Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the patron of this amendment for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have covered many things in the past year, to include tax policy, healthcare, helping eviscerate ISIS, but I would argue this is the most important moment in the time that I have been in this building.

Not only is the Fourth Amendment at stake, so, too, I would argue, are due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth.

We must stand strong for individual liberty and privacy. That is who we are as a nation. If we do not put the ``F'' back in FISA, it becomes ISA, and all eyes are on you.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bishop).

Paying Tribute to Two Oakland County Sheriff's Deputies

Mr. Speaker, 39 years ago, a collective nightmare was foisted

upon the people of the nation of Iran, and so when roughly 2 weeks ago, while on recess, I became aware of the courage manifest in the action of the Iranian people in standing up to a brutal totalitarian regime, I immediately contacted our office and suggested that we secure this Special Order hour, and reached out to a number of my colleagues, several of whom join me today, to speak loudly and clearly on behalf of the United States and the nearly 6 million people represented by myself and the individuals who will speak here today in support of those who would stand up and risk their very existence for those most basic human rights, which we as Americans take, tragically, for granted.

As I stand in this well, Mr. Speaker, in cities that the bulk of Americans have never heard of, in Isfahan and Karaj and Tabriz and Mashhad and Tehran, indeed, tens of thousands stand in the face of a regime with a record of destroying not only freedom but life itself in the instance of those who would stand up and demand freedom, stand up and demand basic human rights and dignity.

Mr. Speaker, to put this into perspective, if you were to take the population of the nation of Iran circa 1979 and compare it to the population of the United States circa 1941 and then align the numbers of Americans killed in combat during the entire Second World War, it would proportionally be roughly equal to the number of people who have given their lives at the hands of the brutal Iranian regime inside the borders of Iran. Think about that for a moment. Roughly 60,000 during the coup d'etat revolution in 1979, about 12,500 from 1981 to 1984, almost 33,000 during the 1988 uprising. We don't know how many were murdered in 2009, when this Nation stood silent as Iranians, brave, took to the streets to demand self-determination and toleration; that a regime should not be able to dictate how one worships, who one marries, what one believes; that people should be given basic rights to self- determination.

Today, we know very little about what is going on in Iran except for the brave women and men who are confronting challenges that we, by virtue of the fortune of our birth as Americans, will hopefully never have to confront. We know that roughly 50 have been murdered; we know that roughly 3,000 are imprisoned.

This time, I will not be silent. I have spoken with Iranian Americans of all different facets from a number of different groups. I ask these Iranian Americans, as well as those resisting within Iran and Iranians disbursed across the globe, to set aside their political differences and join together for the common goal of deposing a regime that murders its own sons and daughters to a tune that is comparable to the total number of American combat deaths during the Second World War. Enough is enough.

Today, I stand beside an image of Habib Khabiri. Habib was the former captain of the Iranian national soccer team. He and 40 others were executed in 1984 at the Evin Prison for having the temerity to criticize their government. He was 29 years old. The evidence indicates that he was tortured before he was executed.

In fact, again, as we stated earlier, over 12,000 people were executed by the Islamic Republic Security Forces just from 1981 to 1984.

Next is a young woman who tragically became something of an international folk hero for those who were paying attention, in that she had the temerity to stand and protest during the Green Revolution in 2009, suggesting that the Iranian people had a right to self- determination, when she was publicly, on film, murdered in the streets, 26 years old. The United States remained silent. The second of three children from a middle class neighborhood, she had the courage to stand up and point out injustice when she saw it, and paid with her life. Indeed, the protesters with whom she marched shouted, ``America, you are either with us or with the mullahs,'' and we did not respond.

Today, I am responding. This administration is responding.

The Iranians, with whom I have spoken across a diverse sect of opposition, do not want tanks and bombers and missiles, nor do I, having worn the uniform of this Nation, but while we can't rule out any particular alternatives, all they ask is a word of support; that when we act legislatively in this body and in the Chamber down the hallway, we have the follow-through to ensure that our actions are backed up; that unlike the 1990s, when the Iran Sanctions Act was passed, we don't let our so-called European allies turn a blind eye as their corporate entities continue to do business with the IRGC that uses the money generated through this business not only to murder their own citizens but to fund the likes of Hezbollah, and fast forward to current day, create instability, peril, death, and destruction literally across the entire region from the Mediterranean to the Khyber Pass.

There is no blind eye being turned this time.

Next we see Shekar Mohammadzadeh. A nurse, she was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured for rendering medical assistance to other Iranian brothers and sisters who were brutalized by the revolutionary guards in the streets of Iran. She was tortured viciously at Evin Prison, served a significant portion of a prison sentence, 7 of 15 years, before being executed along with nearly 33,000 others circa 1988.

Now, three names, three faces, three stories, probably 30 seconds to a minute on each. Let me put this into perspective, Mr. Speaker. If we were to take 5 minutes to show the pictures and speak briefly on every individual murdered by the mullah regime in Iran, we would be here for over a year going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I don't stand here saber rattling, suggesting American military action. I stand here suggesting that what my Iranian-American friends and what people of Iranian dissent who are dissidents throughout the world have suggested to me is that if the American Government will stand up and say, ``We stand with you against these mullahs,'' that is the support that they need to continue the movement to see that there is a regime change, which leads to self-determination and democracy in Iran and the lifting of a dark cloud of terror from across the globe.

Don't believe me? I was born in 1972, and I have grown up with the perpetual mention of Hezbollah. There are those who think that Hezbollah is something that has been around for a long time, but I point out today that Hezbollah is actually younger than the mullah regime; that, in fact, the mullah regime created Hezbollah; and Hezbollah has the unique distinction of being one of a very few terrorist entities that has actually killed human beings on every single inhabited continent on planet Earth.

No trade with Iran, no money to the IRGC; no money to the IRGC, no money to Hezbollah; no money to Hezbollah, we have self-determination in Lebanon, we have less of an oppressive interference in Iraq, we have more stability in Syria, and we have freedom in Iran. Enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for standing with me today, and I ask the American people and my colleagues to take the time to inform themselves about places like Isfahan and Karaj and Tabriz and Mashhad, and to think about the women and men who have the courage to walk through the threshold of a door of a home where, when they leave, they know full well they may very well not come back.

The time is now, the cause is just, the mullah regime must go. Enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Curtis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Budd).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from North Carolina (Mr. Budd) for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan) for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who is my good friend, for speaking.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude. If we were to spend 5 minutes on each of the individuals murdered by the Iranian regime since that regime took power some 39 years ago, we would be here 24/7 for over a year. If we were to name each country and spend 1 day where Iran and their proxies, such as Hezbollah, have taken human life, we would literally be here for months, 1 day per country.

Mr. Yoho articulated basic concepts of natural law, that people are endowed by their Creator with fundamental rights to include the right to life, the right to freedom, and the right to pursue happiness.

Mr. Duncan, Mr. Rothfus, and Mr. Rohrabacher spoke to the JCPOA, and the circumstances surrounding it, how our Nation turned its back on the multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise wholly subsidized by Iran that is Hezbollah, making a bad deal, ignoring trafficking of deadly narcotics throughout the world and, indeed, in our own country to get a worse deal.

I stand with my colleagues who renounce the JCPOA, and I would point out that it is my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the broad bipartisan opposition to the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which I have referred to repeatedly, and only somewhat jokingly, as the ``Joint Comprehensive Piece of Something, JCPOS.''

But if you want to see the JCPOA go away, the best way to do that is to empower the people of Iran to empower themselves, and that is why I thank my colleagues, one and all, for standing with me here today to speak loudly and clearly. Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that people watching at home will take to social media where the youth of Iran have fomented this revolution, that hashtags such as #freeiran, #iranprotests and #iran will pick up steam, that the world can communicate with those who risk their very lives to assert their basic, fundamental, and Creator-granted rights of

life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness by showing them that we support them.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that Mr. Gohmert so articulately spoke to the role of Rouhani in Iran and the fawning Western media that speaks to his role as a moderate. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rouhani, quite literally, represents the mullahs, and so, as such, that would be as if suggesting that Mr. Goering or Mr. Goebbels was a moderate Nazi. There is nothing moderate about the leadership of this regime.

So with this, I conclude: Americans have been killed by Iran or its proxies in this country, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Kenya, and in Tanzania. People have given their lives at the hands of Iran in Australia, Argentina, Syria, Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, in Tanzania, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. It is time for this to end. Enough is enough.

I would quote Edmund Burke: ``All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.''

This time we will not stand idly by. Enough is enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, 47 years ago, August 11, a baby boy was born to a mother and father in Detroit, Michigan, named Brian Terry.

Some 18 years after that, Brian made a commitment to serve his country by enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, where he served 3 years honorably, including a tour of duty in harm's way in Iraq.

Discharged from the Marine Corps honorably in 1994, Brian Terry followed his calling to serve by becoming a police officer. He then made another commitment not to serve just his community, but our Nation. In 2007, he joined the Customs and Border Protection.

But this wasn't good enough for what his mother characterized as a brave, strong defender of people. Brian decided to join the elite Border Tactical Team of the Border Patrol unit.

Seven years ago today, Brian was part of a four-person team tasked with pursuing and apprehending a ``rip'' crew. This rip crew has been alleged to be affiliated with the Mexican drug cartels. What they did was exploit those who took advantage of the unwillingness of those in leadership in this country to perform that basic, principled responsibility, which is to secure our borders.

The rip crew would rob drug mules as they carried drugs across the border, but would also routinely detain and shake down those who snuck through our porous borders. This cartel-affiliated rip crew had weapons, and they used those weapons to rob, terrorize, and exploit in the worst possible ways people who were essentially invited here by our failure to do our jobs.

Seven years ago today, Brian Terry and three of his colleagues set out not just to protect our border, but to protect innocent people, who came with their entire life savings, because we chose to leave that border porous.

Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee took up H.R. 4433. H.R. 4433 is entitled Securing DHS Firearms Act of 2017. We learned during testimony on this bill that in a 2-year period, just over 200 firearms were stolen from people who worked for the Department of Homeland Security, or lost. At least one person was killed by these firearms. I would concur that that is unacceptable.

I certainly support the bill, but having served in the United States Army as a leader of soldiers on deployment, all of whom were issued at least one weapon, I wonder if it literally requires an act of Congress to suggest that the DHS promulgate regulations to oversee the loss or theft of DHS supplied weapons.

Yes, over 200 weapons is horrible. Yes, one life lost is horrible. But should there be an act of Congress?

Because, as I recall, as a leader in the army while deployed overseas, we had protocol for dealing with lost weapons, with lost sensible items, and with lost COMSEC. We didn't need an act of Congress to tell us to promulgate it.

While I support this bill, it began to make me wonder and then think of a Bible verse, Matthew 7:3:

``Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?''

Certainly it is unacceptable that over 200 weapons should be lost or stolen from DHS employees in a period of 2 years. But it is, quite literally, one-tenth of the scale of the weaponry that our government intentionally put into the stream of commerce to be used by those who would visit harm not only on their neighbors and family members south of our border, but right here on our own soil.

So, weapons like this, to the quantity of over 200, were lost or stolen from members of DHS. Meanwhile, 7 years ago, weapons like this were put into the stream of commerce by our very government. Weapons like this took the lives of at least one person. Weapons like this, put into the stream of commerce by our very government, have taken, at the very least, 70 times as many lives.

Yesterday, the Committee on Homeland Security promulgated a bill--an act of Congress--to address 200-some weapons like this that have cost at least one human life. And 7 years after Brian Terry set out on patrol that fateful night in Arizona, days before he was to fly home to Michigan to see his family for Christmas, nobody is talking about the weapons like this that our government intentionally placed into the stream of commerce, where we knew, to a metaphysical certainty, they would go to those who would do harm to their neighbors and their families and Americans.

Seven years later, we have seen justice. The killers of Brian Terry have been arrested. The first man arrested for having shot Mr. Terry in the back with a military-style rifle, leaving him to bleed to death in the medical chopper that flew him out in an effort to save his life, had, I think, ironically, already been deported from this country seven times.

The night that Brian Terry set out to protect not only the borders of this Nation, but the people who seek to enter it because we will not uphold our responsibility, the man who killed him was about robbing the very people who were coming here because we allowed it by not doing our jobs, and he had already been deported seven times.

Now, we know that close to 70 people have died because we intentionally, as a nation, put into the stream of commerce military- style weapons. In fact, we have lost track of over 1,400 of the over 2,000 weapons that the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to intentionally let go to Mexico.

The weapon pictured next to me is a Barrett M-82 .50-caliber anti- personnel and -materiel rifle. There are Members of this body who have spoken on how this weapon should be illegal because, conceivably, it can take down an airplane.

Why do I digress?

Because that weapon was recovered in the hideout known to be used by the most notorious murderer in North America in the last 100 years: El Chapo Guzman.

The United States Government watched while a weapon that some Members of this body would suggest can take down an airplane was trafficked to a man who is trafficked in death to the point where the next slide I show will blow any thinking person's mind.

Many of the 160,000, roughly, deaths of civilians in Mexico can be traced directly back to this man. And we know, because it was recovered, that at least one of the military-style weapons that he received came from us.

So, 7 years ago today, an American hero named Brian Terry, who had served as a law enforcement professional, as a marine in Iraq, and on the elite border tactical squadron, set out to protect America, but to also protect those who sought to enter it, whether legally or illegally. And, when he did so, he did so understanding fully, as those who take an oath to defend this Nation do, that some things in this world are worth standing, fighting, and dying for. And, tragically, 7 years ago tonight, Brian Terry made that sacrifice.

I had no intention of standing and speaking on this today until H.R. 4433, the Securing DHS Firearms Act of 2017, came before the Homeland Security Committee yesterday, but it struck me as ironic. Not only did I serve in uniform as a combat arms officer for nearly 6 years, but I spent just under 10 years as a prosecutor, and I have a passion for a number of things, but foremost among these is justice.

So while it gives my heart some condolence, I can't begin to imagine the feelings on the 7th anniversary of the family members of this American hero, knowing that, while the people who pulled the trigger have been convicted, the weapons that they used were provided to them by the very Nation that he died to protect.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I would submit this: I have faith that in life or after life, there will always ultimately be justice.

I will tell you this: In the case of those who, with intent, put the firearms into the hands of the individuals who took the life of this American hero, I hope that justice comes in this life and not the next.

So, while we move about our business of promulgating laws to dictate to the DHS that they should have a policy to address the loss of firearms, I hope we don't take our eye off the ball of the very firearms that we intentionally trafficked, like the two that were recovered from the scene of the murder of Brian Terry, and that we will continue until we find it to seek justice for this man and act in a manner such that there are no more Brian Terry tragedies going forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this Chamber and, indeed, America about the challenges that we face at this time in our country. There are many. Some exist within this Nation, some exist overseas, and some have many answers being batted around in Washington; whereas, others have nearly none.

One of those challenges that has hamstrung our youngest generation is the massive, dark cloud of student loan debt. When our colleague, Senator Sanders, from the other side of the aisle addressed student loan debt during the Presidential campaign last year, he was correct in identifying a problem. The way that he chose to address it I would disagree with, as he suggested that we should provide for people something from the government. I would suggest that the people should provide for themselves.

There are two schools of thought, one that the people rely on the government, and one that the government should rely on the people.

So how do you address this massive black cloud of student loan debt that is handicapping our youngest and most creative generation? That is something that we have started to do today with the filing of H.R. 4584, the Student Security Act.

I speak to you tonight about a brighter future, a future where individuals are empowered to make decisions for themselves and where they can escape this looming cloud of debt so they might be free to do things that we have, heretofore, perhaps taken for granted in this country, like buy a new car, like start a family, or, in the words of former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, move out of mom and dad's basement.

But the most important thing that they are not able to do because of the black cloud of debt that faces them, Mr. Speaker, I would submit, is harness the creativity and the energy that is embodied by their ideas. This is a nation of ideas, and certainly when you

are encumbered with over $40,000 of loan debt per person on average, you are not able to get that small business loan, and you are not able to start that new business to put those ideas into action and create jobs.

In fact, a recent poll last month indicated that the majority of millennials would sacrifice their very franchise, that is the right to vote, in exchange for relief from their student loan debt. All too often, heretofore, the words ``student debt'' in the Halls of Washington have scared up images of free college. Anyone knows--even Mr. Sanders knows--that nothing is free; someone pays. But that is no excuse to ignore the problem. Why not allow individuals the option and opportunity to pay their own debt?

Over 40 million Americans--myself included--are paying back $1.3 trillion in student debt, yet we have done nothing realistic to address this problem.

How do you address new problems? You must address new problems with new ideas. H.R. 4584, the Student Security Act, is just that.

I will stop as an aside to take a moment to thank a young man, Elliot Harding, a recent student from Charlottesville, Virginia, who came to me with this idea: What do we do as a nation if we lose the creativity of an entire generation because of this burdensome debt? Because that is what we are on the precipice of.

I contemplated it and decided that this isn't something I was able to let happen on my watch. So as a result, I was all ears as he explained the idea that became student security.

It is as follows: right now we know that the Social Security plan that our seniors--indeed, my very mother--rely upon to get by on a day- to-day basis is facing an imminent bankruptcy, that solvency is in question, and that by 2034, according to most estimates, there will be no solvency. That is a problem, too.

Many of you at home are wondering how I moved from student loan debt to Social Security, and that is the beauty of this idea. To empower individuals to make decisions for themselves and address these very real challenges, the Student Security Act would allow a student to write off $550 of student loan debt for every month that they were willing to voluntarily forgo a Social Security benefit. The time value of money, my friends. We have forced no one to do anything. We have in no way, shape, or form changed one scintilla of the promise that is Social Security that we have made for generations to our seniors. But at the same time, we have provided an 11 percent increase in the solvency of that program, extending the life of that promise without raising taxes and without forcing a single soul to do a single thing against their will.

That would translate into $6,600 per student, per year, that they were willing to voluntarily forgo receipt of Social Security benefits.

The bill would cap at a maximum of $40,150 in debt relief. This would correspond to a 6-year delay in receipt of Social Security benefits, and, again, no one would be forced to do a thing, but students who sought to remove from their lives the black cloud of student loan debt would be empowered to, at their own discretion, make this decision for themselves.

As they say in the TV world: But wait; there is more.

We ran this program past the Congressional Budget Office and then later past the Social Security Administration. What would the impact on Social Security be when empowering people to make decisions for themselves? And, by the way, how would we defray the costs as to people who are young now, who won't invest in Social Security until later, versus the fact they are students now?

The numbers are not good; they are great. We would allow cosigners on loans this option as well, to avail their children or grandchildren of these benefits should they choose to defer receipt of Social Security benefits, again to the amount of $40,150. That would begin immediately.

That would also save, according to the Social Security Administration, $700 billion, while also addressing the very real needs of American students currently hamstrung by a broken college finance system.

So what do we do with the Student Security Act?

We are delighted to welcome Congressman Ferguson, Congressman Brat, Congressman Rokita, and Congressman Messer. We invite our colleagues from both sides of the aisle to look at this outside-the-box, dynamic new way of addressing the solvency of Social Security and the insolvency of our youngest, most creative generation.

The data indicates that we would extend the viability of the Social Security program by 11 percent of what is needed to make it wholly solvent in perpetuity. That would be the equivalent of a 0.3 percent increase in the payroll tax, but without a tax increase and without taking anything from anyone without their voluntary entry into the program.

It would lift the black cloud of student loan debt to the tune of over $40,000 per person in a world where 90 percent of debtors have less than $40,000 in debt, and it would return to the coffers of this indebted Nation, by the Social Security Administration's estimates, $700,000,000,000--seven-tenths of $1 trillion.

So I stand here today and ask you to ask yourselves:

Do you trust people to make good decisions for other people?

Do you believe that people should rely on government or that government should rely on people?

Do you believe that this country can harness the ideas and the vision and the energy of what is inherently the most creative generation if we are able to free these young people from burdensome debt that stops them from engaging in key life events like buying a home and buying a car and getting married and starting a business?

Do you believe that we need to think outside the box to ensure that we keep the promise that is Social Security, which has been made in this country for generations?

If you, like me, believe this and are a Member, I invite you to join as a patron of H.R. 4584, regardless of your party affiliation or ideology. If you, like me, as a citizen, believe this is a good idea, I invite you to speak to your Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity not only to change how we do business, but to empower people to empower themselves to create greater opportunity and prosperity in this country by harnessing the energy and ideas of our youngest and largest living generation and to keep the promise that we have made for generation after generation and to people like my mother that Social Security will remain reliable and solvent.

Again, I invite you to join on this legislation or contact your Representative and encourage them to join. H.R. 4584, the Student Security Act, is a new way of addressing an old problem that relies on the oldest solution, and that is individuals empowered to work for themselves.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the realm of humanity, that which is cobbled together by humans is rarely perfect. So, too, the tax reform that we undertook today is not perfect; however, it was overdue, and it is good.

Candidly, any legislation contemplated that was last addressed when I weighed 112 pounds and had a full head of hair is long overdue.

Having said that, I can find some fault. And I would submit that it is with the confidence and belief in the leadership of this Chamber and the relevant committees that will discuss the maintenance of the historic preservation tax credit, which is included in the Senate version of this bill, that I cast my ballot today.

I think that is a worthwhile investment in revitalizing downtrodden areas. I want to make my voice known publicly, loudly, and on the record.

I also hope that Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, would consider the opportunity for students to remove themselves from the dark cloud of student loan debt by virtue of reviewing the Student Security Act that will be unveiled here within the next 24 hours

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for yielding.

Madam Speaker, the last time this Nation passed major tax reform, yours truly weighed 112 pounds at the beginning of wrestling season. I had a full head of hair, I never set foot west of Mississippi, nor outside the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, the last time this country addressed tax reform, the Soviet Union was welcoming a new leader

named Mikhail Gorbachev. It has been too long.

It is an honor to represent the Fifth District of Virginia because I think it is historically unique. I have spoken from this podium and this floor about the amazing characteristics of that particular historical region.

Among the great individuals from the Fifth District of Virginia was a flawed man, an imperfect man, a slaveowner named Jefferson, who gave us a near-perfect document, named the ``Declaration of Independence.''

While not perfect, Jefferson had perfect insight, and, perhaps, you could argue he was prescient when it is said that he said: ``I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.''

It has been enlightening tonight to stand on this floor. If you are watching at home, I suppose that you can turn the volume down on C- SPAN, because I don't intend to yell, as so many others have before me. And I will tell you that it is funny to listen to my colleagues across the aisle who say: This is a 429-page bill.

I would point out that saying the number of pages doesn't actually make the bill longer and that the Affordable Care Act, that they had us pass, so that we could find out what was in it, was 2,300 pages with over 20,000 pages of regulation. So there is a little disingenuity, at the very least, for them to lament the first real overhaul in our draconian tax structure in nearly two generations by suggesting that 429 pages is a long document, when such a hearty and robust undertaking is afoot.

Madam Speaker, I would submit that the government needs the people and not the other way around. That is what makes us the United States of America.

It is a clever ploy to attack the rich and the job creators, but let me point out the fact that 97.3 percent of taxes are paid by the top 50 percent of wage earners. So, therefore, when you attempt to cut taxes for working class people, someone who is in the 51st percentile will, indeed, receive a tax cut, but they are, by no means, rich.

It is a clever ploy to attack corporations, because corporations don't have faces, but people do.

And who do corporations provide jobs for?

People.

President Obama acknowledged that our corporate tax structure was among the most backward in the world, and it needed to be addressed, but he didn't address it. President Obama acknowledged that the Affordable Care Act had ``real problems,'' but no one on the other side of the aisle will address them. So, too, did President Clinton. That is two Presidents from the other side of the aisle in a row, but no one will address them. Instead, we will create fear and demagoguery and attack faceless corporations, because faceless corporations don't have faces, but people do.

We need to stop destroying jobs and opportunity and prosperity through the demagoguery of class warfare, attacking corporations, without acknowledging that the very people who benefit from their existence are the people who have the opportunity to send their children to college, to make memories on a vacation, to pursue and achieve dreams, to marry the love of their life with the very incomes achieved by these corporations.

Now, let's talk a little bit about corporations, because I know something about corporations, and we know something about corporations in Virginia's Fifth District.

Dan River Mills stood in Danville, Virginia--a company started in 1881. It closed its doors in 2006. In 2008, the smokestacks from Dan River Mills that had been a symbol not only of the skyline of that once thriving town, but also an identifying factor in the landscape of the city, were torn down as jobs went away.

Another corporation, Burlington Industries, Klopman Mills, in Pittsylvania County, hurt Virginia, and prospered from 1940 through 2007. When they left, over 1,000 jobs went with them as well. And the real estate for the property that once employed generation after generation, sending innumerable children to college, and fulfilling the humble dreams of working class Virginians, sold for a paltry $750,000.

Vaughan-Bassett Furniture--and I would commend to anyone watching at home, the book ``Factory Man,'' by Beth Macy, which chronicles John Bassett, III's struggle to keep 700 furniture jobs in this country, in my district--that corporation changed people's lives and gave them jobs.

Lane Manufacturing, for generations it was a tradition--in my part of the world, at least--that a young woman, prior to being married, might receive a Lane cedar chest--a hope chest. In fact, no less an iconoclast than Shirley Temple was used to peddle Lane cedar chests as something that would be an aspirational goal for a young, working class woman, as she set forth on pursuing the dreams of her life. From 1902, until just about 15 or 20 years ago, hundreds and hundreds of jobs, in Alta Vista, Campbell County, Virginia, left.

Broyhill. So many companies--some still around--all shadows of their former selves, as corporate money and jobs went offshore.

And why?

Because we have incentivized the departure of the very means by which our families have prospered and done so in order to vilify an entity incapable of defending itself, while neglecting to understand that the beneficiaries of the opportunity created thereby were their very neighbors and those who, in their demagoguery, they said they worked to protect.

Last year, in Danville, Virginia, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, who is still there--God bless them--had a cookout for the employees of Goodyear Tire, and the family members, thereof, and anybody who had ever worked for Goodyear Tire. They thought maybe there would be 800 or 1,000 people who attended this cookout. By the time it was over with, you couldn't get a pack of hotdog buns from a Food Lion within 30 miles, because that 1,000 people became 2,000 people, and became 3,000 people, and became nearly 4,000 people. These people didn't come to eat a hotdog with Goodyear Tire. They came to eat a hotdog with their family, their friends, and their community.

I stood last week at Piedmont Precision Machine Company, in Danville Pittsylvania. I looked at $1.6 million worth of new equipment that allowed this American small business to continue to compete with competitors abroad. And the rich man, who owned the company, said: Tom, I am going to have to take a loan to pay my taxes. But if you pass this bill, we will make some money, I will get more equipment, and we are going to hire some more people.

So understand that people don't come to eat hot dogs with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, they come to eat hot dogs with their family members, their community, and people who have seen generation after generation receive opportunity, by virtue of their hard work, and opportunity provided by the very entities vilified by our opponents, without acknowledging the beneficiaries of the opportunity they provide are the very ones they purport to protect.

So Piedmont Precision Machine Company toils on. We work to attract more employers in Danville and Pittsylvania, and Henry County, and Martinsville area. Maybe Kyocera is going to come. We hope so. We think that if we get those jobs, we think that we might be able to move manufacturing jobs in high-tech to southside Virginia from Northern Virginia and California. But what I am hearing from the job creators is they want to see this thing get done. And when those jobs come from California, Northern Virginia, China, and India to Campbell County, Bedford County, Lunenburg County, and Mecklenburg County, it will be because we acted in a brave, bold manner, despite the divisive rhetoric that denies the reality that people benefit from opportunity, and opportunity is best provided, not by the government, but by people of initiative.

Now, I have heard so much rhetoric about what you oppose if you support this tax bill, so let's see if we can't flip that shoe onto the other foot. If you oppose this bill, you oppose lowering rates for working and middle-income families, while retaining the highest rate. That doesn't sound like a tax cut for the rich to me.

If you oppose this bill, you literally oppose doubling nearly the standard

deduction from $6,350 to $12,000 for an individual filer; and you oppose, if you oppose this bill, doubling the standard deduction from $12,700 to $24,000 for a married couple.

Why would people oppose that? Do they think the government can make better decisions with the money they earn than they can?

If you oppose this bill, then you oppose simplifying the Tax Code by eliminating years of carve-out deductions made for special interests.

Quite literally, a convoluted Tax Code benefits who?

Tax attorneys and accountants.

I suppose that the other side of the Chamber is the party that has a vested interest in keeping tax attorneys and accountants at work. I want to see people in Mecklenburg County at work.

If you oppose this bill, you oppose establishing a family tax credit; you oppose raising the child credit by $600 per child; and you oppose establishing a new credit of $300 per family member so that you might be able to help your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, or a disabled relative, who you choose to help in your home.

Why would people oppose that?

If you oppose this bill, you oppose reducing small business taxes to the lowest rate since the Second World War.

If you oppose this bill, you oppose establishing a super low nonpercent rate for small startup businesses making less than $75,000 a year in income.

Why would you oppose startups?

If you oppose this bill, you oppose removing incentives that drive businesses to take money and jobs overseas. Don't talk to me about that. We know something about that in Virginia's Fifth.

So, finally, let me submit this: for the folks at home, who are smart enough to figure this out on their own, if you pay $100 more because a deduction is eliminated and your taxes are cut by $1,000 or more, as would be the case for a family of four making $58,000 a year, that is not a tax increase.

I have never, to my knowledge, other than the United States Army, worked for anything resembling a corporate entity in my life, but I know a lot of human beings who have, and I have seen what happens when we, through our divisive rhetoric, drive them away.

This isn't about corporations. This isn't about the rich. This is about human beings.

I think it was succinctly summarized, if perhaps by accident, by my colleague in the other Chamber, Senator Schumer, who said:

It is our research that indicates that if you pass this,

some people's taxes might go up by 2023.

Think hard. What that acknowledges is that between now and then, people's taxes go down.

While Mr. Jefferson also said that:

The fruits of the working class are safest when the

assembly is not in session.

I would submit that if indeed these problems exist, they should work with us to improve our Tax Code, which hasn't been touched since I literally weighed 112 pounds and had a full head of hair, and to start being part of the solution and stop being part of the problem.

Again, the government depends upon Americans, not Americans upon the government.

Madam Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington, DC. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 613, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 614, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 615.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington, DC. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 607, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 608, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 609.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, Congressman Mitchell, for his leadership in this amazingly important area, and also to point out the bipartisan nature of this bill not only, Mr. Speaker, to you, but to those people who might be watching at home at a time when it seems that we can't agree on anything, here we have an agreement in a College Transparency Act in how to ensure a better investment for the futures of our children.

Now, there are those who have opposed this bill, and I can't really wrap my brain around it, Mr. Speaker. Someone suggested that this might grow government. But that is absolutely not true. As a matter of fact, the data that would be made available in this act is already collected. But the problem is that that data is collected, and then it is siloed and accessible only to institutions or government entities and not to the end user. That strikes me as illogical, at best, and stupid, at worst.

Someone says it burdens colleges with data collection requirements, yet, again, the data is already being collected. What about personal privacy? Does it disclose individuals' private information? Well, if it did, I wouldn't be standing here today extolling the virtues of this bill which I cosponsored and Mr. Mitchell sponsors that support it again across the aisle to include the likes of the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Polis, from Colorado.

Instead of disclosing personal data of individuals, it discloses metadata of groups so what we would learn, for example, is that individuals who majored in X at college Y had an employment rate of Z, and that their earning potential was A as opposed to another university where it might be B.

What more pertinent information, Mr. Speaker, could there be to young people as they seek to choose an area of study and a place to engage in that area of study than their likelihood of success based on those who have done the same thing at the same college or university before them?

So we have addressed some of the things that this bill doesn't do, but let's speak briefly about what it does do. Without any ability to articulately argue, this bill increases transparency. When you step aside from the realm of national security, I can think of no reason that the Federal or State or local government should be in the business of collecting data that they don't share with the citizens who put them in office or the people who fund their endeavors. Indeed, this isn't national security, unless you contemplate the fact that right now our children attend universities deprived of information that might help them make better choices.

So this increases transparency. It creates informed consumers. It allows individuals to decide for themselves which college or university might offer a program that they are interested in, is the best investment of their time, and perhaps their or their parents' or the government's money. It informs payers to that very end, whether that payer is the student, a family member, or the State of which they are a resident. It gives us a return on the investment.

The fact that this data has been collected low these many years, and it took the leadership of Mr. Mitchell and good folks like Jared Polis working across the aisle to get us to this point, is lamentable, but we have the opportunity in the College Transparency Act to correct these wrongs, not to reburden our universities with more data collection requirements, but to take the data that is already being collected and give it to the end users, the students.

So it is with that that I again offer a hearty congratulations to Congressman Mitchell, a begrudging ``I wish I had thought of that,'' and I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that while we already collect this data, we do not disseminate it where it would be most useful, and that is to the end users. I hope that all can find a way to join us from both parties in supporting this commonsense measure, the College Transparency Act.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the president of the University of Virginia in my district.

University of Virginia,

Office of the President,

Charlottesville, VA, June 1, 2017.

Hon. Tom Garrett,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Garrett: On behalf of the University of

Virginia (UVA), I thank you for your co-sponsorship of the

College Transparency Act. I appreciate your support of

transparency, good data, and enhanced consumer information in

higher education, as well as the bipartisan efforts that led

to the creation of this bill.

The College Transparency Act is a step in the right

direction for improving federal data, which is currently

limited, and at times, inaccurate. Improving data helps

students and families with the important decisions associated

with choosing a college, and also helps institutions of

higher education improve student success. The Association of

Public and Land Grant Universities, for which I serve as the

Chair of the Council of Presidents, compiled case studies

showing the importance of this type of data for improving

student outcomes. I look forward to working with you, in your

influential position as a member of the House Committee on

Education and the Workforce, on this issue and many others as

Congress moves forward with reauthorizing the Higher

Education Act.

Once again, thank you for your dedicated support of UVA.

Very truly yours,

Teresa Sullivan,

President.

Mr. Speaker, I would note that institutions from the University of Virginia to the entire Virginia community college system have endorsed this commonsense piece of legislation. It is a shame we haven't done it sooner. Let us not miss the opportunity to pass this now.

Mr. Speaker, invested in developing young men of sterling character who played by the rules and exhibited good sportsmanship, the Woodberry Forest School's Head Football Coach and Athletics Director Red Caughron and his wife Cathy founded the Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp, in 1967, on the philosophy, ``that a man must build himself mentally, physically, and socially each day to be well-rounded . . . by one philosophy, the conviction that the primary value of sports is their contribution to a boy's moral and physical growth.''

Under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Caughron and eight counselors, the first session of the Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp had forty- two campers who practiced and competed in a wide range of team sports.

In the twenty-five years successive years, Mr. and Mrs. Caughron and the camp's staff developed a series of programs that instilled the value of teamwork in young men age eleven to fourteen, and provided specialized instruction in the sports in which each camper excelled at individually.

Following Mr. and Mrs. Caughron's retirement from the day-to-day operations of the Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp, each of the succeeding camp directors; Richard ``Dick'' Glover; Bill and Debbie Davis; Richard Wright; Clint and Elaine Alexander; Amy Blundin, Matt Blundin, and Frazier Stowers; have worked with hundreds of camp counselors; nearly all of whom have been students, alumni, or faculty members of Woodberry Forest School to grow the program while maintaining the camp's core values.

During the Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp's fifty-year history, hundreds of campers have gone on to become students and then graduates of the Woodberry Forest School, and today, I would like to pay tribute to, and show my gratitude for Red and Cathy Caughron, the Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp's directors, counselors and the thousands of campers whose lives have been enriched by the selfless dedication that Mr. and Mrs. Caughron exhibited by founding Woodberry Forest School Sports Camp, fifty years ago, this year.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel.

Mr. Speaker, today, I think, represents the culmination of a series of wonderful bipartisan efforts that, while on their face to those who are not initiated may seem to deal with disparate subjects insofar as they stem from Iranian ballistic missiles to Hezbollah's use of humans as shields, are, in effect, dealing with the same subject.

Mr. Speaker, one can't separate Hezbollah from Iran. In fact, Hezbollah was born only a few short years after the Iranian Revolution, which brought such heartache that the loss of life in Iran, adjusted for population, mirrors that of the entire loss of life by the United States in combat during the entire Second World War.

These are innocent Iranians killed by their own government, Mr. Speaker. And we see, also, that the Hezbollah forces in Israel, Lebanon, and, indeed, around the world quite literally have continued to use human shields.

My friend and colleague from California, Congressman Rohrabacher, said that Hezbollah actions had degenerated to the point where they were using human shields. While I hold Mr. Rohrabacher in great esteem, I would submit that they haven't degenerated, because that implies at some point that Hezbollah didn't engage in such reprehensible behavior.

So the bipartisan actions led by Ranking Member Engel and Chairman Royce today bring us to where, indeed, we need to be by virtue of the reality of the world in which we live. Hezbollah does not exist but for the largess of Iran and the monies funneled by the Iranian regime.

The Hezbollah missiles, which Member Frankel eloquently spoke of, are, indeed, Iranian missiles, and the ICBMs that Iran is developing that we seek to curtail stem from a failure to include a prohibition on ICBM development in the JCPOA under which this Congress and this administration now labor.

I would note for the Record, for the Members, and for those who might be viewing at home that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929 of 2010, which included signatures from the Russians and the Chinese, said that Iran was forbidden from engaging in missile development. The JCPOA says Iran is asked not to engage in this.

Mr. Speaker, so we then arrive at the point where the good work of Mr. Engel and Chairman Royce is needed today, and that is what we do. It is with a glad heart that I note the bipartisan nature of these agreements.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the Chamber took up H.R. 36, a bill dealing with pain-capable unborn children; and a bill that, in its result, would cause the United States to join the vast bulk of nations in the world wherein the termination of lives of children who are not only capable of feeling pain, but under what we understand to be the best science may, in fact, feel more pain because of the density of the nerve tissue, as they are in this roughly fifth month of development.

I guess four times in the brief time that I have been in this building, we have seen the Chamber erupt into applause, oftentimes over partisan-perceived victories.

The first time the Chamber erupted into applause is when my colleagues across the aisle were giddy with joy when a bill that would have ensured that the Department of Defense didn't spend money to perform transgender procedures on soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines failed in the form of an amendment. Another had to do with healthcare. Another had to do with the return of Majority Whip Steve Scalise. That was indeed a bipartisan eruption in applause.

Then there was an eruption from this side of the Chamber when H.R. 36 passed, as there was a recognition that late-term abortion is barbaric and counter to the ideas put forth to the world when, in the Declaration of Independence, it was written that we hold certain truths to be self-evident, and among those was life.

Too many people have failed to grasp the nature of what late-term abortion is, yet to grapple with the problem will require to understand what exactly that problem is.

So to look at the other six nations in the world that allow the termination of life after 5 months, we see nations like Vietnam, North Korea, China, and the United States.

Then to listen to the doctors who have performed these procedures describe in what was literally excruciating detail how the procedure is performed, that an instrument is inserted into the uterus, and probing is done until something is found, and the instrument is latched on, and then there is pulling, and out comes an arm or a leg or a piece of a head or a torso. Then, in fact, that unborn child, who science tells us can feel pain, dies by virtue of bleeding to death inside its very host. That is the nature of these procedures.

Estimates tell us that if the United States joined the fast bulk of the nations on the planet in outlawing late-term abortions, somewhere between 14,000 and 20,000 children every year wouldn't experience an unspeakable demise of literally being ripped from their host limb by limb and bleeding to death, all whilst, in the best estimates of scientists, feeling the pain of that death.

To put that in terms of Virginia's Fifth District, that is the population of Cumberland County twice every year, roughly.

So there was applause from the Members who saw that the United States would join the ranks of the civilized nations in the world who put appropriate value on life, Mr. Speaker, and disappointment from some on the other side of the aisle, other than a few brave individuals to be distinguished by departing from the herd and recognizing the value and sanctity of life thereto, and immediate news stories about how H.R. 36 was dead on arrival in the United States Senate.

Mr. Speaker, it is my sincere hope that the American people will not let that be the case.

I often speak of the history of the Fifth District of Virginia that gave us great Americans like Booker T. Washington and Barbara Johns, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, James Madison, James Monroe, and Patrick Henry.

As I thought about how to best address the need for action in the other Chamber, Mr. Speaker, I determined that there were no better words than those delivered by Patrick Henry from Virginia, slightly amended, on March 23, 1775, in St. John's Cathedral as he addressed the second Virginia Assembly in Richmond, Virginia.

So with all credit to the author, whom I paraphrase, I would read: Mr. Speaker, no man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism and abilities of the very worthy people who have served and do serve in this Senate.

But different people often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be a thought disrespectful to those Senators if entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very opposite of many of theirs, I shall speak forth of my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony.

The question before the Senate is one of an awful consequence to this country. For my part, I consider it nothing less than a question of life or death, and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject, ought to be the freedom of debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to our creator and country.

Should I keep back my opinions at such times through a fear of giving offense or political loss? I should consider myself guilty of treason and of cowardice, an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of our creator, who I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. Speaker, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against painful truth and listen to the song of the siren until she transforms us into beasts. Is this the role of wise people engaged in a great and arduous struggle for life? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience, of history. I have no way of judging the future but by the past.

In judging the past, I wish to know for what has been the conduct of the abortion industry for the last 44 years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen are pleased to solace themselves.

The Senate, is that insidious smile which our petition has been received lately? Trust it not, sir. It will prove a snare at your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with the promise

of later action. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these nearly 60 million lives lost in this country alone, which cover our waters and darken our lands. Is taking an unborn life a work of love and reconciliation? Is subjecting to pain a 5-month-old child as no other nation save six on the Earth allowed to happen? Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of death and destruction.

I ask what means this perpetual delay of voting? What is its purpose? What is the force of inaction? Can gentlemen assign another possible motive for it than to ensure that it never occurs?

Destruction? No, sir, destruction. They are set to send and perpetuate this loss of life, and have so long supported this loss of life, and now an opportunity presents itself to vote, and what do we have to oppose inaction? Mr. Speaker, we have our voices. Shall we try again and again? Shall we bring this bill back next year? We have been trying that for 40 years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing.

We have held this subject in every light of which it is capable. It has all been, to this date, in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? What terms shall we find that have not already been exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, Mr. Speaker, deceive ourselves.

We have done everything that we could do to avert this death that has claimed nearly 60 million lives and 14 to 20 million unborn lives after the age of 5 months in utero every single year. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves and have implored its inner position to arrest the tyrannical hands of the abortion industry and its champions in Washington, and our petitions have been slighted. Our remonstrations produce additional death and insult. Our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the floor of the Chamber of the opposing body. In vain these things we may indulge the fond hope of life and justice.

If we support life, if we mean to preserve and violate this fundamental right for which we have been so long arguing, if we mean not basely to abandon this noble struggle which we have been so long engaged in, in which we have pledged ourselves to never abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must hope the American people demand the Senate hold a vote. We must hope the American people demand the Senate hold a vote.

An appeal to democracy and to the Lord of hosts is all that is left to us. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a promise of later action. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with the nearly 60 million lives ended.

We can be heard in numbers across the fruited plain. A vote should be held for or against life. Let us have it. Let us have it. In this vein, sir, to extenuate the matter, gentlemen may cry: Later; later; next year. But there is no later. The killing has continued for over 40 years. The next gale that sweeps to the North will bring to our ears cries of the yet born. The House has voted. Why is the Senate idle? What is it that they wish? What would they have? Is political victory so dear or a title so sweet as to be purchased at the price of human life? Forbid it, Almighty God.

Mr. Speaker, I know not what course others may take, but as for me, my hope is that there is a vote. My hope is that we stand for life.

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 12 o'clock and 23 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, October 6, 2017, at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 546.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), my colleague.

Much has been said recently about the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and specifically how in this land of the free we have the prerogative to do as we choose in matters that manifest themselves, as communication that we can speak freely even when that speech is objectionable to some.

And many people who have been fortunate enough to be amongst the 1 in 1,300 high school football seniors to take the field on a Sunday at an NFL stadium have availed themselves of this right that was given to them by people greater than themselves, perhaps who shed their very lifeblood that they might make a decision not to stand for the anthem that embodies the gratitude for that sacrifice.

Brian Tracy once said: ``Develop an attitude of gratitude and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step towards achieving something bigger and better. . . .''

More recently, an individual said: ``If you were successful somebody along

the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.''

Later in that speech, President Obama said, ``So if you have a business, you didn't build that,'' someone did it for you. And he was roundly excoriated, but at some level he acknowledged the sacrifice of so many that compels me to stand here today to ask that when the national anthem of the United States of America is played, that you demonstrate some semblance of gratitude for the sacrifice that has been given by untold millions before you that allows you the prerogative not to stand.

And so should you choose not to stand, I support that right. I believe that right is fundamental to what makes us Americans, but I implore you to learn the history of our Nation that allows you the right not to stand, for, to be certain, there are places in the world, North Korea, where choosing not to stand when the anthem is played might lead to a horrible demise.

Gilbert Chesterton once said: ``One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.'' And the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville said: ``The greatness of America lies not in her being more enlightened than any other Nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.''

And so when a slaveowner named Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he talked about how all people were created equal, despite his inherent flaw or flaws, and when the preamble to the Constitution was hammered out, the Founders suggested that we should strive not to be a perfect union but a more perfect union by acknowledging that, in fact, where there are humans in charge, we will never achieve perfection.

Tonight, I ask your indulgence, if you tuned in at home completely by accident, for a moment to learn about how lucky we are, regardless of the circumstance of our birth, compared to our peers across the globe, to have the opportunity to live in this, the greatest Nation in the history of mankind, and how standing for an anthem that honors an imperfect nation that continually strives for perfection is not only the right thing to do, it is the only thing to do if you understand the scope of the sacrifice of those who came before us.

Imperfect people like Thomas Jefferson gave us near perfect documents. And so tonight, as my vehicle to discuss why we should stand for our anthem, I will choose the district that I am honored to have the opportunity to serve, Virginia's Fifth District. I will say, in all humility, that while I am ordinary, the district is great; that the Fifth District of Virginia is, in my humble opinion, without hyperbole, the greatest congressional district in the country. And I will give you ten reasons why I hope the next time the anthem is played you will stand and think with reverence upon those who made sacrifices that gave us the opportunity to live in the greatest land humanity has ever seen.

In 1743, born in the Fifth District of Virginia was this very man, Thomas Jefferson. An imperfect man who had a thirst for knowledge and said, ``I cannot live without books,'' and continually sought to understand what might be perfected as it related to government amongst men, and in the Declaration created a document which was the first message that a fledging nation held out to the world to say: This is who we are.

And he said, in that document, that all people were created equal; a concept that this Nation did not arrive at in reality by virtue of slavery and things like the failure to grant women suffrage for some 150 years, nearly, later.

However, a charge to work towards a more perfect union, that was contained in the document, the Constitution, overseen by James Madison also of the Fifth District of Virginia.

And so while we were imperfect, we were given the greatest and most noble of goals, and that is to strive to be more perfect.

So the vision of Jefferson outlined in the Declaration and expanded upon James Madison in the Constitution, and later articulated in this town, Washington, D.C., by Dr. King when he said that we should judge individuals based not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character, it was borne in the hearts and minds of imperfect people from the Fifth District of Virginia who gave us near perfect documents.

In 1819, another of Mr. Jefferson's visions came to fruition with the foundation of the University of Virginia, a leading public research university and the source of incredible scholarship on things like human rights and individual liberty and natural law and the freedoms that individuals are bestowed by virtue of the Nation in which we live, again, in the Fifth District of Virginia.

Fast forward to 1865, the end of the bloodiest era in our Nation's history internally, a conflict as we moved towards a more perfect union, in which if you count disease and dysentery and starvation, along with combat deaths, over a million Americans gave their lives as we worked to become a more perfect union. And we know but a small fraction of a percentage of those people's names.

And we know that Abraham Lincoln took a bullet by someone who was not willing to accept that progress meant acknowledging that Jefferson's words were true, as they were later manifest by Dr. King, once again, 53 years ago in August in this city.

Fast forward to 1933 and the 21st Amendment repealing prohibition, Franklin County, Virginia, dubbed the wettest county in America. And as we watched as jobs left the Fifth District of Virginia and opportunity seemingly left with them, we saw a wellspring of opportunity and economic development in the form, ironically, of wineries and distilleries and breweries. So when Burlington and Broyhill and Bassett and Lane and Dan River Mills left, distilleries and breweries and wineries crept in. It started in Franklin County, Virginia.

Fast forward to 1944, Bedford, Virginia, June 6. The Allied invasion at Normandy, D-day. The Town of Bedford lost more of her sons per capita than any other town in the United States--19 in one day, more than decimating an entire graduating class and removing the best and brightest from that small Virginia locality.

Notably, three other young men from Bedford died later in the Normandy campaign, bringing the total Bedford KIA during Normandy to 22. And ironically, these men died serving in the Blue-Gray 29th Infantry Division, so named because it honored the fact that it brought soldiers from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line together to fight and bleed and die to free foreign women and men whom they had never met.

Fast forward to 1951, Prince Edward County, Virginia, the hamlet of Farmville. Barbara Johns, a high school student, had an uncle who was a scholar, who discussed with her and her family over the dinner table the ideas expanded upon by Jefferson and the Declaration, and suggested that, indeed, all people were created equal. And this manifests itself through Barbara Johns in action. This teenage girl looked at the school that she attended, the Moton High School, and looked across the county to the all-White new high school and understood that if all people were, indeed, created equal, as her uncle had suggested as was written by Jefferson, then it was unfair that court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson that any law that said that separate but equal was anything close to a possible theoretical reality must be struck down.

Now, I have passed by other residents of the Fifth District of Virginia. Patrick Henry, for example. John Marshall, for example. But back to Henry. Henry stood before the American Revolution and said: ``I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.'' And from the back of the room someone shouted: Treason. And Patrick Henry responded, ``If this be treason, make the most of it,'' acknowledging that to do something great that he believed in he might need to die.

Barbara Johns did that very same thing on April 23, 1951, when she led a walkout of Moton High School demanding an end to separate but equal segregation in Virginia, thus sparking the civil rights movement in Virginia that also can look to its forbearers and see Booker T. Washington, a civil rights leader amongst the last generation of

African-American leaders born into slavery. His vision began to culminate when Johns led the student walkout in Prince Edward County that led to desegregation at the very risk of her life.

Now, I like to liken Johns to Patrick Henry, both of whom are heroes of mine, as two people who were willing to stand up and do what they thought was right regardless of the fact that it, quite literally, might cost them their lives. They might die. But I tell people when I speak to them, the difference between Patrick Henry and Barbara Johns is Patrick Henry was a 37-year-old attorney trained to speak in front of people, and Barbara Johns was a teenage girl, and this happened in America as we worked to become a more perfect union.

Fast forward to Pittsylvania County, where Deborah Coles, another hero of mine, was born one of eight children to a tobacco sharecropper. Growing up in a Virginia where racism was far too evident and common, Deborah Coles bucked the odds, learned a work ethic from her mother and father, became the first in her family to attend college, attending Virginia State University, and later going on into public education where she was and is an educator and an administrator in the small town where I went to high school and where she had undoubtedly touched the lives of innumerable thousands of students over the decades--finding ways to say yes, finding means to encourage thought, finding ways to stimulate young minds. And she did this despite the ridiculous challenges faced by her forbearers, and she did it here as we worked to become a more perfect union in America.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Servicemembers, not unlike their brethren from Bedford who fell on June 6 at D-day, just a handful of the sacrifice from the Fifth District of VA, 1-435th of our Nation.

Humayun Khan, a graduate of the aforementioned University of Virginia, who, at risk to himself, moved his soldiers away and sought to determine whether or not a vehicle approaching the point where he was working was a threat, and ultimately, in protecting those with whom he served, gave his life wearing the uniform of a nation to which his parents had immigrated.

Sergeant Andrew Crabtree, a Special Forces soldier who served multiple tours defending America in the global war on terror and recently passed to the next life from a cancer deemed to have been service-related.

And Seaman Dakota Rigsby, the son of working class folks from Fluvanna County, Virginia, in the Fifth District, who tragically perished while wearing the uniform of this Nation, defending that which is worth defending, aboard the USS Fitzgerald.

Then, moving to today, and reason number 10, although, to be fair, Booker T. Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Marshall could make this 13 if I counted them separately, and that is the families of Pastor Hassan and Abdumawla, Christians from the Republic of Sudan, who, after about 9 months of work on our part and about 18 months of imprisonment on the part of the two gentlemen I named, have now moved to Buckingham County, Virginia, where they have an opportunity to experience a land where they are free to stand or sit when the anthem is played, where they are free to worship or not worship as they feel compelled, and where no dream is too big.

I would wager that, having lived in a foreign land and not having been amongst those 1 in 25 or 26, roughly, fortunate enough to have been born here in this imperfect land perpetually seeking to be a more perfect Union, I would wager that, when our national anthem is played, these newest residents of Virginia's Fifth Congressional District will choose to stand. I hope, when you think of the sacrifices made by millions who came before us, that you will, too.

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