Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today I recognize Vincent J. Tornello upon his completion of 37 years of service to Virginia's Fifth District. As conductor of the Charlottesville High School musical ensemble since 1972, he has imparted to thousands of young students the lasting gift of a musical education, and it is an honor to acknowledge his contribution to the community.

Vincent Tornello was born and raised in Oceanside, New York. He began conducting at age 17, and went on to earn his undergraduate degree at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, where he studied alto saxophone, flute, and piano; and his master's degree at the University of Virginia. During his time at Charlottesville High School, Mr. Tornello was the recipient of numerous accolades and honors from the community and beyond, including Sousa Foundation's Legion of Honor Award and membership in the Virginia Band Hall of Fame. Under his tutelage, Charlottesville High School bands have been named a Virginia Honor Band 27 out of 28 possible years, received superior ratings for 28 consecutive years at the state marching band festival, and performed at the 1998 Cotton Bowl Parade and the 1993 Fiesta Bowl Parade.

Throughout his career, Mr. Tornello has challenged each student to grow not only in musical skill, but also in discipline and an appreciation for the process of making music. Described as ``tough, but inspiring'' by his students, he has encouraged young people of varying backgrounds, abilities, and unique talents to take pride in the dedication and teamwork required to meet high standards of achievement. In helping each student reach his or her potential, he has created accomplished ensembles of young musicians dedicated to ensuring the school music program's continued success.

Although Mr. Tornello's legacy partly continues, his students have been inspired to enter the field of music and performing arts as a career, his students who have chosen a different path have noted the lasting impact of the life lessons learned under his guidance. Mr. Tornello has taught thousands of young people to strive for personal excellence and

find satisfaction and fulfillment in a job well done. On behalf of the City of Charlottesville and Virginia's Fifth District, I thank Mr. Tornello for his generosity and devotion in sharing his talent throughout the years and wish him all the best in his retirement.

Madam Speaker, as we prepare to observe Memorial Day, I rise to pay tribute to all those who have fallen in defense of our country. From Appomattox Courthouse to the National D-Day Memorial, the veterans of central and southern Virginia stand as a testament to the virtues of sacrifice and selfless service. I am proud to work for those who have given so much to our nation.

I firmly believe the best way to honor the veterans of past generations is to take care of the veterans alive today. Since coming to Congress, I have served as an active member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, working hard to ensure that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs continues to uphold its commitment to this Nation's veterans. I have been a co-sponsor of H.R. 1016, the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009, a bill which would authorize Congress to provide VA medical care appropriations one year in advance of the start of each fiscal year. An advance appropriation would provide the VA with a year to plan how to deliver the most efficient and effective care to an increasing number of veterans with increasingly complex medical conditions.

Taking care of our veterans also means helping them take care of their families. In today's economy many of our veterans are returning home after extended deployments only to find that the jobs they left behind no longer exist. I recently introduced H.R. 1098, the Veterans Worker Retraining Act of 2009. H.R. 1098 will help address the growing problem of veteran unemployment by reinstating and making permanent the rate increase for On-the-Job Training (OJT) benefits available to eligible veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs. OJT offers veterans and members of the Guard and Reserve an alternative to attending a college or university by using their education benefit to obtain employment training.

As a Nation we have prospered because we have always had brave men and women willing to answer the call to arms in times of great uncertainty. May God bless all those who have fallen in the name of freedom and all those who stand vigilant to protect it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today as one of the younger Members of this body to speak out about the importance of fiscal responsibility. As one of those young enough who will take on much of the burden of the deficits created today, I speak out of the urgency of our considering future generations in the decades ahead as we look at this. It's certainly true that both political parties have much to answer for in terms of the deficits that have been run up, but it's also important that we do not embark on revisionist history and suggest moral equivalence between the sides.

We must remember that the last administration walked into a situation where they had a $5.6 trillion surplus--a $5.6 trillion surplus--that they turned into a $4.5 trillion deficit. That turnaround, you could hear future generations crying as that great opportunity to restore fiscal sanity was passed up and our national debt was doubled.

The Clinton administration and this body in the early 1990s took bold steps to get us on the path towards fiscal responsibility. We saw the same kind of bold leadership from the Democrats in my state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, when Mark Warner came in as Governor, inheriting a huge deficit, and turning it into a surplus and making Virginia the best-managed State in the country. Governor Kaine moved in and continued that tradition, even under much more difficult economic times, of fiscal responsibility and sanity. So we know that this can be done because we have seen Democrats do it at the national level, and we have seen Democrats do it at the State level.

We have taken steps in this body to move in the right direction. I think the budget should have gone further which is why I didn't support it. But let there be no doubt that we turned this ship around from unending deficits to cutting those deficits in more than half in the next 5 years. This is the decent thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

But in addition to the budget deficits that were run up in recent years, there was also a running up of a jobs deficit. We hear people talking now, worried suddenly about the jobs we could lose by getting in front of the energy economy. What about the jobs we have already lost? My colleague, Mr. Connolly, has already spoken to how many millions of jobs have already gone overseas, good paying, advanced manufacturing jobs, engineering jobs, that could have been here if this body had the courage and the leadership to look forwards and not backwards.

Again, both parties have been part of trade deals that I think have been a bad bargain for the American worker. But let us have no doubt that there are those in this body now ready to have the courage to be ahead of the next big jobs boom and make sure that those next generation of jobs will be created here in the United States as we move towards a balanced budget, the kind of business climate where people want to locate and where we dare the American consumer and American business leaders to lead, to innovate, to create, to be at the forefront of that new energy economy.

This jobs deficit that has been created hand in hand with our budget deficit is one we can conquer. I believe we have taken great steps already in this Congress to put ourselves at the forefront of science, of research, of green energy. I come from an area of the country that has a great deal of pain right now. We have more than 20 percent unemployment in some of the towns in our districts as factories have gone overseas.

As we look at the possibility for alternative energies, energy efficiency technology, smart grid technology, advanced battery manufacturing, I believe our side has the courage to say America can do that better than anybody else. I believe southside Virginia can do that better than anyone else. But we will not get it by continuing the moral deficit we have had in our politics in recent years that puts the easy ahead of what is right. That puts partisan gains of right and left ahead of right and wrong.

The Democrats have a strong track record of fiscal responsibility in my State of Virginia and here in this body. We have begun a path that I hope we will continue to march down toward fiscal responsibility that will generate the jobs and the economic competitiveness that this country needs.

So I rise today hopeful and happy that we are part of that new change here to bring back and close in this time, to close the moral deficit, close the jobs deficit, and close the budget deficit and restore the kind of responsibility that future generations deserve.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House unanimously passed a resolution I was pleased to introduce in recognition of Averett University's 150 years of service and leadership to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Nation. Averett University stands at the center of knowledge and innovation in southern Virginia. Founded in historic Danville in 1859, Averett stands as a testament to the virtues of progress and opportunity.

It began as a school for young women at a time when educating women was an unconventional notion. Continuing in this spirit, Averett was among the first colleges in Virginia to give tangible meaning to the terms ``lifelong learning'' and ``career education'' by creating an accelerated program of higher learning for working adults.

Today Averett has an enrollment of over 2,500 students and offers 32 major academic fields of study. The university was recently recognized nationally by U.S. News and World Report as one of the leading baccalaureate-granting colleges in the South. For over 150 years, Averett University has contributed to the strength of our Nation by providing men and women with the tools of thought and the spirit of service.

I congratulate them on this accomplishment and look forward to their next chapter.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as someone who was very critical from the beginning of the Iraq war but nonetheless am supportive of the supplemental before us.

I believe we stand at a promising moment, a promising moment in terms of the trends in Iraq and a promising moment in terms of having a leader in the White House who understands the challenges before us to get Afghanistan right.

Having been on the ground there in previous years, I can assure you that the questions that were not being asked before are being asked now. It's not going to be an easy struggle there. But I say to my more progressive colleagues who are very critical of this that we should give ourselves a little credit. The era of arbitrary power in the Bush doctrine really ended with the '06 election. A new period of smart power, led with General Petraeus and Secretary Gates, has moved us in a direction of real national security, not Hollywood security. This is an important move, and it's a move that continues today.

That change was only solidified by the 2008 election. We have people who are deadly serious about getting national security right in Iraq and Afghanistan, who understand the military's job is to back up a political solution and are looking for that, who understand that we cannot solve the situation in Afghanistan without dealing with corruption internally.

We will not solve Afghanistan without dealing with corruption internally and with Pakistan externally. And finally, we have a President who's negotiating from a position of strength, not weakness, unlike the last two administrations.

So I rise today with a grave seriousness about the supplemental before us but also a sense that we're on the right track with this new national security strategy. I believe that it is the right thing to do to support it.

Representative Driehaus, this is indeed a very exciting moment. You can feel the sense of change.

Many of us that are part of this colloquy right now are all from the freshmen class, and I think it's not a coincidence because we represent a class that is in favor of accountability, accountability and common sense. Many of us were called to politics for the first time by watching more than a decade of irresponsibility here in Congress and in the White House where we saw policies of Wall Street greed cloaked in the sense of Main Street compassion in what was called the ``ownership society,'' policies which seemed to suggest the idea that everyone could own a home regardless of how much money they made when really it was a strategy to help the rich make a lot of money on the failure of those who could never afford a house in the first place.

Year after year, as you've pointed out, there were opportunities to put

basic, commonsense accountability rules in place to prevent this from happening. And year after year we saw this Congress do nothing, do nothing, to challenge these absurd policies.

And we all know now that these policies affected much more than just the lender and the borrower. We all as Americans are in the same neighborhoods affected by these massive foreclosures. It doesn't just affect those who cannot afford their mortgage but those who live on streets where foreclosures have occurred. We have seen a fundamental lack of accountability. But you see this Congress, particularly with the new Members from the 2006 and 2008 class, pushing for real change on accountability. We saw it last week with the credit card bill. Fundamental commonsense legislation that said let's put some rules in place to prevent the tricks and the traps. If it's a product you can't sell on your own, you have to fool people into it, then maybe this is the place where basic consumer protections need to step in. Now we're ready to do the same thing with predatory mortgage lending because we are all affected by this. Our housing prices are all affected by it. Our retirement security is affected by it. And it's about time that we put in place the kind of commonsense legislation that will reward the good actors like our community banks that remained strong through this entire process instead of continuing to bail out those who have been the least responsible through this process.

This is a show that results are possible. They could have been possible if the will was there under previous Congresses and administrations. But now the will is there, and we will not rest until we put in these basic restrictions and continue to expand this new era of accountability to reverse the irresponsibility we have seen over the last 10 years and protect the American family and their right to homeownership.

Thank you.

Madam Speaker, on April 2nd, 2009, I voted against H. Con. Res. 85, the Congressional Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2010. Although I was unable to cast my vote on the resolution, I made it clear to Leadership that I continue to oppose the budget resolution. While this budget represents much-needed honesty by including the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the inevitable cost associated with natural disasters, it does not go far enough to restore fiscal responsibility to our Nation. We are suffering in the wake of eight years of historic fiscal irresponsibility. But difficult times call for difficult decisions. We cannot climb out of the current economic crisis without returning to fiscal sanity to restore consumer and investor confidence. While this budget resolution took a significant step in the right direction by cutting the deficit by more than half in five years, we can and must do better. For this reason, I continue to oppose the budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

I rise today in support of my amendment requiring credit card companies to have a 6-month minimum period for promotional rates.

Credit card companies should not have the right to take advantage of consumers with their confusing policies. Today, the voices of accountability and common sense have a chance to fight back against many of the problems that got us into this economic mess in the first place. If you can't sell a product without tricks and traps, this is the kind of place where consumer protection must come in to ensure a well-functioning free market.

This is a simple amendment that represents the common sense that is greatly needed. Credit card companies should not be allowed to trick consumers around with short-term promotional rates that confuse them. A 6-month minimum is a reasonable period of time to expect these so- called ``teaser rates'' to last.

It also includes a 45-day notice before any rate change is implemented. Middle class Americans are facing difficult economic times, and many factors have caused the current economic crisis, but soaring debt is near the top of that list.

One group particularly targeted by these rates is that of young people, our students, who get caught in a cycle of debt early in life. Instead of using those first earning years as a time to save up and to be able to afford a down payment on a home, we see people caught in a cycle of credit card debt, then taking a zero-interest loan or a zero down payment on a home, and that cycle of debt continues.

I believe this is a day where we can start to fight back for Main Street over Wall Street and put common sense over greed to protect the American family.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

I would like to inquire if the gentleman has additional speakers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask for my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, although I could not cast my vote today due to scheduling conflicts, I would like to record my support for the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This legislation does two important things: it moves our communities one step closer towards having the support necessary to ensure that all Americans can live without fear and it advances the ongoing struggle to defend human rights.

This bipartisan bill reaffirms our commitment to protecting the rights of every individual citizen. It defends the dignity of all individuals and recognizes that no one should live in constant fear of hatred and discrimination. Importantly, it advances this goal while also protecting our Constitutional right to freedom of speech and of religious expression. Unlike many nations where individuals may be prosecuted for their words and beliefs, the United States remains firm in defending our ability to express our opinions and exercise our values without fear of legal action. Since the introduction of America's first hate crimes laws in 1968, such legislation has focused only on acts of violence, never on ideas, and this bill continues that commitment to the Constitution by explicitly stating that it cannot be used to limit our First Amendment rights, including the rights of faith leaders speaking from their pulpits. This legislation is a testament to the strength of our Constitution even in times of change.

The necessity of this bill has recently been highlighted in Virginia's 5th District, where several weeks ago an 18-year-old University of Virginia student and his friend were physically attacked in a parking lot because of their perceived sexual orientation. Such incidents remind us that there are still individuals who would use violence to intimidate and isolate others simply for who they are, and that hate crimes remain a serious and under-addressed problem in our communities.

These crimes not only target individual victims, but also terrorize entire communities. All individuals deserve to live free of fear of such attacks, and we must not allow violence inspired by hatred to go unpunished. Throughout our nation's history, we have been reminded that the principles of our founders endure, and so does their charge to us to remain vigilant in each generation about expanding

those freedoms. We continue to emerge from these struggles a stronger and better nation, truer to our values and closer to fulfilling our highest aspirations.

Thank you.

This is, indeed, a desperately needed caucus because we have not had enough of a voice from either party standing up for the middle class and these basic values.

I spent the weekend meeting with workers who had recently been laid off as another factory had closed down and gone overseas. These are people who worked for 20, 30 years at a time. I talk constantly, also, to people who have just recently gone through college, everything we're supposed to be encouraging right now in our society in order to compete in this global economy, but they come out shackled with so much debt with the cost of college that they can't serve their community in the way that they had hoped to, people that wanted to become teachers and come back to rural communities, like the ones in my district, but simply cannot afford to do it.

And we have gone from investing in a future middle class to crushing the current middle class because we started a cycle of debt. Instead of coming out of college with that opportunity in the world before you, you come out already in that kind of debt from college. And instead of those years that we used to spend saving money for a down payment to buy that first home, that next great step for middle class families, you spend those years, instead, spending all of your savings to get out of those loans. So by the time you go to purchase that home, you may have zero down on that house, and we all know how that story ends.

We aren't giving people that opportunity to do the very things we need them to do: to save, to invest, to educate, to prepare themselves to compete in the global workforce. And the cycle of debt continues.

Then we have credit card companies and predatory lenders coming out so that people continue to try to eke by month by month living from debt cycle to debt cycle. This is the new story of yesterday's middle class.

It is time, once again, to have the kind of values in this country that reward work and good behavior, reward the people who are saving and doing everything right to play by the rules instead of investing-- instead of shifting our priorities too often away from the very people that are at the backbone of this country.

So I believe this is a much-needed effort to restore the middle class. And one great place to begin is by making college affordable. And I am proud that we have already put forward a $2,500 tuition tax credit to help middle class families afford that dream. But we know that's not enough to go forward to make college affordable.

But it's also something that is helping our displaced workers be able to go back and maybe pick up a community college course, move into the health care sector or another field where they can earn a living wage to support their family. But they say to me, ``That's a 2-year program. What am I going to do during those 2 years when I have just lost my job?''

We are not in an economy that reflects--we are not supporting policies that reflect the economy we now face. We no longer have an economy where people have one job for 30 years and that company takes care of them.

And last of all, I just want to mention, why is it that through this recent economic crisis our community banks have remained rock solid in most of our communities, good Main Street values, Main Street capitalism that has continued to make good loans to good people that still believe in the honesty of a handshake and looking somebody in the eye. This has remained solid while the speculators and others have played poker with our pension funds and our future. It's time to start getting support back to those people who are the bedrock of our community, Main Street and the middle class. And I look forward to working with you on that.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to pick up on the point that you just raised which is the idea that accountability is anti-Wall Street.

The money managers that I know are looking for certainty. One of the worst things we can say to the market is to introduce the uncertainty of not knowing what the rules are, because the fact is one of the middle class values you discussed is basic responsibility. When we reward responsibility, that is a good thing for the middle class. There were many, many investment firms and others on Wall Street who knew the mortgage-backed securities were out there who could have taken--had much better quarters in the short-term, but they chose not to engage in these very high-risk speculative investments.

What we did instead was we have now bailed out some of the least responsible, most speculative agencies, and not rewarded the responsible ones, and we see the same things on Main Street.

And you talked about no extra paperwork. It is so important that we draw a distinction between our community banks, who have been responsible through all this, and the megabanks, who have been driving the problem, so that we don't respond by punishing the responsible actors in our community who have really held things together when we've been right on the brink of a depression.

I would say Madoff wasn't the only one running a Ponzi scheme. In many of these lending institutions it was the same thing. When you start getting debt equity ratios of 10:1, 30:1, 100:1, that is not an accountable system. And we found people who are trying to find every loophole they can push through with huge amounts of capital to do high risk. And they want all the upsides during the good years, and then they don't want to have to face the downsides in a bad cycle.

Now, we're all in this together. The President's been very clear about that, and he's right to speak to that. But the fact is, part of how we're in this together is to make sure that those people who made horrible mistakes are held accountable.

I think we need to look seriously at issues of fraud, fraud in many of these institutions and elsewhere, and even continuing to see the way that some of the markets are fluctuating based on reporting in January and February versus March as we head to the end of the quarter.

We need to have basic accountability so that the average middle class investor has some guarantee that when they are looking at the market they're getting accurate information; if they're being responsible enough to save and have a 401(k), that they're not going to see that disappear just because of Ponzi schemes being run on Wall Street.

And our job is to make sure that the common good is protected, and when we put basic rules in place, not paperwork, but basic rules of accountability that reflect these middle class values, then the market flourishes. We have entrepreneurship that is unmatched anywhere else in the world. We have capital in this country, and we have workers ready to work. We can and must still out-compete the rest of the world. We do that by creating a system that allows people to have a certainty to make those investments, to start that business, and we need to make sure that we are encouraging that kind of innovation.

I come from a part of the country that has been hit hard by global trade over recent years. We've been devastated as furniture factories, textile mills, and tobacco jobs have all gone overseas. We have an opportunity now to turn yesterday's tobacco area into tomorrow's green energy area, but part of how we do that is get private capital moving investing in these areas and creating the kind of small businesses and middle class jobs of the next generation. But we can only do that if we have a system of accountability in place that can give people the certainty that they need.

You talked about the importance of deferred gratification as a middle class value, not spending the money that you haven't yet saved. Well, we have instead seen a culture of instant gratification, whether it's the greed is good mentality that we've seen by some on Wall Street, to the get rich or die trying attitude that you see in hip-hop. This goes from pop culture to the elites and across the board.

What we need to do is get back to that idea of basic personal responsibility and rewarding responsibility, and that's an environment I think in which entrepreneurship and hard work will flourish.

Thank you for yielding. I just want to take a moment on this issue of trade.

I think there's an attitude among the elites and among the mainstream media that assumes anything other than blind, free trade is somehow idiotic, and there's a concern that this populism is about mob rule. Well, populist values aren't about pitchforks. They're about pragmatic results.

And I think for every model someone can show me on free trade, I can show you reality and empirics. This is not about a theory cooked up in academia about trade. It's about the reality of how the tiger economies and others have competed. It has not been some blind march to trade liberalization. It has been smart, strategic decisions by each of those countries to play to their comparative advantages.

I think that we have been negotiating from a position of weakness in these trade deals instead of negotiating from strength, and I think it's cost the middle class and the working class jobs. I think sometimes there's an incredibly naive attitude by those who would look down their noses at those who would engage in middle class and populist values, when in fact I think the empirics are on our side.

So I think what's important in this, again, is not that we pick up the pitchforks but that we produce results. I think what we're about is looking at pragmatic solutions that take back some of the raw deals that the middle class has gotten for the last 20 years, particularly the last few years, and starts to stand up for those middle-class families and working class families who are getting up every morning and working hard and playing by the rules and suddenly being asked to bear the brunt of everyone else's mistakes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of this great national service bill, and specifically the Reserve Corps amendment. I rise also as a proud member of the community service generation. My generation, which was often given a hard time for not voting, was always volunteering in record numbers. We did believe in the idea of civic duty and community service that we had learned from our grandparents in the greatest generation, and we saw through the original AmericaCorps programs and others what a great idea service was. Not only was it a chance to help out those struggling in our community, but it was a chance to build our own character and our own sense of commitment to community and to country.

I come from the nonprofit sector. I spent most of the last decade before Congress in the nonprofit sector, and I have not had a day of that experience go by that I did not feel that I had benefited as much as I had helped. I have worked in West Africa, in Darfur, and in the communities with at-risk kids back here at home, and always enjoyed and celebrated that time.

There are a few things that I have learned from that time in the nonprofit sector that I believe have gone into this Reserve Corps amendment. First and foremost is the idea that once you get someone to volunteer for a little piece of time, you have turned them into a volunteer for life. Volunteering is a wonderful program, and where we can reach out and help people become volunteers we will see that continue to come back to our communities time and time again.

And this cannot be something that is only affordable to those with wealth. We have so many displaced workers who want to volunteer, senior citizens who want to volunteer, community and high school students. And we need to be celebrating and fostering that spirit of service.

Finally, we need to respect and understand the level of professionalism in our nonprofit and volunteer sector. People learn skills here that are incredibly valuable to our community, and this Reserve Corps is based on the idea that once we have made that investment in giving someone the skills to be a great high-level professional in their community, let's keep them on as a Reserve Corps so that we can call them up in times of great national emergency, like Hurricane Katrina, to help them rebuild levees, to help build low- income homes. Let's make volunteerism not something just to do for a summer, but something to do for a lifetime.

I believe this amendment reaches into the best of the American tradition of service and the best of our sense of this being not something that happens for one generation, but across generations, particularly at this time of economic crisis when we must all come together.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, as amended by the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

As an Eagle Scout, the outdoor experiences I enjoyed helped shape my character and my commitment to public service. All future generations should have the same opportunity to enjoy our natural heritage that I had growing up in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As amended, this act protects our outdoors and also our freedoms. Sportsmen are some of our strongest conservationists, and their ability to enjoy our natural heritage must be preserved. I am happy that language has been added to ensure that no provision will be used to limit access to public lands for hunting and fishing.

I hope this Chamber will continue to do all in its power to defend the freedom of our sportsmen and all Americans, be it their right to access public lands or their individual right to bear arms. Theodore Roosevelt once said, ``The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.''

The experience of the outdoors leads sportsmen, scouts, seniors, outdoorsmen and all Americans to understand the true meaning of freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 100th anniversary of the NAACP as it celebrates its centennial.

Since its founding in 1909, the NAACP has been a tireless crusader against racial discrimination, and it has continuously called our great Nation towards an ever-expanding horizon of liberty and justice for all.

Often with support and protection from the NAACP, countless brave citizens of my district joined the great American struggle for civil rights. From slavery and segregation, through massive resistance and Bloody Monday marches, our area has passed through dark nights always to emerge at the dawn of a new era of equality.

I thank the NAACP, its staff, and its members for remaining true to our Nation's highest ideals. As it embarks on its second century with new leadership and a renewed commitment to human rights, I congratulate the NAACP on this landmark year in its history and extend our deep appreciation for victories won and those that remain before us.

Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 2, the State Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009.

At a time of growing unemployment, and when more Americans are losing employer-sponsored health care for their children, this bill is needed urgently for the 150,000 Virginia children currently insured by the program, and the 55,000 more who will be covered.

This approach makes good public health policy. It's morally the right thing to do by our children, and it's good economic policy because it rewards the very families and parents who are working their way out of poverty. At a time when the cost of health care is crushing America's families and America's businesses, this is an important lifeline to extend to children in Virginia and children throughout the country.

While I am in full support of the underlying legislation, I am disappointed to learn that the Senate bill includes a disproportionate increase in the excise tax rate on tobacco products. The proposed tobacco tax could impact jobs and State revenues in already tight times.

In these very difficult times, we are in this together as a matter of public health and as a matter of economic growth.

As the son of a pediatrician, I am pleased to have the opportunity to vote in favor of this critical legislation and in favor of children in the Fifth District.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in putting America's children first and cast a vote in favor of this important bipartisan legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to support an economic recovery based on investing in America's competitive advantage.

Voters in Virginia's Fifth District sent me here because they recognize two things: First, we need fundamental change to revitalize this country's economy; and second, there are no shortcuts to getting there.

Somewhere along the way the world economy changed, but government responses stayed the same. The result in my district has been years of declining jobs, declining wages, and rising health care costs. These economic woes are now confronting the Nation as a whole, and we face an urgent moment as we lose half a million jobs every month.

We need a recovery strategy immediately, but this plan must be based on investment, not just throwing money at the problem. This crisis reflects a failure of confidence and will only be solved by its restoration. You restore confidence by fixing problems, not by pretending they aren't there.

The distinction between stimulus and recovery means more to economists than to our actual economy. I believe our Nation's economy will recover only through a visionary strategy for rebuilding America's competitive advantage. That means real commitment to investing in our workforce, our infrastructure, our innovation, and the new energy economy, and that must include investment in our small towns and rural communities.

This investment will be the guidance that our constituents need to create American jobs and turn this economy around.