Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

This is an issue, I think, that moves some of us to come to the floor to talk about it, because it sends us down a path that is awfully hard to get back from.

One of the questions that we need to answer here before this Congress is, what is a hate crime? And that question seems real simple, but the answer to that question is almost always, any crime committed against any individual, especially a violent crime, which requires a certain amount of hatred or jealously, a certain kind of emotional attachment or emotional reaction from the perpetrator towards the victim. I do not know how you could assault or murder or rape someone without having anger or hatred or fury in you.

So I will say that any of these crimes here that we are talking about with regard to this are all hate crimes.

The question is, what is not a hate crime? I do not have much of an answer to that, unless it be a crime against property rather than people, but I do not believe you can commit a crime against people and not feel an emotional effect one way or another on their personality.

So we have two significant cases here that were mentioned by the gentlewoman, the Minority Leader, the James Byrd case and the Matthew Shepard case. In both of those cases, there were murders committed in a most violent, hateful fashion. Also, there have been many other murders committed in this country in a violent, hateful fashion, but the perpetrators of those crimes, the murderers of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard, were quickly apprehended, prosecuted and sentenced to death. What more would we choose to do to people who have committed hate crimes than sentence them to the ultimate penalty, which I believe they deserve most vigorously?

Another misconception that I believe is here is that the list of those categories that would be used to define hate crimes, that list is: actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation of any person. That list sounds suspiciously like title VII of the Civil Rights Act, except it has been amended in a couple of places. In one place, it has replaced the word ``sex'' with the word ``gender.'' Gender is what you think you are; sex is what you physiologically are. So only the person who is the bearer of gender can know what their gender is, and anything else that can be an independently verified, immutable characteristic is what sex is. Sexual orientation is another thing. That is self- identifying.

So we would put people in jail or potentially execute them for crimes committed when they may not even know the circumstances. Those two words are not legally sustainable, and they send us down a very dangerous path.

There is a question of federalism. The States are to be reserved everything that is not specifically designed in the Constitution, and yet we are reaching into the States' province here and stepping across them and saying, but we know better here in Congress, better than you know in Wyoming, better than you know in Texas, better than you know in Iowa. I believe it is better off left up to the States. But I would oppose hate crimes in the States because they are discriminatory in their nature. They discriminate in favor of certain groups and against other groups, and sometimes, they backlash.

If we look statistically, and I have seen some of those in my internet blog searches, about how the hate crimes have backlashed, and there are more Caucasians now, American whites, that are using hate crimes against minorities. Where you have a prosecutor who is willing to go down that path, you are going to see this happen. There will also be the backlash on the prosecutor. When that prosecutor chooses to prosecute a crime and call it a hate crime, some of the people in the public will say, no, that is racist, that is bigoted for one reason or another. Or, if he chooses not to, there is going to be the challenge that he decided not to for discriminatory reasons. It opens up a whole other world here.

I would just boil it down to this, that we are all equal under the law. This Nation is a nation of equal rights for individuals. When God created us, he did not draw a distinction between us, and neither should we in our Federal law.

Mr. Speaker, in the 1 minute that I have, I would like to seek to illustrate what goes wrong if hate crimes legislation is implemented into law.

One example would be just a little over a week ago I used the phrase ``cultural continuity'' on the floor of this Congress. Within hours, there was a press release out declaring I was a racist. Now cultural continuity does not define anything other than this great unity of America, but the Members on the other side leaped to that conclusion, and I would ask the body would people who simultaneously pass public judgment be the same kind of people who would decide a case of hate crimes as jurors. If that is the case, I submit that prejudice is so great there cannot be an objective decision made.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.

A couple of subject matters do pop to mind on that. One of them is the politics of this and people say, what are the prospects of getting this passed? Far greater than they were even 2 or 3 months ago. But the politics of it back in a district where you have to raise the subject matter, you have to educate the public, you have to be willing to stand up for what you believe in and face down the criticism. Some of them not solid criticism; some of it simply politically motivated.

I ran against a certified public accountant two years ago who should have had a maximum amount of credibility on finances and economics, and he came out in favor of the IRS. I came out in favor of eliminating the

On the same analysis. When those numbers were added up at the cost of the IRS, the cost of funding the IRS, the cost of enforcing IRS tax law, the cost of paying the people to prepare the taxes, paying the people to collect the data that you hand to your tax person, paying yourself $10 an hour to sit up all night on April 14, which hopefully we will not have very many of those nights again, but added to that disincentive when people decide that I am not going to punch that time clock for any more overtime or pick up that phone for that extra sales call or extend that production line in my plant or my factory because the tax burden is too high, it is not worth the risk, it is not worth the work.

You add all those up and that number in Daniel Pilla's book was $700 billion a year, with a B.

Now, $30 billion in Bill Clinton's economic incentive plan of borrowed money, $700 billion, same year published, Daniel Pilla's book, when you add in of those disincentives. That does not include what happens to our economy when we take these several hundreds thousand people that are working in the regulatory sector of this economy for the IRS, enforcing the IRS, filling out paperwork and tax forms for the IRS, those are all bright people that are very productive people but they are working in the nonproductive sector of the economy. We take them out, put them into the productive sector of the economy, we add that to that $700 billion and then we adjust it to for inflation for the last 12 years, you are over a trillion dollars a year is the size of the anchor that the IRS, which is the anchor, and our economy is dragging that trillion dollar anchor across the bottom, and think how it sails free if we just cut the chain on that anchor, get rid of that almost 10 percent of our $11.4 trillion gross domestic product.

But it is not just an anchor. We are dragging it but when we cut the chain, we get to put that trillion dollars in the productive sector of economy. And it adds to this economy and no one can calculate what that does.

We all believe this economy doubles in 10 to 15 years, but I do not think we have calculated when those nonproductive people go to work in the productive sector of the economy. So that is the piece that really moves me, when we have that kind of waste in government, to be able to release that waste. Get rid of it. Cut the chain on the anchor and put that trillion dollars' worth of capital in the productive sector of the economy, and those people that are not producing today, that are regulators into the productive sector of the economy.

And then on top of that, there are those folks out there that are not participating in helping to fund this government. And I am talking about the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the pornographers, the tourists.

Black market labor. Add those things up; I do not know the numbers on some of those.

I would be glad to know that.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I will just say that this tax policy, H.R. 25, the fair tax is about freedom. There is so much freedom that we do not realize we have lost over the last 91 or 92 years that we have had this Tax Code because we get used to the IRS coming into our homes and into our offices, auditing us. I was shut down once for 4 days while the IRS was going through all my paperwork, and the frustration of having them dig through my paperwork, pass Monday morning quarterback decisions upon the ethical decisions that I made day by day by day, and to know that my business decisions were contingent upon the tax implications, I had kind of gotten immune to that a little bit. You get conditioned to it, and you forget that your mind can be freed of that, and it can be focused on productivity, how do you build a product or provide a service for the most competitive price and the highest quality to turn the best profit that you can. That is why you go to work every day. It has turned us into a Nation of tax preparers and tax avoiders.

So about a year and a half ago, my 28 years in the construction business, I got myself in a position here in this Congress where it behooved me to sell that business, and the most likely person was my oldest son. We did get that transaction done, but it took a long time and it was very complicated. The tax implications were so great that I almost lined everything up and just sold it, paid the taxes, washed my hands because it was too hard to avoid all of the liabilities that accrued with capital gains and the other taxes that came along.

To think, to eliminate inheritance tax, interest income, pension income, capital gains, of course income personal and corporate, add all of that up. Think about what happens when you have a whole different structure here and you cease to punish productivity and you let people amass all the capital they choose to amass. And on the good side of this, this capital that you talked about, the cheaper industry, the more available capital, the $6 trillion coming back from overseas, the new capital that will be attracted ends up here in the best place it can in our economy because that capital will go for research and development, higher education, technological investments, capital investments. All of these things improve the productivity of the most productive workers of the world.

While we are doing that, we are able to take out an average 22 percent or maybe more out of the cost of everything we sell in this country and abroad, and so our balance of trade today, which is about a minus $503 billion with a B, goes to a plus number. That plus number helps us a lot because every year foreign investors are owning another half a trillion dollars' worth of U.S. assets at the rate we are going with this negative balance of trade. It fixes the balance of trade.

As soon as somebody south of the border or in China or Africa or wherever can get the capital together to buy a punch press or a lathe or a brake, then they train their workers to run that; and we will never get that job back again. But if we can discount the product we are selling an average of 22 percent, that is the same as the neon sign that says gas $1.80 out here on the street here today. We get to sell ours for $1.40. We are going to come here to our shores till we cannot produce at that price anymore. That means we hang on to the low-skilled jobs here in this country. Some of them come back to this country, but certainly we keep many of them far longer because we are more competitive; and while we are doing that, we are enhancing the high- tech jobs, the higher paid jobs where the future of America is.

We always have to be the fastest people on the economic treadmill, the ones at the head of the curve. This tax plan puts the capital in place, the incentives in place so that we can do that for a long, long time to come.

Yes. By the way, I remember the first time we met and that I approached and introduced myself. I asked a question of the gentleman and that was, what does it do to psychology, to the politics of America if every time Johnny or Sally, when they go to buy their baseball cards or their Barbie doll clothes, they would have to reach in their pocket, pull out a couple of dimes for Uncle Sam and put them up on the counter? After that happens millions and millions and millions of times across this country, for a generation or so, my belief is that this that new generation of Americans steps up and accepts personal responsibility, makes fewer demands on government, which means then it slows the growth of government and makes us all more responsible but also more free.

Now, a more free Nation of the United States of America, one with this capital that is amassed that is being invested in higher ed and in technology and in research and development makes this robust economy here in the United States so strong, so robust that, for example, the European Union is a good example. Their tax rates run up to 70 percent in some of those countries. Ireland leveled it down, and there are 560 companies right now domiciled in Ireland because they lowered their corporate taxes. But the continent of Europe would have to adopt some form of our tax policy to even hope to compete with us in the world market, or their capital will escape that continent and come here where the jobs will come and the productivity will come and our industrial base will come back again, as well as our technological base.

So when that happens, if the tax policy in this country promotes a more personal responsibility, less demands on government, moves us away from this socialist trend that we are moving towards, that will happen in this country. It will also happen wherever our tax policy is put into place, implemented; and that means when Europe begins to some place down the road adopt a fair tax in the same way, they will also see more freedom, more personal responsibility, less demand on government. That means the entire planet eventually becomes more free because we take the lead here in this country.

I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, for yielding to me once again, because there are a couple of things I would like to say too at the end of this discussion.

When we talk about how many people are not paying taxes today, everybody is paying taxes in the embedded cost of everything they buy, and they do not realize that. But about 44 percent of the public does not pay income tax in an income tax form. Forty-four percent. When they get to the point where they are at 51 percent, they can simply come to the government and make demands on the government to extract the rest of the sweat from the brow of the people who are making a living and earning.

So we are very close to that tipping point where we could lose the center of this country. If it ever tipped over from 44 percent to 51, then I think you would see the real slide towards the socialistic state. We have been stalling it off here, but it has been incrementally going in that direction. So I think it is important that everybody buy in. And going to the fair tax does that. Everybody consumes. Everybody buys into that policy.

For me, I started working on this in 1980. I was audited for 1979 and it was in 1980 that they did so, and it was the second time. Too close together. And with the frustration of that, I started with the principle of let us eliminate the IRS. Now, what do we do to replace the revenue?

I would sit at work every day and think my way through this. And it did not take long for me to reject the other proposals on how we might be able to replace the revenue. This is the only way to eliminate the IRS and replace the revenue, and it is revenue neutral.

I kept turning this Rubik's cube around over and over again. What are the unintended consequences? What happens to black market? What happens if people reduce their consumption? And every time I turned that cube around and looked at it another

way, there was an answer to it. The answer is actually better than you anticipate in the beginning, and the picture got better and better and better.

I do not think it is an overstatement to say that if you have a tax policy that can solve problems, this tax policy solves virtually every one that a tax policy can solve.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor of the United States House of Representatives and have the opportunity to speak my peace to the American people.

I think as I have listened to this discussion over the last 2 or 3 hours here, and particularly over the last 40 minutes or so, I would start backwards and work my way through there.

The question was posed just before the gentleman from Florida yielded the floor, who does not support the troops? I recall a resolution on the floor of this Congress within a week or two of the time the liberation troops entered Iraq. The resolution was to honor our troops. It included, of course, honoring our commander-in-chief.

There was a long, contentious debate on the floor of this House that lasted until 2:15 in the morning, and Member after Member went down to the well and spoke, and spoke against honoring our President because he was in the resolution to honor the troops. This went on until 2:15 in the morning.

Some of them said, ``Bring them home, Mr. President. This is a failed mission.'' We were only 2 weeks into this operation. By the way, this operation is likely and it certainly will go down in history among the most successful military operations in all of history.

Our troops entered Iraq and crossed the desert with armor faster than any column had ever done so before; they invaded and occupied the largest city ever in the history of the world to be invaded and occupied, invaded and liberated subsequently. That all happened in about 22 days. The population of Baghdad is twice as large as now the second largest city ever to be invaded, which was Berlin. It was a tremendous, magnificent military performance. And that mission to liberate Iraq was accomplished, and it was celebrated. And, by the way, it was not at the President's request that that banner was hung on the Abraham Lincoln, that was the people on the Abraham Lincoln that made that selection.

Who does not support the troops? The people that voted against the resolution, 14 of them, and many others who spoke against it. Some of those people that said ``bring them home, Mr. President,'' that went out and did press conferences and talked about it and declared it to be a quagmire, another Vietnam, a failed mission, ran down the efforts of our United States military, some of those same people that spoke against the resolution honoring our troops and supporting our troops, those people spoke against the mission.

They went down and stood in front of the television cameras when we honored our troops in Statuary Hall here in the United States Capitol building, and they stood there holding an American flag right in front of the podium and cameras demonstrating their patriotism after they voted against the resolution honoring our troops.

I think if you pray for the troops, you also pray for our Commander- in-Chief. If you honor our troops, you also honor our Commander-in- Chief. We are all in this together, from the Commander-in-Chief down to every soldier and the people that support them and their families and neighbors and friends and employers and the people that pray for them to come back home, those that keep their jobs open. Those are the support group and the support team. That is how you honor our troops.

You go over there and visit them. If you do that and look those soldiers in the eye and talk to them and if you listen, you will find out that they will not accept the idea that you can support the troops and oppose the war, or you can honor the troops and oppose the mission.

As a Marine major told me on one of my trips to Iraq, he said a soldier is trained to do that which is unnatural, and that is to kill. You send them in on a mission to do that, to kill or be killed. You cannot tell them that their cause is unjust. They must believe that they are fighting for a just cause. When their lives are on the line and when it is kill or be killed, it has got to be for a just cause.

The debate in this country can go on and rage, but when our troops go into harm's way, we need to come together. When we have a presidential election in a Nation at war, those disagreements need to stop at the water's edge.

I believe this is the first time in history we have had this kind of contentious presidential election that carried this argument overseas and where the debate and the discourse has encouraged our enemies.

I made these statements months ago, and they are true again today. When the people who are viewed as quasi foreign policy leaders, those voices from the other body, those voices from this body that speak out publicly and claim that it is a failed mission, it cannot be won, those people are undermining our mission.

So, when there is an insurgent sitting in their concrete hut over in Baghdad or Fallujah or wherever it might be, and they are building improvised explosive devices or planning their next attack on coalition forces, and they are watching their new satellite dish TV, of which at least two-thirds of the people over there now have access to satellite TV; it was illegal just a year-and-a-half ago, now I counted them from the air, two-thirds of them at least in the city of Mosul, last fall. When they are watching their satellite TV and they are making bombs to blow up coalition forces, and most time American forces, and they see the face of the presidential candidate declaring it to be a failed mission, declaring that he wants to bring the troops home, and when that is going on and they see the Arabic subtitle and they hear the English voice of that person whom they view to be quasi foreign policy, and in fact they are, you tell me, America, do they build more bombs or less? Are they encouraged by that discussion? Does it give them hope? Is it the same impact on the people fighting us that it was with the antiwar protesters in the Vietnam era that finally

talked us out of a war that we never lost a single tactical engagement in? And, by the way, we have won every single tactical engagement in Iraq from the platoon level on up, and it is very likely to say that way. We are at no tactical risk.

The casualties, every one, even one is too many. By the same token, there is a comparison that can be made to a number of other important military operations.

But the part that is forgotten is the one that nobody talks about, and it is forgotten the most, and that was, what was the price to be ready? Do we ever lose soldiers in training maneuvers, military operations, on-base accidents, training accidents, other kinds of incidents where it costs lives? And that answer is yes. Yes, we do. And I began to wonder about this when I heard the noise here on the Floor for the first casualties, sad as it is, and they are in my prayers too, and their families are in my prayers, as is the commander in chief, I began to look at this from a different perspective, and I asked myself, what is the price to be ready? How many lost their lives in those training accidents, on-duty accidents, on-duty fatalities, because we have to have a military that is ready to go at a moment's notice, that has to be highly trained, needs to be highly skilled, needs to have the best equipment available, nothing too good for them; when you have men and women and machines and logistics and all of that is moving around, things happen. People get hurt and they get killed, just like people get killed in car accidents for the same reasons.

So I had them put together some numbers for me and the question was, how many then died in the line of duty, nonhostile, from the period of time of the end of Desert Storm to the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And that number came back to be an average of 505 per year, 505 per year.

Now, we have been in Iraq about a year-and-a-half, and in that period of time, we have lost a little more than 1,000 soldiers. But in peacetime, on the average, for the previous decade, in that period of time, we would have lost statistically about 750 just as a price to be ready. Planes crash, choppers crash, Humvees roll over, people get run over and crushed, those kinds of things just happen and cannot be avoided, Mr. Speaker. We reduce it as much as we can, but it cannot be avoided entirely. So that price to be ready is about 505 a year. About 5,000 Americans gave their lives so that our military will be ready to step up and defend the United States, defend freedom, and defend liberty.

If these casualties, now that do run about 5 killed a week, and it is a pretty steady number, and the steadiness of it does disturb me, because it is not the only indicator, but that as an indicator does not show the trend that I am hoping for. But regardless, 5 a week killed in Iraq, and the point was made yesterday that 248 were murdered here in Washington, D.C. in the last year alone. This is a population of about 500,000 in this region, Iraq is a population of about 27 million. So if you do the math and you divide the 500,000 into the 27 million and you multiply it times 248, that same proportion would be about 12,500 Iraqis, or 12,500 killed in Iraq in a year. So in a year-and-a-half, it is about 18,000, and we are looking at, of American soldiers, about 1,000.

So for wartime, as tragic as it is, these are not a great number of casualties. This is a very noble endeavor, to provide an opportunity for freedom for the Iraqi people. And we heard Prime Minister Alawi speak today on this very floor of this Congress. I took some notes on some of what he had to say and his notes would have rebutted the previous speakers here on the Floor. I think it is important to repeat those to the American people.

He said, we intend to shoulder all of the security for our country eventually. Mr. Speaker, 250,000 security will be in uniform and trained and up and ready to go in operation by the end of the year of 2005, should be by the end of next year. Elections will occur on time in Iraq. That is a bold statement. They will stand by it. He said, we will prove them wrong again. They said we could not establish a civilian government, they said we could not write a Constitution. He named a list of milestones that had been declared not possible to meet, but he said we met them all and we will prove them wrong again. He said, there could be no greater blow to the terrorists than elections, and elections will take place.

He said, Iraq has many partners, over 30 nations in Iraq helping militarily, logistically, economically. But he said, I understand why faced with the headlines you are seeing over here why you might have some doubt. The United States news media is discouraging 282 million people while 27 million people struggle for freedom and liberty.

His strongest message was, thank you, America. Thank you, America. I got that message from the Iraqi people when I was there. He said, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are grateful for our liberation. He used the term ``liberation'' several times in his speech. The Iraqi people have been liberated by American soldiers. And he pointed out that at least 300,000 are in mass graves because of Saddam. Millions have gone into exile. He did not mention how many Iraqis are alive today because of the intervention of the coalition forces. But if you take that 300,000, and some of those numbers go to 400,000 or even 500,000, and you divide it by the period of time that Saddam had to kill his own people, because that is certainly what put them in the mass grave, you get a number somewhere between 182 a day and 300 people a day that were being killed by Saddam's regime.

So if you take the 182 a day and multiply it times the days the liberation troops have been in Iraq and stopped that wanton murder by Saddam Hussein, that means about 88,000 people are alive in Iraq today that would not be alive if Saddam had remained in power, and maybe that number runs to 60,000 or 70,000 or 80,000 people even that could be alive today in Iraq because of this noble venture on the part of the United States and the coalition forces.

He also said, we are determined to honor your sacrifice by putting in place a democracy. Determined to honor your sacrifice. And he also at the end of his speech pledged to stand with the United States because we have stood with them in many, many different areas.

Mr. Speaker, I did not come to the Floor to talk about this tonight, but as I sat on the Floor and listened to the rhetoric that flowed out here prior to my time before this microphone, I felt compelled to address the subject matter because it is important that we do speak the truth, as the gentleman from Florida said.

There was another statement made that those casualties in Iraq disproportionately represented minorities and low-income groups. That statement has been a statement that we have heard since the Vietnam war. No statistics uphold that statement. They have not in my lifetime. It has been essentially proportional to the minorities in the population, those casualties. So our troops have been representative of the American people, and this is a volunteer armed forces. So when people volunteer, they do put their lives on the line for their patriotism, and when things happen, they happen in proportion to their membership within the military.

So I am proud of these soldiers. I look them in the eye. And over and over again they said to me, why do we have to fight the United States news media too. We will fight for you over here in Iraq while you go back to the States and fight for us. That message was a consistent message that came.

But really, Mr. Speaker, I came to the Floor here to speak about another subject matter, a subject matter that is maybe deeper and broader than the one in Iraq. This issue came up last week as we had a debate on the Floor about the matricula consular card.

The issue was, will the United States Federal bank honor matricula consular cards. Now, for the benefit of those who do not have that term in their vernacular, a matricula consular card is a card that is issued by the Mexican consul to an expatriate citizen of Mexico, I assume someone who is not likely to have paperwork to be legally here in the United States. It is a card they claim requires a birth certificate in order to get the card, but we had people picked up that had 30 different cards in their possession.

The people who believe that we should honor those cards in our national banks are the ones that opened

the subject and said that, just by the virtue of carrying a matricula consular card, it was likely you were an illegal alien because you would have no reason for a card like that. If you were legal, you would have a green card or other documents that would demonstrate the legalities of your presence here or the ability for you to work in this country.

So the matricula consular cards go often to illegal immigrants. There are at least a million of them out there. They are not verifiable or reliable.

The other side will argue that there are any number of banks that honor them, any number of States that honor them. And I will say yes, and that is the problem. But there are not many banks in Mexico that honor them. It is not a very reliable document south of the border, and we should not be making it a legitimate document here on this side of the border, because the matricula consular card being in one's possession gives one a false identity that can be used in some States to get a driver's license. That may be all you need then to open up credit, to register to vote. Yes, I know you are supposed to say you are a citizen. Nobody verifies that. And so this matricula consular card becomes the entry into the mainstream of the United States for illegals.

So I raise the issue that those who were defending the utilization of the matricula consular card and certifying it to be recognized by the national banks, there are two different arguments here. On one side, over on this side of the aisle to my left, Mr. Speaker, were the people who believe in an open border under almost all circumstances. The people that say, let us bring that flow in. Let us take that 8 million, 10 million, 11 million, 14 million. Let them flow in here. Let them vote and give them all of the benefits we can, give them fast track to citizenship.

They have a motive for that. And the motive is, and it is clear, they believe that a significant majority of those who come into their country will vote for the liberals, and I believe they are right. I think maybe they are right on two out of three, as the statistics that I see. So their motivation is political power. On the other side of the aisle, we had people that argued that it was all right that we ought to honor the matricula consular card and we should do that because, that way, we would be able to keep track of these people that are here.

I could not ever quite follow that. You would let somebody have an unreliable document, call it identification, let them use it to access the financial world and maybe the drivers license world and flow through the society here. I do not know how that helps us identify them. And I do not know what they would propose we could do if we could identify them because they are the people that are heading up the multinational corporations, the people who want a steady supply of cheap labor, the people who figured out they can transfer capital around the world with a click of the mouse and are frustrated they cannot transfer cheap labor around the world with a click of the mouse.

I am in favor of immigration. I am in favor of a logical immigration policy. I am in favor of one that is designed to enhance the economic, cultural, society well-being of the United States of America. It is simple. Every nation's immigration policy should be a selfish policy that looks out and says, we can use certain people in this economy, certain people with certain skills, certain people that maybe even come with capital, language skills, technological skills, maybe doctors, probably not lawyers, but people who have skills that can enhance this economy. We can use all kind of people in this economy.

But we do not have an immigration policy that reflects any selfish interest in the United States, not even a logical humanitarian interest in the United States. We have an immigration policy that is fraught with selfish interests of political gain, economic gain. And the point that I made was there is a vast majority of us in the middle here between the liberal left open-border, fast track to citizenship, and over here, another libertarian open border, cheap labor right, this vast majority of us believe in something I call cultural continuity and the rule of law.

Cultural continuity is the issue that brings me to the floor here tonight, Mr. Speaker, because an issue was raised that night, the following day and all throughout the weekend up until just the day before yesterday. The press has been pounding on my door, wanting me to explain cultural continuity. They have already defined it. It was defined by a caucus on the other side of the aisle, and they held their press conference, put out their press releases. And a couple of those sent the press over with their television cameras to ask me some questions. They had declared it to be a racist statement and that the use of the term cultural continuity took them back to 1932 and Nuremberg.

Those are some pretty heavy charges to level against anyone on the assumption that you understand what it was that I said. And I will say this, anybody who believes that the use of the term ``cultural continuity'' is racist or anyone who believes that it brings back memories of I will say historical memory because none of them are old enough to remember Nuremberg in 1932, if that reflects back to them, they need someone to help interpret this English language for them, someone to interpret this American culture for them.

But the problem is not that there is anything wrong with cultural continuity. It is our understanding of who we are as a people. Well, so the answer to everything is all on a Google search. So I went back and typed in ``cultural continuity.'' Where are they getting their interpretation for the English language? Where are they getting their interpretation for the culture that is here? So, Mr. Speaker, I found this.

``Destroying Cultural Continuity, The Leftist War on Social Cohesion.'' Well, I began to read through this document, just the headline pretty well filled me in, and I began to understand the motive. There was another time in my life or two when I inadvertently made a statement that was sound, and it was logical, and it was ridiculed because it had thrown a dart into the heart of the argument on the other side of the aisle.

I believe in cultural continuity. I believe that there exists a greater American culture, a greater American experience. I believe it is all based and founded in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution. I believe, like the President does, and I believe like our founding fathers did, that our rights come from God, and they are identified and ratified by the Declaration of Independence, put into our Constitution, and they flow to us. And I believe that the Bible was written with divine inspiration. And I believe that the Declaration of Independence was written with divine guidance, as was our Constitution, including our Bill of Rights. And I believe these rights that come from God are established in this Constitution as a sacred covenant with Him, a gift from Him through our Founding Fathers.

It is our obligation to stand and defend the Constitution, defend the concept and the Declaration of Independence and recognize that this greater American culture, this cultural continuity that we have, this great American civilization that we have is a civilization that flows from those foundational documents, but the spirit that established them needs to remain. So America is a greater culture.

As I first went into the Iowa Senate, I was reading through the Iowa law, and I came through the section on education. Now, this is about the time that I began to give up on the idea that diversity and multiculturalism were going to be the answer to anything unless you were trying to establish division and chaos in a country. I did believe when multiculturalism flowed out into our discussion, that it was a good thing, that it gave us an opportunity to identify and honor different people from different civilizations and allow us to respect the differences between us but still be able to bind ourselves together in this giant melting pot.

Over time, I began to see it differently, that diversity's root word is divide. That is what it has been doing is dividing us. Multiculturalism has been, rather than celebrating the good things about individual cultures, it has been driving wedges between us all. Multiculturalism and diversity deny the existence of a greater American culture. It denies the existence of the American culture altogether.

They claim, no, we are this beautiful multicultural mosaic. No one culture is

better than the other. Some are different but none the more superior than the other. No matter what people come with whatever values, they have as much value as any other people come with any other values.

I will tell you, if that is the case, then why did not every other country in the world grow into the strongest economy in the world, the strongest military in the world and the most powerful culture and civilization the world has ever seen? I will tell you it is because we have been rooted in these values, these values that are in the Constitution.

So as I read through that chapter in the code of Iowa, the education chapter, and no one should really ever tackle something like reading a law book because it is dry and you do not often find substance, but something called me to that page. As I read into the education chapter, it said each child in Iowa shall receive a multicultural, nonsexist, global education. Well, those are code words for we are going to teach politically correct and we are going to teach multiculturalism, diversity; we are going to each these children that the United States is not as great as they would like to think it is, that we are simply this hodgepodge of multicultural mosaic.

So I recognized those code words were there, and I knew what they were teaching because I looked at the curriculum and my wife has taught school all her life. I got out a document to draft a bill draft. I thought, I am going to strike that stuff all out of there. I drafted up the bill to eliminate each child in Iowa shall receive a multicultural, nonsexist, global education, struck that out and I sat there, and I realized but if I just strike that out I will be accused of being negative. I need to be for something. I need to be for something that is positive.

So I looked at the ceiling with the pencil and I began to write: each child in Iowa shall be taught that the United States of America, of which Iowa is a vital constituent part, is the unchallenged greatest Nation in the world and we derive our strength from free enterprise capitalism, biblical values, and Western Civilization.

Simple, unarguable, filed the bill. Next day, things erupted on the floor, like they do here some nights, Mr. Speaker; and after about an hour and 20 minutes of being called every kind of name, I had my chance to rebut, but nobody spoke to the substance. I have been there before. Nobody spoke to the substance.

Nobody could explain why it was that the term ``cultural continuity'' was offensive to anyone until I did the Google search and I find out that there are people that are opposed to cultural continuity because they want to divide. There are people that are opposed because they do not want to buy into the value system that has made this country great, so they want to tear the value system down, tear the value system down and replace it with nothing or something. They are not in agreement on what that might be.

When you begin to ask why is this, how does it unfold this way, what motivates these people to do this, why do they not think like I do, while I say that I think that our Constitution is a sacred covenant with God, they tell me the Founding Fathers were a bunch of deists and they just got dumb lucky and they did a lot of bad things, too. Certainly they were mortal, but they were mortals with an insight that has held true for over 2 centuries.

The value system is different. One is, if you believe you are a created human being, if you believe that you are created in God's image and that there is a life after this life and that it is our job to do everything we can to leave this world a better place and have confidence that there is a better world for our children and a better place for us in the next life, if you believe that, you have an entirely different world view than if you are someone who does not.

So I began to read some of the works of Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse. Gramsci was an early 20th century Italian Marxist philosopher; and he is the one, along with Marcuse, who established this philosophy of multiculturalism. The idea was that the people in power at that time are the ones that believed in moral values, the strong families, essence of hard work. These are all American values, by the way; and they are all things that have made this Nation strong and made this Nation great.

But they came to the conclusion that they did not want to really play on that field by those rules. They did not want to live that moral life. They did not want to tie together that father and a mother and a home and holy matrimony, raising children, teaching their religious values, moral values, work ethic. They did not want to play on that field. Maybe they could not compete on that field.

So they argued that all of these values that I believe go together to make this a great Nation, they argued that moral values were no more moral than the antithesis of moral values. Immoral values had as much value as moral values to them because they said that all of our moral values were simply a social construct; that it is all put together by the people in power to keep themselves in power and expand their power. That is why we go to church; that is why we believe there is a difference between right and wrong; and that there is a bright line between virtue and sin; and that we treat our neighbor as ourselves, the 10 Commandments, the foundation for our laws in this country, all were argued to be simply a moral construct.

So Gramsci argued and Marcuse argued that they wanted to tear down all of this moral fabric, not just in America but around the world. Every time they could find an institution that was part of our civilization, a part of our culture, they began to attack it, tear it to shreds, rip the curtains of our institutions apart piece by piece by piece, and in doing so, maybe replace them with the antithesis of moral values, set up multicultural groups, establish group rights as opposed to individual rights.

I went to Iowa State to speak and debate on campus there some time back. Before I went on campus there in Ames, I went to their Web page, and I typed into the search engine ``multiculturalism,'' and hit search. It came up with 59 different multicultural groups registered on Iowa State's campus, this conservative, engineering, land grant college, middle America, 59 different multicultural groups, every one a victims' group. It starts with Asians and ends with Zeitgeist, and it is everybody in between.

So you can arrive on that campus or any campus in America a freshman, with not having any idea that you are really born a victim, and there figuratively at least in Iowa State there will be 59 card tables set up with 50 recruiters for 59 multicultural organizations, all of them victims' groups, all of them set up so you can find a victim's group or two or three or four or five for you. There you can demonstrate and you can have special rights, and you can have more access to the benefits of government because there is virtue in being a victim.

That is the message that is been taught across this country. That is the message that has penetrated into the minds of our little ones, and they are growing into adulthood, not believing in individual responsibility, not believing in individual rights but believing in group rights and believing in the virtue of victimhood.

If there is anything that is self-defeating, it is the idea that you are a victim and the reason that you do not succeed is because someone else has kept you down, because of your skin color, your race, your ethnicity, whatever it might be.

I will tell you I know the people in this country. I have a district that is Middle America, and we have got significant diversity from an ethnic standpoint. I know what the people in my district think. I will tell you what I believe and they believe the same, and that is, we are all created in God's image. When He created us in His image, He did not draw distinctions between us, man to woman, one color to another, one ethnicity to another. God does not draw distinctions between His creatures, His creation. So if He draws no distinction, who in the world are we? Who are we to discriminate against anyone? Who in the world are we to give special rights to anyone?

That is the question this Nation needs to ask. It needs to ask consistently and needs to ask continually.

When we establish affirmative action policies, those are distinctions between

people, special rights. We do not need that. We need to get over that. We have to make sure everybody has an equal opportunity, and there are some things we need to do for equal opportunity, especially at the lower level of education, and as the President said, the soft bigotry of low expectations, we have got to get rid of that. We have got to challenge people to do their best.

You have got to look people in the eye, get to understand them as individuals, respect and appreciate them for the people that they are; but we need to be tied together with this cultural continuity, tied together with this language, tied together with this culture, tied together with a common sense in our history, our patriotism, the sacrifice that has been made.

Three times in the last week I have had people from the Middle West come out here to Washington, D.C., and after they have gone through the trip to the National Archives to view the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; out to Arlington where there are 275,000 graves of brave, patriotic Americans; watched the changing of the guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and gone through the monument tour from FDR's to Lincoln's to the Vietnam wall to the Korean and the World War II memorials, all the way across this great city and the Washington Monument, the Capitol building, the White House, three different people in the last week have told me they underwent a life-changing experience in this city.

At some point they got this feeling that there was a reason why everybody fought so hard and so long and sacrificed so much. You cannot avoid that feeling standing at Arlington, at the changing of the guard, at the tomb of the unknown soldier, or standing with your back or face to the eternal flame at Kennedy's grave.

When I face Kennedy's eternal flame, I then turn, with my back to that and look down across the Potomac River, and there you can see the back of the Lincoln Memorial, you know where the Vietnam Wall is, you can see the reflecting pool, the Washington monument, the Capitol building; and in the wintertime, if you know where to look, you can see the top of the White House. There, in your view, is framed the symbols of the greatness of this Nation. It is a moving experience to live and work here. It is more moving to come for the first time and visit and absorb the symbols of this Nation.

Those three different people told me that now they understand. Now they understand why so much has been sacrificed; what has been built based upon the Declaration of Independence, the freedoms that we have, and that they are worth fighting for.

One man came from New Zealand. He did not know our history or the history of Washington, Lincoln, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War. That was all not taught in the history books in New Zealand. So for the first time, when he walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he stepped up to Lincoln's statue, turned to the left and read the Gettysburg Address on the wall inside the monument. And he sat down on that floor to contemplate the profound nature of those profound words. They meant that much to a stranger from New Zealand, who, thankfully, today, is a citizen of the United States. And they mean that much to us.

I would say also we have, Mr. Speaker, one other challenge in front of us, and that other challenge is how do we maintain the continuity of our civilization, the cornerstone of our civilization?

We have an activist court today, an activist court that is shaping this country against the will of the people, without the people having a voice. It is up to us in this Congress to draw a bright line of separation between the Judiciary and the legislative branch of government. The Constitution, of which I have a copy here, and is seldom very far from me, gives the Congress a tremendous amount of power and authority over the courts. In fact, aside from the Supreme Court, all Federal courts are entirely creatures of Congress.

The Congress has established all inferior courts. And inferior is a term that is used in this Constitution. Congress establishes those inferior courts, all of the circuit courts, and the appellate courts. All are created by this Congress. And the jurisdiction of those courts is also granted by this Congress. Whatever Congress gives, we can take away. We can remove the jurisdiction incrementally or totally from individual circuits. We can eliminate entire circuits if we chose. We could eliminate all inferior courts if we chose. The only Federal court required by this Constitution is the Supreme Court.

And the Constitution does not require there be nine judges or seven or five or three. It just requires there be a Supreme Court. That would require one, a chief justice. So if we decided that we wanted to shrink the size of the Supreme Court, we could do that. And if we decided that we wanted to eliminate all appellate jurisdictions for the Supreme Court, we could do that. And we would leave the Supreme Court maybe with only a chief justice ruling on disputes between the States, ambassadorships and treaties. That is pretty much as prescribed here in the Constitution.

I do not propose we do that. I want to stop a little short of that and do some logical things. I think we need to do some things like, for example, remove the jurisdiction so that the courts are not interfering with ``under God'' in our Pledge, which we did here on the floor in this Congress today. And I am grateful we did. That is a strong message to the courts.

We have a bigger issue in front of us, and this bigger issue is this cornerstone of civilization.

This is a little prepared piece, Mr. Speaker, and it goes like this:

I want to say this about families, there is only one institution that is as old as Adam and Eve. There is only one human relationship that is sanctified by God. There is only one institution that we know is right for having children. There is one institution that is best to teach our children our values of faith. Only one institution has proven best to teach fundamental moral values. Only one proven institution to transfer our work ethic to the next generation. There is only one institution that transfers all that we are as a people to our children and grandchildren. Only one relationship between people that ensures the survival and prosperity of the human race. All of human experience points to one relationship as the core building block for a wholesome, successful civilization. All of human history, all that we were, all that we are, and all that we are ever going to be is built upon and based upon one institution, the cornerstone of civilization, and that institution, Mr. Speaker, is marriage.

My colleagues, we owe too much to our Creator, too much to posterity, and too much to our children to throw away marriage or redefine marriage for no more reason than to demonstrate tolerance. The active effort on the part of four unelected Massachusetts judges to impose gay marriage on all of America without the consent of the people is judicial tyranny.

If we believe in ourselves, and we do, if we believe in God's word, and we do, if we believe that the Constitution is our sacred covenant with God that provides the best hope for all of humanity, then we have no other alternative but to amend the Constitution to protect our posterity from those who would forever alter or abolish our way of life.

Without thought given to the price that will be paid by future generations. Without thought given to the consequences and without thought for the fact that, once same-sex marriage is institutionalized, there is no turning back. You cannot put the Genie or the Gina or the Jimmy or the Joey back in the bottle. If gay marriage were something that was an experiment that, if it did not pan out, we could simply change it back to the way it was, I would not be so emphatic, Mr. Speaker.

But, my colleagues, we will not get a ``do over.'' We will not get a second chance to get it right again. Not in this country. Not in this civilization. Not in this generation of man. Our legacy would be that we failed the clearest lessons from the Bible and from all of human experience.

For these reasons that I have said, for many more reasons that we all know, I am in strong support of the constitutional amendment to preserve and protect marriage.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 58 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, September 24, 2004, at 2 p.m.

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

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his comments because he is absolutely correct. This is about immigration. It is about immigration. I know it is because I see the apologists for illegal immigrants come to the floor and give speech after speech after speech. And the people over on this side of the aisle want to open the borders and allow as many illegals in because they think they can get them to vote for their guy. And the people over on this side making the argument are multinational corporation apologists who want to get as many people in because it is cheap labor. That is the equation.

In the middle are the patriotic Americans who believe that we have to have cultural continuity in this country and the rule of law.

That is the core of this argument and this debate. I thank the gentleman for bringing his opposition to the Oxley amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to enforce existing Federal law that requires any State providing illegal aliens instate tuition discounts to provide these discounts to all students, regardless of State of residence. In other words, all legal students get no less tuition discount than illegal students.

That is existing law. But my amendment would not allow any Department of Education funds to be spent in violation of existing Federal law; namely, section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996. It simply seeks to enforce existing law.

There are approximately 12 States that have adopted a policy that they would give instate tuition breaks to illegal aliens as students, and yet students that might live within sight of the State border and not be residents of that State, would pay out-of-State tuition costs. That would then necessarily entail that citizens of the United States, people who lived in the neighborhood and in the region, would pay out- of-State tuition while illegal aliens would get instate tuition breaks. That would be in violation of this section of the 1996 Immigration Act, and I seek to tighten that up with this simple amendment that is consistent with current law.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank the gentleman, the chairman, for his cooperation on this issue.

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

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 14: At the end of the bill (but before the

short title), insert the following new section:

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe every life is a precious creation and that suicide is a tragic and terrible way to lose a family member or friend. One would automatically assume if you are against suicide, you will vote in favor of this bill; however, nothing could be further from the truth. We all want to stop suicide. Some of our most precious resources are our young people, and that resource must be preserved and promoted.

Our children and teenagers are too valuable to be used as guinea pigs on this issue. The gentleman from New Jersey spoke of the movie Nobody's Useless, and I will not reiterate that here now, but that will not be the only case across this country where exposure to suicide discussion has actually brought on suicide. While this legislation does not fund suicide education for children under the age of 10, it did start out younger than the age of 10. I do not think we need to take chances with our young people. Awareness could put ideas into the heads of children and teenagers that are already at an awkward time in their lives.

I would point out what happens when we do sex education and antidrug education. It is hard to find a program that resulted in less drug use or less sexual activity on the part of young people because they are made aware of something they may be afraid of. The more they talk about something, the more comfortable they get with it, the more likely they are to experiment.

Research at Columbia University has suggested that encouraging suicidal students to identify themselves or to teach other students or teachers how to identify the suicidal teenager is not effective and in some instances may even undermine protective attitudes about suicide. In other words, the creation of this program can actually be harmful to our youth.

In addition, we should also be asking ourselves is this really the role of the Federal Government. Federal money usually has strings attached to it. We do not know enough about how the grants will be distributed to know what these strings will be, but this legislation is just one more way that the government is encroaching on the lives and health care of private citizens and the parental role. Suicide prevention is best done through private counseling, faith-based groups, and within the nucleus of the family unit.

I know of no successful suicide prevention programs. We should be able to find at least one successful model program somewhere in this world before we invest $82 million in a new, untried program.

In conclusion, while I believe this bill is offered with good will and absolutely with the best intentions, and with broken hearts as well, we need to take a step back and realize that suicide is based on emotion, and it was from emotion that this bill was created.

My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones to suicide, and for that reason I ask my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor tonight on a very sad occasion, a day that marks a third Federal district court ruling upholding the barbaric and brutal practice of partial-birth abortion. Once again, the ethics and morality of the American people and Congress have been trumped by an activist Federal judge. As a result of this judicial arrogance, more innocent children will be gruesomely and barbarically killed by partial-birth abortions.

The practice of inducing birth for the sole purpose of brutally murdering an innocent child has absolutely no place in civilized society, and it is an outrage to let a handful of lifetime-appointed judges overrule the will of the American people and essentially sentence these babies to death.

Today's court opinion especially drips with contempt for Congress and the people who elected their Representatives. Congress passed the partial-birth abortion ban with overwhelming support. These courts have displayed utter contempt for the factual findings of Congress, which proved that the legislation was constitutional. Congress decided, based on years of testimony by countless medical experts, that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary. These three Federal district courts have now simply brushed aside this finding, those courts being in California, New York, and now today's ruling from Nebraska.

Both the California and Nebraska courts based their rulings on the idea that an expert witness must actually perform partial-birth abortions in order to be a credible expert. This is ludicrous. These witnesses, the good witnesses on our side, do not perform partial-birth abortions because, as they testified, they are never medically necessary, and the procedure endangers women. It would be malpractice for physicians to perform a procedure that they know to be unnecessary and injurious to their patients.

Both judges also said that those witnesses who supported the ban because they were prolife could not be objective about the procedures. These judges cannot seriously claim that the plaintiffs' trial experts for whom abortion is a business were not biased in favor of abortion.

Judge Kopf, the author of today's decision and also the decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, the infamous decision from Nebraska's State ban, did not even attempt to hide his support for the practice of abortion, and this is a quote from his opinion: ``I do not use the term `abortionist' pejoratively. So long as abortion is legal, doctors who perform abortions and who properly concentrate on the health of the female patients will be treated in this court with the same high degree of respect as fetal and maternal specialists who do not perform abortions and who properly divide their loyalties between the health of the fetus and the health of its mother.''

That, Mr. Speaker, is a modern-day equivalent of the Nazi prison guard saying ``I was just following orders.'' It was all legal in Nazi Germany at the time.

These three judges have overruled the will of the people, expressed through their elected representatives, by declaring the partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional. They stepped outside the bounds of their judicial roles delineated by the Constitution and are vetoing legislation from the bench.

No cover provided by inferior courts will shield the Supreme Court from the ire of the public or this Congress if the Court rules against the will of the people and the highest standard of fact-finding conducted by Congress in passing this ban.

Our Founders assigned the legislative role to Congress because, among other reasons, we are accountable to the people. If Americans do not agree with the partial-birth abortion ban, they can vote against the elected officials who supported it. Unelected lifetime-appointed judges are not accountable to the people unless impeachment proceedings are brought in the House of Representatives. That is the only way. We must rein in the runaway judiciary, even if that means bringing impeachment procedures. We as Members of the constitutionally established legislative branch must stand up for our Constitution against judges who ignore it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I sit here and listen to this debate, and it is one of many debates on this issue that we have had, and it is one of many we will have into the future. And as I listened to the gentleman talk about the civil rights, I harkened back to a time when I sat in the Iowa Senate, where I heard a senator stand and say the next great civil rights crusade is homosexual rights.

Something about how true that rang to me, it caused me to pay attention and understand that was the message. There will always be another civil rights crusade. We will never get this right. There will always be people that see the glass of rights as half full, like us, and some that will say it is half empty, like others.

I will tell you that this is not a civil right. You can look in title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and there it says race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Those things are all immutable characteristics, with the exception of religion, which is constitutionally protected. Immutable characteristics are characteristics that cannot be self- identified, but can be independently verified, and cannot be changed. That is not the case with homosexual marriage.

I hear other statements. The gentleman from Maryland, ``risk undermining public faith in the courts.'' It is the courts that risk undermining public faith in the courts. We are establishing public faith in the process.

And the statement made by the gentlewoman from California, ``this is nothing more than a back door attempt to amend the Constitution by simple majority.'' No, the courts have been continually amending the Constitution by the will of a bare majority

of appointed courts. The transfer of the will of four judges from Massachusetts against the will of the people of the United States of America is protected by the Constitution, and that responsibility lies with us and we must step up to that responsibility.

So I would ask, and, as we heard from the minority witness in hearings, the bottom line of that testimony was that the Congress can grant authority to the courts, and we can create courts and that courts can grasp authority by decisions that they make; but we can only limit the courts by allowing the courts to limit themselves.

Now, how ridiculous is that? How far-reaching is the power of the judicial branch if we will take this position that Congress cannot limit the courts when it specifically is in the constitution? We are charged not with just the right or the privilege, but the duty and obligation, when we swore to uphold this Constitution, to defend the separation of powers.

There is no civil right for marriage, there is a license for marriage, and a license is by definition a permit to do something which is otherwise illegal. We grant that to marriages for those reasons that you have heard some of my colleagues speak to, because the family, the father, the mother, the children and the home, is the essential building block, not just of this culture and this society and this civilization, but every civilization for the last 6,000 years.

That is what is at stake here, and it is our obligation; and I think this is the most essential issue of our time. There is no issue more important than defending marriage, because it is the essential building block of this society, this civilization, and every civilization. We have the duty and obligation.

Mr. Speaker, on July 13, 2004, I mistakenly voted ``aye'' on rollcall 368, the Chabot Amendment to H.R. 4766. I intended to vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House tonight and the opportunity to discuss the issue that is in the front of the American consciousness, and that is the issue of the United Nations and the involvement of the members of the United Nations with the world policy and how things have evolved from the United Nations world policy with regard to Iraq and the Iraqi Oil-for- Food program that has been going on now since about the middle 1990s.

As the Speaker will remember, and the people in this country will remember, the sanctions that were against the United Nations that were established after Desert Storm were lifted, to some degree, to allow the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein to trade existing oil production that they had for humanitarian supplies, which included food and medicine, into Iraq, and the structure of the Oil-for-Food program that was established there and the bureaucracy of the United Nations and the $10.1 billion that we believe has been scooped out of that program and gone into the pockets of bureaucrats at the expense of the Iraqi people and of course the expense of the credibility of the United Nations themselves.

Now, I would first like to back up a little bit and describe who the United Nations really are, and there is a misconception in this country that the United Nations, since there is someone seated there from every member nation and each nation has a voice and each nation has a vote and we have five members of the permanent Security Council and we have a total of five members of the Security Council, the other members which rotate, we get the perception and we make the mistake that the United Nations somehow represents the will of the people of the world, that its democratic governments, or I should say in my preference is constitutional republican governments, that send their representatives there that are the voice of the people that now speak at the United Nations. And in fact, that is quite a ways from the truth.

Some nations do do that. Free nations do that, but there are nations there and many of them are represented by dictators, who, if they are not speaking for themselves, their representative speaks for them. The people in those countries do not have the ability or do not have the right to speak up for themselves. They do not have the chance to go to the polls and vote nor direct their national destiny or determine who their leader will be that directs their national destiny.

So the United Nations has become, over the years, an organization that I term to be a third-world class and debate society, and the structure of the United Nations is not democratic. It is not representative. It is simply the voices of the nations of the world rather than the voices of the people of the world.

Well, then enter the Oil-for-Food program. Yes, we had humanitarian interests in Iraq, and there is no nation on this globe that has more commitment towards the people of Iraq than the United States of America, but we went along with and supported the concept of an Oil- for-Food program, and what we got was a program that enriched the bureaucrats, enriched the Saddam Hussein regime to the tune of $10.1 billion.

And here is a little bit of the structure of how that works on this easel to my left. This red represents the greatest recipient nation of the scoop of oil for food. Now, that is Russia, and then the rest of this colored spectrum here are these other nations along the way, all in differing degrees. France, a major player, of course. We would expect that. China a major player. This is just a sample of some of the money that has gone to these nations.

I took a look at the resistance to America's interests in going into the nation of Iraq prior to our invasion and occupation there, and I wondered why was it that the resonance of the resistance to American policy was so strong and so great. And I asked at the time, do they have financial interests there? What are their interests?

Well, one of the things, is oil for food. Some of these countries stood to profit a great deal from the Oil-for-Food program. This gives a little better perspective on where these interests came from. This is broken down by continent. The big blue is Europe, and that does include Russia, Germany, and France. Eighty-seven percent of the Oil-for-Food scoop that we know at this point, or we believe allegedly at this point, that came out of that program that should have gone to the benefit of the Iraqi people really went to Europe itself; and these are the countries, by the way, that stood up and opposed our policy in Iraq.

So I took the Security Council itself, and I broke it down into five nations, Russia, France, China, Great Britain and the United States, and asked the question, what percentage then of the Oil-for-Food profits that were going out of that program off the tables of the Iraqi people was going into these countries of the Security Council, the permanent members of the Security Council, those five members?

Three of those nations collected 99.1 percent of that money that should have gone to the Iraqi people, at least by the numbers that we have in front of us today; 99.1 percent went to Russia, France and China together. None of those nations supported our policy in Iraq. All of them opposed us in differing degrees of disagreement and aggressiveness, but I think that tells us that the decibels of their resistance were indexed to the Oil-for-Food program in some part.

And in another part, and I do not have the chart here tonight, how many oil development contracts did they have prepared that would give them an opportunity to develop that if Saddam would have stayed in power in Iraq? We will index that another time.

And additionally, I am just going to quickly show this policy here. This is the flowchart of some of the Oil-for-Food scam that went on and this Congress needs to look into this, and we need to get the answers, and we need to do a full investigation within the United Nations. This is far too complicated to explain. This is simply a commercial so that I can come up another time and explain it to you. Madam Speaker, I will bring this back another night.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 357, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

(Mr. KING of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to enforce existing Federal law that prohibits localities from refusing to allow their officers to report aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities.

My amendment would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. Section 642 of the act forbids localities from preventing their police officers from reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. However, some cities and counties have continued to refuse to allow their officers to provide information to the Federal Government, and that is in violation of Federal law.

Without this information, the Federal immigration authorities cannot take steps to remove these criminal illegal aliens from American streets. Under these so-called ``sanctuary policies'' in certain cities and counties, the police cannot report the illegal aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities for deportation. As a result, taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back on to the street.

These sanctuary policies have disastrous consequence for future victims. Repeat offenses by criminal illegal aliens are preventable crimes. These offenders should have been removed from the United Nations as soon as their first crimes were discovered. Their prompt removal prevents future crimes. We can act to prevent crime by funding enforcement of section 462 by the Department of Justice.

The Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims held an oversight hearing on the public safety consequences of local immigration sanctuary policies on February 27, 2003. But despite that February 2003 hearing, sanctuary policies remain in place with disastrous consequences. Less than 4 months after that hearing in June of 2003, a 9-year-old girl was dragged from her San Jose home in broad daylight and was kidnapped, tortured, and raped over 3 days before finally being released by her assailant.

According to press reports, the man arrested and charged with nine felony counts related to the terrifying abduction and sexual assault was an illegal alien who had already admitted a crime. Originally, the suspect was arraigned under the name Enrique Sosa Alvarez, but a fingerprint check identified him as David Montiel Cruz. Under the name Cruz, this man was previously convicted of auto theft. According to the San Jose Police Department's policy, section L7911 of the Line and Operations Procedure, officers may not ``initiate police action when the primary objective is directed towards discovering the alien status of a person.''

Because the officer who investigated the previous auto theft could not ask about Mr. Cruz's immigration status, his hands were tied and he could not verify with the Federal Government

whether Mr. Cruz was allowed in the United States. We will never know if this crime against this 9-year-old girl could have been prevented if Federal law were enforced.

My amendment would fund enforcement of section 642. This section does not require local authorities to report all immigration information they would uncover to the Federal immigration authorities, but rather it simply prohibits local authorities from having a blanket policy to refuse to communicate this information with the Federal Government.

This is essential because in the example I just spoke of, the accused kidnapper and rapist never should have been in this country in the first place. We must not allow illegal aliens whose presence was never reported to Federal immigration authorities due to illegal sanctuary policies to continue to commit brutal crimes. We must not provide sanctuary to criminals.

I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and I appreciate his work on this entire bill and other Members to encourage the Department of Justice to enforce the Federal law which prohibits localities from having sanctuary policies.

I urge support for my amendment which funds enforcement of section 642.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the agency that this amendment transfers to is the Department of Justice.

I do.

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

I would just point out that the Attorney General enforces the laws of the United States, and enforcement of this section would be under the Department of Justice and Attorney General.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to enforce existing Federal law that prohibits localities from refusing to allow their officers to report aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities. My amendment would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce current law, which is section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996.

Section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 does not allow localities to prevent their police officers from reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. However, some cities have continued to refuse to allow their officers to provide information to the Federal Government. Without this information, the Federal immigration authorities cannot take steps to remove these criminal illegal aliens from American streets. Under these so-called sanctuary policies in certain cities, the police cannot report the illegal aliens who commit crimes to the immigration authorities for deportation.

As a result, taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back on to the streets rather than being deported. This sanctuary policy has disastrous consequences for future victims.

Repeat offenses by criminal illegal aliens are preventable crimes. These offenders should have been removed from the United States as soon as their first crime was discovered. Their prompt removal prevents future crimes. We can act to prevent crime by funding enforcement of section 642 by the Department of Justice.

An unfortunate situation that occurred in New York City, a crime that could have been prevented by enforcement of section 642, indicates the urgent need for our action. On December 19, 2002, a 42-year-old mother of two was seized and brutally assaulted in a shanty near railroad tracks in Queens. She and her boyfriend were robbed by a group who then took the woman to the woods, leaving her boyfriend unconscious. During the 2-hour attack, she was abused and her life was threatened. A police canine unit rescued her before her attackers could carry out their deadly threats. In response, the New York Police Department arrested five aliens, four of whom had illegally entered the country and three with extensive arrest warrants in New York City.

This crime could have been prevented. Four of the five suspects had entered the country illegally. Three of these had prior arrests and convictions, and always they were released. Even so, the INS was never contacted about these individuals prior to the 2002 attack. New York City's sanctuary policy prohibited a New York police officer from contacting information authorities about these attackers when they committed their previous crimes or were discovered to be in the United States illegally. As a result, the immigration authorities could not remove these aliens because they did not know that they were illegally present in the United States.

Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country rather than deporting these criminals according to U.S. law.

My amendment will ensure enforcement of the Federal law that can prevent additional heinous crimes by illegal aliens with criminal records. We must not allow criminal illegal aliens whose presence was never reported to Federal immigration authorities due to illegal sanctuary policies to continue to commit brutal crimes.

We must not provide sanctuary to criminals. Please support my amendment, which funds enforcement of section 642 and reestablishes and supports current law.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I looked into this argument; and to transfer this authority to Homeland Security, there is no existing precedent for enforcement of this law by Homeland Security. It is a legitimate function of the Department of Justice to enforce Federal law; and, in fact, this would be bringing an action against local government. And that is something that there is a precedent for under the Department of Justice, but no precedent for that under Homeland Security. So if this were all transferred to Homeland Security, we would not have action that could be brought by the Department of Justice in many other cases as well as this.

I thank the chairman for yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.