Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, once again I want to commend the chairman of the committee for his wonderful work in this area and commend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) for keeping this issue alive as he has tried to enact these appropriate reforms.

Once again from the opposition we have heard some very interesting stories. But the problem is they do not have anything to do with the bill. I am reminded of the newspaper correction column, that column that is on page 5 or 6 or 10 or 12. We need a correction column right here. The misstatements and the untruths by the opponents would be amusing if this were not so doggone important.

We are not interested in dismantling OSHA. We are interested in improving workers' safety. I rise to support H.R. 741, and I want to once again bring us back to the magnitude of the issues we are talking about. Small business, 99.7 percent of all business is small business; and 75 percent of all new jobs are hired in the small business sector.

Have my colleagues ever been up against Big Brother? Ever been up against Big Brother? OSHA's budget is $468 million; 2,200 employees; 1,100 inspectors. OSHA is Big Brother. And the analogy has been used here, but what if Big Brother were the prosecutor and the judge and the jury? Unfair? Unfair? You bet. That is the current system. That is the current system under which we are working. OSHA is the prosecutor, it is the judge, and it is the jury. And that was not the intent. That was not the intent.

H.R. 741 restores the original intent and the original system of checks and balances that was intended by Congress. Read the bill. What does it say? All it says is: ``The conclusions of the Commission with respect to all questions of law that are subject to agency deference under governing court precedent shall be given deference if reasonable.'' That is it. That is all it says. What does it mean? It means that the review committee will be the independent committee and the commission that Congress intended originally. Very simple common sense.

I urge my colleagues to adopt H.R. 741.

Mr. Speaker, I have come down on these four bills and I have come for a variety of reasons, but one main reason is to make those corrections that are so necessary with the arguments on the other side.

We have heard, why can we not have investigations? Why can we not consider another bill? Why can we not do this or that?

Well, these are all interesting questions but they have nothing to do with this bill. The hyperbole from the opposition has been remarkable.

The contention, they would say, is that unless you are going to win, do not bring the case. That is not what this bill says. This bill simply provides that if the small business owner wins, then OSHA should be responsible for the attorneys' fees. We seek to improve OSHA and make it responsive to the intent of Congress. This bill is designed to strengthen small business and to save jobs.

Again, the magnitude of this issue, 99.7 percent of all businesses are small businesses, 75 percent of all new jobs are in the area of small business. OSHA has a budget of $468 million, with 2,200 employees and 1,100 inspectors. The deck is stacked. Yes, it is stacked; it is stacked against those most beneficial to our economy, small business owners and their employees.

H.R. 742 would allow a small businessman or -woman to recover attorneys' fees if they contest and they win, they win, an allegation in a citation by OSHA. Remember OSHA's budget, $468 million? You win, OSHA was wrong. Right? OSHA was wrong, but you spent thousands of dollars to defend your business and your workers' jobs. Remember, you win against a $468 million budget. So OSHA should reimburse your attorneys' fees. Right? Just like current law. Right? Wrong.

You cannot win. Even if you win your case, you may be out the amount of money it cost to defend yourself. Less money in your business means fewer jobs. Remember, reimbursement only occurs if you win. If you lose, you are responsible, and that is as it should be.

So let us stop punishing the backbone of our economy. Let us stop punishing small businesses and employees and workers. I urge support for H.R. 742, one of four commonsense worker-friendly, job-friendly, small business-friendly bills before us today.

Mr. Speaker, what an honor it is to come before my colleagues tonight to talk about some of the most important aspects of all of our lives, and that is our jobs and our health and how they are tied together.

I think it is helpful to begin this by answering the question, how did we get to this point? Why do most Americans receive their health insurance from their employer? Did you ever think about that? Whether it is good or bad. You think about other kinds of insurance. Car insurance does not come from your employer necessarily. Certainly, health insurance does, and that is so incredibly important. Your home insurance does not come from your employer. Why health? Like most things, it has a long and a curious and sometimes a colorful history.

By way of introduction, and I will be brief, but I think it is important to review kind of how we got to where we are right now. Actually it begins during World War II when employers were short on employees, and they were attempting to attract employees, and so they offered a health benefit to try to encourage some folks to come and work at their place of business. The government at that time had to decide whether it was going to treat that health benefit as a taxable benefit or whether it was going to be a nontaxable benefit. Were they going to tax the employee for getting that benefit or not? What the government at that time elected to do is to treat it as a nontaxable benefit. And so began this incentive that we now have and have lived with for the past 60 years or so for employer-based health care.

During the 1950s, there was a period of significant collective bargaining in our Nation, and many individuals got their health insurance with what is called first dollar coverage, meaning that every single dollar of their health care was paid for by somebody else. In the 1960s, the government got involved with Medicare and Medicaid and instituted Medicare as a program that was a cost-plus program, meaning that those individuals that were providing the care were paid for the cost for providing it plus some. And so what you had over a period of the next 10 or 12 years or so was a significant increase in the cost of health care. Businesses said, Hey, wait a minute, what's going on here? We've got to have some help. And so instead of looking at that situation then and moving toward a system that allowed individuals greater choice and greater opportunity for their selection in health care, what happened was an increasing regulation of both the insurance industry and the beginning of HMOs and the managed care as we know it. All of this began basically with the tax favorability for employers to purchase health insurance. And so that system flourished.

Now, tying health care to jobs has had many unintended consequences and many that have adversely affected those who can get insurance. As a legislature, as a Congress, as leaders and decisionmakers, we need to make it easier for businesses to provide health insurance. One person who knows firsthand about that and about how to make that happen is the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn). The gentlewoman from Tennessee is a small business owner herself and represents a district that is heavily dependent on small businesses and the jobs that they generate. She understands this issue as few do and has been a great leader in our Congress in an effort to pass both the health savings accounts and associated health plans. I am proud to yield to my colleague as she discusses the issue of small business and health care for a few moments.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman so much for her comments. I appreciate her leadership in this issue and so many other issues in our Congress, and I thank her for her perspective as a small business owner and somebody who has been a real advocate for increasing choices for patients and opportunities to purchase health insurance.

I mentioned briefly before the tax treatment of health insurance and why we seem to be in a situation now where there is this remarkable incentive for employers to purchase health insurance, and that again is because of the tax treatment. And nobody understands that better than the next individual whom I have asked to join me today. Because of this tax incentive, solutions to our current situation must address the taxes and how they affect decisions about the purchase of health care.

And one person who understands this as well as anybody and is a good friend and legislator is the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King). The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is working to fight burdensome government regulation and red tape. He truly understands the challenges of starting and operating a business first hand as a successful agri- businessman. He brings 28 years of business know-how with him to Congress, and he has introduced a very exciting piece of legislation that talks about the tax treatment of the purchase of health insurance.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) so very much for his comments.

When I first started looking into this issue of health insurance and why it seemed that employers had this remarkable incentive and I looked back and looked back and tried to figure out where it began and I got to the discussion about World War II and I talked to some of my friends about it and they would say it could not have started back then, I appreciate his perspective on it and his knowledge and expertise in appreciating that the tax treatment of the purchase of health insurance is so important, so incredibly important, as we try to solve the challenges of the increased cost of health insurance and health care. I thank him so much for joining me tonight. He was very kind to participate and bring focus to those issues.

I touched a little earlier on that association between jobs and health care and how jobs are so important to health care because of the tax treatment. And so it is important that we talk about jobs and small businesses; and this Congress has worked incredibly hard, incredibly hard, to create jobs, especially in the area of small business; and it is important. We keep talking about small business because that is the engine, that is the engine that drives our economy.

Ninety-nine percent of all businesses in this Nation are small businesses, and 75 percent of all new jobs that have been created have been jobs that are added in the area of small business. And this Congress has been incredibly diligent in making certain that we have the right incentives to create jobs. And they have been mentioned earlier, but I would like to touch on a couple of them.

The Energy Policy Act that we passed will create nearly \1/2\ million new jobs in the manufacturing and construction and agriculture and technology sectors, \1/2\ million jobs. The Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act, that is not only an unfair tax, but it is also taking money out of the pockets of individuals, especially small business individuals, that they could use to instead grow their businesses. The Class Action Fairness Act that we passed, some legal reform. It is estimated that $88 billion a year, $88 billion a year, is spent on lawsuits; and if that money is not needed on inappropriate lawsuits, then where can that money go? To small business and to jobs, create jobs, hire more workers. So this was an important bill that was passed and signed into law by the President.

The highway bill, the Transportation Reauthorization bill, not only will it increase the quality of our transportation infrastructure across this Nation, but it is estimated that for every $1 billion that is spent to improve our highways, 40,000 jobs are created, 40,000 jobs: $1 billion, 40,000 jobs.

Do we know what that means for a bill that has a price tag of about $280 billion? That is 15 million jobs. You talk about a Congress that is serious about putting people to work, this is that Congress. And the Job Training Improvement Act that we passed breaks down the barriers for millions, millions of job-seekers.

So this Congress has actively worked to expand small business which, again, is the engine, the engine of our economy, and it is working. We see the results already. Mr. Speaker, 146,000 jobs were created in the month of June with the unemployment rate dropping to 5 percent, the lowest unemployment rate since September of 2001. Steady growth

has taken place each of the last 25 months with more Americans working than ever before.

This chart shows the declining unemployment rate and the number of jobs that have been created, and we see each month for the past, on this chart, 13 months, but it has been 25 months in a row, each month we have created jobs in this Nation, across the Nation. The economic indicators show strong and sustained growth with real gross domestic product and real income revised up for the first quarter, and inflation down. Listen to this: profits as a share of gross domestic product are up to their highest level since 1967, profits up to their highest levels since 1967. What does that do? It allows businesses to reinvest and create more jobs.

Mr. Speaker, durable goods orders are on the rise with new orders for durable goods increased by 5.5 percent in May. That is the largest increase in 14 months. U.S. manufacturing continues to expand. Again, for the 25th consecutive month, manufacturing expanded again in June. And we see it in the private sector as well, with consumer confidence rising nearly 3 points in June to its highest level in 3 years.

Mr. Speaker, I am telling my colleagues, the improving economy that we have talked about and the jobs that have been created, it is not empty rhetoric, it is not just words. The policies of this Congress and this administration, they are pro-growth, and they are leading the charge, and they are indeed succeeding in the challenges that we have before us in creating jobs.

But when I go home, when I talk to folks at home who are small business owners, who create the jobs in this Nation, and when I talk to them and I ask them, what is the biggest challenge that you have? I do not care what kind of small business it is, whether it is a restaurant owner or gas station folks or a small business owner or lawn care people, real estate, shoe repair, I do not care what it is, their biggest challenge, they will tell you that their biggest challenge is the health care, providing health care for their employees, and many, many simply stop. They are unable to provide health care any longer for their employees, whether it is that extra dollar that the health insurance costs or whether it is the undue burden of the regulation that pushes them over the top. And they say, as much as I would like to, I am just unable to do so from a financial standpoint.

So it is imperative; remember, most employees, most people get their health insurance through their employer, again, because of the things we were talking about before, but it is imperative that we work on those constraints that make it so that it is difficult for employers to purchase that health insurance.

The unemployment rate is coming down with all of the work that we have done, now down to, as the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) mentioned, 5 percent, a remarkable, remarkable improvement in our economy.

I want to talk about small business and health care facts. I want to talk about the problem as it relates to the rising cost of health care and how it affects jobs and the provision of that health care. As health care premiums continue to increase or as they increase, employers are forced to pass that expense on to their workers in the form of higher copayments or deductibles, and oftentimes, they have to reduce coverage. They are not able to provide the same kind of coverage that they have in the past. It is not because they want to; it is because they are being constrained from a financial standpoint. Employers this year will pay an estimated 12 percent more for employee health care than benefits in 2003, 12 percent more, marking the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases and a doubling of employer health care costs since 1999.

This graph is so incredibly poignant, and it just shows the continuing increase of the cost of health care. The cost for employers is the lower bar. The middle bar is the cost for employees. And then the upper bar is the out-of-pocket costs for employees, and we see those continue to rise over the years. Decreasing these costs to American businesses is imperative, because what it will allow them to do is to spend more money on expanding their operations and hiring workers, more jobs.

It has been shown that each percentage point increase, this is a phenomenal statistic, each percentage point increase in health insurance costs increases the number of uninsured by 300,000 people. Think about that. Each single percent of increase in health insurance costs increases the number of uninsured by 300,000 people. This is an issue that is imperative, imperative for us to tackle as a Congress.

Then we have heard about the need for legal reform, what kind of challenges we have in the area of liability insurance that physicians and hospitals and others have. Those premiums for medical liability insurance have increased 500 percent, 500 percent since 1976, and what that has done is driven many doctors out of the profession, many of them closing their practices or decreasing the high-risk procedures that they do. I had one fellow physician tell me that they had to stop one of their high-risk procedures, and I said, what was that? And they said, delivering babies. An obstetrician, they could no longer deliver babies because that is defined as a high-risk procedure. In fact, in our State, over a third of the obstetricians have stopped delivering babies because it is a high-risk procedure because of the cost of liability insurance. The average jury award in a medical malpractice case is now up to $3.5 million, up more than 70 percent since 1995. This cost of insuring doctors against oftentimes petty and frivolous lawsuits is reducing the quality and access of Americans to top-rate health care.

Now, there are a number of solutions that have been put on the table, and I want to talk about three of them in kind of a larger principled way. The first is about pooling resources. The second is about the tax treatment that we have talked about, and the third is about liability reform.

Associated health plans, which the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) mentioned, are incredibly important, and they work because what they allow people to do is to pool larger numbers to purchase health insurance. Remember that 60 percent, 60 percent of the 44 million uninsured Americans are employed by small businesses or are dependents of someone who is employed by a small business. Some people estimate that that number is as high as 85 percent, meaning that 85 percent of the folks that are either employed or live in the home of somebody who is employed by a small business do not have health insurance, of the 44 million who are uninsured. Phenomenal when you think about it.

What do associated health plans allow you to do? They allow you to buy in bulk. They allow one small business, a group of employees, say three or five folks to join with three or five folks from some other businesses to pool with eight or ten somewhere else, and before you know it, you have hundreds and thousands and sometimes millions of individuals who then use that purchasing power to purchase health insurance. It allows them to get health insurance at the cost that some of the larger employers do. Associated health plans would be required to offer fully-insured or self-insured benefits that are certified by the United States Department of Labor. There has been some discussion about whether or not people could provide cut-rate health insurance. Well, that is not the case. It encourages broad participation in coverage by prohibiting discrimination of any kind against certain high-risk individuals. Again, if you pool numbers of folks together, if you allow them to join together and use their power to purchase insurance, then they will be able to do so in a very competitive way. It increases the bargaining power.

So the first area is allowing folks to get together as groups, large groups, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people to have the benefit of purchasing insurance.

The second issue I want to bring to the fore that would allow for a real solution has to do with the tax treatment and flexible spending accounts. Now, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) talked about his idea for health savings accounts and the equal tax treatment for individuals to purchase health savings accounts. Great idea. Works splendidly to move some of those incentives so that people who are employed by a small business or are self-employed or are unable to get their insurance in another way will have an incentive to

purchase health insurance. And what flexible spending accounts do is that they allow workers to direct their employers to deduct money from their paychecks to be placed in this flexible spending account, tax- free--tax-free. That is the key. That is the incentive: to pay for health care expenses that they may incur during the course of the year. It is a tax benefit to employees. Workers could save on their taxes for the purchase of health insurance.

It also provides for long-term coverage advantages, because 37 million employees right now in America have access to these accounts, but few of them take advantage of it because there is a use-it-or-lose- it rule. Now, what is the use-it-or-lose-it rule? Well, currently, if you do not use the money by the end of the year that you have put into a flexible savings spending account for health care, then that money is forfeited. It goes away. It goes back to the employer.

This rule is a huge disincentive for participating in a flexible spending account, and it probably drives up health care costs itself because it encourages individuals to spend money on health care at the end of the year that may not necessarily be needed, but you have three weeks left, and you have this money in your account, so you might as well go do that. So it has that adverse incentive for the purchase of appropriate health insurance.

So flexible spending accounts, allowing you to have equal tax protection, tax-free purchase of health insurance or health care, in addition to the pooling that we talked about. Those are the first two. And the final one is medical liability reform. As the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) mentioned, I am a physician, an orthopedic surgeon; spent nearly 20 years in private practice of health care and saw during that period of time an incredible explosion in the cost of liability insurance, for somebody that was never sued, never had a suit. And whether or not you do, the real cost of the current crisis that we have as it relates to medical liability reform is not the cost of the purchase of the insurance for the doctor; that is not the real cost. Those costs are going up, certainly, but that is not the real cost. But those are millions and millions of dollars.

The real cost, the real reason that we need liability reform in the area of health care is because of the practice of defensive medicine. You may have heard about this. What is defensive medicine? Well, when you go to your doctor and you tell your doctor what your symptoms are, what you think is wrong, your doctor, he or she, will run through in their mind or look through their resources to be able to determine what kind of tests or studies ought to be done to make an appropriate diagnosis.

Now, the practice of defensive medicine says to the doctor that we ought to do virtually everything that we can do to make that diagnosis as rapidly and as accurately as possible, even though those tests may not be absolutely imperative to do to make that diagnosis. The example that I like to use is, if you have back pain and you came into my office, 90 percent of back pain, 90 percent of back pain is what is called functional back pain. It means that you hurt your back, and you strained it, and it will go away, given a little rest and therapy and exercise and sometimes some medication, 90 percent. But I promise you that everybody that comes into the doctor's office with back pain, what do they get? They get an x-ray. Now, they do not get an x-ray because you can diagnose functional back pain on an x-ray; they get an x-ray because if something is not picked up immediately on that x-ray, then they are liable. They are liable to be sued for not picking it up in 1 week when they may have picked it up in 3 weeks if the back pain did not get any better. That is the kind of thing that goes into the practice of defensive medicine. It has to do with blood tests. It has to do with heart tracings. It has to do with extremely expensive tests and studies that we have available to us that are wonderful. They allow us to have the kind of quality health care that we have as a Nation. But what happens is that they drive up the cost of health care to an incredible degree and frankly do not increase the quality of care that is being provided.

How much money is that? The estimates vary because you cannot get a firm figure on that. No doctor orders a test and says, this test is unnecessary. So the cost is likely to be somewhere in the range of $250 billion to $500 billion, that is with a B, $250 billion to $500 billion in the cost of health care each year in our Nation.

That is why, that is why it is imperative that we have medical liability reform. So the cost of the insurance itself is significant. But that is not the real reason.

Now, there are a number of ways that you can institute appropriate health care reform. I believe that we must give States as much flexibility as possible. I think that there are a number of good solutions on the table. I believe that we have got to adopt one of those solutions that will have true and real and honest effect on the medical liability crisis that we face.

So lots of solutions. Three that I have put out on the table tonight: one is to allow individuals to pool together, to be able to use the power of many people for the purchase of health insurance; second it is imperative to allow individuals to have that equal tax treatment for the purchase of health insurance that the employer has. We need to make it so that all individuals have an incentive to be able to purchase and have health insurance; and then the third issue is the one that I touched on at the end there, that is, the extreme importance of reforming our crisis in lawsuit abuse. It is imperative that that happen. If we do not do that, we do all of the other things, it is not likely that we will be able to get our handle on the increase of health care costs.

So, finally, what three things drive up the cost of business for any business, be it large or small? There is a common denominator to those things that drive up costs. They are taxation, they are litigation, and they are regulation.

The problem with the area of health care is that all of those costs for the provision of health care for our entire Nation are passed on to somebody else. They are passed on in this instance to the employer, by and large, who provides again the majority of health insurance.

When they are passed on to the employer, what is the employer bound to do? They must pass them on to the employee, to the worker. So the worker is hit twice. It is a double jeopardy as it relates to the ability to obtain health insurance.

So hopefully what we have been able to do tonight is to bring some clarity and some focus to how jobs and how health insurance are related, why it is important to concentrate on the cost drivers for health care, taxation litigation, regulation, and why it is important to provide options and opportunities for both individuals and businesses to purchase health insurance and to provide health insurance for their employees.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I am honored to have had the opportunity to address the House tonight; and once again I want to thank my colleagues, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) who were so very helpful in bringing clarity to those issues.

And I look forward to garnering the support of my friends on both sides of the aisle, because this is not a Republican issue, it is not a Democrat issue. It is an American issue. It is an issue that is important for all of our constituents across this Nation.

I look forward to working with all Members of this House to solve the challenges that we have.

Mr. Speaker, the tragic and reprehensible bombings in London last Thursday show the world once again just how vigilant we must be in protecting our citizens and continuing to fight terrorism wherever it leads.

This is a war unlike any we have ever seen, and victory will require greater resolve than we have ever mustered. The lack of human decency shown by terrorists proves that they will stop at nothing to kill innocent people in an attempt to strike fear in the hearts of us all.

However, terrorists are mistaken if they think cowardly actions will shake the resolve of those nations fighting the war on terror, and they are mistaken if they think people will see them for anything other than the evil terrorists they are.

As our friends in England begin the healing process, rest assured that we in America will stand by them. We will fight, side-by-side, together, as we have done before, in this war on terror, and, as the President has said, we will not falter and we will not fail.

May God bless England and continue to bless the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, the money set aside for Social Security should be spent on Social Security. Americans know this only makes sense. The money set aside for Social Security should be spent on Social Security.

Others, however, do not believe in this principle. In March of this year, the minority leader was against robbing the Social Security trust fund. On Fox News she stated it crystal-clear. She said, ``We must stop robbing the Social Security trust fund of its money to pay for other things.''

Today, the minority leader finds nothing wrong with sticking her hand in the Social Security cookie jar. In a recent interview she said, ``There is nothing wrong with Social Security lending money with the prospect of returning it.'' Prospect of returning it? That is not good enough. It is that kind of thinking that has gotten us into our current trouble.

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly why Americans should be able to put part of their Social Security money in a personal account with their name on it.

Raiding the Social Security trust fund is not a solution. It is irresponsible, and it pushes the consequences to our children and grandchildren, consequences that we should fix now.

Mr. Speaker, as our troops fight the war on terror, it is imperative that we show our appreciation for all of their sacrifices, their efforts and their courage. As Secretary Rumsfeld said, ``Our country is proud of every member of our Armed Forces, and we are deeply grateful for those who have sacrificed for the cause of liberty.''

Many Americans want to thank our troops; they just do not know how. There is a great program that America should know about. It is called America Supports You. It is a nationwide program run by the Department of Defense to recognize and communicate support by citizens for our military men and women. The program highlights many ways that Americans can get involved and join in the support effort. By going to www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil, you can donate frequent flier miles to provide tickets to hospitalized soldiers and their families, provide prepaid phone cards so their family members can keep in touch or just write a letter of gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, it is time we showed the troops how much we care. With the 4th of July approaching, let us take time to show our appreciation and give back to those who have made so many sacrifices for us and for our liberty.

AmericaSupportsYou.mil lets all Americans say thanks.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate 10 Girl Scouts from the Sixth Congressional District of Georgia for earning the highly coveted Girl Scout Gold Award.

Through hard work, dedication and perseverance, Kathryn Cook, Kristen Crawford, Aimee Jarvis, Amy Kroeger, Tera Lekan, Elizabeth Roddy, Brittany Scott, Michelle Teplis, Kelly Watson, and Jordan Wynn, with their community service projects, have positively affected, literally, the world.

Collecting school supplies to donate to young Iraqi students, sewing and stuffing 250 teddy bears for pediatric and emergency ward patients, collecting and donating essentials to foster care children, and writing books for children in both English and Spanish. These are just some of the many projects taken on by these girls.

The Girl Scout program is based on four fundamental goals that encourage girls to develop to their full potential, relate to others with increasing understanding, skill and respect, develop a meaningful set of values to guide their actions and contribute to the improvement of society.

Congratulations to each of these young American girls for their accomplishments and for embracing worthy principles. We look forward to their continued excellent example and for their future leadership.

Mr. Speaker, the fifth amendment to the Constitution states that ``No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.''

However, that was then.

Thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, the fifth amendment has been vastly expanded.

As one Supreme Court Justice stated in the dissent, ``Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing a Motel 6 with a Ritz Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.''

Property rights? There is nothing right about this decision. Now, tax revenues are more important than neighborhoods.

Mr. Speaker, with this decision, the rights of our citizens are now competing with tax revenue and private developments. The Constitution is meant to protect the rights of our citizens, not compete with the bottom line.

What is clear at this moment is that the Supreme Court has thrown the protection of individual property rights right out the window. These Justices need to be reined back in by both State action and loud condemnation of this outrageous finding.

Public use has been redefined so boldly by this Supreme Court decision that it's no wonder citizens are concerned about their homes and property.

In the short term, all states are encouraged to adopt strict and narrow definitions of ``public use.''

In the long term, we in Congress must determine whether more clarity needs to be brought to the court on this matter.

Remember Jefferson's principle: ``The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.''--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the new city of Sandy Springs. A celebration that has been 30 years in the making took place in Fulton County, Georgia, on Tuesday night as 94 percent of voters chose to incorporate into what will be Metropolitan Atlanta's second largest city.

Countless people worked long and hard to make this city a possibility. All those folks who put in the time and effort into making the city of Sandy Springs a reality are to be raised up as an example of the positive outcome from fervent belief and diligent commitment.

I have always believed that the government closest to the people is the most responsive. And it is only fair for these citizens to have their local tax dollars to better their own community and have their own city council, one much more attuned to their needs and concerns.

Mr. Speaker, take note: the birth of this new city is a landmark day for my district. I am confident that great things will come from their residents and their leaders. What a privilege it is for me to represent a constituency so involved and passionate about their destiny and that of our State and great Nation. Freedom rings in Sandy Springs.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would rise to commend the Chair and the committee for their work. I understand the difficult times that we are in and the decisions that are difficult that we need to make.

As a budget is a demonstration of our priorities, I offer a positive amendment in an effort to further highlight those priorities. Currently in the bill the Teacher Incentive Fund earmark has $100 million and the AmeriCorps earmark has $270 million. My amendment increases the funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund by $70 million and reduces that funding for AmeriCorps by the same amount.

President Bush asked in his budget for $500 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund in the FY 2006 budget. The Committee on Appropriations was only able to provide $100 million for this program. The Teacher Incentive Fund is a new teacher merit pay pilot initiative. Teachers and officials who improve student achievement of are provided with financial incentives, rewarding achievement. This is a good idea.

The Teacher Incentive Fund will carry out two goals: One, rewarding effective teachers teaching in schools most in need; and, two, rewarding effective teachers in schools that are top performers in closing the achievement gap and meeting the annual targets in No Child Left Behind.

Ask yourself, who made a real difference in your education? Most of us will remember one or two teachers who affected us in a very remarkable way. For me it was one of my high school teachers, Dr. Welch, and I will never, never forget how he challenged me to excel.

Teacher quality is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement. One of the tenants of no child left behind is putting a qualified teacher in every single classroom. It is estimated that more than 2 million teachers will need to be hired over the next decade and the Teacher Incentive Fund will encourage more talented individuals into the field of teaching.

The AmeriCorps program is a program that was conceived under then- president Clinton, and, in short, the Federal Government is paying participants, paying participants, to participate in a volunteer capacity, sometimes up to $21,000 year. It is the antithesis of limited government. When the Federal Government assumes the job of private organizations, it encourages citizens to abandon their civic responsibilities.

According to GAO studies, the results of the AmeriCorps program are difficult to measure. Furthermore there are more than 83 million Americans who volunteer, meaning that the overall impact of AmeriCorps is minimal, especially given the level of funding provided.

This is a common sense amendment. It is consistent with our mission of improving education and limiting the spread of government. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to improve education and our competitiveness in the world.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments of the chairman and of the other Members who have spoken. I understand that, again, our budget is a budget of priorities. The President had requested $500 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund, and I believe that moving toward a budget that greater aligns our priorities in the area of education is important.

$200 million would be left in AmeriCorps; $200 million. That is not a paltry sum. In addition, the CBO has stated that this $70 million shift would in fact save $33 million. I do not know how they come up with those numbers, but that is how they score this. So we are spending $70 million and saving another $33 million.

I believe moving toward the Teacher Incentive Fund, which would, again, provide incentives for high quality teachers in our schools that would ultimately result in changing lives in a very positive way, is a positive amendment and a positive thing to do.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, again, I appreciate those comments. I think this is a positive move to realign our budget priorities in a more positive way for education, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, just by way of clarification, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and budgets are difficult, there is no doubt about it, and they say where we are in the priorities.

Just by way of clarification, this fund is not for the talented and gifted program. This fund is to find high quality teachers and reward high quality teachers who increase achievement in schools and increase achievement in closing that gap.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, we do not need any more airline companies going bankrupt.

Imagine retiring with a pension only 50 or even 20 percent of what you expected. That is what is happening to thousands of airline employees.

A government bailout is not fair to taxpayers, and it will not work. What will work is industry-specific pension reform.

In the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearing yesterday, we heard testimony from financial experts, the PBGC, the Pilots Association, and others. They painted a picture of a flawed current business model. In the face of high fuel costs and more retirees than workers, defined benefit plans simply do not work for many companies.

Congress can help. H.R. 2106 gives the airline carriers greater flexibility in funding their pensions. It provides more security for employees and will ensure that taxpayers will not be held liable for these underfunded pensions. A government bailout should not be a financial planning tool for the airlines.

Mr. Speaker, employees should receive the pensions they have worked for their entire lives, and taxpayers should not be left holding the bag. The Employment Pension Preservation and Tax Prepare Protection Act, H.R. 2106, is the winning formula.

Mr. Speaker, as a third-generation physician who has practiced medicine for over 20 years, I have seen colossal increases in health care costs. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be slowing down. Health care costs are rising much faster than one can imagine, and in just the last year they have gone up by 8 percent. Employers continue to pass these costs on to their employees in the form of increased deductibles and payments for prescriptions and care. Employees have no choice but to pay these costs because they are stuck with somebody else making decisions about their care.

It is time we start thinking about health care in a new way. It is time to put patients back in charge. Nobody knows better than the patients themselves what kind of health care they need.

Mr. Speaker, change in our health care system is needed now more than ever before, and health care should respond to the needs of patients.

H. Res. 215, the Health Insurance Patient-Ownership Plan, puts health care choices back into the hands of patients where they should be. I urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 215.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for allowing me to participate in this discussion. Would the chairman enter into a colloquy with me regarding an amendment I had wished to offer relative to placing a plaque in Statuary Hall?

As the gentleman knows, I was interested in offering an amendment today that would require a plaque to be placed in Statuary Hall which would recognize that church services were held in the House Chamber from 1800 to 1868. Throughout the 1800s, the Speaker's podium in the Old House Chamber was converted into a preacher's pulpit on Sundays for church services. These services were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. The services were open to the public and became so popular that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison attended regularly.

As the gentleman knows, I withdrew my proposal in light of ongoing activities relative to the exhibitry in the Capitol Visitors Center. I wonder if the gentleman would not mind, please, explaining his understanding relative to Statuary Hall and the exhibit hall in the soon-to-be-opened Capitol Visitors Center.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate so much his working with me on this and look forward to appropriately recognizing the fact that there have been religious activities in this Capitol from the beginning of our Nation through the first 70 or 80 years.

Madam Speaker, recent comments alleging mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo are not only insulting, they are wrong.

The 545 prisoners being interrogated at Guantanamo are properly housed and fed, they receive medical care, and have their religious needs met.

A U.S. Senator made statements last week that were clearly imprudent and unwise, comparing treatment of detainees to acts of genocide and repression. Millions of people died in the camp cited by the Senator, and no one has died at Guantanamo. While American troops are busy attacking and defeating terrorism, our tax dollars are providing Korans, prayer rugs, and healthy meals to the terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo. It is not Pol Pot at Guantanamo, it is pot roast. To purport that there is a moral equivalency between the acts of dictatorial madmen of the 20th century and the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo does a disservice to history, to our national honor, and to each member of our military who risk their lives every day preserving the privileges we enjoy.

I call on the Senator to talk to the guards at Guantanamo and get the facts straight. Then he should apologize to them, to the rest of our soldiers, and to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for yielding. I appreciate very much the opportunity to be involved with her in this discussion tonight.

I was listening a little earlier, and I was thinking, do you not just get tired of the naysayers? Do you not just get tired of the folks who have nothing but doom and gloom to offer? It really is remarkable. I do not know what I would do if I felt that way every single day; the other side of the aisle seems to be so depressed and demoralized about what is going on. They are obviously not paying attention. This is an exciting time to be an American. It is an exciting time for all Americans.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), our whip, mentioned that it is a serious time, and it is a very serious time; but it is an optimistic time as well.

The gentlewoman mentioned many of the issues that we have acted on these first 169 days. It is the summer solstice. It is the longest day of the year, and the light in this longest day we ought to use to shed light on what we have done over these first 169 days. The gentlewoman mentioned a couple of them that I wanted to touch on.

Class action reform is one of them, real lawsuit abuse reform that we have been able to enact, and we have been working on that in Congress for years, literally, trying to get that done, and it took Republican leadership and it took a Republican Congress to get it done. We will end some of the harassment that is going on in terms of local lawsuits and protect consumers.

The budget resolution was mentioned where we are actually cutting real spending. The unsustainable rate of Federal spending that we have we are ending. We are ending that unsustainable rate and moving in the right direction. That is optimistic. That is positive for our Nation.

REAL ID, the border security that she talked about, and we are getting good support from other side of the aisle for these things. Forty-two Democrats were on that who voted for that, and it is a first step in the right direction as it relates to border security.

The bankruptcy bill the gentlewoman mentioned as well. That is real reform that had 73 Democrats.

The energy bill we have not talked much about, 41 Democrats on that bill.

I want to talk briefly tonight about something that is near and dear to my heart and I know near and dear to the gentlewoman's and that is tax reform. The tax reform that we have acted upon this year in this Congress is the death tax, permanent repeal of the death tax.

This is part of that, those posters and the items that the gentlewoman talked about 100 days, 100 ways, what House Republicans have done to strengthen America. The death tax, the other side of the aisle earlier this evening said that tax cuts hurt Americans. I was dumbfounded when I heard that. Tax cuts hurt Americans. Do my colleagues know that the death tax itself costs

the American economy up to 250,000 jobs annually? By permanently repealing the death tax, we would add more than 100,000 jobs each year. Nearly 60 percent of business owners say that they would add jobs over the coming year if death taxes were permanently and completely eliminated.

What does the death tax do? Well, it is the leading cause of the dissolution of thousands of family-run small businesses. Small businesses owned by families, the death tax comes at the end when somebody dies who is the senior in the family, and what happens is that that death tax is instituted, and they have to sell that family business in order to pay that death tax. It penalizes work. It penalizes savings. It deals an incredible death blow to small businesses.

Get this statistic: more than 70 percent of family businesses do not survive the second generation. Eighty-seven percent do not make it to the third generation. Why is that? How much does that death tax take? You talk about 15 percent taxes here is high, and 20 percent there, and the income tax has a rate that is higher than that; but what does the death tax take? Forty-seven percent. Forty-seven percent. It is no wonder that 70 percent of small businesses do not survive to the next generation.

So the death tax is unfair. It is unjust. It hampers economic growth. It increases the cost of capital. It artificially elevates interest rates, and this is another astounding fact: it probably costs the government and taxpayers more to collect the tax than the tax revenue that is gotten. That is the kind of nonsense that Americans are tired of.

So what did our Congress do, led by Republicans and joined by some commonsense Democrats? What did our Republican leadership and our Republican House do? We passed a bill to repeal permanently the death tax. I could not be more proud to serve with men and women who act on this issue and other issues in such a responsible way.

I am here to tell my colleagues that it is a positive thing that this Congress is doing, that this Republican leadership is doing, and that this Republican majority is doing; and we ought to be excited about where we are as Americans about the leadership that we have.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman ever so much. I appreciate that. I always thought it was two bites at the apple, but she is right. It is three bites that the government takes. That is unjust and unfair.

I just wanted to come and add a little perspective of what I believe is the optimism that this Congress is leading with, this Republican leadership and this Republican majority is leading with. I appreciate the gentlewoman doing this this evening and giving us an opportunity to show the American people and talk with the American people about the positive things that this Congress is doing, and I thank her very much.