Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives and also the times that I've had to be here on the floor and listen to the dialogue and the debate that's delivered by Members of both sides, the Republican and the Democrat side of the aisle. I listened with interest as my friend and colleague on the Agriculture Committee, Mr. McGovern, talked about the SNAP program and the necessity to maintain the dollars that were there.

I was a little surprised that he didn't ask for more dollars going into the SNAP program as opposed to opposing any reduction in the programmed increase in the SNAP program. We have about $78 billion a year that are going into food stamps now--$78 billion, a little more than that. And by next year it will be $80 billion.

Now, we do calculate our budgets and spending in a 10-year budget window, so that means $800 billion is the universe of money that he's talking about, and he's pleading with us not to reduce that growth from a little bit more than $78 billion a year up over $80 billion a year. So of that $2 billion a year that's programmed between this year and next year over the period of time of 10 years there would be $20 billion trimmed off of $800 billion, which comes to about a 2\1/2\ percent decrease in the overall projected expenditures of the food stamp program known as SNAP.

Now, after all of that technical gibberish, the bottom line is a $20 billion cut is a $2\1/2\ billion cut in the increase. $20 billion spread out over 10 years is not something that's going to be noticeable. When the gentleman speaks of how we would ``literally take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans,'' Mr. Speaker, it's important to point out, literally taking the food out of hungry Americans has never happened as an action of government in the history of the United States. It is very unlikely to ever happen into the future of the United States. And it certainly isn't something that would be the result of a piece of legislation that would come out of this Congress and specifically out of the Agriculture Committee and specifically from the subcommittee which I chair.

No, Mr. Speaker. There is not going to be any literal taking food out of the mouths of hungry Americans, to quote the gentleman from Massachusetts. Literally means ``really.'' It means ``actually.'' It means it physically happens. Now, if you're literally going to take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans, you would have to think in terms of some way to extract it once they have put it in their mouth. That's what the man has said. That's a little bit perhaps over-the-top rhetoric, and I understand he's passionate about the issue.

But even figuratively speaking, it's a little bit of a stretch to argue that a 2\1/2\ percent reduction in anticipated expenditures of the food stamp program over a 10-year period of time is going to do something to starve kids when we're addressing the eligibility for the food stamp program. And we are seeing narratives--facts, actually--of people that are using their EBT card--that electronic benefits transfer card, that card that has spawned rap music about its easy accessibility and its marketability on the street--to get tattoos, and using that food stamp EBT card to bail at least one individual out of jail.

There has to be a place where the gentleman from Massachusetts and I would draw the line and say, enough. Enough. We've taxed the taxpayers enough. We've punished the producers enough. We've borrowed enough money from the Chinese and the Saudis. We should not be borrowing money from the Chinese and the Saudis to fund somebody's tattoos, to hold up a tattoo parlor that in the neon sign says, we take EBT cards. No, Mr. Speaker, there has to be a place to draw the line and actually say no. The gentleman from Massachusetts gave me no indication, even though I listened to every word, of where he would say enough is enough, or even an amount being too much.

So I would suggest that I have watched as the numbers of Americans that have signed up for the food stamp program have gone from 19 million people to 49 million people. Think of that. Thirty million new people on the food stamp program, millions of dollars being spent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to advertise food stamp sign-ups so that we can expand the numbers of people that are on another government program and encourage them to sign up. What for? It grows the empire of dependency which grows the empire of politics of the people on the

left. They know that. They are not stupid. They have a whole different set of motives than I have, but they understand what they're doing.

Not any longer are there 19 million people on food stamps. There are 49 million people on food stamps, and the Secretary of Agriculture has an advertising budget spending millions to go out there and recruit more to sign on.

Now there are communications going on and publications popping up from Mexican consulates that in Spanish say, in foreign countries even that you can--we don't have to ask you and will not ask you about your status in the United States. If you are here illegally, sign up anyway and we'll do that in your native language, and we'll give you American benefits and advertise in Mexico to get people to sign up on the food stamp program here or there. Do they send the EBT card through the Mexican consulate? Or does it just go in regular mail? Or do you have to show up to claim it?

I question all of these things, Mr. Speaker. In the question about what do ``they''--and he means Republicans--what do ``they'' have against poor people? Here's what we have. We have an aspiration for everybody to be the best they can be. We have an aspiration for everybody to have an opportunity to succeed to the limit of their God- given abilities and to demonstrate their ambition and to be challenged out here in this society. That's why people come here. It's not because we offer 80 different means-tested Federal welfare programs, and we advertise that if you come here, you don't have to be responsible, you don't have to work, and you don't have to carry your share of the load. You might have thought that America had a safety net. No, sir; it's a hammock. It's a hammock with 80 different means-tested welfare programs in it, and they're out of hand. And this administration is promoting the expansion of them for political purposes, whatever the level of compassion might be of the gentleman from Massachusetts.

By the way, when he said arbitrarily and indiscriminately cut, and that there are 17 million kids that are hungry and 50 million Americans that are hungry, this reduction of this 2\1/2\ percent over the next 10-year period of time that's in the anticipated formula for food stamps is not going to be arbitrary, and it's not going to be indiscriminate.

It is going to be a number close to $20 billion. But instead, it's going to lower the eligibility so the people that need it less--in fact, many of the people that don't need it at all won't qualify. So that we're not paying for tattoos and we're not paying to bail people out of jail, and that we're not sending food stamps along with everybody's LIHEAP claim. Where in the past, if you qualify for $1 and the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program, you qualify for the full array of SNAP benefits. That's going to be adjusted upwards so that the evaluation of LIHEAP raises the bar a little bit. That's a tiny little trim and a little haircut that is 2.5 percent, but it's not arbitrary and it's not indiscriminate. It will be those that don't need this nearly as much as others.

We're going to protect hungry kids, and we're going to protect people that need the benefit; but we're not going to be paying for tattoos and we're not going to be bailing people out of jail. By the way, I don't think we're either going to be paying for the deposits on those $7 water jugs that people are going in and using their EBT card to buy a big old jug of water, take it out in the parking lot of the grocery store, dump it upside down and dump the water out and carry it back in and turn it in for the $7 cash refund for the deposit. That is a place where millions of dollars have been wasted by people who have EBT cards. If they're hungry, they're not going to be spending that EBT money on water, dumping the water out in the parking lot, and converting the empty jug into $7 worth of cash. The gentleman from Massachusetts, I'd like to see him look at some of the fraud that's going on here and have some compassion for the American taxpayers.

Several hundred thousand kids will lose their school meals, he said. Mr. Speaker, that may or may not be true. I don't know about the basis of that statement, but I know this: that decision is not going to be made by the Ag Committee; it's not going to be made under the SNAP program. The school lunch program is a product of the Ed and Workforce Committee. That will be authorized out of that committee. It will be appropriated out of a different committee than what we'll expect this farm bill is appropriated under. Several hundred thousand kids will lose their school meals, that he's worried about this being part of the markup that's coming up of the farm bill in the Ag Committee this month. That won't be a subject matter--as much as I'd like it to be.

If the gentleman from Massachusetts is concerned about hungry kids, then I would think he would sign onto my bill--my bill, Mr. Speaker, which prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from rationing food to our children in the school lunch program. That is what they're doing, Mr. Speaker.

There was a piece of legislation that passed through this House in the lame duck session of 2010. It was the First Lady's bill, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. They always have a way of putting these real nice labels on bills that do something else. I understand her initiative on this. She wants people, especially young people, to get good, healthy, well-balanced meals, get some get exercise; and I think that's a good message for the First Lady to send.

When you promote a piece of legislation, however, and that legislation then requires that there be a certain mix of vegetables and fruit and carbohydrates and that kind of thing spread out through the USDA school lunch program--which the Ag Committee doesn't have jurisdiction over--that recommendation on its basis was relatively sound, Mr. Speaker. And even though I didn't agree that we should be dictating that at the Federal level, I didn't have a major objection to that initiative either.

But we've seen what's happened. The Secretary of Agriculture has taken license that doesn't exist within the bill and capped the calories to our kids in schools. So they have put a lid on the amount of calories that can be served in each of the categories of elementary, middle school, and in high school. That cap on the calories, at least in one case with the middle schoolers, the calorie limitations that they had as a minimum coming into this school year was greater than the maximum that they allow for some of those middle school kids today. They have put every kid on the school lunch program in this country on a diet, Mr. Speaker.

The administration--a policy supported by the gentleman from Massachusetts, a policy driven by--manufactured, I think, out of thin air, but with a self-assigned license by the Department of Agriculture--is rationing food to our kids in school.

I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts and he said that if you're hungry in school, you can't focus. I agree. I think kids need to go to school, and they need to have food in their belly. They need to go to lunch knowing they can get all the nutritious food they want to eat because for many of them that's the only decent meal they're going to get all day.

They need to be fed in school. I will make this statement, Mr. Speaker: there is not a single kid in America that's getting fat on school lunch. That's not where it's happening. It's in the junk food afterwards because they can't wait to get out of the school door because they've been starved at the school lunch program, shortened on calories.

So if I were going to set up a new franchise and try to make money today, I would set up a little junk food wagon like the ice cream truck out there in the parking lot outside of the school and as soon as those kids are released, sell them all the junk they're going to be out there clamoring for. That's what they do: they race to the convenience store, they jam themselves full of junk food, then they sit down in front of the TV and continue to eat junk food.

And somehow this administration thinks our kids are getting fat on a school lunch program, and so they ration food to all kids. Same level of calories to a 70-pound freshman in high school as there is in a 250- pound high school football player with a high level of activity and energy requirement. How is it that one size fits all for four

grades in school, a 70-pounder and a 270-pounder need the same amount of calories? You know that you're going to be starving the biggest kids and probably not providing enough opportunity for that younger one to grow. Meanwhile, we're not just inhibiting their mental growth; we're inhibiting their physical growth as well.

If you think that you can reduce calories and ration food to kids that are growing and are active and somehow they're going to grow physically and mentally in an environment like that, that is a tragedy. I'd say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, that's a tragedy we should be able to work on together is starving kids in the school lunch program.

I point out that North and South Korea--let me say as close as you can get ethnically speaking and genetically speaking--have been separated for over 60 years. The people in North Korea don't get a lot of diet. The people in South Korea have been successful, and they do get a far more healthy diet. The people in South Korea are, on average, 3\1/2\ inches taller than the people in North Korea.

So if we're going to starve our kids in school under some myopic idea that we're going to train them to eat their raw broccoli and their raw cauliflower, and that they'll somehow get enough to eat and that they'll be active and healthy and grow, that's a mistake. Give them all the healthy food that they want to eat at least once a day. Do not starve them. I could go on with the gentleman's statement.

We're going to write up and mark up a good farm bill that does the prudent thing, and it doesn't starve people. It doesn't take food out of the mouths of babes or adults or anybody else. It just prohibits the utilization of these EBT cards, food stamps, SNAP program, from being used by people who aren't needy or by people that use it for something that it wasn't intended for.

That's just the beginning of my response to the gentleman. But this fits in with the broader theme, Mr. Speaker, that I came here to speak about, and that is the issue here in the United States of this massive dependency that's been growing in this country.

The gentleman is worried about 50 million people that are hungry--I don't know where that number comes from. I think we've all been hungry at one time or another, so that would be a subjective number. But I would point out that we have over 100 million Americans that are simply not in the workforce. When you add the unemployed to those who are not in the workforce by the definition that's put out by the Department of Labor, that number is over 100 million Americans.

The highest levels of unemployment that we have in the country are at the lowest skilled jobs. No skilled jobs, low-skilled jobs, double- digit unemployment. This isn't a country like it was back in 1849, when we needed to build the transcontinental railroad and we brought people in from across the ocean or the Pacific to drive spikes and lay ties and lay rail coming from the West. We brought people in from Western Europe to go build the train tracks from the east, and they met at the golden spike territory in that period of time. This country needed labor then. We needed low-skilled labor then, people that would put their hands and their back to this work.

Some folks think that America needs that kind of labor today. Well, if we did, we wouldn't have double-digit unemployment in the low-skill jobs. And here we have the United States Senate that seems to be poised--and too many people in the House of Representatives that seem to be prepared to support them--to move an immigration bill out of the Senate that would be this: it would grant instantaneous amnesty to everybody that's in America illegally, with a few tiny exceptions-- maybe later, not right away. It would send an invitation off to everyone who has been deported in the past that, why don't you apply to come back into the United States. We really didn't mean it when we bought you a ticket to wake up in the country that you were legal to live in. And it's an implicit promise that anybody that's in America after the cut-off deadline--December 31, 2011--or anybody that should be able to come after that date--today, tomorrow, next year, next decade--all would be granted a presence in America where they didn't have to fear that the immigration law would be applied against them unless they committed a felony and were brought to the attention of law enforcement or unless they committed a series of three misdemeanors-- undefined in the law. That would be the discretion of--I suppose it would be ICE or Janet Napolitano. And this open borders policy would be perpetual.

I knew in 1986 what this meant, Mr. Speaker. Ronald Reagan only let me down twice in 8 years. One of them was in 1986 when he gave in to the advisers around him and public pressure and signed the amnesty bill of 1986. I knew then that the stroke of Ronald Reagan's pen did severe, severe damage to the rule of law in this country and that to restore it and reestablish the respect for the law was going to be a very difficult task indeed.

But I also lived in fear that if I had job applicants coming into my company and I didn't have all of the I's dotted and the T's crossed on the I-9 form, if I didn't review the proper identification documents, fraudulent or not, and keep my records to protect myself, I expected ICE would be knocking on my door at any time--actually, it was INS at the time, Immigration Naturalization Services--and that they would be scouring through my records to make sure that I didn't violate one of the details of the Federal law of the 1986 Amnesty Act.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, we know the INS agents, later on to be ICE agents, never showed up in my office. They didn't show up at thousands and thousands of companies where there are employers in the United States. And that the roughly a million people--it started out to be 800,000--roughly a million people that were estimated to be the beneficiaries of this Amnesty Act--which at least they were honest and called it amnesty then--that that million people became, not a million, 3 million people because of underestimates and because of a massive amount of fraud, including document fraud.

So the rule of law was eroded in 1986, and Ronald Reagan really did intend to enforce the law to the best of his ability. It was undermined by leftist and ``open borders'' people in America that didn't really want to let that happen.

Each succeeding President enforced immigration law less and less and less from 1986 through Bush 41 through Bill Clinton, who accelerated a naturalization process of a million people in 1986 just in time to magically vote in the reelection of that year. Following that, George W. Bush in his two terms, and now Barack Obama, who says, I refuse to enforce immigration law.

There are 300,000 people on the list that had been adjudicated for deportation, and with a stroke of his Presidential edict pen, he forbade that the law be enforced and required that they simply waive their applications, on an individual basis, I might add. That gets a little tiring to read that when it is group and it is class.

Nonetheless, the President got away with that. He told a high school class here in town--if I remember the date correctly, it was March 28, 2011--that he didn't have the authority to grant the DREAM Act by executive order, that had to be a legislative act. And a little over a year later, by the stroke of his Presidential edict pen, he did so, however, created four classes of people, and gave them a legal status by Presidential edict by a memorandum from Janet Napolitano and John Morton, supported by a Presidential press conference, gave people a legal status in this country unconstitutionally, unlawfully, and granted them also a work permit manufactured out of thin air.

Every document that allows people to be in the United States who are not American citizens is manufactured by the Congress of the United States, except the President took it upon himself to take on article I activity legislation from article II, the executive branch.

So ICE and the president of ICE, Chris Crane, sued the President, sued the executive branch. They had the first decision that came out of the circuit in Texas. And the answer is, on 10 points, the judge held with the ICE union on nine of the 10. And the 10th one, I think today is the deadline for them to come back with their response to this in a cogent fashion so the judge can also rule again.

I'm hopeful that he'll be consistent in the theme. The theme of his decision is this: Mr. President, executive branch, all who we will see and hear, ``shall'' means ``shall.'' When Congress means ``shall,'' they don't mean ``may.''

That doesn't mean that the President may do whatever in the world he may wish to do. If Congress writes it into law and it's signed by any President, it's going to be a preceding President, that means ``shall.'' You shall enforce the law. You shall follow the directive in statute. If you don't do that, you undermine this constitutional Republic that we have.

Tomorrow morning, Mr. Speaker, at 8 in the morning in a ``Members only'' gathering, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation will be delivering his report that was released yesterday around 11 or so. This report is about 101 pages, of which the executive summary is around five. I have read through this. It is definitive economic data that I believe will be assailed, but it's logically unassailable.

He says in this document that ``at every stage of the life cycle, unlawful immigrants on average generate fiscal deficits.'' That's benefits that exceed taxes. ``Unlawful immigrants on average are always tax consumers. They never once generate a fiscal surplus that can be used to pay for government benefits elsewhere in society.''

This situation, obviously, will get much worse after amnesty. And if you believe that the second generation will make up for the first, if they were all college graduates, they would still have a tremendous struggle to make up the $6.3 trillion deficit that's created by this in expenditures minus taxes collected from this group of people. But only 13 percent of their children will go to college, so that will tell you how difficult this will be.

This is a generational economic burden taken on, proposed out of the Senate. If the American people take this on, there is no undoing this. We must get this right. We must have a Congress that's informed and educated and pays attention.

I urge all to take a look at the Heritage Foundation report by Robert Rector released yesterday. It is titled, Mr. Speaker, as I close, ``The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer,'' dated yesterday, and that is May 6, 2013. I would urge that you and all pay attention to that, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the privilege of being recognized here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and taking up the subject matter that I understand is going to begin this week with a markup in the United States Senate of a piece of legislation called Comprehensive Immigration Reform that has been advanced by the self-described Gang of Eight over in the Senate, four Democrats and four Republicans, a bill that they had dropped or introduced some couple of weeks ago, 844 pages all designed to solve the problem that we have here in the United States of illegal immigration and all the accommodations that have been made in efforts to, one, open our borders and open up our employment and open up our welfare systems and open up our public access to government services to people that are unlawfully present in the United States.

That's one side of the initiative. That's the Chuck Schumer side, Mr. Speaker. Then on the other side are those of us who, instead, argue that the rule of law has to count for something, that you can't be a nation unless you have borders, and if you don't determine what comes across those borders, then you can't call yourself a nation.

I'd make the point that the most successful institution over the last couple of centuries has been the nation-state. Nation-states are formed around the lines of language and culture and national defense and civilization and economies. Language has been a primary component of it to which one can look at Western Europe, for example, and see where the lines are drawn around nation-states of common languages.

But here we are in the United States. We're a different kind of a country. We are a Nation that has been benefited by the legal immigration that has come into this country from every donor civilization on the planet. Because of the magnet of the image of the promise of God-given liberty and freedom, people

from all over the world have aspired to come to America to become an American, to take advantage of these opportunities of this God-given liberty in order to be able to start a business, to get a job, to save, to invest, and to establish and build the American Dream, the American Dream which is encompassed within this philosophy that each generation of Americans should have an opportunity greater than the previous generation's whether it's the whole generation of Americans in the current time or whether it is a generation of Americans growing up in a household of their generational predecessors--their parents. Each generation should have greater opportunity than the previous generation.

That's why our Founding Fathers, our forefathers--our predecessors-- came here to this country. That's why they fought and defended God- given liberty and the American civilization across the continents and across the planet: to defend our American way of life. The freedom that we have, the liberty that we have, the free enterprise capitalism, the strong faith and family values, the language that binds us together, all of those components come forth to create this assimilation concept. We are the Nation that has been built on--some say ``built by''-- immigrants. This is a Nation built by immigrants. True. This is a Nation of immigrants. True, Mr. Speaker. So is every other nation. Every other nation on the planet is a nation of immigrants--people have moved there; they've lived there; they've developed there; their children have been born there; and they built the nation that they're in.

So we're not unique in the sense that we're a Nation of immigrants. We are unique in the sense that legal immigrants who come here can become American. They become American by embracing the American culture, American civilization, by understanding the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, by understanding the English language, by partaking in free enterprise capitalism, and by understanding that there is a uniqueness about being an American that gives us this vigor--this great vigor--that is an American vigor unique to the rest of the planet.

It is because of the God-given liberties that we have, many of them in the Bill of Rights: freedom of speech, religion and the press, freedom to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances; the Second Amendment: the right to keep and bear arms; property rights in the Fifth Amendment; the right to be faced by your accusers in a court of law and be tried by a jury of your peers and no double jeopardy; the concept of federalism where the power is not specifically delegated to the Congress or to the President or to the judicial branch but devolved to the States or to the people respectively. Those are all pillars of American exceptionalism that make us a great, great Nation.

People around the world have seen that, and they've seen this American vigor and the magnet of the image. These concepts are all wrapped up in the image of the Statue of Liberty. Around the world, when people see the Statue of Liberty, they think, Well, that would be nice to live in a country like that or they think, I have to go there. I have to go there and find out what I'm made of. I think that I can develop and realize my potential in a place like America better than anyplace else in the world.

If you put out a beacon like that, if you put out the beacon of the Statue of Liberty and if that penetrates into countries all over the world, whether it be in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, across Asia, down through the Latin area, through the Middle East, to South America for that matter, to every continent on the planet, including Australia, but probably not so much Antarctica, people have come to America because they've wanted to realize their dreams within that rubric of the American Dream.

That's what makes this a special country, and that's why America could engage in global conflicts as far back as 1898 in the Spanish- American War, which took us over to the Philippines, or why America could engage in a conflict like World War I, when we went over to save as much as we could--and succeeded to a great degree--of Europe from the heavy hand of the Kaiser at a cost of a lot of American lives--of a lot of lives, let me say, on the western side of that line--and freedom was preserved again for another generation until World War II came along.

This was another challenge, and Americans rose up and met that challenge on two fronts. One of the pieces of wisdom about strategic warfighting is don't fight a two-front war. Well, America had to fight a two-front war in World War II. We had to fight our way back against Japanese imperialism across the Pacific, and we had to go to Europe and fight against the Nazis in World War II. That all happened simultaneously. Fighting a two-front war didn't work out so well for Hitler, but it did work out well for the United States--at a high price, but it worked out.

Because of that, the American influence washed across the globe, and the United States had the only major undestroyed industry in the world. Our dollar became the method of currency for the globe. American industry penetrated into every corner of the globe, and American know- how and ingenuity was established across this planet. That's because of those pillars of American exceptionalism that I talked about, and it's because of the American spirit of ingenuity, that spirit of ingenuity, which is a beneficiary of those willing legal immigrants who came here because they realized that they could achieve their dreams better here than anywhere else.

So the magnet of the American Dream has attracted the best and most vigorous people on the planet to come here. That's the America I was born into, and that's the America that those of us who were born here inherited. Many immigrants have come since that period of time to contribute to this American Dream and to help redefine this American Dream and to make us stronger and make us better.

Now we've reached a time when the political thought in America seems to have lost its touch with rationality. We've watched as there has been a stronger movement on the part of the political machinery of the left, and we elected a President of the United States in 2008 that said to Joe, the plumber, Share the wealth. Share the wealth. You're making money. Give some of that to the guy that's not--not realizing that Joe, the plumber, needed all that he could earn and that he needed more opportunity than that, not less; thinking that the now President of the United States apparently believes, if you're in business, if you've invested some capital or some sweat equity or both, that somehow you're capitalizing on your customers who are viewed, I believe, by the White House as victims of that free enterprise system and that somehow you have achieved your success unjustly. The implication is that the entrepreneurs have collected the proceeds of the sweat of somebody else's brow rather than their own, have collected the proceeds of the sweat of somebody else's sweat equity, brain equity, creativity, innovation, work ethic rather than their own.

Truthfully, Mr. Speaker, any of us has the opportunity in this country to generate an idea. We have the opportunity to start a business. We have an opportunity to hire people to help us with that business, and we have an opportunity to buy, sell, trade, make, gain, and earn profit. The beauty of a free enterprise system is that, if someone is making too large of a margin, if their profits are excessive, we should have plenty of entrepreneurs who will see that as an opportunity and will generate a competing business that will go into that marketplace where there is a margin of profit that is high enough to attract that kind of investment, and they would take part of that profit out, and each one of those competitors that would materialize within that marketplace, the competition, would eventually take those prices down so that the profit margins of the entities that are making a lot of money would be reduced, not eliminated. We want them all to make money, but at the same time, the consumers benefit because the competition drives the prices down.

That's the concept of free enterprise. That's the concept of free enterprise capitalism. That's what Adam Smith wrote about so accurately and so succinctly when he wrote ``The Wealth of Nations'' and published it in 1776. It

has been a foundation of American thought and the American Dream. It has been a foundation of American enterprise and the foundation of America's economic system. And if one is taking the naturalization test and the question comes--there are little glossy flashcards on how you study this that USCIS puts out, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. You can pick it up and it will say, ``Who is the Father of our country?'' The answer is: George Washington. ``Who emancipated the slaves?'' The answer is Republican, Abraham Lincoln. That's just a little reminder there, Mr. Speaker, for the 10 percent or 12 percent of this population that seem to forget that.

Another question: ``What's the economic system of the United States?'' You snap that flashcard around and it says, ``free enterprise capitalism.'' That's the foundation of our economy.

This economy has attracted people from all over the globe, and I recall that Professor Milton Friedman, one of the most respected economists in the history of not only the world, but the United States of America, a professor at the University of Chicago, a very well respected institution, made this statement:

An open borders policy is not compatible with a welfare

State.

Here we are, Mr. Speaker, and we live in a welfare State, and we have an open borders policy. The welfare State and the open borders policy are being promoted, pushed and advocated by the President of the United States. The President who has--even though there was a minor little change made to welfare reform here on the floor of this Chamber in the mid-nineties. When the Republicans took the majority in 1994, the welfare reform came in 1995 or 1996, one of those 2 years, Bill Clinton, the President, at least twice vetoed welfare reform. ``Welfare to work'' was the mantra of the day.

There was only one component of welfare to work that actually was welfare to work. There are over 80 different means-tested Federal welfare programs in the United States today. There is not a single person in America that can list you those welfare programs from memory, which should be a pretty strong indicator there's not a single person in the United States that could also tell you how those 80 different means-tested welfare programs will affect the way people act, whether it encourages them to go to work or encourages them to quit their job; whether it encourages them to get married or whether it encourages them to get a divorce; whether it encourages them to raise the children within the home, or whether it encourages them to not kick them out on the street, or horribly, potentially, get an abortion.

How do all of these 80 different means-tested welfare programs interact with each other and what is the net result of which direction our society goes? Let alone the question on each precious individual. How do they act and react towards all these programs that are here? This is America. The huge magnet of the welfare state is attracting people to come to the United States to tap into the welfare system much differently than back in the day when people came here to have access to God-given liberty, that vision within the Statue of Liberty that just said to them, Come here. You can work. You can earn. You can save. You can invest. You can buy, sell, trade, make gain, and you can make do and you can make profit and you can make a fortune in the United States of America.

That message is now clouded. Sure, there's opportunity here, but the taxes and the regulations are higher, higher than they've been in a long time. And the taxes and regulation drain the energy off of the entrepreneurs at the same time that the welfare state is regulating and attracting people off of the work rolls onto the welfare rolls.

Years ago, Steve Moore, who is now one of the public commenters and a much published author--you'll see him on television a good number of times. He was with The Cato Institute at the time, I believe, and he was a founder and an original executive director of the Club for Growth. He said in words pretty close to this: People will do what you pay them to do.

If you pay them not to work, they won't work. If you pay them to stay home, they'll stay home. If you pay them if there's not a father in the home, there at least officially will not be a father in the home, although you'll have visitation going on, and you'll have more children. If you pay for them to have children at home without a father, that's what they will do. It's a logical thing for people to react to the negative incentives that come from government.

So with that foundation, Mr. Speaker, it was interesting for me to pick up the executive summary of the special report dated May 6, 2013. It's the Heritage Foundation report written by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, Ph.D., and it's titled, ``The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer.'' Well, this may be the third time that Robert Rector and the people he's worked with will have saved America from a disaster.

Robert Rector was a central player in writing the language of ``welfare to work'' back in 1995 and 1996. He wrote it very tight, and he wrote it in such a way that it prohibited the President of the United States from suspending the work component of TANF, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The only component out of the 80 different means-tested programs that had actually required work, they made sure that an executive that wanted to give license to people to use the program but not follow the directive of Congress, the law, would be taken away, and that the President couldn't just simply by whim or executive order or edict violate the law and eliminate the work component to TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

But look what President Obama has done by his executive edict: he's suspended the only work component that existed that was in one of the 80 different means-tested Federal welfare programs, TANF, in violation directly of the specific statute that was written then.

Now, Robert Rector came back to us again in 2006 or so and wrote another report, and that's the report that told us about the cost of illegal immigration and what it meant to our society and our culture and our civilization. I believe that that report was instrumental in America waking up and coming to an understanding that there was a lot bigger equation than the simple buzz words of ``we have to bring them out of the shadows, but what are you going to do about the 11 or 12 million that are here?'' It's curious to me that number hasn't changed except has dropped by a million since 2006.

When I came to this Congress, I thought that the number of illegals in America was someplace in the neighborhood of 20 million, the judgement of those that we knew were here, plus a calculation of those that we knew were coming here, minus those that were going back home and those that are deceased. That came to a number that I thought approached 20 million people or more, and yet now we're hearing, in the time that I've been in Congress, more than a decade, 12 million illegals in America has now been reduced to 11 million illegals in America. All the while, the only thing that has changed in the dialogue of the left and the open borders people has been, Well, we can't deport--they used to say 12 million people. We can't line up all the buses and load up 12 million people. Now they've changed their dialogue.

Remember the people that were advocating that we needed to do something about man-caused global warming? They've changed their phrase now to be ``man-caused,'' or else ``climate change.'' ``Global warming'' has become ``climate change.'' Twelve million people that couldn't be rounded up and put on buses now becomes 11 million people. What happened to that other million? Especially when we have a pretty good measure that they're coming across the border at a rate of something like 4 million a year. If that number has been reduced by half and maybe today it's 2 million people, that's still a lot of people. The cumulative effect of this population that's growing in the United States, it's not going down from 12 million; it has to be going up from 12 million. If it's not, we have a problem that's solving itself, Mr. Speaker. Yet, a pragmatic viewpoint is not going to be something that the people on the other side of this argument ascribe to because they have an agenda that's a little bit different than, I think, the practical application of what's good for the United States of America.

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation in his report that came out today, May 6, 2013, lays out some of these points economically. I can talk about the cultural, the constitutional, the rule of law part, but he lays them out economically. He makes these points in this executive summary, that there are four different ways that federally funded benefits are distributed.

One is in direct benefits. That's the form of Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers comp. That's the direct benefits component of it.

The second one is the means-tested welfare benefits, the 80 different Federal means-tested welfare benefits. That totals around $900 billion a year in welfare. That provides cash for food, housing, medical, and other services. There's about 100 million people in the means-tested welfare system, and that could be Medicaid, food stamps, earned income tax credit, public housing, supplemental Social Security income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. That's the one work component that I talked about; President Obama has removed the work requirement. Now it's just another welfare program.

So there's two categories: direct benefits; the second category, means-tested welfare benefits.

The third category, public education, which is costing an average of about $12,300 annually per pupil.

And the fourth benefit is population-based services, which include fire services, police services, parks, and those kinds of things that it takes for people to have a way to live in this society.

Of those four categories then, people use them, if they are legally here or illegally here, and often they will, the people who are here working here illegally will pay taxes. It's an honest thing. But they're also drawing down public benefits.

So if I would draw some numbers off of the Rector report, Mr. Speaker, the average household of an illegal household will draw down $31,584 a year in public benefits. But if the household is headed by a college graduate, the difference is instead they will pay taxes and draw down some benefits, but they will have a net contribution of $29,250 a year. Look at the difference; it's $60,000-plus. The average dropout, a household headed by a high school dropout, without regard to their status, legal or illegal, they will have a net cost of $35,113 a year. They'll pay in taxes, and they'll draw down benefits, and the average net cost to the taxpayer is $35,113.

The average illegal household, however, and the average has a 10th grade education, the average household headed by someone who is unlawfully present in the United States, there'll be a net cost to the taxpayer of $14,387. Now why is that so cheap? Well, it's because the law blocks access to many of these programs; and if and when they are legalized, they start to have access to these programs.

Now it's true that if you look at the proposal of the 844-page bill delivered by the Gang of Eight, the average illegal household during the interim phase of the kick-in over the next 13 years, actually they'll tap into the government a little bit less, about $3,000 a year less than the $14,387. It'll be $11,455. That'll be the net cost per household. But once they are legalized, the average, I call it the post-interim household, will be drawing down a net cost of $28,000 a year, and the average retirement cost is going to be $22,700 a year.

So the current law, under current law, illegal households are a net cost to the taxpayer today, under current law, of $54.5 billion a year--$54.5 billion a year. If we go into an interim phase, if the bill in the Senate is passed, then it's going to be an annual cost--it's less, remember I said--of $43.4 billion a year, and that's through that phase over the next 13 years. But after that, it legalizes a lot of people, around 33 million people according to NumbersUSA, and I'm not sure that's the number Rector is using, but it legalizes a lot more people, and they have access to a lot more public services, a lot more of that borrowed money from China that goes in to fund the welfare state that Milton Friedman talked about, and now after that interim phase, 13 years down the road, the post-interim phase, the net cost to the taxpayer--net--$106 billion a year. And into the retirement phase for the same generation of them, the net cost to the taxpayer is $160 billion a year.

So it boils down to this in the Heritage study that was released today, a lifetime summary, it's this: that those who are here today that are unlawfully present in the United States will be collecting $9.4 trillion over their lifetime. They will pay $3.1 trillion in taxes, and they'll have a net benefit of $6.3 trillion as far as the collections that they would have from the taxpayer.

What nation in its right mind would go down a path like this and try to convince Americans that somehow this is an economic development situation?

I go to page 3 of the executive summary, Mr. Speaker, and Robert Rector makes this point:

At every stage of the life cycle, unlawful immigrants, on

average, generate fiscal deficits (benefits exceed taxes).

Unlawful immigrants, on average, are always tax consumers;

they never once generate a ``fiscal surplus'' that can be

used to pay for government benefits elsewhere in society.

This situation obviously will get much worse after amnesty.

That, Mr. Speaker, is the bottom line on the Rector report. That's the economic analysis. I know that there is a competing analysis out there. I would submit that that competing analysis, which I've read, conflates the terms ``legal'' and ``illegal,'' and it calculates the economic benefit but not the full cost. This study is a study that has been through the mill before. The principles that it was founded upon have been analyzed before, have been tested before. And yes, there will be those who will seek to discredit this, but I would say to them, step back, take an objective look, and ask yourself the question: Even though you might believe that historically large numbers of legal immigrants coming into the United States have developed themselves economically and fit into the economic component of the United States, even though you might believe that--and I do believe that, Mr. Speaker. A hundred years ago, this country had a need for skilled and unskilled labor, an educated and uneducated workforce, but today it's a different world. Today it's a technological world. Today it requires an education. It requires technical skills.

We have a completely adequate supply of low and unskilled workforce. In fact, we have an oversupply of low and unskilled workforce. In every category that shows the highest levels of unemployment, we also see that those with the highest levels of unemployment are in the lowest and unskilled workforce. This isn't 1900. This is 2013. America needs educated people, talented people, people who contribute to the economy and pay a net increase in taxes over their lifetime so this economy can grow; and to take on the load of funding people who would come here without skills and without prospects of those skills is a foolish thing to do from an economic perspective.

There will be those who say maybe so, but the next generation will far surpass. This is a multigenerational investment, to which Robert Rector says, no; even if the second generation all graduated from college, if they all turned in this ability to have an average college surplus of $29,250, they still could not pay back the deficit of $6.3 trillion. And all of them are not going to go to college. About 13 percent will.

So that's a quick summary of the Rector study. I appreciate your attention and the privilege to address you here on the floor.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, May 7, 2013, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I'm here today to ask my colleagues to join me in supporting an end to forced union dues in America. I'm talking about the National Right to Work Act, which I recently reintroduced here in the 113th Congress as H.R. 946.

Every American should have the power to negotiate with their employer about the terms of their employment, but no American should be forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job. However, when Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, it established monopoly bargaining, and that monopoly bargaining conscripts workers who want nothing to do with the union into paying union dues. That doesn't sound like the America that I know.

In 1947, Congress admitted this provision violated the rights of workers; but because the votes weren't there to fully repeal this provision, they opted instead to allow the States to opt out of the NLRA's monopoly bargaining statute. That was a provision that the States, though, had to pass laws to exempt themselves.

To date, 24 States have enacted these right-to-work laws; and because of that, they have been able to mitigate the negative effects of our misguided Federal labor law on their citizens and their economy. Iowa is one of those States.

But the fact remains that Congress created this problem in the first place by making forced unionization the default position for all States. Since Congress created this problem, it is Congress' responsibility to correct it. The National Right to Work Act does so without adding a single new word to the Federal Code by simply erasing the forced-dues clauses in the Federal statute.

While the votes weren't there to repeal this provision in 1947, they should be there today because we now have decades of data to compare forced-dues States and workplace-freedom States. The results of this nationwide experiment suggest that the National Right to Work Act would create a huge boost in our economy; and, therefore, I urge Congress to take up the National Right to Work Act.

Mr. Speaker, it's my privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I've listened to the dialogue over the last, oh, 30 to 60 minutes and I'm a little bit surprised that some of the advocates for the comprehensive immigration reform bill wouldn't simply look at the impact on a lot of their friends and neighbors. We see the highest unemployment in the African American community. That's the direct competition that comes in if they grant amnesty on the Senate side. I ask the gentleman to reconsider that. The best thing that would be would be more jobs for people that are here that are Americans.

I see the gentleman from Texas has arrived. Generally, there is a pretty good narrative that comes forth from the gentleman from the Beaumont area, so I would be very pleased to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Professor Richard Falk is in Fantasy Land

I thank the gentleman from Texas for his message. It's one that I hope, Mr. Speaker, is well heard across America: You don't have to pay them to hate us. They hate us for free. They hate us for our ideology and for our success, for all of those reasons.

Mr. Speaker, I came here to the floor tonight to talk about the immigration issue here in the United States Congress, primarily that has emerged in the United States Senate out of the Gang of Eight.

We know that there are some of these policies that are being worked through in meetings behind closed doors in the House of Representatives. They seem to admit to those meetings, but they're not very public and we don't know very much about what they're talking about. I just get nervous when I see bills written in secret.

The Gang of Eight wrote their bill in secret and popped it out last week or so, a little more, and we began to look through 844 pages. Surprise. Well, shortly after the bill was dropped, then the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate calls hearings and begins to do the fastest process that they can legitimately get done to try to move an immigration amnesty bill out of the Senate before it gets so many holes poked in it that it sinks of its own weight.

I take you back, Mr. Speaker, to: How did we get here? What was the scenario? What's the path of immigration? I will go through the fast- forward version, backing this up to 1986.

In 1986, it became a political issue that we had too many people in the United States illegally. There was an effort made to resolve the issue and the effort was this:

Part of the people in the argument said they wanted better border security and they wanted better immigration enforcement. The other side of the argument said we've got to do something to legalize people that are here that--I don't know if they used the language then if they were in the shadows or not. Those two arguments came together here in this Congress. And with Ronald Reagan sitting in the White House, he received significant pressure from the people around him that urged him to sign the 1986 Amnesty Act. Now, that was one of only two times that Ronald Reagan let me down in 8 years. But he accepted the arguments that the only way to get agreement on enforcement and to be able to respect and restore the rule of law was to make the people that were here illegally legal. The tradeoff was amnesty in exchange for enforcement.

So, Mr. Speaker, the projection originally was 800,000 people in this country illegally that would get instantaneous legalization status, and then that number of course grew to 1 million. Roughly, that was the projected amount at the time that the bill was debated in Congress. We know that, instead, there wasn't 1 million people. It was 3 million people that ended up receiving amnesty from the deliberations in this Congress, the tug-of-war that came together, and it's a product of compromise. I would point out that compromise isn't always a good thing. This would be one of those examples.

The compromise was, in exchange for the promise of future enforcement, Ronald Reagan would sign the bill to instantaneously start the process to legalize the people that were illegally in the United States. Sounds familiar. Well, he signed the bill in '86. What we got was instantaneous legalization of the people that were here--triple the number that was projected--and the effort to get law enforcement was undermined continually. It was undermined in a number of ways: through litigation, through lack of will. As it ground forward, the respect for the rule of law, especially with regard to immigration law, diminished in each year.

As we've seen, the enforcement of our immigration laws has diminished in each administration, from Ronald Reagan through Bush 41, to Bill Clinton, to Bush 43, and now to Barack Obama. That's the path that has taken place.

Just a year ago, the debate was: Would Congress pass the DREAM Act, the DREAM Act being the legislation that I'll say the chief advocate for it in the Senate has been Senator Durbin of Illinois. He has identified with it more than anyone else. But the DREAM Act is: those kids that came here, say, before their 18th birthday--and that goes up and down to 16, or on up to a little older than that. Those that came here when they were relatively young, maybe due to no fault of their own--theoretically, someone who was born 5 minutes before in a foreign country that was brought in by their parents as a little baby would get a legal status. And, by the way, in-State tuition discounts so they can go to college, get legal status, and be able to work in the country.

In other words, it was amnesty for those young people who presumably came into this country not of their own will or perhaps not of their own knowledge that it was against the law to enter the United States illegally, or those that might have been brought into the country under a visa of one kind or another, overstayed their visa and didn't have a legal status anymore. In any case, the younger people given a path to a legal status and a legal green card here in the United States, that's the DREAM Act.

A year ago, Mr. Speaker, it was not something that could pass the United

States Congress. They long wanted to get the DREAM Act passed, but they could not because we stood on the rule of law and we said we are not going to reward people who break the law with, let's just say, a de facto scholarship to a university--and in California, it would be a free ride. I made the argument that how can you legalize people that are here illegally, refuse to enforce the law, the clear directive of the law, and have people sitting in a classroom in, say, California with a free ride while someone who has lost their husband or wife in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan, who finds themselves the sole breadwinner for their family, wants to go to California--I'll use as the example--and have to pay out-of-State tuition in a California institution, who is a widow or a widower of someone who has given their life for our country, they're sitting there next to someone who is in the United States illegally that gets a free ride because they've been declared a California resident.

I could never reconcile the huge inequity, the injustice of that idea, and neither could a majority of Americans or a majority of the United States Congress. That's why the DREAM Act wasn't passed. Just a year ago that couldn't be done.

The President said on March 28 of 2010, when he was speaking to a high school group here in the Washington, D.C. area, they asked him: Why don't you just pass the DREAM Act by executive order, implement that? And the President's answer was: No, I don't have the constitutional authority to do so. That is a legislative branch activity. And he said: You're smart, you're educated, you know that in the three branches of government Congress' job is to pass the laws, my job as President, the head of the executive branch, is to carry those laws out and see to it that they are enacted and enforced, and the judicial branch is to rule on their constitutionality to tell us what the laws are understood to mean.

That was the description that the President gave March 28, 2010. He said he didn't have the authority to implement a DREAM Act by executive authority. Congress wouldn't pass it a year ago; the President said he couldn't do such a thing constitutionally, March 28, 2010. And here we've come so far that in June or July--and I don't have those dates in front of me, nor committed to memory, Mr. Speaker--the President went back on his own advice, word, oath of office and counsel when they issued an executive memorandum.

He held a press conference at the White House within a couple hours of the executive memorandum and said: We are going to legalize all of these people that are here within these age groups that fit the definition of the DREAM Act--an executive edict, not exactly an executive order, because it was only a memorandum between the Department of Homeland Security that they put out--and that they would follow this guideline. They created four classes of people that were defined by age and by status, but four separate classes of people created in this memorandum.

And the President manufactured a work permit out of thin air, Mr. Speaker, just simply made it up. All of the visas that exist in law, of course, are a product of Congress. And it's our exclusive authority to define immigration law. It's the President's job to enforce the laws that are on the books.

Now, the previous President had the opportunity to veto immigration law. It's all signed into law and it is the law of the land. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The President violated the Constitution and his own definition of congressional executive and judicial authority when he issued this executive memorandum that granted this legal status under the DREAM Act principles. That happened, I would say, June or July of last year.

Now we've come a quantum leap. As we go forward, we put together a meeting and organized the effort to take the President to court on that issue. You cannot have a President that's going to legislate by executive edict. But he did do that; and that case, Mr. Speaker, has worked its way through the courts. And I'm here to announce in the Congressional Record the results.

The name of the case is Crane v. Napolitano. This references the lead plaintiff as Christopher Crane, who is the president of the ICE union, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union. He has been a stellar individual on this. He stood boldly and strongly, and he's taken the threats and the buffeting that comes from all sides of this argument. He's testified before Congress. He has stood at a press conference and asked to be recognized to ask questions of Senators over on the Senate side. And he has flawlessly walked his way down through this thing by standing for the rule of law and for the Constitution and his own oath to uphold the law, as we have taken that oath here in this Congress to uphold the Constitution.

This decision that came down yesterday from a Federal District Court in Houston in the case of Crane v. Napolitano, there were 10 points that were made in this litigation, Mr. Speaker. Nine of the 10, the judge found clearly down on the side of those who support the Constitution and the rule of law and rejected the executive branch's argument that they had prosecutorial discretion to decide who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.

Time after time the judge wrote: When Congress writes in statute the word ``shall,'' shall means shall. It doesn't mean may; it means shall. That means that when an ICE officer picks someone up and identifies them as likely to be in violation of immigration laws, they shall be placed in deportation proceedings. That's a ``shall'' that's in the law that was upheld by the Court yesterday in their decision on this multiple-page decision. So nine of the 10 components of the argument, several of which I made early on after that issuing of the executive edict last year, nine of 10 were upheld.

The 10th argument was one that the President sent it back to the executive branch and said: your argument is so illogical and baseless and convoluted and tied to footnotes, go back and rewrite your argument. But the implication or the tone of that is once that's rewritten, he's probably going to find it. I guess I don't want to put words in a judge's mouth. I'm optimistic about how that final component of the ruling will be.

In any case, it's almost a 100 percent resounding decision that says: Barack Obama and his appointees cannot write immigration law out of thin air. They can't do so by executive memorandum, they cannot do so by edict, they cannot do so by executive order. Congress writes immigration laws, Mr. Speaker, and the President's job is to take care that those laws be faithfully executed. He has not done that. He's defied his own oath of office. The Federal Court has ruled on the side of article I, legislative branch of Congress. We will see the impact of this decision.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that now it's time for the Gang of Eight to reassess as a result of this lawsuit. It's time for the open-border advocates in this Congress to reassess as a result of this lawsuit. They had concluded, the people on my side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, appear to have concluded that Republicans didn't win the elections they anticipated winning last November. On the morning after the election, some of our otherwise wise folks on our side of the aisle concluded that Mitt Romney would have been President-elect if he just hadn't said two words, ``self-deport,'' and so now there has to be an effort to try to, let's say, start the conversation with select groups of people across the country that would require that amnesty be passed to ``start the conversation.''

Mr. Speaker, I would urge all of those to reassess the situation and think about this. They were seeking to conform to the President's edict on his DREAM Act life. They were seeking to adjust U.S. law under the premise that the President refused to enforce existing law, and the only way that we could get law enforcement would be to conform to the President's wishes and rewrite the law and conform it to the President's political agenda.

I thought from the beginning it was a ludicrous position to take, to accept an idea that the President can, first, write a law by executive edict; and, second, Congress has to conform. Now, I've seen it happen and participated in it in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, when we have a piece of legislation and it finds its way over to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court comes down with a

ruling, and then Congress takes a look at the language of that Supreme Court's ruling, and we will bring a piece of legislation to conform with a directive from the Supreme Court. I think that's an appropriate thing for us to do, provided we agree with the Supreme Court's decision and it's clear, logical legal analysis. When we have done that, I've agreed.

An example would be the language on partial-birth abortion that banned it. The first time it went to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court ruled that the definition of ``partial-birth abortion'' was too vague. So we went back and fine-tuned that language, passed it out of the Judiciary Committee, passed it out of the House and the Senate, President Bush signed it, and it was upheld when it found its way back again before the Supreme Court.

That's okay, and it's an appropriate and proper thing for this Congress to do--to conform our legislation to a Supreme Court decision when it's a proper one. But when the President defies the law and the policy established by the United States Congress and makes up his own as he goes along by executive edict and press conference and for Congress to accept the idea that the President of the United States directs us, either implied or literally, to conform the law to the President's wishes, I would remind all of those people who happen to think that, Mr. Speaker, that we each have our own franchise.

Our oath is to uphold the Constitution. It's not to conform to the President's whims or wishes. It's to represent the best decisions for this country and to represent the people in the districts that we represent. We owe them our best judgment and our best effort, but we don't owe anybody an obligation to conform to the President's wishes, will, or whim. That has to only conform with our best judgment, individual best judgment, collectively measured here in this Congress-- House and Senate.

So I think that a Congress that would be willing to give up its legislative authority and let that power go over to the executive branch by conforming the idea of amnesty that the President has brought forward in his edict I think our Founding Fathers did not imagine. They did not imagine that this branch of government would be so willing to give up this power. Our Founding Fathers imagined that each branch of government would jealously guard the power that's granted it within the Constitution in the three separate branches of government. They expected that Congress would assert its authority in competition with and in a static tension with the President and with the courts. The courts, by the way, were designed to be the weakest of the three branches of government. That's a longer discussion.

The Gang of Eight, though, brought their bill out. What is it, Mr. Speaker? It is this:

It is amnesty first. It instantaneously legalizes everybody that's in the country illegally with a few tiny, little exceptions, and that's if we run across them randomly and if they happen to have committed a felony or three misdemeanors. Other than that, it instantaneously legalizes everybody who's here illegally whether they committed a crime of illegally crossing the border or whether they overstayed their visa or whether they committed the crime of document fraud. Those kinds of things are just simply not enforced by this administration. They are treating immigration law as if it's a secondary crime.

An example of that would be, if you've got States that say that you can't pull somebody over for not wearing their seatbelt, but if they're speeding and if it happens to be they're not wearing their seatbelt, you can write the ticket for that. That's kind of the equivalent of what's going on here.

The President essentially issued this edict that, if somebody is guilty of a felony and if they're unlawfully in the United States, then we will go ahead and deport them; but otherwise they would get similar treatment as, oh, let's say, the President's aunt, who was adjudicated for deportation and who lived in the country illegally for years after that. Finally, she surfaced again, and they granted her asylum status. If they'd sent her back to Kenya, she would have apparently been subject to kidnap and ransom, so they gave her asylum. I guess it's an undecided case with the President's Uncle Omar, who was picked up for drunken driving. He had already been adjudicated for deportation. We would know if he were anyplace other than still in the United States of America.

The law didn't apply to the President's relations, and I guess in order to conform with that, the President would like to exempt everybody from the same law that his family has been exempted from. I disagree. Congress writes the laws, and the President's job is to carry them out.

In this Gang of Eight's legislation, it's instantaneous amnesty for almost everybody, and that is breathtaking in the magnitude of it. They say 11 million. I say 11 million, 12 million, more likely 20 million. Here is what I would guarantee you, Mr. Speaker: if they move legislation out of the Senate and if it does come to the House, along the way, if any of us introduce an amendment that would cap the legalization number at their estimated number, they will never support such an amendment because they know it's a lot more than 11 million people. It's instantaneous amnesty for 11 to 20-or-more million people, but that's not good enough for them.

They also had to write into the bill that, if you have previously been deported and if you find yourself waking up in a country that you're legal to live in, we still send an invitation through this bill that you should apply to come back into the United States because we really didn't mean it, Mr. Speaker. We didn't really mean it, the idea that people were deported for violating immigration law. If they'd like to reapply, unless they have a felony conviction or three misdemeanor convictions, they're going to give them a path to come back to the United States. So this isn't just amnesty for those who are here now. This is amnesty for those who have been sent home as well--an absolute open-door policy.

And the trade off is--what?--amnesty first for the promise of enforcement. It's the same thing that came along in 1986 and multiple times since then--amnesty for the promise of enforcement.

The promise of enforcement is that Janet Napolitano is to produce within 5 years a plan to get 90 percent operational control of the critical sectors of the border that she designates, the 90 percent of those that we see, of course, because you can't count those that you can't see. So they want to be able to catch 90 percent of those that you can see. We don't know if they're going to turn their eyes the other way, but here is what I know: we are never going to see the enforcement side of this. It's amnesty first, a promise of enforcement second. That has never worked.

If they were serious, they would go to work and secure the border, shut off the jobs magnet, restore the respect for the rule of law. We would know in this country if there were respect for the rule of law restored, and at that point, I'm ready to sit down and talk. I'm ready to have that conversation but not absent the reestablishment of the rule of law, and that means border control, serious border control. We've got the resources to do it, Mr. Speaker. It's not that we don't have it.

We're spending over $6 million a mile on the southern border. You can build a four-lane interstate across Iowa cornfields for $4 million a mile. You can buy the right-of-way; you can engineer it; you can design it; you can do the archeological and the environmental; you can grade it; you can put the drainage in; you can pave it; you can paint it; you can shoulder it; you can seed it; and you can put fences on it--all of that for $4 million a mile through Iowa cornfields. You cannot convince me that we couldn't take about a third of that $6 million a mile and in a few years build the finest, most sophisticated barrier along our southern border.

We can take some lessons from the Israelis, for example, who get a 99.9 percent efficiency rate at their border barrier. They do that because their lives depend on it. So do ours in a lot of ways, Mr. Speaker. It's not that hard to build infrastructure and add to that infrastructure the sensory devices so that we can actually get the warning signals when people do get across such a barrier. We can do all of that. We can

do it with the resources that we have. We can do it well up into the 90-some percentile of efficiency with the money that we have, and we can shut off the jobs magnet.

All we need to do is pass the New IDEA Act. IDEA, the Illegal Deduction Elimination Act. It clarifies that wages and benefits paid to illegals are not tax deductible. It lets the IRS come in. Under their normal auditing process, they would run the employees through E-Verify. When they'd run the employees through E-Verify, then we would give the employer safe harbor if they'd use E-Verify. That's a nice, comforting thing. Each employer would want to have that. If the IRS concludes that you've knowingly, willingly, or neglectfully been employing illegals, they would rule that wages and benefits paid to them are not a business expense. That means, out of your Schedule C, that money comes out and goes over into the gross receipts again and shows up in the bottom line as taxable income, and your $10-an-hour illegal employee turns into a $16-an-hour illegal employee, and it becomes a prudent business decision on the part of the employer to use E-Verify to clean up his workforce.

So there are two simple things, Mr. Speaker:

We can provide that border security with the resources that we have by adding infrastructure, by adding and utilizing technology in addition to--and I have not said 2,000 miles of border fence--a fence, a wall and a fence. We just build it according to the directives of the Secure Fence Act and keep building it until they stop going around the end. We shut off the jobs magnet and restore the rule of law. Then let's have a conversation, Mr. Speaker; but until then, I'm going to stand on defending the rule of law.

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

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor here to announce that the Senate released their Gang of Eight immigration bill sometime around 2:45 a.m. this morning. It didn't take very long for the secret group in the House to release their support for the bill. They had time, apparently, to analyze the 844 pages that are in this bill.

I've had time to analyze a little bit of it. Mr. Speaker, what it says is this: they want to instantaneously legalize everybody that's here in America illegally, with a few exceptions, in case they decide to enforce the law against them.

That doesn't satisfy them, Mr. Speaker. They even want to legalize the people that have been deported and sent to their home countries and bring them back to the United States. If that occurs, 11 million to 20 million becomes at least 30 million people.

Because we have what they call a ``de facto'' amnesty now, it is, in fact, literally amnesty now, and making that promise is going to start another rush over our borders.

We must restore the rule of law.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my privilege to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

It's a bit of a frustration not to be picking up after Mr. Woodall in support of the FairTax; although, I want to let you know that I had long been a supporter of the FairTax before it had a name, before it had a bill, before it had a concept that was nationally discussed. I just began to discuss it from my own business perspective because of my experience in starting a business in 1975, employing people and seeing what happens when you have a tax system that doesn't tax consumption but punishes productivity in America.

But I came here, Mr. Speaker, to bring up the immigration issue, which has been operating in the media to some degree, but mostly behind the scenes, delivered by the Gang of Eight over in the Senate and a group behind the scenes here in the House of Representatives. They will put out a little

trial balloon of what they want the press to talk about, and maybe have a little press conference to launch their endeavor. We saw that with the Gang of Eight. And yet, the deliberations, the discussions, the input, the ideas that are injected, versus the ideas that are rejected, haven't had the light of day.

Now we understand that perhaps tomorrow there will be a release of a bill, and I have in my hand a preview of what that bill is most likely to be. Of course, there are changes that could be made, and I want to qualify my delivery here, but I want to discuss what I think about the pieces of it that I've read so far, Mr. Speaker.

So the Gang of Eight's proposal, which we think will emerge tomorrow or perhaps the next day, it works out to be this: the case, the goal for border security, Mr. Speaker, is for the achievement of a 90 percent effectiveness rate of border security. Ninety percent. How do you measure that? Well, there are some metrics there, but it is an equation that essentially says that those that we stop, interdict, perhaps deport, divided by the number who attempt to cross. Now, that's a nice little formula, and it would make sense until you think a little more deeply into it. These are human beings that are being counted. They act in ways that are perhaps wiser than the numbers. But in any case, a 90 percent effectiveness rate can't be measured in an objective way.

We know that there was a sector of the border that was surveilled by drone; 150 square miles was reported to be surveilled, and I know that's not linear, it's square. And out of that, there were nearly 4,000 illegal border crossings in that period of time in that section of the border that they surveilled, for roughly not 24-7 but roughly 8 hours a day kind of on average for a period of time from October 1 until January 17 of this year. The border crossings that they interdicted with the help of the drone came to a number in excess, some number approaching 1,700 or so. And those who got by, even though they were observed by the drone, was a number greater. Even with drone assistance, they weren't able to interdict 50 percent of those that they observed cross the border.

We don't have full-time surveillance over the border. And by the way, that is not something that works as effectively in all weather conditions and all light conditions. There are still circumstances where we can't see from the air, certain conditions when we can't fly. But even under the best of conditions when they had surveillance from the air, they still, with all of the forces they could bring to bear or did bring to bear on it, they still couldn't interdict half of the people coming across the border through a 150-square mile section of the border.

So the promise is that we would have 90 percent enforcement effectiveness of the high-risk sectors of the southern border; high- risk sectors of the border to be designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security, who is no doubt presiding over the current situation that we have. They would also appropriate $3 billion to implement the strategy, and another $1.5 billion for infrastructure along the border. That would be southern border fencing strategy established by the Secretary. Now we're up to $4.5 billion additional dollars applied to the southern border. We have applied billions of dollars to the southern border. We've ramped up the number of Border Patrol agents and CBP agents that we have on the southern border. We passed the Secure Fence Act here in this Congress. It passed the House, passed the Senate, and was signed by the President. And still, that was about 854 miles of border altogether, but the linear section, there are a lot of crooks in that border along the way so it is roughly 700 effective miles of the border. We can't build that because of political opposition that took place on the Senate side. A former Senator who was a Republican put an amendment in to block some of the construction of the fence on the border. We can't get access to the border over some of the areas because it's national park or national monument land, and so we let that be under the control of illegal immigrants to a point where a Member of Congress is locked out, blocked out of national park, national monument land, because it's too dangerous from a security standpoint for a Member of Congress to go down into that area.

Now I admit that this bill does address some of that, but I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that the last time I calculated the cost of our investment to secure our southern border, and it has been several years ago, we had gone from $4 million a mile to $6 million a mile in our investment. And we've gone up substantially since then. But think of what that means: $6 million a mile, and we still have a porous southern border. That says lack of will. It doesn't say lack of resources.

Now for those of us that are thinking about how that applies, people, especially rural people, and where I come from, we have a gravel road every mile and a grid system. So where I live on the corner of a gravel road, there is a gravel road that runs a mile in each of four different directions. And if Janet Napolitano came to me and said, Steve King, I'm going to offer you $6 million a mile to guard your west road, and I want you to make sure that only 10 percent of the people who want to go across there get across, and I recognize that 60, 70, 80 or more percent of them are crossing now. In fact, we have Border Patrol testimony that shows that they're only interdicting perhaps 25 percent of those that cross the border, and those are the ones that we do see.

When I go down to the border and ask the people who are front line, boots on the ground people, the most consistent number I get from them is 10 percent. But even if it is 25, and even if at the peak of the illegal crossings that we had several years ago, as reflected in that fashion, that 25 percent, that means that we were having 11,000 a night go across our southern border, 4 million illegal crossings a year. Maybe that's down to only 2 million now, but I suspect it's more than that. But in any case, the $6 million a mile, plus what we've added since the last time I calculated it, plus the numbers they have here, this $4.5 billion that they would add, takes us up to at least $8.25 million a mile.

Now if Janet Napolitano says, Steve King, I have $8.25 million for you for this year, and I want you to achieve more efficiency and security along your west mile than we've had before, would I then hire myself a whole group of Border Patrol agents to stand there and buy them Humvees and put on uniforms and buy their arms and set up the health care plan and the retirement plan and take that perpetual liability for the balance of their lives for the purpose of guarding that mile? Some of it I would, Mr. Speaker. Some of it I would.

But some of it, I would put an infrastructure in place. I would build a fence, a wall, and a fence across the areas where people are crossing. And I have not advocated that we build 2,000 miles of fence on our southern border, but I have consistently advocated that we build it, keep extending our fence at the most illegally crossed places until such time they stop going around the end. And if it happens that they don't stop going around the end, ultimately we'd end up with 2,000 miles--a fence, wall, and a fence on the southern border.

If you think it's too expensive or too difficult, no, Mr. Speaker, it's not--$8.25 million a mile. And we do our budgeting here for a 10- year budget window, so that's over $80 million that Janet Napolitano would offer me to guard one mile of it, if this were the scenario that I painted. For $80 million and a 10-year contract, do you think we couldn't find a little more efficiency on my west mile than we have today? Of course we could. You could guarantee a very high degree of efficiency, substantially higher than 90 percent.

I would submit that the Israelis, who built a fence on their border to protect them from people that were coming in, have not spent as much money on the border to construct a fence as we're spending every year to watch the desert, and they get a 99-point-something percent efficiency. In fact, I'd suggest it's 99.9 percent. And why? Why do they have that efficiency, because their very lives depend upon it, Mr. Speaker. Because they have people coming into Israel who are willing to walk onto a bus with a bomb strapped on them and blow themselves up for the purpose of killing Israelis.

Now most of the time in this country that's not the circumstance we are faced with today, thankfully, but occasionally it is. And this needs to be part

of our dialogue, too, Mr. Speaker. But the cost on the southern border of adding another $4.5 billion, getting us up to over $8 million in order to try to get the promise of security, and what's the tradeoff that comes? The tradeoff is they want to promise border security. They want to promise workplace enforcement by adding to this legislation mandatory E-Verify. Now without looking at the language, I don't think that language is going to include that mandatory E-Verify will even allow the employer to check his current employees.

What they're going to say is, if you came into the United States and you're unlawfully present in America, they under their bill will instantaneously legalize everyone who's here illegally, with some exceptions.

Some of the exceptions would be if you've been guilty of a felony, or if you're convicted of three misdemeanors, not serious, but three misdemeanors, and then, if you have been in the United States since December 31 of 2011.

Here's the inadmissible. You can't be admitted for criminal, national security, public health or other morality grounds. No definition of ``other morality grounds.''

But if you were previously here before December 31, 2011. Why is that?

Well, I think that probably is the date when they began talking openly about their plan, so they don't want to have the responsibility of being the magnet that has attracted people to come into the United States illegally in order to access the amnesty plan that they're devising in the Senate and they're devising behind closed doors here in the House.

Now, amnesty. Some of them have even tried to define amnesty. I've consistently defined it, Mr. Speaker. To grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime. It's a pardon and a reward. That's exactly what is in this document that represents a summary of perhaps 1,500 pages that's about to emerge in a day or so.

And if we are to pardon and reward and instantly legalize everyone that's here in the United States, with exceptions of those who have committed a felony or those who have three misdemeanors, then what are we to expect?

Oh, even with this bill, they would reach out and say to people, if you have been deported, we invite you to come back to America and you can sign up under our plan that is called the RPI plan. It's a little bit bizarre so I didn't get the--it's the Registered Provisional Immigrant status plan.

So this country would offer such a thing to people who have already been adjudicated and already been sent back to their home country, bring them back. This doesn't just grant amnesty. It reaches backwards and gets people that have been sent home, where they can wake up in the country legally.

And by the way, that's the minimum penalty that we can have. If we're going to have any kind of immigration law at all in this country, if we're not willing to put people back in the condition that they were in before they broke the law, we have no enforcement whatsoever. There will be no deterrent whatsoever.

And they would ask us to believe that, after they instantaneously legalized everybody that's here in America, that they would slowly pick out those who were felons and those who have been convicted of three serious misdemeanors and slowly send them back to their home countries.

They would also ask us to believe that there's a longer waiting period and a more difficult process to citizenship, so it's not a path to citizenship.

Well, the first thing is, a green card is a path to citizenship. And a path to a green card is a path to citizenship, just as surely as a green card is a path to citizenship.

And they would have us believe that, in the period of 5 or 10 years, depending, if they haven't reached operational control of the border, that somehow this whole thing falls apart and there wouldn't be this promise of amnesty any longer.

So can anyone imagine, after the decades of not enforcing immigration law, if this Congress instantaneously legalized everyone who is here, with exceptions, that after a period of 5 to 10 years of the failure of enforcement--remember that promise of enforcement that Ronald Reagan couldn't keep?

After 5 to 10 years of the failure of enforcement somehow there will be a change of heart and there will actually be enforcement of immigration law? No.

In fact there'd be a promise, if a bill like that is passed, that there would never be enforcement of immigration law, that this would be the most recent amnesty, and that anyone who could come in the United States and live in the shadows would eventually be the beneficiary of the next amnesty, at the price of the rule of law, Mr. Speaker.

And when I make the point for them, take a deep breath, step back, look at this thing, get it in focus, turn it into focus, they say, well, we recognize that maybe this doesn't do the things electorally on the path of political expediency that we would like, but we have to start the conversation.

Can anyone point to a successful model in history where any culture, any civilization, let alone the unchallenged greatest Nation of the world, sacrifices the rule of law, a pillar of exceptionalism, in order to start a conversation?

That's what's happening coming out of the Senate tomorrow, Mr. Speaker. That's what some would like to see happen here in the House of Representatives very soon. That's what I will resist very vigorously.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my privilege to be recognized by you to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

On this tragic day, as we watch the events unfold in Boston, each of our hearts go out and our prayers go out to the victims, the victims' families, and all of those who are doing so much to put back together the great city of Boston while our hearts bleed for the whole country. I am, I think, optimistic since the President--at least his Office--has declared this to be an act of terror. It clearly is--the timing, the planning, the strategy. I believe we will bring those perpetrators to justice. Many of us fear that this is another episode in a long series of episodes of terrorist attacks against Americans in the United States. And it troubles us more when it happens here rather than when Americans are attacked anywhere else in the world.

But, Mr. Speaker, I add to this point that we are a resilient people. We are proud, self-confident, tenacious people. And if anyone attacks Americans, thinking somehow that it weakens our resolve, it has the exact opposite effect. It strengthens our resolve, it brings us to action, it galvanizes us to action. Even though as years go by and we look back on some of these attacks on Americans and that our vigor might diminish because we may think we have resolved some of the issues with regard to the terrorists that are attacking us, Mr. Speaker, I announce here to you tonight that the American people are going to stand together. We stand with the people in Boston, we stand with the Massachusetts delegation, we stand with the Northeast, we stand with the 50 States. We stand together in defiance of the kind of terrorism that attacks Americans.

We stand for some things here, Mr. Speaker, and there are a series of components of what it takes to be an American or become an American. It starts with the list of the pillars of American exceptionalism, which along the line of that list, Mr. Speaker, are freedom of speech, religion, the press, freedom of assembly, keep and bear arms. They're the property rights. In our judicial branch there's no double jeopardy. You are tried by a jury of your peers. You can face your accuser. The powers that are not delineated in the Constitution, enumerated in the Constitution, are devolved to the States or the people, respectively. All of these are components of American exceptionalism.

Along with that, there's another component: free enterprise capitalism. And there's a piece to this also, which is the rule of law. It says in the Constitution ``the supreme law of the land.'' And we must abide by the Constitution and the language in it. The language in the Constitution isn't something that can be redefined away from us, but instead, Mr. Speaker, it is a written contract. It's a contract from the generations that ratified the Constitution and the subsequent amendments to the succeeding generations.

Our charge is to preserve, protect, and defend this Constitution of the United States. And if we find that the wisdom of our predecessors didn't foresee circumstances in the current area where we are, we have an obligation not to redefine the Constitution, defend always the language of the Constitution and the understanding of the meaning of that language at the time of ratification, but instead have enough courage to use the tools to amend the Constitution if we need to. The supreme law of the land.

The rule of law is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism. Without it, we wouldn't have a reason to uphold

the Constitution. It could be defined away from us. And I often speak to groups of people and inform them that the Constitution guarantees us these rights but it can't be guaranteed and upheld generation after generation unless each generation defends the language that's in the Constitution, the original understanding of the language in the Constitution, and exercises those constitutional rights.

Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, if our society decided at some point we're not going to any longer exercise our freedom of assembly? And so for some reason if the stigma of society would discourage assembly, for us to come together and talk about the issues that we want to have our dialogue and exchange on, if we didn't exercise that, the next generation could hardly get out the Constitution and look at it and say, Well, in here it says we have freedom of assembly, and reinstall it. Or, for example, if we gave up our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren after a generation or two or three going without any right to keep or bear arms, opening up this Constitution, dusting off this document and pointing to it and saying, There is a right here to keep and bear arms?

You cannot reestablish these rights that are there in this Constitution if we once stop exercising them. That's why we exercise freedom of speech, we must exercise freedom of religion, and we must exercise freedom of the press. All of these rights are rights that we have to utilize. They are rights that define for us in this Constitution, within it, the supreme law of the land, the rule of law.

There's another component of American exceptionalism as well, aside from these rights that are in the Constitution and the free enterprise piece, which is something that gives our economy its utmost vigor. I would advise people that are preparing to take the naturalization test to become an American citizen by choice rather than birth, that's a choice by the educational foundation that they understand our history, our language. One of the questions that will be there is: what's the economic system of the United States?

Mr. Speaker, the answer to that is free enterprise capitalism. That's what gives our economy its vigor. And when we move away from free enterprise capitalism, when we move towards government management of our economy, government bailouts, government deciding who's too big to be allowed to fail, eventually so much of our private sector economy gets co-opted by government that we lose the vigor of free enterprise capitalism and we lose some of the promise of the ascendancy of the great American civilization.

There's another piece of this also that I speak to relatively often, Mr. Speaker, and that's American vigor. That's the last component of the American exceptionalism that I'll list here tonight.

American vigor. Now where does that come from? Well, we have natural- born American citizens that are part of this civilization and culture. These natural-born American citizens are the descendants of those who came here willingly with a dream. When they came here with a dream, they saw the promise of the Statue of Liberty. And in the image of the Statue of Liberty are the list of American exceptionalism components, the pillars of exceptionalism that I talked about, most of them within the Bill of Rights. But our forefathers were inspired to come here in order to realize their dream. They saw that they couldn't make it in their home country where they hoped to be able to do that and they couldn't realize their potential in their home country. They knew there were challenges here. They came here to rise to the level of their potential. Because of that, there's been a natural filter that has been built. And it's the willing legal immigrants that came to America who were inspired by these pillars of American exceptionalism which are embodied within the image of the Statue of Liberty, and they decided they would find a way to get on a trip or travel, whatever way they could to come to the United States, get in line to become a legal immigrant to the United States. And so many of them have dynamically and dramatically contributed to our economy, our society, our culture, and our civilization. We are that kind of an America.

But there's a unique American character, a unique American spirit, a unique American vigor that comes from those who came here in a legal way that have contributed to our society and our culture and the things that they have taught their children and the things that their children have taught their children and each succeeding generation on down. We're a unique character and quality here. We're not just the descendants of Western Europe or Latin America or wherever it might be. We are the cream of the crop of every donor civilization on the planet that has sent people here to become Americans. That's a special charge. It's a special responsibility. It's distinct from any other Nation in the world. We're the only Nation in the world where people can come here and become American. It doesn't work to go to Norway to become Norwegian or Holland to become Dutch. But it does work to come to the United States of America, embrace the civilization, embrace this culture, embrace this Constitution, take the test to qualify for naturalization, become an American citizen.

I remember going to a naturalization ceremony in the old Executive Office Building. I remember the speaker that day--as there were maybe 125 new American citizens naturalized that day--and he said: Look out that window. When you look out the window of the Indian room at the Old Executive Office Building, you see into the South Lawn and the White House from the side. He said: From this day, the person who lives in this house next door--pointing to the White House--is no more American than you are.

Now, that's a profound statement. It's true in the United States, and I don't believe it's true anywhere else.

So we have a special mission, Mr. Speaker. We have a special responsibility, a responsibility to promote God-given liberty and freedom throughout the world, a responsibility to hold free enterprise capitalism together, a responsibility to exercise our freedom of speech, religion, the press and assembly, and our right to keep and bear arms--all of these things are in the Bill of Rights.

But I fear that too many in this Congress and too many across this country have lost touch, lost contact with what that means. And so, because of political purposes, it seems to me there are a number of them that are trying to devise a way to make accommodations out of political expediency that in the end undermine one of the most essential pillars of American exceptionalism, the rule of law.

Now I take you back to 1986. In 1986, there was a long debate--it was months long; in fact it may have been nearly 2 years long--a debate about what to do about 800,000 people who were in the United States unlawfully. Through that debate, they worked out an accommodation. The 800,000 was more or less generally understood to be 1 million people; and Ronald Reagan, in his honest way, was reluctantly persuaded to sign the 1986 Amnesty Act. When he did that, the promise was that we would get enforcement, that immigration law would be enforced with the utmost vigor of the executive branch of the United States Government. That was the promise that was made by this Congress. It was a promise that was made by the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who was as trustworthy as any President in my lifetime, as principled, and one whom I've long admired and, as I said, only let me down twice in 8 years of the Presidency of the United States. But he made a commitment to enforce the 1986 Amnesty Act.

He was honest with us; he called it amnesty. The definition of amnesty then is the definition that we have of amnesty today. To grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime.

Now, what happened back in 1986? The people that were unlawfully present in the United States were pardoned, with some exceptions--those that had felony records, for example, those that were violent criminals, and some others--but generally they were pardoned. They were given an instantaneous legalization. The exchange was

that those that were in the United States at the time of--there would be a cut off--and those who came after would be faced with the full enforcement of the law.

This, in 1986, was going to be the last amnesty ever. The rule of law was to be restored, and there would never be the promise of an amnesty again. Well, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that didn't hold up. History knows that. History notes that. There have actually been six or seven less significant amnesties along the way since that period of time, each one of them drip, drip, drip, making another promise and another promise to people that if they could just get into the United States, if they could just live in the shadows, eventually there would be another amnesty that would come along. By the way, the 1986 amnesty, that 800,000 to 1 million people became 3 million people. Three million people were granted amnesty back then because of document fraud and underestimations of the numbers of people.

So we're watching as the Gang of Eight will presumably introduce a bill tomorrow in the United States Senate. We don't know with confidence what is in that bill, but we do know all of the initiatives that have come from the open-borders side of this argument. We know what Democrats think--they're politically empowered. They're for any kind of amnesty. They'd do instantaneous citizenship. They would mail it in if they could because they see a significant political gain. But on the Republican side of the aisle, it seems to me that they've suspended a full understanding of what goes on in history or what would take place contemporarily.

So what are we trying to accomplish, is the question, Mr. Speaker. I'm convinced that the President, who came before the Republican Conference, he made a statement to us and he said: Republicans, you will never win another national election unless you first pass comprehensive immigration reform. I don't know that we should be looking to the President of the United States for political advice for Republicans in the first place.

The second part he said was: I'm trying to help you Republicans. Some of the people in that room believed that, Mr. Speaker. I did not, and neither do thinking Americans believe that the President of the United States, who has been charged with attempting to, let me say, significantly weaken the Republican Party, would be seriously trying to improve the Republican Party.

What are we trying to accomplish, Mr. Speaker? Well, I'd like to restore the rule of law. I hear Members of this House and Senate talk to me about, for example, they'll say: Well, the President of the United States has refused to enforce immigration law. That's true. He has unconstitutionally, lawlessly refused to enforce immigration law. He has defined classes of people that will be waived as subjects of enforcement. Now, I have people on my side of the aisle come over and they say we have de facto amnesty. No, we have literal amnesty. We have factual amnesty, not de facto amnesty.

The President has declared, in a lawless fashion, amnesty for those who do not threaten him politically. That's large classes of people, in an unconstitutional fashion, he has announced that they are issuing work permits, creating a work permit/visa for people that are in the country illegally when the law requires that they come out and enforce the law rather than grant them a work permit.

So, de facto amnesty? No. It's real and it's literal amnesty. And now it seems as though many people on my side of the aisle have leaped to this conclusion that this amnesty exists--call it real, literal, or de facto amnesty, it exists--and so the only way we can deal with that is to go ahead and officially act and legalize so that we can somehow resolve this issue. This is an issue that's been created by many, many years of failure to enforce immigration law. But the idea that Congress should ratify an unconstitutional lawless act on the part of the President is beyond my comprehension as to how that solves the problem.

I hear one of the voices in this immigration issue say, we will never get border security unless we first legalize the people that are here illegally. Well, how does that follow? How is that rational, that we'll never get border security? We have a President who's not going to enforce the law. We know that workplace enforcements are down 70 percent under this President. Janet Napolitano declares that we have fewer interdictions on the border; therefore, that proves that there are fewer border crossings. Well, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't prove that. If you want to have fewer interdictions, you just slow down the enforcement on the border.

Now, I actually do believe that there are fewer attempted border crossings. That's a component of the economics. But we should look and see what's the level of illegal drug interdictions. That will tell us something about how many illegal border crossings there are and how porous our border is. We should look and see how many people end up fatalities in the desert trying to come into the United States across Arizona, for example, or the other States. That will give you some real data on what kind of border crossings we have.

We have the question of granting people a path to citizenship, and the argument, Mr. Speaker, that somehow this is not a path to citizenship when it's a path to a green card; the argument that a green card is not a path to citizenship. If a green card is not a path to citizenship, then there is no path to citizenship here in the United States, but of course we know that it is. A green card is a path to citizenship, and a path to a green card is just a little bit longer path to a path to citizenship. The American people understand that; it's not a mystery.

So some of the proposals are also, well, in this exchange, instantaneously--this is a proposal that will come out of the Senate tomorrow--they will instantaneously legalize everybody that's here in the United States illegally, and then set about, if someone is discovered who happens to have a felony on their record, has committed a violent crime, perhaps, maybe three serious misdemeanors, they might package them up and send them back to where they can wake up legally in their home country. They might do that. But meanwhile, you can see that there's no will to enforce the law for law breakers. There's no will to do that.

So if they pass their legislation--instantaneously 11 million or maybe 20 million or more people are legalized--can we imagine that if all of these conditions that they write into this bill as far as border security are concerned and operational control of the border and an Entry/Exit System and an E-Verify system, if all of that goes into place, they say then there's going to be a path to citizenship? Can we imagine that once people are legalized that they would ever be delegalized because of the failure of the executive branch to follow through on all these promises that are going to be made of the executive branch by the legislative branch of government by presumably a President who hasn't followed through on his oath of office to take care that the laws be faithfully executed?

So here's one presumption. They'll want to put E-Verify into this and then make E-Verify mandatory. Therefore, that would mean that we would have full enforcement and the jobs in the workplace. Well, no, we won't have enforcement unless the executive branch enforces.

They've already told ICE to stand down. I can give you a whole list of circumstances by which ICE is prohibited from enforcing existing law by this executive branch of government. And who could imagine that E- Verify, if it passes and becomes mandatory law, is going to be enforced to the extent that it's effective?

I say, instead, just simply clarify that wages and benefits paid to people illegally living in the United States are not business expenses. When that happens, then you'll see employers make that decision because they will not want the tax, the penalty, and the interest liability that goes along with a tax violation.

That's a clear piece. It's not a piece of policy that's being discussed by these people because they are not serious about solving this problem in the way rule of law people would be.

E-Verify won't be enforced adequately to be effective. It could be passed. I think it could be passed as a condition.

The next one is, finish the border fence. We have that language in place

now. We passed 700-mile border fence language called the Secure Fence Act. Actually, 854 miles, and that's because the border is crooked in some places, and we've got about 40 miles of effective fence.

And so follow through on the existing law that we have is my recommendation. We don't have to have a new law to build a fence. Build the fence, secure the border and then come back and tell us that you've actually accomplished that. Let's watch this thing with drones and see if that's taking place, and other security. We know from the last drone report that the Border Patrol, even drone assisted, were not interdicting half of those that attempted to cross the border, and that number in that sector of the border was over 3,000.

Then the argument about operational control of the border. You would hand that over to who? A border commission to be named later. Or hand it over to the judgment of Janet Napolitano, who has already declared that they have significant operational control of the border. I don't know anybody that's buying that particular line.

And then they would also implement an Entry/Exit program. Well, we have that. It's called US-VISIT. It's been in law since about 1996, when it first began to be implemented as entry, and then we added the exit piece of it, but it's never been implemented. I've stood at the border and watched as people come in, swipe their card, they go register on a computer that they come into the United States, and an hour later the car goes back south again and doesn't have to stop because there's no exit system in place. Why not? This administration and the previous administration were not determined to complete it.

So piece after piece of this, Mr. Speaker, says that it's another empty promise, and they tell us we are going to fix the immigration situation so that we don't have to deal with it again in our lifetime. Well, we know better. The 1986 Amnesty Act wasn't the last one; it was the promise of the next one. We've had six or seven since then.

This is a huge promise of amnesty, and it wouldn't be the last one; it would be the biggest promise for the next one. And anyone who could get into the United States before this is enacted could stay here as long as they choose, in the shadows or out. And if those in the shadows get to be great enough numbers, then we will have established that there will be another amnesty down the line.

We cannot be a Nation unless we have borders. We cannot declare we have borders unless we decide and control who comes in and who goes out. That's an important obligation. If there's going to be an America, we must preserve the rule of law. And while we're doing it, Mr. Speaker, we must also preserve and protect and respect the dignity of every human person.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives and take up the topic that has come to the forefront of the American discussion, and do so again.

And that is that on the night of November 6, as people across America watched the election returns come in, there were many Republicans, people on my side of the aisle that watched with, I'll say, shock and disappointment, as the great predictions that Mitt Romney would be the next President of the United States fell by the wayside in swing State after swing State from the east coast. By the time it got west of the Mississippi, it was pretty clear the final result of the Presidential election.

And many of the predictors, who are self-assigned experts on polling and politics and the decision of the American voters, had predicted that Mitt Romney would be President, that Republicans would win the majority in the United States Senate, that there would be a three-way majority between the House, the Senate and Presidency, and we could put America back on the right track.

I hoped for that, Mr. Speaker. I prayed for that. I worked for it. But I watched as those election results came to be untrue, as we lost some seats here in the House and lost some seats in the Senate, and, of course, the President was re-elected that night.

The plans of probably half, very close to half, of the American people had to be changed and altered, because we planned to put free enterprise back in place. We planned to repeal ObamaCare. We planned to do some other things.

But one of the things we didn't really plan so much to do was take up the immigration issue in the 113th Congress.

And even though immigration was hardly a blip on the Presidential debate that took place--and being from Iowa, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that if it was debated in the Presidential race, it likely was debated in Iowa, likely debated in Iowa first, and likely debated in Iowa the longest.

Yet as I tuned my ear to these issues, I didn't notice that it was a paramount topic or a significant plank in the platform of either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, and I don't think the American people did either.

Nonetheless, the election polls closed on the night of the 6th of November, and those results are clear. And the morning then of the 7th of November, some self-appointed experts woke up and decided--oh, probably they didn't sleep very well because it was clear that they were wrong on their predictions. And so how would they then describe why they were so wrong in their bold predictions, even as high as 60 or more Republican seats in the Senate, and Mitt Romney sweeping swing State after swing State?

It didn't happen, of course, Mr. Speaker. How would they describe why they were so wrong?

It didn't take them very long, after the sun came up, or maybe even before they went to bed that night, to decide they were going to tell the American people that the election loss--and I wouldn't characterize it as a loss--it was a failure to achieve the goals we had set, but the President maintained his seat in the White House. But that election loss, as they characterized it, came about because Mitt Romney said two words--``self-deport''--and that explains it all, almost as logically as the video explains the violence in Benghazi.

No, it wasn't because Mitt Romney said those two words, and it wasn't because we had failed to achieve as large a percentage of the Hispanic- Latino vote, although that number dropped off from about 31 percent that John McCain achieved, down to 27 percent, according to the exit polls, that Mitt Romney achieved.

It wasn't even the low. The modern-day low percentage for Hispanic vote went to Bob Dole; and if my memory serves me correctly, that was at 22 percent.

I noticed that as they began to spin the narrative that it was all about immigration, along with that came the position that many of the advocates had had for a long time. These were the people that were the promoters of--and I put it in quotes--``comprehensive immigration reform,'' and that's the language that emerged during George W. Bush's administration when they first advocated the amnesty, the modern-day amnesty that is a policy that much of it was written off of the 1986 Amnesty Act that Ronald Reagan signed.

But their argument was Mitt Romney would be President if he had just had a better outreach to the Hispanic vote. And so those of us that heard that, first I realized that the open-borders people have always had the agenda to suspend the rule of law and grant amnesty and the path to citizenship for people that came here illegally, many times at the expense of those who came here as legal immigrants. But it always was their agenda.

So it was a pretty convenient excuse to analyze failed election results and put it all in the package of: if we had just passed comprehensive immigration reform. Now we must pass comprehensive immigration reform, or the party will become irrelevant electorally in the future, and we'll never win another national election.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States, President Obama, came before Republican House Members in a conference about a month ago and said just that. He said that we would never win another national election if we don't pass comprehensive immigration reform.

And here's the one that's the hardest to accept as being delivered with a serious look on his face, although I'm sure there had to be a little snicker in his mind. He said, to you Republicans, I'm trying to help you. The President said he's trying to help us by advocating for an amnesty plan, comprehensive immigration reform; and that's going to fix the problem of falling a little short in winning the Presidential election last November 6.

Well, there are a few facts that should be known, Mr. Speaker, and one of them is that, according to my team of staff as they sat on their Blackberrys, Barack Obama received 8 million fewer votes than he did in 2008 and Mitt Romney received 1 million fewer votes than John McCain did in 2008. That means there are 9 million people, at least, that stayed home--the electorate should have gotten larger--9 million people that stayed home altogether. Why were they not energized? Why didn't Barack Obama energize them? Why didn't Mitt Romney energize them? We need to know the answers to those questions just to begin this discussion.

Another one would be, how important was the immigration issue to people in this country? Not important enough that the Presidential candidates would make a debate issue out of it or campaign on it. So it wasn't on the radar screen of the Presidential candidates, who have the most extensive and expensive polling of anybody in the country.

So why was that an issue? I'd point out Republicans lost an even larger share of the Asian vote than they did the Hispanic vote, but what was the list of priorities that they had, and was immigration at the top? No, actually, it was fifth or sixth along the line.

Like everybody else, we are all human beings and we're all deserving of respect and we're all created in God's image. But people think the same way, regardless of what their race or ethnicity. They want to take care of their families. They worry about jobs and the economy. They want to have safe streets. They want good education. They want opportunity. They should want lower taxes and less government intrusion into our lives. But that same poll yielded a bit of a surprising result to many of the advocates that had spun the yarn the morning after the election that the constituency that they were losing was, naturally, Republicans. Because I'll say this: we know they are good family people, they're good faith people, they're good entrepreneurs and they can start a business with less and make it go very, very well with that network of family and work ethic. That's what we see in front of us. But if you ask the question in a setting that is the perspective of a good and effective and thorough, objective poll, you'll find out that Hispanics are about 2-to-1 in favor of larger, more government involvement, more government services, which results in higher taxes.

Well, that's the other party that advertises we need more government, more taxes, more government services. They do that because they are in the business of expanding the dependency class in America. They want, Mr. Speaker, more Americans to be dependent upon government, even if we have to borrow the money from the Chinese and the Saudis in order to provide these ``services'' because it empowers their electoral base and empowers them here in this Congress.

We're on the other side of this issue, Republicans. We want to expand personal responsibility. We want to expand all of the human potential that we possibly can. We want this American vigor to be unleashed and to grow this economy and to grow our gross domestic product. They are two competing ideologies. One is John Maynard Keynes, who believed you could borrow money and hand it to people and ask them to spend it, and somehow that spending would create this giant, endless chain letter that would stimulate the economy. The other side comes out of the Adam Smith side, or you might say the Austrian economic side, that believes that you need production on the production side of our economy for it to grow and has less emphasis on the consumption side, and if you let people invest capital and get a return on that capital investment, they will do their best and contribute and the economy will grow. That's a competing philosophy that's different between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans want to empower the individual. And to empower the individual, you have to respect and appreciate and encourage this free enterprise economy that had built the United States.

Mr. Speaker, if you take a naturalization test there are a series of flash cards, a stack of them that you can get from Citizenship and Immigration Services so that a legal immigrant can study to be naturalized as an

American citizen. These glossy flash cards are read, and they will have on them questions like, Who's the Father of our Country? Snap it over and it's George Washington. Who emancipated the slaves? Republican Abraham Lincoln. Actually, it just says Abraham Lincoln on the other side, Mr. Speaker. What's the economic system of the United States of America? Flip that flash card over and it says free enterprise capitalism.

This is not a secret. We want people to be empowered by freedom, by God-given liberty, not dependent upon some political party that's going to hand out the largesse of government at the expense of other people and actually at the expense of borrowing money from foreign countries to drive us into debt of now nearly $16.8 trillion in national debt.

So the cynical effort to expand the political base erodes the rule of law, erodes free enterprise, puts America in debt. So now that the babies that were born today in the United States of America owe Uncle Sam more than $53,000 each. That's what we have and that's what we're dealing with. And we have a country that we need to pull back from the brink of bankruptcy. We're moving in that direction under I think good, strategic leadership here in the House. We have a budget that we've approved that balances. And it's too long for me. I don't want to wait that long--10 years. But meanwhile, the President's budget balances exactly never and drives us deeper and deeper into debt and raises taxes, Mr. Speaker.

So how do we bring out the greatness of America? The greatness of America was described by Ronald Reagan when he talked about the shining city on the hill. But Ronald Reagan never spoke about the shining city on the hill as being our destiny. He spoke about it as the America that we were and presumably the America that we are. I will argue that our job is to refurbish the pillars of American exceptionalism, to strengthen us in all of those pillars. We know what they are. They're very clear. Many of them are in the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is a pillar of American exceptionalism. I'm exercising it at this moment, Mr. Speaker. Freedom of speech, religion, the press and assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to face your accuser in a court of law and be tried by a jury of your peers; single, not double jeopardy; the right to property; the right to see that the enumerated powers that are exclusively to the United States Congress, those other powers devolve to the States or the people respectively. Those are some of the pillars. I mentioned free enterprise capitalism as another pillar of American exceptionalism. But wrapped up within this, within this Constitution that I carry in my jacket pocket, is the supreme law of the land, our Constitution, and we would not be America if we didn't have all of these pillars that I have described and also have the rule of law.

Now why would thinking people that were elected to come to this United States Congress and make good value judgments and good policy judgments, why would they be so willing and some of them eager to sacrifice the rule of law in an effort to cynically reach out and ask for a vote? Why would someone vote for someone who's willing to sacrifice the rule of law? It defies my logic application, Mr. Speaker. And amnesty is a sacrifice of the rule of law. And once you give it, once you grant it, it's almost impossible to restore it.

I remember when Ronald Reagan signed the Amnesty Act of 1986. And I was not in politics at the time. I was operating my construction company that was 11 years old at the time, raising three young sons, struggling through the farm crisis decade of the eighties. But I'm watching the news, and I'm seeing this debate take place that we have 800,000 to a million that are in the United States illegally. Generally, most of them at that time came across the southern border and stayed. And there was such a big problem that we needed to address it--800,000 to a million that were here illegally then.

So Ronald Reagan, I think under great persuasive pressure from some of the Cabinet members around him, conceded that he would sign that 1986 Amnesty Act. And when he did that, my frustration level went over the top. I believed that in spite of all the pressure that was brought on Ronald Reagan as President, he would see clearly that you can't sacrifice the rule of law in order to solve a problem that came about because of not enforcing the law, and that the promise of enforcement in the future was not going to be upheld adequately to compensate for the amnesty that they were granting in that bill.

Now the promise was this: every employer was going to have to fill out for each applicant an I-9 form. That I-9 form had--I gave it shorthand and called it name, rank, and serial number, but other data, too, of the job applicant. I remember my fear that the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the time, would come into my office and go through my files and audit me and make sure that I had every I-9 form exactly filed right, and I want to make sure I didn't miss it with anyone.

We religiously followed the new 1986 Amnesty Act requirements that there would be I-9 forms. We expected that there would be enforcement and penalties for employers that violated that because the premise was the Federal Government, enforced by the Justice Department at the time, would be there to audit employers and enforce the rule of law. That was the full-blown premise that came with Ronald Reagan's signature on the Amnesty Act of 1986.

I don't have any doubt that Ronald Reagan intended to follow through on the enforcement of the Amnesty Act. I can tell you that I followed my part. I've still got some of those records in my dusty files back there somewhere. Many other employers were concerned that they would not be able to follow the letter of the law. It didn't work out that way. They didn't show up in office after office, company after company. And after 20 years of the Amnesty Act that was 800,000 to 1 million. Because of document fraud and just a misestimation of the numbers, that 800,000 to 1 million became 3 million people that were granted amnesty in that act that was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Now, what did we learn from that, Mr. Speaker? And those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Well, I have this document that's written by Attorney General Ed Meese, who was Ronald Reagan's Attorney General at that period of time and charged with enforcing the immigration law that was passed in Amnesty in '86. This is an op-ed that he wrote, published in Human Events on December 13, 2006. Among his dialogue here is this--and I'll read some of it into the Record, Mr. Speaker. I think it's worth our attention. It's Attorney General Ed Meese writing of Ronald Reagan's Amnesty Act.

From the article, he says:

Illegal immigrants who could establish that they had

resided in America continuously for 5 years would be granted

temporary resident status, which could be upgraded to

permanent residency after 18 months and, after another 5

years, to citizenship. It wasn't automatic. They had to pay

application fees. They had to learn to speak English. They

had to understand American civics, pass a medical exam and

register for military selective service. Those with

convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were

ineligible.

Mr. Speaker, this language is almost verbatim the language that was plugged into the 2006 Amnesty Act and into what is likely to come out of the Senate.

I would be happy to yield for an announcement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had to pause for a minute there. I was concerned that might be the Amnesty Act coming over from the United

States Senate, but I'm relieved to know that it might be a few more days.

Picking up where I left off, I had made the point and read into this Record, Mr. Speaker, the language that was used in the 1986 Amnesty Act is almost identical to the language that was copied and pasted into the 2006 Amnesty Act that they called ``comprehensive immigration reform'' because they knew the word ``amnesty'' would sink the bill then. Now they know that ``comprehensive immigration reform'' is code words for amnesty. The American people figured that out in short order.

I will continue with the op-ed written by Attorney General Meese in 2006. He said, as I remarked:

If this sounds familiar, it's because these are pretty much

the same provisions that were included in the Comprehensive

Reform Act of 2006, which its supporters claim is not

amnesty. In the end, slight differences in process do not

change the overriding fact that the 1986 law and the recent

Senate legislation both include an amnesty. The difference is

that President Reagan called it what it was.

We had an honest man in the White House who called it what it was. I continue from Attorney General Meese:

The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty

did not solve the problem. There was extensive document

fraud; the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded

the projections. And there was a failure of political will to

enforce new laws against employers. After a brief slowdown,

illegal immigration returned to high levels and continued

unabated, forming the nucleus of today's large population of

illegal aliens. So here we are, 20 years later, having much

the same debate.

Mr. Speaker, we're here right now having the same debate that we had in 2006, which was, according to Attorney General Meese, the same debate we had in 1986.

What would President Reagan do? I often ask that. Actually, I'd like to wear a wristband, What Would Ronald Reagan Do?

Attorney General Meese continues:

What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not

repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own

administration. He knew that secure borders are vital and

would now insist on meeting that priority first. He would

seek to strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration

laws. He would employ new tools--like biometric technology

for identification, and camera sensors and satellites to

monitor the border--that make enforcement and verification

less onerous and more effective.

That sounds like some things that a number of us have been advocating for some time.

Then Attorney General Meese continues--and I skip down a little ways:

To give those here illegally the opportunity to correct

their status by returning to their country of origin and

getting in line with everyone else.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it's appalling to me to think that the advocates--I understand the other side of the aisle; I understand the political motivation of the people on the other side of the aisle--expand the dependency class, expand those who can vote for those who want to expand the dependency class. I understand those motives. They are not good motives. They undermine American exceptionalism, but I understand them.

On our side of the aisle, I don't understand--and I think it's because a lot of our own people don't have this figured out. They're looking for someone else to lead them, and they're looking for perhaps an easy way. But every proposal that has been brought forward here out of, let's say, the Gang of Eight or the ``secret gang'' in the House seems to have with it instantaneous legalization of 11, 12, 13--20 million people, all of them, with the exceptions of those who have been convicted of or perhaps charged with a felony, those who have been convicted of three serious misdemeanors. That goes right back to this language of the '86 Amnesty Act: ``Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible,'' according to Attorney General Meese.

So nothing has changed here, except we have a lot more Republicans that think instantaneous legalization--and they'd argue that it's not a path to citizenship. I happen to have this little quote from one of the Gang of Eight where he made us this point, which is he says that a green card is not a path to citizenship. The reason they have to say that is because the path to the green card is a path to citizenship if the green card is a path to citizenship.

There has been an awful lot of misinformation that's put out here and erroneous conclusions drawn, unexamined by the American public that has forgotten, perhaps, about the 2006 Amnesty Act or the 1986 Amnesty Act.

I see the gentleman from California, who was engaged in the Reagan administration and knew Ronald Reagan as well as anybody in this United States Congress, is here on this floor. I would be happy to yield so much time as he may consume, even if he consumes it all. But I would suggest it looks like it's 4 to 5 minutes left.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I thank the gentleman from California for coming to the floor. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time.

[From Human Events, April 11, 2013]

Reagan Would Not Repeat Amnesty Mistake

(By Edwin Meese)

What would Ronald Reagan do? I can't tell you how many

times I have been asked that question, on virtually every

issue imaginable.

As much as we all want clarity and certainty, I usually

refrain from specific answers. That's because it is very

difficult to directly translate particular political

decisions to another context, in another time. The better way

to answer the question--and the way President Reagan himself

would approach such questions--is to understand Reagan's

principles and how they should apply in today's politics, and

review past decisions and consider what lessons they have for

us.

Immigration is one area where Reagan's principles can guide

us, and the lessons are instructive.

I was attorney general two decades ago during the debate

over what became the Immigration Reform and Control Act of

1986. President Reagan, acting on the recommendation of a

bipartisan task force, supported a comprehensive approach to

the problem of illegal immigration, including adjusting the

status of what was then a relatively small population. Since

the Immigration and Naturalization Service was then in the

Department of Justice, I had the responsibility for directing

the implementation of that plan.

President Reagan set out to correct the loss of control at

our borders. Border security and enforcement of immigration

laws would be greatly strengthened--in particular, through

sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants. If

jobs were the attraction for illegal immigrants, then cutting

off that option was crucial.

He also agreed with the legislation in adjusting the status

of immigrants--even if they had entered illegally--who were

law-abiding long-term residents, many of whom had children in

the United States. Illegal immigrants who could establish

that they had resided in America continuously for five years

would be granted temporary resident status, which could be

upgraded to permanent residency after 18 months and, after

another five years, to citizenship. It wasn't automatic. They

had to pay application fees, learn to speak English,

understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register

for military selective service. Those with convictions for a

felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.

If this sounds familiar, it's because these are pretty much

the same provisions included in the Comprehensive Reform Act

of 2006, which its supporters claim is not amnesty. In the

end, slight differences in process do not change the

overriding fact that the 1986 law and the recent Senate

legislation both include an amnesty. The difference is that

President Reagan called it for what it was.

lesson of 1986

The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty

did not solve the problem. There was extensive document

fraud, and the number of people applying for amnesty far

exceeded projections. And there was a failure of political

will to enforce new laws against employers. After a brief

slowdown, illegal immigration returned to high levels and

continued unabated, forming the nucleus of today's large

population of illegal aliens.

So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate

and being offered much the same deal.

What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not

repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own

administration. He knew that secure borders are vital, and

would now insist on meeting that priority first. He would

seek to strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration

laws. He would employ new tools--like biometric technology

for identification, and cameras, sensors and satellites to

monitor the border--that make enforcement and verification

less onerous and more effective.

One idea President Reagan had at the time that we might

also try improving on is to create a pilot program that would

allow genuinely temporary workers to come to the United

States--a reasonable program consistent with security and

open to the needs and dynamics of our market economy.

And what about those already here? Today it seems to me

that the fair policy, one that will not encourage further

illegal immigration, is to give those here illegally the

opportunity to correct their status by returning to their

country of origin and getting in line with everyone else.

This, along with serious enforcement and control of the

illegal inflow at the border--a combination of incentives and

disincentives--will significantly reduce over time our

population of illegal immigrants.

Lastly, we should remember Reagan's commitment to the idea

that America must remain open and welcoming to those yearning

for freedom. As a nation based on ideas, Ronald Reagan

believed that there was something unique about America and

that anyone, from anywhere, could become an American. That

means that while we seek to meet the challenge of illegal

immigration, we must keep open the door of opportunity by

preserving and enhancing our heritage of legal immigration--

assuring that those who choose to come here permanently

become Americans. In the end, it was his principled policy--

and it should be ours--to ``humanely regain control of our

borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most

sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.''

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 45 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, April 12, 2013, at 10 a.m.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As always, it's an honor to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I come to this floor very troubled here this evening. I am troubled at the current inertia that seems to have been created in the minds and in the positions of a number of people who are here in the House and in the Senate, primarily those on my side of the aisle, who seemed to wake up on the morning of November 7 and decided that Mitt Romney would be President-elect if he just hadn't said two words, ``self-deport,'' and if he hadn't said two other words, ``47 percent.'' They had done this analysis, apparently, before there were any kind of exit polls that could have been considered.

They persist in sticking with this opinion that something must be done about immigration in this country and that there needs to be comprehensive immigration reform passed and that, if that doesn't happen, then there's going to be a kind of calamity that might eliminate or badly weaken the bipartisan, two-party system that we have in this country.

I reject those principles or those opinions, Mr. Speaker, because what I know about the facts refutes them completely. There are no facts that uphold such a position. It is true that the people in my party have lost a growing share of the vote of the list of minority coalitions that there are in the country. It's also true that the other party has demagogued this issue mercilessly, and the effect of their tens of millions of dollars has shown in the polls. My colleagues on my side of the aisle don't seem to recognize that. Perhaps they haven't thought this through, and I hope they do, Mr. Speaker. But the most essential pillar of American exceptionalism that is affected by this debate over immigration is the rule of law.

It appears to me that there are a number of people on my side of the aisle who say--even though they recognize that the comprehensive immigration reform agenda, which has been around since the George W. Bush administration and perhaps before--they believe that somehow, even though it's fifth or sixth on the list of issues that would be important and relevant to minorities that look at the path to citizenship and at a path to staying in the United States and working and raising their families and being productive here, that jobs and the economy are more important. A whole list of things are more important, but it's fifth or sixth on that priority list. Those who advocate for this Gang of Eight's version, which seems to be emerging from the Senate in comprehensive immigration reform, seem to think that we should do something, that we should pass some type of amnesty because that's what's required to ``start the conversation.''

I took an oath to uphold this Constitution. This Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the rule of law is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism; and if there are people in this Congress, House or Senate, who are prepared to sacrifice the rule of law in order to start a conversation, that's enough to get me to come here to the floor tonight, Mr. Speaker, to start the conversation about restoring the rule of law and reestablishing the pillars of American exceptionalism and making sure that this great Nation that we are can go on to our destiny beyond the shining city on the hill to a place that actually does realize American destiny with all of the pillars of American exceptionalism intact, not sacrificing the rule of law for political expediency, which is the bargain that is being negotiated over on the Senate side and behind closed doors here on the House side, although not even publicly admitted to.

So, Mr. Speaker, in the earlier part of this discussion, I would be very pleased to yield to a very strong leader on the rule of law, to one who has led within his own community in Hazleton and who has been a clear and articulate voice on protecting and defending America's rule of law destiny, and that's the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta).

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for coming to the floor to deliver this presentation, this hands-on presentation from the gentleman, Mr. Barletta. If you would yield to a question, I'm curious as to the percentage of the population of Hazleton that is a minority population, perhaps Hispanic population, and how your election results turned out the last time you ran for mayor of Hazleton?

Reclaiming my time, just doing a quick calculation off of that, 40 percent of the population of Hazleton being Hispanic, presuming that represented a percentage of the voting population that was Hispanic, and you carried 90 percent of the vote, which would indicate that somewhere in the area of 75 percent of the Hispanic population voted for Lou Barletta for mayor of Hazleton; would that be close to correct?

I'm curious, since you came to Congress here, Mr. Barletta, and I'm going to presuppose that you have strong personal relationships among the entire spectrum of the community of Hazleton, have any of them in any appreciable number changed their position on the immigration issue since they sent you to Congress? And can you speak on some of your relationships with your constituents today and those who were your constituents when you were mayor?

Reclaiming my time, the individuals that come here to this Congress from various districts, and surely there are many that come from blue collar-type districts--I'm going to presume that's a fair amount of the Democrat constituency that you represent, me being a blue collar kind of a guy and a hands-on fellow--I started out as an earth-moving contractor, actually in the labor part of the construction business--how do you suppose the constituents of other Members of Congress that don't have this same position that you have on the rule of law and immigration and protecting legal immigrants, what are they hearing do you suppose in those similar districts to the one you have?

Reclaiming my time, I remain curious to the wealth of experience that the former mayor and the gentleman from Pennsylvania has provided here, Mr. Speaker. I would ask also, of the illegal drug distribution links that exist in this country and that which I'm going to presume also shows up in Hazleton, illegal drugs and violence, and I will make this statement into the Record, Mr. Speaker, and that is, in my meetings with the Drug Enforcement Agency and a number of others that are involved in enforcing the laws against illegal drugs, they tell me that at least one link in every illegal drug distribution chain in America, at least one link in that chain, is carried out by someone who is unlawfully present in the United States. The cost of those illegal drugs to our society, I don't know has been quantified. That trade itself has been estimated to be something above $40 billion, perhaps something above $60 billion a year, and I would ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if his experience would reflect that to be true?

And reclaiming my time, it was reported to me today here on the floor, a Representative that represents an area very near the southern border said to me that the illegal border crossings are up 20 percent since the dialog on comprehensive immigration reform, that euphemism began.

So the encouragement for people to get into the United States on the chance that this Congress will pass some kind of an act that would ultimately be amnesty is bringing more people into the United States.

But I wanted to circle back and ask another question of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and that is that there's a GAO study, a General Accountability Office study, of about 2 years ago that went back through our prison system and asked the question, a number of questions about the population of our prison system that are criminal aliens. And that number was at least 28 percent. Some numbers show 30, depending on how you define that.

But there also was a number in there that was stark to me. The people in prisons in the United States, both Federal and State, all together, who have been convicted of homicide, now that prison population, according to that study, was 25,064. And when I think of a number that large, multiples of all of our casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, that is American population, most of it, that's a number, but it's human. It's very, very personal.

And I would ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he would have any personal accounts that might reflect a component of that 25,064.

Reclaiming my time, I very much thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for coming to the floor and voicing his opinion. And I know that he's also occupied with a very tight schedule, so I appreciate that a great deal.

Mr. Speaker, the attention that I've given Mr. Barletta, I hope that you and America have given Lou Barletta as well. And I hope that he's rewarded, not only by his constituents, but by a policy of protection of the rule of law that can be re-established here in this country.

The idea that we should somehow suspend our good judgment, and we should waive the rule of law, all for some idea of political expediency, is not compatible with the principles of our political party. And sacrificing the rule of law for political expediency seems, to me, to be a foolish idea.

It needs to be precious to be an American citizen. Citizenship should be valuable. And throughout all of the years that people have come into the United States legally--and the distinction between legal and illegal has been conflated by the open-borders crowd, both Republicans and Democrats.

But you'll watch, Mr. Speaker, how they conflate the language. A few years ago they started blending the term ``health care'' and ``health insurance'' till it became one thing, and we got ObamaCare out of that, because people could no longer draw the distinction between health care and health insurance.

And we've also watched during a similar period of time, as the dialog of the distinction between illegal immigrant and immigrant, the distinction--immigrant means someone who came to the United States legally and followed our laws, that saw the image of the Statue of Liberty, was inspired by that image, and found a way to come to America to exercise all the God-given liberties that are here, that were defined so well in our Declaration of Independence and protected in our Constitution. That's ``immigrant.''

That's where the vigor comes from, for the American population and civilization, among our brothers. It's God-given liberty, but it's also the vigor of those who were inspired to come to America.

So, Mr. Speaker, I recognize there are only about 3 minutes left, but I'd be very happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas, who is very reliable and a very clear voice, as much time as there may remain.

Reclaiming my time and thanking the gentleman from Texas, I add up those numbers and it looks like a number approaching 60 percent of the resources used by the Federal Government to prosecute have to do with something coming cross the border, whether it's people, or it's 90 percent of the illegal drugs consumed in America is the other component of that presentation. So if we control this border, Mr. Speaker, we can control the 34.9 percent of the prosecutions about reentry. We have roughly a quarter of that prosecution that has to do with illegal drugs. And the Drug Enforcement Agency does tell us that between 80 and 90 percent of the illegal drugs consumed in America come from or through Mexico.

If there's a universal position on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, it has to do with secure the border, prove you secured the border, establish that, reestablish respect for the rule of law. At that point, we can have a conversation about some of the ideas that are emerging over on the Senate side and in the secret meetings here in the House of Representatives.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 42 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, April 11, 2013, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, again it's my privilege to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, this great deliberative body. And I listened to the presentation in the previous segment, it brought a number of things to mind that I expect I'll address because there certainly is a different viewpoint, as we all know.

But before I get into the breadth and depth of the topic matter, I'd be very pleased to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Introduction of Legislation Addressing Security Concerns

Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his presentation here. And as I listened to his presentation, the Benghazi incident comes to mind. And whether this is relevant or not is a question that I'm not necessarily prepared to answer, Mr. Speaker.

But I do want to make a statement on Benghazi. And I would remind people that we lost an Ambassador, we lost other brave Americans. We had multiple injuries and casualties there that perhaps, they run in numbers that might be counted in the dozens.

The public doesn't yet know a single name of any of the survivors. None of those on, let me say, our side of this argument of the incident in Benghazi know a single name of the survivors. We don't know the depth of the injuries that took place--and some of them were severely injured. They've been kept under wraps. They've been told, purportedly by the news, Mr. Speaker, that they should not speak and talk about what happened in Benghazi.

Now, I remember when Osama bin Laden met his justifiable end. This administration couldn't wait to come out before the cameras and tell us how that all unfolded and couldn't wait to tell us about every detail that wasn't classified on the end of Osama bin Laden's rein as the head of al Qaeda. They even showed us a picture of the situation room and who was in it. We saw the expressions on the faces of the people in the situation room, including the President, including the Secretary of State, including the Secretary of Defense. And we knew when they came into the situation room, when they heard the reports, how the decisions were made in that White House, and we knew when people left the situation room perhaps to go do something else. I don't remember any of them just simply going to bed.

But what we don't know is this--and this is what this Congress needs to put together. We need a committee that's comprised of the best individuals that we can find from the relevant committees here in this Congress, or any other individuals in this Congress that have special expertise that would raise their knowledge base and their credibility to the point where we can get the maximum report coming out of this Congress.

The circumstances that we have today on looking into the Benghazi incident and the events that flowed from that are several committees that have part of the jurisdiction. The Select Committee on Intelligence has part of the jurisdiction, and they've held some hearings and they have some knowledge. We don't know what that is. Much of it is classified. Much of it just isn't disseminated because that's not the nature of the Select Committee on Intelligence to disseminate information to the public.

Another area might be our Judiciary Committee, under the jurisdiction of what was lawful and what wasn't lawful on what took place there and what might we have been able to do. The Foreign Relations Committee has some jurisdiction. Armed Services has some jurisdiction. That's four committees that I can name off the top of my head, Mr. Speaker. Each of them have taken some kind of look into this.

But here's what happens. If you take a situation like Benghazi, or any major incident, and you break it down into four components and you assign, or the jurisdiction of each committee chair would look at this and claim jurisdiction, which they rightfully can do in this Congress, they would take their component of it, study it. They might write out a report, and it might be complete and it might be completely accurate. They can send that out, the unclassified portion, to the American people. That report goes out. Say that's the Select Committee on Intel.

Then, Mr. Speaker, the Foreign Affairs Committee can meet and they can call the witnesses that they choose to and gather that information and perhaps write a completely objective and completely truthful report and send it out to the public, all of that that's not classified. The same thing can happen with the Armed Services Committee. The same thing can happen with the Judiciary Committee or any other committees that might have some jurisdiction.

But, invariably, what you have are silos of information--a silo of information coming out of the Select Committee on Intel, part of it classified that would stay in there; a silo of information coming out of Armed Services, out of Judiciary, out of the Foreign Affairs Committee. And these silos of information, just like silos, don't match up. You can't square the circle with the information that comes because there are gaps in their jurisdiction and because there are gaps in the expertise that doesn't match together like a hand in glove or a finely machined gear. And even if they did match perfectly, you would still have four reports from four different committees presented to the public. Each one would have to be deciphered by whom? Scholars? The press? Who might it be?

So if we are going to get to the bottom of Benghazi, we've got to put together a selected committee that represents all of the jurisdictions in the United States Congress and all of the oversight in the United States Congress. And if we do that, then we have the kind of committee, a commission, that is similar in nature to that of the 9/11 Commission, or the Warren Commission, which produced, in the end, one composite report, a book, Mr. Speaker, that the American people can look at, that they can count on it being factual, they can count on it being objective. They can count on it, and they can critique it if they have information out there that challenges it.

The Warren Report was challenged, but it stands still as an accurate representation of the facts of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The 9/11 Commission stands alone. That report stands alone as the broadest and most objective and complete report that Congress could put together. And we have acted and reacted on recommendations from the 9/ 11 Commission.

We need to do the same thing with Benghazi. If we do not, Mr. Speaker, history will forever question whether there was a coverup on what happened in Benghazi. In fact, we already know there has been. We know that the administration went out and sent Susan Rice out to five different talk shows on Sunday, just several days later, to tell us that all of this violence that erupted in the streets of Benghazi came about because of a movie, a video that was produced.

Now, as far as I know, the individual that exercised his First Amendment rights to produce that video may still be in jail. That's the only punishment that's come out, that I know of, from Benghazi. I think he should be released. But that's the first story.

And then we've got different stories that were brought out of the administration, pried out, because usually the press, but sometimes an American citizen, found that information, got it out on the Internet, the press found it, and we've been picking up pieces of Benghazi for 6 months. And we still don't have the truth. The people who survived Benghazi need to come before this Congress, under oath, and tell us their story.

Now, if there are components of this that are classified, if our national security is at risk, then Members of this Congress should be called into a classified setting and told these are the reasons why we're covering this up. If this administration came open with Members of Congress, we would honor the reasons for a classified standing, but they have not. They tried to cover it up in the first place. They tried to convince us it was a video.

Since that time, the argument was made that there was no military relief that could have come into Benghazi because it was logistically not possible. That, I would say, is questionable at best. Piece after piece needs to come out into the public, Mr. Speaker. And I'm a strong advocate for Frank Wolf's proposal that we set up that committee to examine all of this and produce a report for the American people.

And so that's simply triggered by my questions when I listened to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. And I would expect that you would ask to yield if any of that was inaccurate.

I would be happy to yield to the gentlelady from North Carolina.

Honoring the Life and Sacrifice of North Carolina's Mason Vanderwork

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, and saying a prayer myself: God bless that marine and the United States of America.

As we do this transition here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take up some of the topic of the previous speaker in the Democrat hour who spoke about labor and labor law. It was a strong message from often the opposite side of my viewpoint, and I'm compelled to speak to it in this way, and that is this:

First of all, labor is a commodity; it's a commodity like corn or beans or gold or oil. That labor is the supply, and its demand of labor sets the price of it, just like any other commodity. Yes, it's human beings and it's lives and it's families. As an employer, I met payroll for over 28 years--1,400-and-some consecutive weeks. There were times that we didn't go to the grocery store during those hard economic times because we met payroll first. That was always the highest priority. The first cash that came into King Construction in the worst years, even when the bank was closed by the FDIC, I met payroll.

When that bank was closed, it was, let me see, April 26, Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock. They posted a highway patrolman outside the door with a red tag on the front of it. I found out that they had not only closed up my account, but the accounts of many of my customers. I actually reached into my pocket because I literally had two pennies in my pocket to rub together--it's almost a joke around our family. We still met payroll. We found a way to do it even though I couldn't write a check because the bank was closed.

I thank a lot of the people that work for King Construction and the people that we have worked with and for throughout the years. I've been in the trenches with them. I'm the guy that if they're on an air conditioned cab in a machine, I'm down in the ditch with a shovel. I want to make that job go as good as it can.

I walked in my office before Christmas one year and I found that my secretary had decorated our Christmas tree in the entryway of the King Construction office with these gold decorations printed out like a Christmas tree--a baby Jesus, a snowflake, a star of Bethlehem. When I looked at that tree and I looked at the decorations, the gold emblems, on the front side was engraved the name of one of our employees, or their spouse, or one of their children. These were the people that I went to work with every day, our employees; but the tree was decorated with the names of all the people that were directly affected by those jobs being available.

We would never be a company that's looking at soon celebrating our 40th year in business if it weren't for people that had worked for us for a long time and been part of this family. When there is a death, we go to the funeral of a family member. When there's a baptism, we go to the baptism. When there's a wedding, we go to the wedding. These are people that are like family--actually, there is even occasionally a little connection of blood that goes on, but it's like family, it is family. I have great respect for the people that do labor every day. And I am a blue collar guy here and at home in Iowa.

But there are two viewpoints here. Another point I want to make, though, is that labor has a right to collectively bargain. They have a right to bargain as a bargaining group is another way to define that. Nobody has a right to intimidate others. Nobody has a right to be heavy-handed about it, but they do have a right to bargain, and I will always defend their right to bargain.

But one of the points that is a big problem for our budget, for example, is this: that the organized labor unions in this country strongly support and promote the Davis-Bacon Act. Now, Davis-Bacon is a law that was passed back in the early thirties by a couple of Republicans from New York. Now, they remind me that it was Republicans that passed that law. I would be the last guy to stand here and say that Republicans are always a hundred percent right, but they were wrong when they did that.

They wrote Davis-Bacon, this Federal law that requires that any construction project that has $2,000 or more Federal dollars in it shall be by prevailing wage. The definition of prevailing wage, then, is they go out and survey the pay scale and the benefits package that is normal and typical within that labor market. I can say with utter confidence that that scale is a union scale, not a prevailing wage, but a union scale. They're the people that negotiate this. The people that sit down on the boards and the panels do so. They're not measuring prevailing wage; they're simply measuring union scale and applying that to the Davis-Bacon wage scale.

The result is these projects, these Federal projects cost an average of 22 percent more. Now, I have records that go back for years. We do some Davis-Bacon wage scale projects and some are not, so we're flipping back and forth. We've got a pretty good set of records that we've accumulated over the years. In our records, someplace between 8 and 35 percent is the percentage of increase in the cost of a project where there is a federally imposed wage scale. Part of that time is they doesn't know what the wage scale is, and part of the time it is because they're imposing at higher wage than prevailing wage. Part of the reason for that gap is some projects are material intensive and other projects are labor intensive, so you get that gap between 8 and 35 percent. But a standard here is 22 percent--I often say 20--22 percent increase.

Now, think of that; think what this means. If this Congress were fiscally responsible and they looked at the unnecessary spending that is part of the prescription of the Davis-Bacon wage scale mandate, then we would see the cost of our Federal project--if we repealed Davis- Bacon, we'd see the cost of our Federal projects be reduced by 22 percent.

Now, what would that mean? If there are Federal dollars in a school, that means we could build five schools instead of four. You know there's Federal dollars in a lot of our roads. We could build five miles of roads instead of four. We could build five miles of interstate highway, for example, instead of four miles of interstate highway. We could build five bridges instead of four.

How many roads would have been built by now if we hadn't had the federally mandated Davis-Bacon wage scale put in place? How far would we be with our infrastructure? We're a long ways behind in our bridge reconstruction in particular, but also our highway construction. And every year that I've been in this Congress people come to me and they will say we have to raise the road use tax because we don't have enough money to build our roads.

Now, road use tax, that really should cause a person to think. That is a user's fee. We pay it in the gas that we buy. We expect that when that nozzle goes into our tank and when we squeeze the nozzle to buy the gas, we watch the dollars--and they go up really fast when you see gas that's over four bucks a gallon--we watch those dollars go up on the pump. But we also realize that between the State and the Federal Government a lot of us are paying 40-plus cents a gallon to build the road that we're wearing out with the car we're putting the gas in. That's a user's fee. But when I came here and started to break this down and ask the question: Of that one dollar's worth of gas tax/user fee that is a Federal piece of this--18.3 cents a gallon--of one dollar of that, how much of that actually goes into roads and bridges? I'll tell you, it adds up like this--then we reduce it a little bit on this number:

Three percent, 3 cents out of that dollar went for trails, for bike trails and automobile trails and that kind of thing--3 percent. There was at one time $16 million in one of our appropriation bills to clean graffiti off the

retaining walls in New Jersey. I thought, can't they get their prisoners out there with a wire brush to do that? And 28 percent going for environmental and archaeological compliance studies and costs. Twenty-eight cents out of that dollar for environmental interests and archaeological interests, looking for arrowheads and endangered species. Can't somebody else pay for that rather than the people that are driving on these roads? When you add Davis-Bacon to that, another 22 percent.

So you have 3 percent for trails, you have 28 percent for archaeological and environmental compliance, you've got 20 to 22 percent for Davis-Bacon wage scale, and 17 percent for mass transit to buy people cheap Metro tickets in Washington, D.C., or subway tickets in New York, or the ``el'' in Chicago, or, what shall I say, the cable cars in San Francisco, subsidized by people buying gas. Add that all up and you're going to find--if you're good at math and paying attention, Mr. Speaker--that number comes to about 67 or 68 cents out of the dollar that goes for something else other than roads and bridges.

Now, how can we justify raising a user fee on the gas tax, as we call it, rather than re-prioritizing that gas-tax-dollar pie, where you get a third of the money that's going to roads and bridges and two-thirds of the money that's going to something else? That needs to be fixed. I appreciate the gentleman that spoke earlier. If he would take a stand on that, perhaps we could find a bipartisan solution.

Another issue, though, is child labor. He made the argument that it was the unions that drove the child labor issue and now kids don't have to worry when they go to work. That's true, because there's no place for them to work. Hardly anywhere can young people work.

Mr. Speaker, I just ask you to think about, let me say, some years ago there was a time when you could pull into any gas station and some young lad would come running out there with a rag in his back pocket. He would fill your car up. He would wash your windshield, check your oil, check your tires, and collect your money and send you on your way. That doesn't happen anymore. There are few of those full-service stations left. One of the big reasons is child labor laws.

Today, child labor laws are written in such a way that a 17-year-old young person that is awaiting their 18th birthday can't get on the riding lawnmower and cut the grass around the gas station for pay because that's a violation of child labor laws. They can climb in a car at age 16 in my State and drive wherever they choose to go, but they can't mow the lawn in the gas station that they pull up into to buy their gas.

We saw this administration push child labor laws in trying to get it pushed into the agriculture sector. It was the Department of Labor working with the Department of Agriculture to write rules like, unless you're a son or a daughter of somebody that's got controlling interest in a farm--in other words, you can't be loaned out or, as we say in my country, farmed out to the neighbors or to your kid's aunt and uncle or grandparents to do work. They prohibited youth from participating in herding livestock in a confined area, from being more than 6 feet off the ground so they couldn't paint the under eaves on the machine shed, from having anything to do with livestock that inflicts pain, like ear tagging or tail docking or clipping eye teeth or dewclaws on puppies, for example. They prohibited them from being involved in that, but that same girl that's prohibited from being around when you ring the hog can have her ears pierced--or any other part for that matter--without any objection from the same people that are advocating this.

We have a nanny state that's run amok, Mr. Speaker. It's gone overboard with child labor laws and tried to push these child labor laws into agriculture. There was a major pushback because the family farm understood the value of work for our youth. They manage the safety best on those farms. They care the most about the people that are there. And the Federal Government would only interfere, and then that child would not have the experience of learning the work ethic by going to the neighbor's or aunt and uncle's or grandpa and grandma's.

So even though the labor unions have made, I think, a big contribution with regard to on-the-job safety--the reference to OSHA and the history of that was a good thing. The organization of labor unions to negotiate for better working conditions and wages and benefits package was a good thing. But there has to be some restraint on this. We can't be going backwards.

This statement about a fair wage, well, we should be thinking, what is ``fair,'' Mr. Speaker? You can look up the definition of ``fair'' in Black's Law, and you'll find a whole series of definitions for ``fair.''

I say the only time you should use the word ``fair'' when you're talking about law is when you're talking about the State fair or the county fair or the World's Fair, because otherwise, when you use the word ``fair'' to talk about justice and equity, you finally come to this point that everybody has got a different view on what the word ``fair'' means.

Anyone that's raised two or more children, Mr. Speaker, knows that there's no such thing as ``fair.'' If you apply a rule to one child, the other child will say, ``That's not fair.'' And if you apply the same rule to the other child, there will be a reason why the first one should be exempted. We can never agree on the word ``fair.'' We don't agree on what a fair wage is. That's why supply and demand needs to establish the wage, not somebody's idea of fairness.

The statement about a living wage--a living wage. Well, a living wage for someone in New York City is different from a living wage for someone that lives, let's say, in a low-cost rural area that might be in the Midwest, for example. These definitions of fair wage and living wage are all ways to lever some kind of Federal imposition in that distorts the law of supply and demand.

So that takes me around to this concluding part, Mr. Speaker, which is that the law of supply and demand has caused people to come into the United States illegally and take jobs for a cheaper price than allows for them to live in this society. The result of that is that the cost for people who are in this country illegally--just for the welfare parts that they access--is right at $55 billion. If they are legalized in the form that is advocated on the other end of the rotunda in here, Democrats and Republicans, in other words, their comprehensive immigration reform and all the other adjectives they use to avoid using the word ``amnesty,'' the cost goes from $55 billion a year to $75 billion a year. If you track this group of people--we're talking about 11.2 million people. If you track them for a lifetime, the cost of the welfare benefits becomes $2.5 trillion.

So, think, Mr. Speaker, this Congress has passed ObamaCare. This is right at near the anniversary of that. Today we voted to repeal it within the, I'll call it, the Ryan budget. That's about $2.5 trillion as it extrapolates itself out on the budget scale. On top of that, ObamaCare dropped $2.5 trillion of debt on the American public. If comprehensive immigration reform, slash, amnesty passes this Congress, that drops another $2.5 trillion of debt on the American people.

What we need is a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution, and we need that passed out of the House and out of the Senate with a cap at 18 percent of GDP and a supermajority required in order to raise taxes or to break the debt ceiling that we have, to increase the debt ceiling.

If we do that, if we put a balanced budget amendment out here on the floor of the House and the Senate and if it passes, I'll be ready to look at increasing the debt ceiling for the President. If that doesn't happen, I don't see a reason to raise the debt ceiling. Let's stare him down on that until somebody gives in.

We need to get this spending under control. Myopic policies and fiscally irresponsible policies are not the way to go. ObamaCare needs to be repealed. We need to restore the rule of law in this country. We've got to shrink down the welfare package that's out here. There are 80 different means-tested welfare programs in the United States--just 2\1/2\ trillion for the illegal component of this and a whole lot more

if we don't get these entitlements under control.

Mr. Speaker, the solutions are here. They're on this side of the aisle. They're actually in the platform, and I endorse many of them. I appreciate your attention, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 27 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, March 25, 2013, at 10 a.m.