Floor Statements

Madam Chairman, it seems we've lost the battle over all of the non-emergency, non-Sandy spending in this measure. The question before us now is whether we're going to spend $17 billion in this bill--$50 billion when it's amended--without even pretending that we can pay for it.

The gentleman from South Carolina's amendment proposes that we actually recognize that our government is facing a fiscal crisis of unprecedented dimensions and at least pay for the $17 billion in the Rogers bill.

I don't like across-the-board cuts, which treat our highest priorities the same as our lowest priorities; but the Rules Committee disallowed the gentleman from South Carolina's specific offsets like repealing remaining TARP funds and ending bonuses to Federal employees who take transit to work. And the fact is if Members believe that a 1.6 percent cut to discretionary spending is draconian, they should be just as leery of a 1.6 percent increase in spending to pay for non- emergency, non-Sandy-related programs in the Rogers bill.

In the last 10 years, inflation and population have grown 39 percent, our revenues have grown 37 percent, but our spending has grown 64 percent. In light of that, a 1.6 percent cut to pay for this bill, which we are assured is our highest priority, seems like a very modest measure.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this rule brings a suspending package of more than $50 billion that is supposed to be for emergency repairs in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. That averages about $450 from every household in America.

These families have a right to expect that this money will be used for genuine emergency relief, but it's not. According to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 90 percent of this money won't even be spent this year. That's not emergency relief.

There is $16 billion to quintuple the size of the Community Development Block Grant program. That's the slush fund that pays for such dubious projects as doggy day care centers, and

it doesn't even have to be spent in the hurricane area. Two billion dollars is for highway repairs anywhere in the country, including up to $20 million each for Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands that aren't even in the same ocean as Hurricane Sandy.

I offered amendments to restrict funding for emergency relief this year. Future-year expenditures should be included in the normal appropriations process where they can be given scrutiny and be evaluated in relation to all of the other demands on spending.

These amendments were refused.

Worse, this rule overrides the House rules requiring spending offsets against unauthorized appropriations and, most telling of all, against mixing nonemergency funding in an emergency bill. A tragedy like Hurricane Sandy shouldn't be used as an excuse for a grab bag of spending having nothing to do with emergency relief. At the Rules Committee hearing, I was told, Well, you have to understand that that's just the way things are done around here.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans were supposed to change the way things are done around here. Clearly, we have not.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the debate over the fiscal cliff has become so hyperbolic that I'm afraid we're losing touch with common sense.

Contrary to many press accounts and many statements by Members, there is no bill before the Congress that proposes raising taxes on millionaires or anybody else. There is a law that takes effect on January 1 that will raise taxes on millionaires and small businesses filing as millionaires and on everybody else, and there is a bill to protect everybody else from that law, which is the issue before us today.

The President says he wants to protect everybody except those greedy millionaires and billionaires. Well, that's precisely what this bill does, and yet he has vowed to veto it. The truth is he wants to sock everybody who is making over $200,000. Now, that includes 1.3 million small businesses filing under subchapter S. That's 84 percent of net small business income. That is precisely the income that they use to produce two-thirds of the jobs in our economy.

The Congressional Budget Office warns us that Mr. Obama's ``eat the rich'' crusade will actually result in throwing 200,000 middle class families into unemployment. Ernst & Young estimates 700,000 lost jobs.

House Republicans now have a choice in that we can try to save as many Americans from these ruinous tax increases as the President will permit or we can end up at an impasse that assures taxes go up on everyone. So let us pass this bill. If it doesn't work, then let's pass it at whatever level the President will agree to. It's not as if we haven't repeatedly warned him.

Some of my conservative colleagues say that sparing some people these tax increases is tantamount to raising them on others. For a lifeguard who sees 10 swimmers drowning off his beach, if he can only save nine of them, that doesn't mean he has drowned the 10th one. And no lifeguard would be worth his pay if he said, Well, my principle is that nobody should drown off my beach; therefore, as a matter of principle, if I can't save them all, then I won't save any.

As Americans watch as thousands and thousands of middle class jobs are sacrificed on the ideological altar of Obamanomics next year, I think this country will be a lot sadder and a lot wiser, but until then, let's save who we can.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the many contributions Timothy Holabird has made to Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, and Sierra counties located in northeastern California.

Tim has combined experience and knowledge of the lands and people that define the region with a steadfast determination to help these rural communities. Federal agencies administer more than 80 percent of the land, and Tim has aggressively championed interests of people versus the seeming indifference and neglect of the bureaucracies. Bringing all parties together, establishing common goals and objectives, and actually solving problems has been his hallmark.

As four fires ravaged the area this summer, Tim pursued the interests and concerns of local citizens to the point of his own physical exhaustion. He personally bridged the communication gap with agencies attacking the fires and the communities immediately threatened. In the devastating aftermath of the fires, Tim worked with all parties to restore and salvage. In particular, he has been relentless resolving the immediate, critical issue of thousands of acres of lost grazing land.

Tim understands the appropriate role of government in land and resource management and has personally sacrificed to uphold the public's interests. Mr. Speaker, while it seems the aim of our government agencies is to restrict access and the productive use of our federal lands, Timothy Holabird remains a steadfast advocate for access and use by the very best stewards of this land--the local citizens.

Mr. Speaker, to understand the Federal budget mess and the so-called fiscal cliff, it's important to know three numbers: 39, 37, and 64.

Thirty-nine percent is the combined growth of inflation and population over the last 10 years. Thirty-seven percent is the increase in revenues in the same period. That's despite the recession and the tax cuts. It's not quite keeping pace, but it's pretty close. Sixty- four percent is the number that is killing us. Sixty-four percent is the increase in Federal spending in that period. That's nearly twice the rate of inflation and population growth over the last 10 years.

The spending side of the fiscal cliff is the so-called ``sequester,'' automatic cuts in Federal spending. To hear some tell it, it is the end of Western civilization as we know it. That's hardly the case. After a 64 percent increase in expenditures during this decade, the sequester doesn't actually cut spending at all. It simply limits spending growth next year to about a half of a percent. I opposed the budget deal that created the sequester last year because it fell woefully short of what Standard & Poor's clearly warned was necessary to preserve the Nation's AAA credit rating. Sadly, that fear was borne out, but now the sequester is all we have.

It's true defense takes the brunt of it, but does our defense spending really need to be higher--inflation adjusted--

than it was at the height of the Vietnam War, when we faced down the Soviet Union and had 500,000 combat troops in the field? The sequester isn't stepping off a cliff; it is taking one step back from the cliff.

The tax increases, however, are a very different matter. Without intervention, the Federal tax burden will balloon 21 percent at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, taking somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 from an average family. This summer, the House passed legislation to protect our Nation from such a calamity, but Mr. Obama vowed to veto it, and the Senate killed it. Instead, Mr. Obama tells us that he'll veto any plan that stops taxes from going up on all of those very wealthy folks making over $200,000, who he says need to pay their fair share. I suppose fairness is in the eye of the beholder. The top 1 percent earns 17 percent of all income and pays 37 percent of all income taxes, but that's beside the point. The fine point of it is that a lot of these very wealthy folks making over $200,000 aren't very wealthy, and they aren't even folks. They're 1.3 million struggling small businesses filing under subchapter S. Our small businesses produce two-thirds of the new jobs in our economy. So this battle is very much for the middle class.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Mr. Obama's tax increase on the so-called ``wealthy'' will actually throw 200,000 middle and working class families into unemployment. That's 200,000 lost jobs. By the way, that is the optimistic estimate. An independent analysis by Ernst & Young puts that figure closer to 700,000 lost jobs. That's because the President's taxes would slam 84 percent of the net small business income in the country. That's precisely the income that is used to support and expand our labor force.

In their blind pursuit of an eat-the-rich ideology, Mr. Obama and his acolytes are imposing a policy that would utterly devastate hundreds of thousands of middle class families who depend upon the jobs that these small businesses provide. And for what? To wring enough money to fund Mr. Obama's spending spree for a grand total of 8 days. It's telling that three-fourths of the new taxes he's proposed would be used to finance the new spending that he's also proposed.

We Republicans don't want to see taxes go up on anyone, period. We don't want to see this government willfully throw hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work by this policy. The President obviously believes that in the eleventh hour Republicans will have no choice but ultimately to protect as many taxpayers as we possibly can since the only alternative would be tax increases on everyone, including those job creators. He may be right, but that would mean a bleak and bitter New Year for all of those families who will watch helplessly as their jobs evaporate before their eyes. Let us pray that this President has a change of heart before setting this calamity in motion.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I never met Victor Dew, but I feel that I've gotten to know him since the day that he came home to Granite Bay to be laid to rest in a hero's grave in the midst of his family, his friends and neighbors, his community, and his comrades in arms.

That day, I discovered that his next-door neighbor is a longtime acquaintance of mine. He had watched this young man grow up, and he was absolutely devastated. In his bitter sorrow, he represented the anguish of an entire community that had watched Victor Dew grow up to be an always good-natured, always helpful, always pleasant lad who everybody knew was destined to do great things.

That same day, I met Victor Dew's younger brother, Kyle, and I think I got a fleeting glimpse of Vic in his little brother. Kyle was seated at a table with a group of his grade-school friends. When I offered my condolences, one of his friends said, We came to cheer him up and instead he's cheering us up.

That day, I also met Victor Dew's parents, Patty and Tom Schumacher, whose intense pride in their son fused with inexpressible sorrow into a transcendent dignity that I cannot put into words. Lincoln perhaps came closest in his famous letter to Mrs. Bixby when he wrote of laying ``so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.''

I've gotten to know Victor's parents in the more than 2 years since that costly sacrifice. I see them at the funerals of other fallen heroes, offering comfort to other bereaved families in a way I think that only those who have gone through such a loss can truly understand. I frankly cannot begin to understand what they've gone through and continue to go through every day. Whenever I try to imagine myself in their shoes, my mind recoils. I can only marvel at the strength that they summon.

Time does not heal all wounds. For these Gold Star families, every day is Memorial Day; and every day their grief is just as real as when the casualty officer appeared at their threshold.

At a Gold Star dinner several years ago, I confided to our hosts that I still didn't know what to say to these families. She smiled and said, Just ask them about their sons.

So let me tell you a little bit about what I know of Victor Dew. Everybody who knew him always began with the same thing: Vic was one of those sunny personalities who always lifted the spirits of everyone around them. They'd be feeling down, and Victor would lift them up. I have no doubt Kyle got that quality from his older brother.

Victor attended Granite Bay High School where he played on the high school football team. His real passion, though, was martial arts, in which he ultimately achieved a double black belt in jujitsu. His jujitsu teacher, Clint LeMay, told the Los Angeles Times:

When I met him, he was like a 30-year-old man walking

around in a 13-year-old's body. He was wise beyond his years

and knew how to deal with all kinds of people.

In high school, he met a remarkable young lady by the name of Courtney Gold. They both went on to attend Sierra College, and that's when they began dating.

Victor had great plans. He had grown up dreaming of becoming a marine. When he was 12 years old, he had hung a Marine Corps flag over his bed. Every morning after that, he woke up under that flag and the proud words emblazoned on it: Semper Fidelis.

He steeped himself in military history. He was fully aware of the mortal dangers he would face; yet in the summer of 2009, he enthusiastically enlisted. When Courtney asked him why, he said, It's my dream. I feel like I need to do this.

One of his comrades put it this way:

Victor lived every day with a purpose like it was his last.

He always had a joke to tell you or a way to make your day

better. He would have tough days and instead of being

negative, he would say, This is the kind of stuff I live for.

Well, he had everything to live for. Before shipping out, he brought Courtney to one of his favorite places in the world, Disneyland, where he asked her to be his wife. They were to be married when he returned. In the Marines, he was offered a posting to a ceremonial position in the Presidential detail right here in Washington, but he turned it down. He believed his duty and his destiny was to keep the fight away from our shores, away from his family and his country; and so he chose combat even when he had been offered safe and honorable service at home.

Instead of the prestigious Presidential detail he had been offered, Victor Dew chose to become one of the boys of 3/5: Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment of the First Marine Division. He deployed to combat duty in Afghanistan on September 25, 2010. Less than 3 weeks later, on October 13, Lance Corporal Victor Dew, age 20, died from his wounds after his column was ambushed and an explosive device destroyed his vehicle. Lost with him were three other fallen heroes.

The next week, a black hearse with the Marine Corps emblem brought him home to Granite Bay and to a hallowed grave. Courtney had already bought her wedding dress in anticipation of a far happier homecoming. The day before Victor's funeral, she put it on, she had a wedding photographer take her portrait, and she placed that photo in Victor's casket. And then he was laid to rest with all of the honors we accord to our heroes: posthumous medals and a promotion, full military honors, a flag given to the grieving mother on behalf of a grateful Nation.

777 days have passed since that awful day in Helmand province. In those 777 days, Victor Dew might have come safely home, he would have married Courtney Gold, they might have started a family by now, and he would be well embarked on a long and happy life and a promising career.

As painful as it is to reflect on what might have been, it's important that we do so because in that pain is the measure of how much these young men gave up and how much their families grieve for them. They won't grow old

to enjoy the blessings of liberty they died to secure for our country and for a country half a world away.

A few years ago, I had the honor to visit members of the Third United States Infantry Old Guard, who tend the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington Cemetery. Tourists will often watch them on warm spring days, meticulously dressed and painstakingly drilled, honoring the memory of these soldiers. Tourists don't often show up during hurricanes or in driving snowstorms or at 2 a.m. in sleet and hail, but the Old Guard does. They commit 2 years of their lives to this service, under the strictest of conditions. I asked a young sergeant, Why? Why do you do this? He said, Because, sir, we want to demonstrate to our fellow Americans that we will never forget.

Victor Dew will not be forgotten. His family will see to that. His friends and neighbors will see to that. His marine brothers will see to that. And his country will see to that. Today, the United States House of Representatives considers legislation to name the post office in Victor Dew's hometown of Granite Bay in his honor, as a simple token of that commitment.

All things mortal will pass. Someday this post office will be gone. Someday we will all be gone. But the selfless deeds and quiet patriotism of young men like Victor Dew are recorded, not in plaques and buildings and monuments, but, rather, in the eternal and indestructible archives of time itself. They will not tarnish or fade. They will stand for the ages as a testament to the value of liberty, the character of those who step forth to defend it, and as a most profound lesson of the true meaning of the words that Victor Dew awakened under from the time that he was 12 and that he now sleeps under for all eternity: Semper Fidelis.

Mr. Speaker, we are met here today on several items of important business.

First, we are here to dedicate Col. Bud Anderson Way as a permanent and daily reminder to all of us how honored our community is to be the home of Bud Anderson.

But more importantly, we name this street after Bud Anderson as a lesson to succeeding generations in matters of courage and sacrifice and duty and patriotism, in the hope and expectation that these generations will find inspiration and instruction in Col. Anderson's life story.

He grew up in the little California town of Newcastle, in the 1920's and 30's--an age and a place where uniquely American values of individual responsibility, self-reliance, love of liberty, sense of duty, and love of country were very real, very strong, and inculcated into the very souls of America's greatest generation.

When our nation, and all that it stood for, came under attack by foreign tyrants, that Greatest Generation knew instantly what was at stake and could see clearly what had to be done.

President Roosevelt sounded the clarion call with these words: ``No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.''

The whole might and fury of the nation was committed to the cause, and from little towns like Newcastle, courageous young men like Bud Anderson stepped forward--indeed, rushed forward--to defend not only our country, but what Lincoln had called the last best hope of mankind.

Today, it is hard to imagine a time when an attack on our country was met with the complete and total resolve of the entire nation--where every citizen set aside their daily lives and indeed devoted themselves to, ``absolute victory.'' Because people like Bud Anderson did just that, 3\1/2\ years later, the enemies of our nation had been utterly vanquished.

Bud Anderson shot down more than 16 German fighters in 116 combat missions. But what he really did was far more important. At great personal risk, he saved countless American bomber crews, making it possible to deliver justice to what Churchill called the ``foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny in the history of the human race,'' and ultimately to fulfill the Liberty Bell's proud mandate from Leviticus: ``to proclaim liberty throughout all the land and unto all the inhabitants thereof.''

That's why we're really here. Not just to honor Bud Anderson. Lincoln was right that there's no way that we can add or detract from the honor that his deeds already earned him.

We're really here because we want to know that in this nation there once existed an American spirit that compelled us to recognize moral imperatives, to destroy absolute evil with absolute victory, and to celebrate American exceptionalism without reservation or hesitation.

We have in Bud Anderson a great example of these virtues, a great reminder that they are real, and a great teacher from whom we can recover these virtues in a world that is once again piled high with difficulties at home and abroad.

That's why we're naming this road in his honor--because we are desperately searching for the qualities that defined his deeds and his times and we have found in him a guide back to America's greatness.

Every person who travels this road, and who reflects on the story of Bud Anderson and his times, who learns that story and learns it well, will know that it is a road that can take us to better and brighter days ahead.

Mr. Speaker, this is the story of a small group of families who long ago crossed a great ocean in search of religious tolerance and economic liberty; a land where people were free to enjoy the fruit of their own labor, to raise their children according to their own values, to practice their religious beliefs openly, to express their opinions without fear of retribution, to live their lives according to their own best judgment, and not according to the whims and mandates of the powerful.

That is the story of the pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower in 1620 seeking a better future in a free land for their descendants. It is the very same story of pilgrims like Baba Vasakha Singh and Baba Jawala Singh Thathian who founded the Stockton Gurdwara Sahib a century ago, and all those who have followed since.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln said that although many people who were then in America could trace their families back to the American founding, many more had come since then, and could not. But, he said, ``when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.''

There is no religion more attuned to the principles of the American Declaration of Independence than the Sikh religion.

Both reject the idea of aristocracy and social class and instead judge every individual on his or her own merit and character.

Both embrace the unique notion that we are born with equal claim to unalienable rights that come directly from the ``laws of nature and of nature's God,'' and not from government--rather, we create governments to protect these God-given rights and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it renounces its legitimacy.

And both have inspired and animated the aspirations of those around the world seeking to reclaim, protect and enjoy these God-given rights.

Individual liberty, personal responsibility, Constitutionally limited government--these are fundamental both to the Sikh Religion and to the American Founding.

Today, we celebrate not only a century of Sikh immigration and integration into America, together, we celebrate the immortal inscription on the American Liberty Bell, to ``Proclaim Liberty Throughout ALL the Land, and Unto ALL the INHABITANTS Thereof.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Dr. Tracy Vallier.

Dr. Vallier's career as a Professor of Geology at Indiana State University, Whitman College, Lewis-Clark State College, and Iowa State University; as well as his experience with Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the US Geological Survey are all worthy of note. He has doubtlessly passed his passion and hard-earned knowledge on to innumerable students and colleagues.

Dr. Vallier has spent the last 50 years working to explore, document and teach the geography and geology of the Hells Canyon. The canyon, which follows the route of the Snake River through Idaho and Oregon, is the deepest gorge in North America: at 7,993 feet deep, it dwarfs the Grand Canyon by nearly 2,000 feet. Hells Canyon is a breathtaking, nearly-inaccessible American treasure that has been over 300 million years in the making, during which numerous geological processes ranging from volcanic uprisings, to the slow carving of the Snake River to cataclysmic glacial floods have provided a landscape filled with some of the most complex and intertwined geology in North America.

Dr. Vallier has dedicated the last half-century to understanding this geologic masterpiece. His colleagues tell us that he has probably explored more geography of Hells Canyon than any person alive. In his 50 years working in the Canyon, Dr. Vallier has led to an understanding of not only the geologic history of the Canyon, but also of the regional tectonics of the Pacific Northwest. He has shared this knowledge of the Canyon's history, native sites, flora and fauna, and ecology to colleagues, students, and almost everyone he has met. Dr. Vallier is a born teacher and his love and knowledge of the Canyon is passed on to students and strangers alike.

John Wesley Powell, who is best known for his pioneering study of the Grand Canyon, said about his explorations: ``We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things.'' Without Powell, indeed we would have been left for a long time with only conjecture as our guide to the Grand Canyon.

In the same way Mr. Speaker, without Dr. Tracy Vallier, we would remain in the dark about the wonders of Hells Canyon. As Dr. Vallier continues his work in the Canyon today, it is my privilege to rise in recognition of his many achievements and contributions to our nation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this bill ends the title XVII loan guarantees that produced Solyndra and so many other alternate energy scams that cost Americans hundreds of millions of dollars while the politically connected perpetrators of these scams walked away wealthy men and women. But this measure does still put taxpayers on the hook to loan out billions of dollars more to at least 50 additional shady, alternate energy schemes that had been submitted under the same title prior to January 1. So there will be more Solyndras under this bill.

I'd offered an amendment to pull the plug on the applications, but I was told, Don't bother; the Rules Committee won't allow the amendment to be brought to the floor.

So I support the bill, but I do agree with my friend from Ohio that the title, ``No More Solyndras Act,'' is a bit misleading. I would suggest an alternative, the ``50 More Solyndras and Then We'll Stop Wasting Your Money, Really, We Promise, Act.''

I want to thank the chairman for yielding to a contrary point of view.

Mr. Speaker, FISA allows the government to target foreign nationals and to intercept their communications, even those with American citizens, without a warrant, as required by the Fourth Amendment.

Now, we're told don't worry. The law requires that any irrelevant information collected in this manner be disregarded. Well, here is the problem. The enforcement of this provision is, itself, shrouded in secrecy, making the potential for abuse substantial and any remedy unlikely. Secret courts and warrantless surveillance are not compatible with a free society or the English common law or the American Constitution.

We are told FISA is necessary to stop terrorist plots and that this protection trumps privacy or due process concerns. Well, Ben Franklin answered that argument years ago when he warned us that those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. In fact, America's security is far better assured as a thriving free society in a world that respects her strengths and fears her just vengeance.

As I listened to my colleague from Santa Barbara, I was reflecting on the fact that, during that same period, I represented the same area of Santa Barbara. I was in the State senate for 8 years. So I would remind the gentlelady that less than 4 years ago the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution asking for more offshore development of the Santa Barbara area, so dependent is the region's economy on that enterprise.

Mr. Chairman, that speaks volumes, I think, about where the American people stand today as well.

America's energy crisis is not because of any shortage of American energy. Our Nation is blessed with vast reserves of petroleum, natural gas, coal, hydroelectricity, and uranium that dwarf those of any other nation, and they should make us the most prosperous and energy- independent Nation in the world.

The real energy crisis is here in Washington--some would say right here in this Chamber--where our government, in thrall to the green left, continues to thwart the development of American resources.

We have seen this policy time and time again as the President has blocked the Keystone pipeline, waged war on coal, and thwarted offshore exploration and development, which is a problem that this bill now addresses. To add hypocrisy to injury, while blocking American petroleum development, many of these politicians exhort the Saudis and Brazilians to increase their production.

Enough is enough. Our Nation is at a crossroads. We can choose either a future of government-created energy shortages or a future of jobs, prosperity and abundance produced by American enterprise. That is the issue before us today, and that is one of the issues that will be before the American people in November.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of Mrs. Wen Wang Lee.

Born in Taiwan in 1916 as the third daughter of a poor family in a society that favored male children, Mrs. Lee's prospects were dim. Given their meager resources, Mrs. Lee's family sought to find her an adoptive home and, when this proved to be impossible, neglected her and fed her only scraps of food. For a typical child in her situation, this could have been the end of a very short life, but Mrs. Lee showed early on that she was anything but typical. After three days of starving, her resilience and tenacity to cling to life could no longer be ignored and she was accepted back into the family.

Mrs. Lee went to work by age six, forgoing any opportunity for schooling in order to help provide for her family. From this early age her rapidly developing character was clearly evident: she was a model of extraordinary perseverance, determination, and a strong will that would eventually lead her family to a better life.

After her marriage, Mrs. Lee became the predominant provider for her family, including her eight children. Each day she would rise by three in the morning and walk two hours to an orchard, where she would pick fruit and carry it back on her shoulders to sell. On a typical day, having left home long before first light, she would return from work after dusk, and continue housework until nearly midnight. Mrs. Lee endured this hard life for almost two decades and received three awards from her village for being a model mother while providing for her family and raising her children.

From 1940 to 1960 Wen Wang Lee, with no formal education of her own, raised eight children. In resource-scarce post-war Taiwan, even satisfying basic necessities was a formidable challenge, let alone being able to set aside money for children's tuition. However, while most of the children in her village were forced to begin apprenticeships immediately after finishing elementary school, Mrs. Lee insisted that her children continue their education. Even though it meant personal sacrifices and financial hardship, she never gave up her strong belief that education would enable her children to pursue a better future. Her efforts were not in vain, as her children have gone on to excel in academics in Taiwan and consequently be accepted to pursue graduate studies in the United States. Here, her children have exemplified the amazing story of American immigrants: through hard work and dedication--undoubtedly traits inherited from their mother--they have made numerous positive contributions in both academia and the high-tech industry.

When Wen Wang Lee arrived in the U.S. in her late fifties to live with her children, her quality of life improved drastically. Even though she carried the burden of a hard life, she cast aside her worries and poured all her love into her children's families. She dedicated herself to ensure a better future for her grandchildren, who inherited her strength and perseverance and have attended some of our nation's most renowned universities and hold professional careers in science, medicine and engineering.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Lee spent her entire life leading her family to prosperity and left behind a precious spiritual legacy: carry yourself upward, advocate education, and overcome challenges with determination, fortitude, and sincere dedication. This maxim may sound familiar to Americans: when President Theodore Roosevelt was asked to define the essence of our nation he said that ``Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity and hardihood--the virtues that made America.'' I have no doubt that it was individuals like Wen Wang Lee that President Roosevelt was describing, and I am honored to rise in recognition of her life and accomplishments today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the completion and opening of the Gene Upshaw Memorial Tahoe Forest Cancer Center in Truckee, California.

Led by Medical Director Laurence Heifetz, MD, FACP, and Medical Oncologist Hematologist Ahrin Koppel, MD, the Tahoe Cancer Center first opened its doors in 2006 with a mission of providing quality care for cancer patients in the Tahoe region.

The Center's services are vast and include: medical evaluation, examination, diagnosis and treatment; chemotherapy infusion and blood product administration; pharmacy, laboratory and diagnostic imaging services; a psychosocial services program with wellness, support groups, nutritional counseling and rehabilitation therapies; professional and caring staff; and Financial Counseling for patients. And for the first time in the Truckee-Tahoe area, the expanded Center will also house radiation oncology services as well.

In coordination with the University of California Davis Cancer Care Network, the Tahoe Forest Cancer will provide world class treatment and care for cancer patients in northeastern California and Nevada. The Center will connect patients not just to the best in modern treatments and equipment, but to some of the most renowned medical professionals in our state. I am certain that both these patients and their families will reap the dividends of this facility for decades to come, often in the hour of their greatest need.

Mr. Speaker, the foundation of our nation's strength has always been found in our local communities. Neighbors who willingly band together and pool their resources are remarkably skilled at employing those resources to their most useful and productive ends. They do so because they have a vested stake in the future of their towns and cities, and they understand the burdens borne to finance that future because they are the ones who bear them. I can think of no finer example of this remarkable and unique characteristic of our shared heritage than the opening of the Gene Upshaw Memorial Tahoe Forest Cancer Center and I am proud to rise today in celebration of this auspicious occasion.

Mr. Speaker, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the so-called Affordable Care Act, the House will once again take up the imperative of repealing it.

But the Supreme Court decision has much more dire implications for our Nation and for its cherished freedoms than merely affirming the government takeover of our health care. In reaching its conclusion, the Court obliterated the fundamental distinction between a penalty and a tax. Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes; and, therefore the Court reasons, it can apply a tax for any reason, even those otherwise outside the confines of the Constitution.

In this case, the Court ruled that Congress could not impose a law requiring citizens to purchase a government-approved health plan under the Commerce Clause, but it can impose exactly the same requirement as a tax. If it can't fine you for disobeying, it can certainly tax you for disobeying. Mr. Speaker, if the government fines you $250 for running a red light or taxes you $250 for running a red light, the effect is the same. What's the difference?

Actually, there are two critical differences. First, as a fine--as a penalty--the burden of proof is on the government to prove that you ran that red light. As a tax, the burden of proof is on you to show that you did not run it. Anyone who has ever undergone an IRS audit knows exactly what I mean. This decision fundamentally alters the most cherished principle of our justice system, the presumption of innocence.

There is a second even more chilling difference between a penalty and a tax. Under our Constitution, no penalty can be assessed without due process. You cannot be punished until you have had your day in court. But to challenge a tax, you must first pay that tax before you can seek redress through the court. You are punished first and then tried. This is the madness of Lewis Carroll's Red Queen brought to life: Sentence first--verdict afterwards.

Under this decision, Americans may now be coerced under the threat of the seizure of their property to take any action the Federal Government decrees without any constitutional constraint, enforceable in a manner that denies both presumption of innocence and due process of law. By this reasoning, it can now tax speech it finds offensive, tax people who choose not to go to church or people who do, tax people who own guns or people who don't. As long as we call it a tax under this decision, there are no limits to the power of the Federal Government.

I believe this decision will go down in history as one of the most deplorable ever rendered, taking a place of infamy next to Dred Scott.

If the Court has failed to defend our Constitution, then what appeal is left us? There is one. The Constitution does not belong to the Federal Government. Its ownership is made crystal clear in its first three words: ``We, the people.'' As Ronald Reagan said:

The Constitution is not the government's document telling

us what we can and cannot do. The Constitution is the

people's document telling our government those things that we

will allow it to do.

Thus, the Supreme Court is not the highest court in the land. That position is reserved to the rightful owners of the Constitution, the sovereign American people through the votes that they cast every 2 years.

The infamous Alien and Sedition Acts were never struck down by the Court, but the American people did that in the election of 1800. The Supreme Court declared that American slaves were outside the protection of the Constitution when it struck down the Missouri Compromise, but the American people reversed that decision in the election of 1860.

Let us pray, while we still can--before that is taxed--that this infamous decision will be repudiated by what is actually and rightfully the highest court in the land, the American people.