Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor one of my constituents, Mr. Dennis Hahn. Dennis has been selected to receive the 2007 Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge's George Washington Honor Medal. The Freedoms Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching young people the principles upon which our Nation was founded. They work to convey the close link between the rights and the responsibilities of citizens in society.

Dennis is a charter member of the St. Charles, Missouri chapter of the Fernando de Leyba, the Sons of the American Revolution, founded in 1997. He is a charter member and Vice President of the Missouri Postal History Society since 2001. Dennis is an active member and Treasurer at the First Baptist Church of St. Charles, Missouri, as well as Sunday school teacher, Chairman and member of numerous committees, current President of the school board, and member of the St. Charles City Economic Development Commission.

Dennis is married to Shirley Hahn, a public school teacher for the St. Charles school district. He is also the father of the three children and grandfather of five.

As one who has a deep and abiding love for American history and the patriots who have gone before us, I want to thank Dennis Hahn for his commitment to preserving our history and congratulate him for being selected for the 2007 George Washington Honor Medal.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor one of my constituents, Mrs. June C. Jablonsky Lanz. June has been selected as the 2006-2007 Freedoms Foundation ``Spirit of '76--American Patriot'' regional award. The Freedoms Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching young people the principles upon which our Nation was founded. They work to convey the close links between the rights and the responsibilities of citizens in society.

June is a thirty-nine-year member of the National Society of Daughters of the Revolution, DAR. As State Regent of the Missouri State Society of DAR, June successfully placed the 1809 Cold Water Cemetery on the U.S. Department of the Interior's Register of Historical Places and restored and rededicated the Madonna of the Trail Statue in Lexington, Missouri.

June is a member of the Missouri Historical Society, the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge and a Friend of the St. Louis Art Museum. She has published a history of Missouri State Society Daughters of the Revolution, which includes American Revolutionary Patriots reported buried in Missouri. She has provided this to the National Society DAR and other research facilities.

Married for 55 years, June and her husband, George Lanz, have four daughters and seven grandchildren.

As one who has a deep and abiding love for American history and the patriots who have gone on before us, I want to thank June Lanz for her commitment to preserving our history and congratulate her for being selected 2006-2007 Regional ``Spirit of '76--Patriot''.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I think most people in politics know is that the ratings of Congressmen are very, very low. And perhaps part of the reason for that is the public can see that we are playing more political gotcha than we are in really solving problems.

Today we have just seen an example of that as Democrat after Democrat condemned the President for this SCHIP bill, which has all these little hidden gizmos, among other things that we are going to provide health care to the children of illegal immigrants. It is a massive expansion of basically Hillary socialized medicine. And yet we are going to use this children's health issue as a way to play political gotcha.

We don't need to do that with the veterans bill. The House and the Senate have both approved funding for veterans, which comes down to $18.5 million of extra money for veterans hospitals, for prosthetics, for our wounded soldiers. Those bills are just sitting, waiting.

Are we going to use that as another way of doing political gotcha, or shall we just start solving problems and serving the American people?

Mr. Speaker, for the past few years we have heard the Democrats in Congress say they support our troops and veterans even if they do not support the war in Iraq.

Yet, many of those brave veterans who served in Iraq, as well as other military campaigns, are being denied as much as $18.5 million a day in veteran's care that was promised to them.

The Democrat majority has delayed a vote on a bill to fund veterans care. These delays are denying our veterans millions of dollars that would fund prosthetics for our wounded warriors and amputees.

Are the Democrats hoping to save a vote on veteran's health for later in the year? Maybe, they plan to attach wasteful earmarks to that bill?

Members of Congress, you can't say that you support our troops and veterans if you won't fund their care. It's time we make good on our promises. Give our veterans what they need.

When I traveled in rural Missouri a number of years ago, I had a favorite truck stop. And on the wall among the things they sold was a picture of a little John Deere green wagon with yellow wheels, had a bail of hay, and it looked like a wheel was sort of stuck on a bump. And there was a little kid with Oshkosh overalls pushing on it, and another kid with the tongue, and he is looking over his shoulder, and in the caption, ``Are you pushing or are you pulling back there?'' And that picture kind of comes to mind when I think of our Democrat leadership.

We have got 130,000 troops in the field and they have already declared defeat; and I am kind of wondering, are you pushing or pulling back there?

And then we have unanimous consent for General Petraeus, and before he can deliver the report that the Democrats asked to have delivered, they are savaging him in the New York Times as ``General Betray Us.'' And I am thinking, are you pushing or pulling back there?

And now we are talking about affording all kinds of special rights to terrorists that are in jail. It makes me think one more time: By golly, guys, are you pushing or pulling back there?

Thank you very much, and thank you for taking some time to run through a series of events that actually in the last couple of days seem a little puzzling to me, I might have to say.

My recollection is is that General David Petraeus, his credentials were reviewed over in the other body, and they took a vote as to whether or not he was the guy that we're going to put front and center to be in charge of the

entire campaign in Iraq, and he got a unanimous vote in the other legislative body. That says an awful lot of people had to vote for him to get a unanimous vote over there.

Also, as I recall, it was just not so long ago that the Democrat party, who's in charge of both the House and the Senate, made the request that in September General Petraeus would come before the legislature and would make a report as to what the findings were, would let us know how things were going. Many people were very skeptical about the reorganization, the restructuring of our war in Iraq, around the idea of the surge, but people trusted General David Petraeus. They trusted him because he has an excellent reputation and record as a soldier, but he also is a straight shooter. He doesn't sugarcoat things. He explains it the way it is.

And so it was with some sense of alarm and a little bit, I have to say, with a sense of frustration that we saw in the New York Times this calling General Petraeus where they say ``General Betray Us.''

What we're doing is taking somebody that before we thought they had good credibility, we're going to guess what they may say to us, we think we may not like what he has to say, so now we're going to try to destroy his reputation. I think that's a shame.

My son has served over in Fallujah. As you have mentioned, I also am on the Oversight Committee.

One of the things that has been consistent with every witness, week after week over a period of months, every witness we could scrounge up, conservative, Republican, liberal, Democrat, you name it, the one thing those witnesses said was, first of all, they said if we pull out of Iraq rapidly, there is going to be a huge bloodbath there.

The second thing is that the whole region will be destabilized. Everybody agreed to that. Now, some people said, well, there is nothing we can do about it, so we ought to pull out now and cut our losses. Other ones said, no, there are some things we could do about it. But everybody agreed that a rapid drawdown of troops is not what we should be doing in America.

After listening hour after hour to all these experts, I came to the conclusion of this simple fact, and that is, it is the least-cost, most logical best alternative for us to just go ahead and win the war in Iraq.

We are more than halfway, and trying to turn around and back out, make excuses and try to lose is just going to be much more costly than moving forward and doing a good job.

That's what the general has outlined today in very credible testimony. I was very thankful that he is here. I am thankful that you took the time to help us to be able to talk about this very important subject about how we proceed and the sense of good news. There is a little light at the end of the tunnel is what it seems like to me.

Isn't MoveOn.org generally associated with the Democrat Party?

Mr. Speaker, for the last year the Democrats have been saying that the war in Iraq is lost and we should pull our troops out, and they were, of course, opposed to the surge. But after hearing from witnesses of every political stripe week after week on the oversight subcommittee, this profound reality became obvious: The least costly and best alternative for America is not to lose. It is to win.

We are more than halfway through the campaign, and it is too costly to quit and to go back. The concept that we can win is novel to Democrats perhaps, who think in top-down solutions in Washington and in Iraq. But our new military strategy is proving successful.

Just as our Nation grew from the bottom up, town by town, State by State, so also federalism shows success in Iraq. Local communities are working closely with our military to curb violence. For this reason, we must ensure that they have the freedom and the autonomy to continue to develop.

The best alternative for America in Iraq is to move forward to win the peace.

It's a pleasure to be able to join our discussion tonight on the subject of Iraq. I approach the subject this evening from several perspectives; one, as a father of a marine who is now a captain who has been in Iraq; also as someone who has visited Iraq a number of times myself, but particularly, and more recently, as the ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee of the Armed Services Committee. That is a committee that we have been hearing now, for quite a number of weeks, of witnesses, Republicans, Democrats, all kinds of different positions and people with ideas that are supposedly experts about what we should be doing in Iraq.

Now, one of the things that has jumped out, after having to sit through hours and hours and hours of testimony, is a certain pattern. Every single witness, conservative, liberal, Republican, wacko one way, strange the other way, anybody, every single one of them, there were two things that they always said, and that was, the first one was, if we pull out rapidly, it will be, first of all, a huge blood bath of Iraqis killing Iraqis. We're talking about millions of people dying, which will, of course, all be reviewed in all the gory detail on the media. And second of all, the region will become extremely unstable. Both of those, regardless of who they were, political party, anything else, those were the two common themes.

And what emerged after weeks and weeks of listening to all these experts was, there is no gracious, easy way for us to try and tuck our tail between our legs and quit. We're like the bear that's going through the woods. We're more than halfway there.

The most logical, the most common sense, the most economic, the least loss of life course for us is to proceed forward logically and win this war. And there is even reason to believe that we can.

And the strategy is becoming more and more obvious as to how that has to happen. The first basic principle is that our troops are doing a very good job in Iraq. The second basic principle is that we've fallen into this sort of belt line, beltway mentality thinking that America's greatness all came out of Washington, DC and therefore the problems have to be solved in Baghdad, and that's just wrong. The political solution in Baghdad is not working properly. Where we are having success is the very way that America was built 300 years ago, and it's being built in local communities and local cities, local towns and various states as they built this great Nation and the same way. That's what's happening over in Iraq.

We are having very good success on the local level working with local sheiks, giving them a sense that it's their country, they can shape it, and what we need to be doing is aggressively giving those local governments authority and limiting the Baghdad authority to certain very specific items. We call that federalism in this country, and that's where we need to be going. We can win this, and it is the most inexpensive, the lowest loss of life and the very most positive results we can expect by just using the same principles that we found that built America. So I think that's where we need to be going.

The Democrats are wrong. You can't pass a constitutional amendment that says everybody's going to get along with each other. Even if you put a gun to the head of the Iraqi Baghdad Government, they couldn't do that. They couldn't succeed in that.

They're wrong in being against the surge. The surge is proving to be effective. It is helping us to build local governments. And they're wrong in the sense that everything is lost and we ought to quit. That's not true, and none of the witnesses suggested that it's wise for us to pull out precipitously.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me some time, and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues that understand the importance of this and understand terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say in terms of sympathy, I understand the motivation I believe and the interest in our troops that this legislation is designed to deal with. I have two marines that are my sons. I have visited the one when he was in Fallujah. I talked to a number of their troops. I think I understand the stresses that are involved in warfare, also as somebody who served as an officer myself.

That said, however, I think there is a danger when we take a look at a specific problem and we try to micromanage a solution from the position of Congress. It didn't work during the War of Independence. And the trade-offs as to whether or not you are going to leave somebody in theater longer, there are a lot of different factors that you have to balance and a lot of special situations.

To give you one that seems a little bit obvious, I suspect that General Petraeus and other generals have been in theater a pretty long time. They probably would have to get a special waiver from the President to do their jobs.

We understand it would be better if they could take a break and see their families more, but the specific situation in their situation calls for the fact that this sort of blanket rule we are going to top- down impose as Congressmen or Congresswomen doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

To try to set up a policy now and to hamstring all the military planners and to apply it just specifically to the situation in Iraq effectively reduces our options, makes it more complicated for us to get our job done, and effectively makes it so that we have less practical combat strength.

I think all of us have agreed that we've seen that we need more troops, and that's something that we need to deal with and have the courage to put that into the budgets in the future. But I think this is a micromanagement. While it may be inspired by good intentions, and I do know that there is a lot of stress on Marine families and Army families as well, I think this is the wrong to go, and I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, we can all think of instances where some great

calamity was about to happen, and yet we have to stand by powerless to help; like the pilot of the Titanic, he sees the glacier emerging through the midst, he spins the wheel too late. And that is the case this morning, not with a steamship but with SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Plan.

It doesn't take any towering intellect to see the problems. We're going to vote to tax Americans with private health insurance, and we're going to take the benefits away from older Americans, with their Medicare, and we're going to give that money to give free health insurance to children with families making more than $80,000, children of illegal immigrants.

All of history suggests that socialized medicine is not the way to go, and yet the Democrats are about to vote for something which will make the Titanic wreck look small.

Madam Speaker, during the War of Independence, Paine said: ``These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from service of their country . . .''

America is again at war, and duty calls us to be more than sunshine patriots.

I have been to Iraq. My son is a Marine captain who has been in Fallujah.

We have heard on the Armed Services Committee from scores of witnesses, liberals and conservatives and everything in between, and no one has offered a plan that is better than what we are currently executing in Iraq, and everyone agrees that a rapid withdrawal of troops will result in civil war and a regional conflict.

If the Democrats have a better plan, let them offer it. Otherwise, let our troops get the job done.

It is politically popular to sound retreat and to play the sunshine patriot, but duty, honor, and country demand that America stand for freedom once again. We must accept nothing less.

Madam Chairman, I have been enjoying hearing the debate here today. As usual, sometimes Republicans and Democrats appear to be passing each other a little bit in the night. It seems to me from hearing comments now from a number of Democratic speakers that there is an implicit assumption based on all of their arguments, and that is, hey, this is important, education is important, and this is important, and heating oil is important, and all this stuff; therefore, the government has to do it all for everybody.

Now, I think the other assumption, and this is the assumption that I make, is that Americans are buying an awful lot more government than we can afford. That is what my constituents are telling me. That is common sense. Going back to my district, things are getting more and more expensive. We keep increasing everything that government does.

The idea is, well, you are not compassionate because you don't want to add more money to government subsidies to do this and government subsidies to do that. Hey, the logical conclusion on that is the government would get 100 percent of your paycheck. I don't think that is why we are competitive.

I have also heard people say that we are in a global economy, as though being in a global economy somehow excuses that the Federal Government should do everything for everybody. I am not buying that assumption. The reason we are competitive in a global economy is because of free enterprise. There is one thing about a safety net. But we are buying too much government.

To add insult to injury, now the Democrats have just passed the biggest tax increase in the history of the United States. They are griping about one-half of 1 percent of a cut in one little bill in discretionary income, and they are adding the average of $3,000 per household across this entire Nation. Now, it would be interesting enough if they just add $3,000. The trouble with doing that this year is, guess what, you will get the $3,000 next year and the next year after that and the next year after that. But the spending is even more.

So we are hearing an objection, and it is all couched in this, oh, don't you care about poor people with fuel oil heating bills and about education and stuff. The trouble is, we are spending too much. What part of that don't we get? So somebody offers this timid little amendment for one-half of 1 percent, and it is like the wheels are going to fall off.

I have to say in answer to the questions, look, we are just buying too

much government. We have to start somewhere. I appreciate the gentlewoman's amendment. She is at least starting on one piece of one bill here. While I call it a little bit of a timid amendment, I am certainly prepared to vote for it.

Madam Chairman, there is one thing regardless of where you happen to be a Congressman. Every single one of us has something in common if you are from Congress, and that is that we have people in our districts, some who call themselves pro-life and others who call themselves pro-choice, and many of them are deeply convicted of their views on this issue.

Now, the question before us today is, is it reasonable to force people who really do believe that abortion is killing children, is it reasonable to force them to pay money to subsidize that killing? Is that respectful to do that? Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in America. Is it reasonable to compel some of our constituents who believe that this is killing to take part in that?

Mr. Speaker, some years ago the story was told about the mean-spirited old Grinch who tried to steal the joy of Christmas. Well, it is not Christmas, but you might as well almost think it was a Christmas present when you take a look at the American economy that has been strengthened by the tax cuts of a number of years ago.

This boom that the Republicans set in place has added 46 months of straight growth in job creation. The unemployment rate is at a very low 4.5 percent. The Dow has just made all kinds of records at crossing the 14,000 mark, and the deficit has been cut in half.

In the face of this good news, the Democrats have passed a $392 billion tax increase, the biggest tax increase in the history of our country. And just like the Grinch, the Democrats seem to be wanting to steal our economic joy.

We must not allow the Democrats to steal the joy of the American families.

Americans love to compete and to set records. In fact, people all over the world record their records in the Guinness Book of World Records. But there are some kinds of records called Darwin Awards for foolish behavior where people eliminate themselves by doing something unusual. One man took a pistol and decided to rob a gun store and got shot.

The Democrats are not using a pistol, but they have been setting some records. They have just set one this year, that is, the largest tax increase

in the history of this country. It comes out to about $290-some- billion. But that means to the average household a $3,000 tax increase. What household can absorb a $3,000 tax increase in just 1 year alone?

Unfortunately, that is not the only record being set by the Democrats. They have doubled that record in terms of how much money they have spent, over $800 billion, which would come to $6,000 per family. American people would be better if we didn't set records like that.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the reason that Americans send us here to Congress is to have us to solve problems. And I don't think any of us mind, and I certainly don't mind, the accusation by Democrats to say that the war and the situation in Iraq is incompetently planned, or that we should change course, or that we should have bold, new initiatives. In fact, I think that's what we should be discussing. But unfortunately, what we have here today is not a matter of solving problems but rather of playing politics. Because the bill in front of us is not a bold plan. It doesn't have any segment of a plan at all. It just simply says, we're going to pull a bunch of troops out at a particular time. It

doesn't say how many; it just says we are going to pull some troops out. You know, the people who fought World War II would have liked very much to have ended the war more rapidly if they could just put something on a wish list and say, we're going to bring some troops home. But you can't do that until you win a war. And what we have before us is not a bold plan, and it's not a constructive suggestion to say, hey, you've incompetently managed the war, so here's a better way. There's no better way. It offers nothing other than just a bunch of wishes.

Now, if we want to send this to whoever it is that wants to grant wishes, that might be useful, but it's absolutely useless in terms of solving problems. And that's why we should be here.

I have to take the Democrats to task. You forgot, you guys are in the majority. The people elected you to solve problems. This doesn't solve a problem, it just simply says we want to bring some troops home. It doesn't say how or what we're going to do or what the strategy is. It says, oh, we've already done this one thing for a month, and now we just want to turn around and bring the troops home.

I think one thing that we can understand and one thing that we need to do is to stand away from this problem a little bit and put it in the broadest terms, and that is the terms as Americans.

There is one thing that has joined us together that we just celebrated, and that's the Fourth of July. And the Fourth of July we signed a Declaration of Independence, and the heart of that document, the heart of what America believes in is the fact that it says we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; among these is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we stand tall on the Fourth of July when we remember that set of principles.

So the job of government is to protect those rights. And who is it that our sons and daughters are now fighting? They're people who believe that we blow up innocent people to make a political statement. They're people who believe that we use terror to compel people so that they don't have freedom and that people cannot pursue happiness and women cannot be educated. And so, is it so odd that we find ourselves fighting against people who believe the diametric opposite of everything America has ever stood for?

I taught those principles to my little kids when they were children. And they started the ``Marine Club.'' Here is a picture of them at a flag ceremony in their rag-tag uniforms bought from their Army surplus store, a bunch of little kids. Now what has happened is they have implemented those ideas. Well, what has happened is this little kid here is now Special Forces Air Force Academy, just graduated last month. And this other one, my son, has graduated from the little Marine club to the big Marine club. Here is a cache of weapons found in Fallujah. There is my son. And the reason that they are there and the reason that he risked his life numerous times is because he does believe there is a God that gives rights to all people, and that governments should protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when we, as Americans, forget that, then we start to lose our sense of direction in what we're doing.

Until there is a specific proposal, then there is nothing being offered at all. There is not leadership. And this is merely politics.

Madam Speaker, there once was an incompetent pharmacist who administered too much medicine and thereby made a bad situation worse, and the patient died.

The Democrats are like the incompetent pharmacist. They recognize that gas prices are too high and they recognize it's bad for us to be dependent on foreign oil. So the Democrats have voted to administer a dose of their favorite medicine, tax increases. They plan to increase taxes on American oil and gas. But the oil companies will simply raise the price of gasoline. In addition, by making American oil more expensive, it will further make us dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

The Democrats should look at drilling for American oil and liquefying coal, two things that they have opposed in the past. The Democrats are writing the wrong prescription and they make a bad situation worse. I just hope the patient doesn't die.