by $36 million on top of the increases that were there before in the fiscal year 2007 levels.

So there is little need to be spending an additional $2.3 million on, yet again, a separate program that does essentially the same thing. The government, you see, does not need to buy both cable TV and satellite TV at the same time. The government does not need to

be providing funding for programs that do the exact same thing.

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

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding.

To answer the question of the gentleman, yes, I have picked vegetables and I have worked on a farm and I have thrown bales of hay and I have worked in the sweltering heat of greenhouses picking vegetables as well. So, yes, I do have that experience. So, yes, I do know of what I speak, to some extent, but never to the extent, I am sure, of the chairman or some of what the people go through in these situations.

The chairman also makes reference to words about being stingy. You know, it is awfully easy, it is awfully easy, to be a generous individual if you are using somebody else's money, and basically that is what Congress does every single day of the year. We come to the floor with the appropriation bills railing about how much more we are spending than last year and saying how generous we are, when in fact these are not our dollars. Despite the statement of the gentleman from Alaska at the last debate, these are the taxpayers' dollars coming in.

So it is easy to be generous with other people's money. What we here as Members of Congress should therefore do is consider ourselves in a position to be wards of that money, protect it and make sure that it goes to the most effective places.

I refer you now to a statement from the administration with reference to this program to point out the necessity of cutting the funding here and making sure there are funds in similar programs. The administration states this: ``This program was established as a demonstration project,'' a demonstration project, ``in the mid-1970s, and it is no longer needed to demonstrate the benefits of these strategies to serve underserved populations such as migrant and seasonal farm workers. Many of the same States have received continued funding over the last 30 years and should be able to effectively serve this population under the VR State Grant Program,'' that program that has continued to be funded in this underlying legislation, that VR program that sees a $36 million or $37 million increase in the funding.

The gentleman from Georgia, when he speaks to what his constituents feel, I wonder what his constituents would feel when they are told that we have a demonstration project established back in 1970 and we are still following that demonstration project to see whether or not it is necessary to run the program.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I didn't want to interrupt your comments, so I waited to be yielded time here just to respond to your statements through the Chair.

No, I have not ever administered or run a school. For that matter, I imagine that out of the 435 Members of Congress, there are probably one or two or three who have ever run or administered a school. And I would hate that to be the barometer or the test that we would have to take before we could ever propose an amendment, vote on an amendment, or even consider legislation that comes before the House. If that were the case, programs like the VR program would never be established in the first place. If the test is whether a Member of Congress has experience in it to propose a new program or expand a program, there is not enough educators here or people who have run title I schools to get the backing of legislation in the first place. So I would question the gentleman's premise.

Now the gentleman on the other hand questions our basic premise for supporting this amendment. Our basic premise is that you don't have to actually run the school to know that perhaps the best way to serve a particular segment of our country is to make sure that the dollars go to programs that are up and running and do serve that program.

The administration has looked at this and has seen that the program in place that we are talking about now has been in place since 1970 as a demonstration project. ``Demonstration,'' the word itself connotes the fact that this is temporary in nature.

Since that time, we have the VR program, which I pointed out earlier, maybe the gentleman did not hear my testimony, the VR program handles these same services. In fact, it says: ``The activities needed to successfully serve the migrant and seasonal farmwork population do not differ from those that benefit a much wider group of VR consumers.'' For example, the outreach activities in churches and community centers may be effective for identifying farmworkers with disabilities, what this amendment deals with, but they also assist in identifying other persons with disabilities who visit these places. The hiring of bilingual counselors will assist all consumers who are monolingual in a non-English language, whether they are farmworkers or not. And the provisions of the transportation services for rural areas will benefit all rural residents, whether farmworkers or not.

The bottom line is, our basic premise is, if you are going to serve a segment of the population, in this case individuals with disabilities and migrant farmworkers, let's do so, but let's do so with programs that are already up and running and have a track record. That is what this underlying bill does. It even does it with spending $36 million more. I think we can make sure that program runs and eliminate the duplicative program.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

There is none so blind who shall not see. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia for coming to the microphones and asking all of us to open our eyes so that we shall see the values of these things, despite the personalities otherwise, and I support the gentleman's amendment from Georgia.

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

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I come to the floor tonight to rise in support of the gentleman's amendment. I come to the floor also to indicate my support for what we can do on this floor for labor here in America. And I think that is the optimum word, ``here'' in America.

This amendment will do just that. It will protect laborers in this country, and that should be the first priority of this U.S. Congress. We do that first and foremost by protecting the fruits of their labor. Their wages, their income, what they work for, 9 to 5 and longer, Monday through Friday or longer during the course of the week. We do that by ensuring that the money that we spend, their hard-earned tax dollars, is appropriately spent and appropriately prioritized. And I commend the gentleman for doing just that with this amendment.

There are many things that we would like to spend our dollars on. But when we are elected to public office, we are to come here and make sure that first and foremost the American citizen, and in this case, the American worker, is protected.

As I come to the floor tonight, as I have said in the past, we have now marked about 6 months into Democrat control of this U.S. Congress. And what has it wrought during those 6 months? The largest tax increase in U.S. history. The attempts to change historic rules of this House and in operations. And, finally, attempts to create slush funds in which dollars can be misspent on other inappropriate items, dollars that are earned from the backs and sweat of American labor. And that is why I come strongly to support this amendment by the gentleman from Texas, to make sure that their hard-earned dollars are not misspent.

How often have we gone back to our districts and heard the complaint of jobs in this country going overseas? Well, it is one thing to say the jobs are going overseas; it is another thing to ask the laborers in this country to support those jobs overseas. It is one thing to see our jobs flee from this country to go to foreign shores; it is another thing to ask the workers of this country, through their tax dollars, to in essence support the organizations' structure of those jobs overseas.

We are elected to public office to protect the workers of this country. This gentleman's proposal does just that, by making sure that their tax dollars are focused first and foremost on workers and their quality of life and their standards here in this country. We will protect American workers. We will protect American jobs. And with this amendment, we will protect the budget of the workers of America as well.

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

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I rise to support the gentleman's amendment, leaving aside the underlying question of the funding issue of where the dollars come from. I appreciate the ranking member's point with regard to that.

I want to go to the point the gentleman raises as far as the necessity and the importance of making sure that we have appropriate dollars spent on nurse education and retention and to have a level of funding for 2007. I come from the great State of New Jersey, and within the Fifth Congressional District, which I represent, I represent several, over five good hospitals and also long-term health care facilities as well.

As I travel about the Fifth Congressional District, and I meet with the various hospitals and the administrators from such, and I also meet with the people from the long-term health facilities as well, when I travel down to Trenton, our State capital, to meet with our State hospital associations as well, one of the first issues that always comes up in our discussion is the issue of the availability and quality of nurses in the State of New Jersey, I should say the availability of quality nurses in the State of New Jersey. Every nurse that we have is a quality nurse. We just need more of them in the State.

To that end, on a positive note I should add, we have initiated for some facilities in our State where we are providing more nurse training than we ever had before. One of the things, I will just say from a parochial interest, is once we do have that training for the nurses, we are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that they stay after being trained in the State of New Jersey, but we will, of course, if need be, maybe allow them to go out to some other States as well down South, where I believe they probably have a need as well.

But this is a bill from a national perspective. I know the gentleman can speak to this more eloquently than I. This is not simply an issue up in the Northeast, and this is not an issue down South as well. I am sure that I can speak to any Member of this body from any portion of this country, and they will tell me similar stories that I am recounting here right now, that we have a lack of quality, skilled nurses in this country.

Maybe there are other underlying reasons for this. One that comes to mind, of course, is the rate of compensation for nurses. When you talk to nurses, when you consider the number of hours they put in as far as the training they have to go through initially, and then the net length of the time they have to get the other skills necessary to become a nurse, and then the amount of pay that they get, it is certainly not commensurate to what they provide to this community and to this country. On top of that, of course, is the long hours that they must struggle with in their jobs, and the conditions that they have to work with and under in certain circumstances as well.

So I take my hat off to the nursing establishment, the nurses, the young people, men and women that decide to go into this career. If there is anything we can do as a national body to facilitate that and encourage and foster this, I will support it.

So I commend the gentleman for coming up with the idea to make an amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriation bill to double funding for nurse education and retention, as they said, from the $37.2 million that's currently in the bill.

I commend his work. If I can work with him on this initiative or other initiatives in the future to address the issue of nurse retention, I am more than happy to do so.

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

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, the amendment that I'm offering tonight is a very simple, straightforward one. As was just read, it would remove $10 million from a program that was in fact zeroed out in the Bush administration's budget request, and then use those dollars, that money to increase the level of funding currently appropriated to the National

Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

Madam Chairman, some time ago President Nixon unofficially declared a war on cancer in his State of the Union Address back in 1971. Since then much progress has been made in the area of cancer research, thankfully. And over the last 3\1/2\ decades, science and research has continued to break down barriers in the fight against this dreadful disease.

Today, cancer is no longer the mystery disease that it once was, and researchers know infinitely more now today about the prevention, the detection and the treatment of the disease than ever before in history.

The results from all of this research is now beginning to bear fruit on people's lives every day. Fewer people are dying from cancer in 2004 than they were in 2003, according to the studies. An American public is witnessing declining rates for most major cases, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer as well.

So, Madam Chairman, I think that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has done a good job for increasing the budget of the National Cancer Institute this year in the bill, and Republicans supported a doubling of the budget at the National Institutes of Health in past sessions. I supported that. But I think we can do just a little bit more.

The account that this amendment would take from is the Alaska Native Education Equity program. That is a program, like we hear so often on this floor, that is basically a redundant program that the President has eliminated in his budget request. According to the administration, the Alaska Native students already receive benefits from the department in Indian education programs, which provide more than $118 million in formula grants to school districts and competitive grants for demonstration and professional development programs.

Now, Madam Chairman, when we consider how the Federal Government is prioritizing its spending, which really is what it is all about when we come to the floor on each and every one of these amendments, I submit that funding cancer research is more important than spending additional redundant money on a redundant Federal program.

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

Point of Order

I would like to be heard on the objection.

The objection, if I understand it correctly, is that the assertion is that this increases the total of number of outlays for the bill. That would be the case if we are simply asking for an increase of $10 million for the Cancer Research Institute, but that is not what we are asking to be done. We are simply asking that $10 million in one line, Page 41, line 7, be increased by the $10 million but another line, page 80 line 2, after the first dollar amount insert, ``would be reduced by $10 million.'' So in point of fact, this amendment does not increase the total net dollar output of the underlying bill. It is a balanced amount. No increase, no decrease.

Madam Speaker, it's been almost one year now and many have forgotten about the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah: Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, and Gilal Shalit. But today thousands who will not forget this injustice rallied in front of the United Nations calling for these three captives to be returned to their families and for the Security Council Resolutions to be honored by all parties--not just Israel.

Hezbollah seems to have forgotten that last year's hostilities ended only after there were promises regarding the return of the Israeli men. This just goes to reinforce the fact that terrorist organizations cannot be negotiated with.

Though Security Council Resolution 1701 called for Hezbollah to disarm and return the soldiers, they remain in Lebanon and not even international organizations such as the Red Cross have been able to see them and be assured of their fair treatment. Israel has demonstrated its commitment to the Resolution by ceasing hostilities and pulling back its soldiers, but yet again they are dealing with opponents who show disrespect to all and whose word cannot be trusted.

We stand together with Israel to call again for the unconditional release of these three men. We pray for their safe return and for peace between Israel and its neighbors. They will not be forgotten by their families, by their nation, or by the American people and this Congress.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of House Resolution 375, which honors the United Parcel Service, UPS, and its 100 years of commitment and leadership in the United States. Of the 425,000 jobs that UPS provides to hard-working people across the globe, 16,000 of them are in my home State of New Jersey. Included in that number are the employees that work at the Ramapo Ridge Data Center in Mahwah, NJ, in my District, one of two data centers supporting UPS worldwide computer operations.

UPS has made it a priority to integrate itself into the local community and has been a magnet for jobs in a variety of positions; from the high-tech workers at the Mahwah Data Center to the uniformed delivery people we meet on a daily basis in offices across the country. UPS continues to actively recruit from the local colleges and universities in my district, with internship and co-op opportunities for students who are studying Computer Science, Information Systems, Industrial Engineering, and Mathematics.

UPS has also been recognized for its commitment to diversity. Twenty- nine percent of UPS's IT population is female, far higher than the IT population as a whole. In 2006, UPS was recognized as one of America's most supportive companies of both black and Hispanic engineering students by two independent surveys. Truly this is a company that has made a commitment to reach out to populations traditionally underrepresented in high-tech fields, and has continued to excel while doing so.

With more and more American jobs being created in the services industry, it is companies such as UPS that serve as a great example of how U.S. businesses are adapting to our changing economy. When the American Messenger Company acquired its first delivery car, a Ford Model T, in 1913, perhaps the founders could have envisioned the nearly 100,000 cars, vans, trucks, and motorcycles that today comprise the delivery fleet of UPS. But surely they could not have envisioned the 14.5 million page views that www.ups.com averages per day or the nearly 5,500 technology employees currently employed by UPS. As companies continue to adapt to the changing global economy, it is entirely appropriate that this House of Representatives recognize one such company that has not only adapted, but also stayed ahead of the curve for 100 years, while at the same time staying true to its original mission of delivering parcels from one to another.

Madam Speaker, today, the House recognizes the historic achievement of a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. After decades of violence, Protestants and Catholics have come together to form a government that fairly represents both sides.

With Ian Paisley as first minister and Martin McGuiness as deputy first minister, this government will be one which both sides can respect and entrust to work toward peaceful resolution of differences.

The joint government and a police force that is admired by both sides will bring an end to the years of ``troubles.'' Nearly 10 years ago when the Good Friday accord was signed it was still doubtful whether the two sides could come to a lasting agreement. Though there were setbacks along the way, the parties were committed to peace and at each opportunity for failure thy chose to lay aside their weapons and negotiate.

The people of Northern Ireland will have a bright future if they maintain the present course. Surely, there will be disagreements but there is now a legislative process to work out such differences.

The peace process in Northern Ireland is now a shining example of how peoples in conflict can put aside long-standing grievances and learn to live in peace. Today, we properly honor and offer our support to those who are working to establish a peaceful and unified government.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a true hero upon his retirement from a long history of public service to his community and his country. On June 1st, Lt. David M. Mauro retired after 26 years of credited service with the Morris County, New Jersey Sheriff's Office. Though the Sheriff's Office will be losing a respected public servant and true expert in gang intelligence and crime prevention, I have little doubt that Lt. David Mauro will continue to be an active member of his community.

Lieutenant Mauro served his country with the U.S. Army Airborne for 6 years before joining the Sheriff's Office in 1984. During his law enforcement career, he served for 12 years as a diver and instructor with the Morris County Underwater Search and Recovery Task Force. Additionally, he served as chief firearms instructor for the Bureau of Corrections, emergency management coordinator, and aerosol instructor.

His true expertise, however, is with gang investigations, and it is there that Lt. Mauro leaves the most indelible mark on Morris County. In 2000, Lt. Mauro founded the Morris County Gang Intelligence Unit and he served as the Unit Commander until 2005. While with this unit, Lt. Mauro was directly responsible for training more than 10,000 people on the subject of gangs and for the validation of 250 gang members within the County and the identification of 15 gangs operating there. Under his command, the Gang Intelligence Unit was nominated for and received a number of commendations, including the Sheriff's/Chief Award in 2001 and a Unit Citation in 2002.

Lt. Mauro was the first member of the Morris County Sheriff's Office to be assigned to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to serve with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Gang Investigations Unit. He is also a member of the New Jersey Gang Investigator's Association, East Coast Gang Investigator's Association, National Major Gang Task Force, International Latino Gang Investigator's Association, and the Morris County Latino Peace Officer's Association. He regularly shares his experience by making presentations throughout the community to law enforcement and civic groups about gangs. In fact, he is the founder and Chief Instructor of G.I.U. Associates, a consulting and educational company dedicated to providing gang training to government, corporate, and civic groups.

I commend Lieutenant Mauro for his extraordinary commitment to the people of Morris County and the surrounding community.

Madam Speaker, I rise in honor of the public service of Robert Walker, who has spent the past 40 years in proud service to countless New Jersey students as a classroom teacher and school administrator.

A Wisconsin native known for his commitment to his family and his famed Harley Davidson motorcycle, Robert Walker leaves behind him a real sense of respect from the faculty and students with which he has worked. The more than 1,200 students who attend Kittatinny Regional have achieved an excellent reputation for being well-behaved, appropriately dressed, and safety conscious. They exude Robert Walker's sense of pride in their school community.

Furthermore, Robert Walker's message to students and faculty alike is ``service above self,'' and it shows. Kittatinny students have traveled as far as South Carolina to work with Habitat for Humanity. They've raised money for school improvements. And, following the attacks on September 11, 2001, they bonded together to donate supplies needed by the rescue workers at ground zero, delivered personally by Robert Walker and other faculty.

When Robert Walker graduated from high school, he became a draftsman for Union Carbide in Newark. At the urging of a boss, he sought and achieved his college degree and took his first teaching job as a mechanical drawing teacher at Johnson Regional High School in Clark, New Jersey in 1967. The next year, he taught at Sussex County Vocational School, later serving as its assistant principal. In 1975, he moved to Kittatinny Regional High School, where he has been ever since, serving as superintendent for 23 of those years.

Having followed a somewhat non-traditional path to teaching himself, Robert Walker is a strong advocate for alternate-route teachers and has hired individuals from a wide variety of industries--from space engineers to reporters--to teach at his school. In fact, about a quarter of the school faculty are alternate-path teachers.

On July 1, Robert Walker retired from his lifetime of public service as an educator, but I am certain that in the years ahead he will continue to teach and lead all those around him, even if only by his good example. I commend him for his service to his community.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to strongly support this amendment by the gentlemen from Indiana and from Texas.

Fair and balanced media, truly a laudable goal. But, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, we achieve that result when we do, in fact, let the public decide. They report; you do decide. That is more than just a catch phrase. That is what this American public is about.

You see, it is the market, and when I say the ``market,'' I mean the American people, for they are the best arbiters of what a free press is and to obtain it and they are the best mechanism to achieve it in this Nation. It is not the unelected bureaucrats of a central government that we must look to. We must look to the American public.

So I rise to strongly support this amendment, this amendment that will guarantee us a free press.