Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield an additional minute to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I join in supporting this bill to combat sex trafficking of children that are in the foster care system. When children come into foster care, they are at risk for exploitation because of the abuse and neglect that they have already suffered in their original family and because of the sense of isolation that they often feel when they have suddenly been removed from their home. Those who prey on children, especially sex traffickers, know this and they take advantage of these youth. Children are removed from their home; they are bounced around from one place to another often; and then, in my State, when they reach 18, they are told they are on their own. That is a situation that invites, especially for young women, the dangerous sex trafficking in which they are exploited. There is bipartisan support for this bill. It originated from a thoughtful hearing, with some very strong witnesses describing the problem. It is bipartisan. It is also a modest step forward. It is redirecting our welfare agencies, our child welfare agencies around the country, in what they do. I think that it will provide some modest help in saving lives. It would do even more if, instead of just new requirements for these States, it were adding new resources. It adds very little in the way of resources, but I think it will be helpful in directing the attention of each of these agencies in the various States to focus on this very serious problem, to give us the data to make the argument to do more in the future. Because so many of these young people will eventually age out of the system after having been moved around from one home to another, it is important that we help them be able to move into the workforce. In that regard, there was a problem with the bill when one particular provision was removed from the bill because it cost about a million dollars in additional administrative expenses and there was apparently no way found to cover that cost. I believe that providing a young person who ages out at age 18 from the foster care system with a birth certificate and a Social Security card is a worthwhile thing to do. Chairman Reichert promised to work with us on this in committee. He has. That provision has fortunately been restored here in this bill. It has been restored, however, in a way that really borrows from another provision that is also important to our foster youth, and that is a provision called Family Connections. The Family Connection grants program is designed to try to connect children with grandparents, with other family members to help in the search for relatives of the foster children who might provide them a home. It provides only about $15 million a year, which is hardly enough to cover the need across the entire United States to provide better connection. If this measure were fully adopted, there would no longer, under the Republican budget rules, be a way to pay for the Family Connections program, which is another vital way that we protect these foster youth. The Children's Defense Fund, which does support the bill, wrote to us in committee to find a way to restore the provision that cost about a million dollars a year and pointed out that the same day that the committee would not provide a million dollars extra per year, it did find a way under the same budget rules to find not a million, but $310 billion to cover corporate tax breaks. I believe that this measure is helpful. It is a good step forward. It is a modest step forward that would have benefited from not taking from one in order to help the other when it comes to foster children. We need to be doing more for our foster youth, not only on sex trafficking, but in other ways, more than we are able to accomplish under the strict budget rules today. There is a real inconsistency in saying we cannot find additional revenues to pay for something as serious as this when we can afford to borrow up to $310 billion for various corporate tax breaks, the first of which has already been approved here in the House in our last week. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Reichert for his leadership on this measure. In this place, we need to make what progress we can under the conditions that exist and make as much of it as possible. I hope that the Senate will respond to this measure. But in order to provide an effective response, we need to have the revenues to provide the resources along with the requirements to meet the needs of our foster youth. A few weeks ago, I met with a number of attorneys in San Antonio who work with foster youth, particularly those who are aging out, as well as a number of community service groups, religious and nonreligious in their orientation. They describe immense problems that our foster youth face. When they age out at age 18, only about 2 percent of those young people in the San Antonio area ever end up in college. Many of them do get a substantial taxpayer subsidy over their lives. Unfortunately, it is a subsidy in our jails and in our penal system after they are engaged in some harmful conduct. This bill is one step that we can take to address the exploitation of these young people, particularly of young women. There are broader problems out there that need our attention, but I favor moving forward with the progress that we can make today to address this one critical problem. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my colleague.

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to our colleague from California (Ms. Bass), the chair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, who worked so diligently on this around the country.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this bill represents only the first of many installments of hundreds of billions of dollars that the Republicans plan to finance with more debt, borrowing from the Chinese or whoever will lend it to us. Surely we don't need any more research this afternoon to know that such an irresponsible approach is the wrong way to go. In January of last year, Republicans came to this floor and they told us that they had reserved H.R. 1 for a bill that would do it all. It was going to simplify the Tax Code, it was going to lower the rates, and it would not add a penny to the debt because it would all be financed by closing loopholes. Where is that bill? It is still reserved, and it will be reserved until the end of this term because the truth of the matter is Republicans could not stand up to the special interests that like those loopholes, that like the complexity of the Tax Code, that benefit from that complexity. They would not stand up to pass a bill that was fiscally responsible. Both parties, as the chairman has indicated, have repeatedly supported temporary extensions, but neither has had the audacity to come to this floor and say we are going to borrow enough to make it permanent without closing a single loophole. They are doing exactly the opposite of what they have repeatedly promised us and the American people that they would do. I support a permanent research and development credit to incentivize research for new products. It has never been a question of whether to support research, but how to do it and how to pay for it. And if the only goal is to encourage more job growth, there are ways we can redesign this credit to get even more growth than it does now. The Government Accountability Office said the credit in its current form is a windfall for some corporations, and some multinationals have used it as a way to get the taxpayer to subsidize research here and then shift the benefits overseas. I believe a better research credit on a permanent basis is the best way to encourage growth, not an irresponsible unpaid tax credit.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, I support a permanent research and development credit to incentivize research for new products. For decades, there has never really been any question about whether we should incentivize research. The question has been how--how to pay for that incentive and how to ensure that it actually encourages more jobs and more economic development with desirable research that would not otherwise happen without the credit. Until today, Republicans who claimed to be for fiscal responsibility before they were against it have not been so brash as to demand that we finance this entire research credit on a permanent basis and similar legislation by borrowing more money. A Government Accountability Office investigation of this credit concluded that a few corporations snatched most of the credit and that ``a substantial portion of credit dollars is a windfall, earned for spending what they would have spent anyway, instead of being used to support potentially beneficial new research.'' This credit is just another type of special treatment that a few giant multinationals can count on to lower their already low tax rates. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported the complaints of one giant. It said that, without this credit, its tax rate would climb effectively from 16 percent all the way to 18 percent. Another corporation complained that its rate would go from 13 percent to 19 percent. Most of the small businesses that I represent in my part of Texas would be delighted to have a rate at that level. They pay substantially more. Multinationals can use this taxpayer subsidy to finance research that produces patents and copyrights and the like that are then owned by offshore tax haven subsidiaries that pay little or no taxes. One company investigated by Senator Levin in the Senate last year did 95 percent of its research and development right here in America, but then it shifted $74 billion of its earnings to an Irish subsidiary. Apparently, the most effective multinational research anywhere in the world has focused on how to avoid paying for their fair share of financing our national security. These are companies that ship both jobs and profits overseas. They are not about making it in America. They are about taking it from America. And that shifts the burden to small businesses and individuals. Nor is all of this taxpayer-subsidized research beneficial to the public. For example, some of the research that was done for the electronic cigarettes, the latest fad to addict our children to nicotine, qualified for this tax subsidy. Meanwhile, the House Republican budget undermines vital private research that is funded through the National Institutes of Health for Alzheimer's, for cancer, for Parkinson's, and for other dread diseases. They say we cannot afford to do what is necessary in research for those. They also cut research for efforts to ensure that taxpayers get their money's worth from our investment in public services. Without adequate research, you cannot determine whether an initiative that is proposed justifies Federal dollars or is truly evidence-based. I think we should reject today's proposal in favor of a research credit that actually incentivizes necessary research made in America and which is paid for, in part, by comprehensive reform of the credit itself. As for comprehensive reform, from day one of this Congress, H.R. 1 was reserved for the much-ballyhooed Republican comprehensive tax reform. And yet we are well through this Congress and it still says, ``Reserved for Speaker.'' That is because the Republicans couldn't agree on which tax loophole to close to maintain a revenue-neutral--a not borrowing more money--and as a result of not being able to do what they said they would do----

Mr. DOGGETT. Because they told us January of last year they would be here with a simpler, fairer, lower tax rate, but they can't agree on how to pay for it because they are dominated by lobby groups that want to protect the very complexities and loopholes that plague this tax system--because they couldn't do that and have not done that, they are now back, as the gentleman says, with the first of not one or two but of many provisions to make them permanent, and pay for it with either borrowed money or mandatory cuts. I think that is a serious mistake. Today's bill represents only the first installment of more tax breaks to come that are not paid for or are paid for with mandatory cuts. Surely, we don't need more research today to know that that is the wrong way to go, it is the irresponsible way to go, and it ought to be rejected.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, this budget is too weak. It is too weak in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. It is weak on opportunity. It is weak on competitiveness. It is weak on dealing with the tax avoidance and loopholes that would allow us to invest in America. The House Republican budget actually grows the deficit--the opportunity deficit. A strong budget would help our students earn degrees without mortgaging their futures in order to achieve their full God-given potential, and it would enable an educated workforce that will allow us to be competitive in the world economy. A strong budget would invest in life-saving medical research, which would grow our economy and would respond to the folks from San Antonio who are here today to ask for more for Alzheimer's research, not by taking it from AIDS or cancer research, but by investing more to get the cures in order to save the lives and create the jobs that America ought to be about. A strong budget would invest in infrastructure, in roads and rails and bridges and harbors, like the Chinese are doing to move goods and move people and be competitive. A strong budget would ensure seniors' dignity in retirement, not what AARP says about this budget--that it would weaken the programs that provide the very foundation of health and retirement security for current and future generations. I urge the rejection of this weak Republican budget in favor of needed investments in our education, our infrastructure, our research, and our retirement security.

Mr. DOGGETT. Those investments can be made by simply asking those who have been so privileged and who have enjoyed so many tax loopholes to pay their fair share for the future of America. I believe it is an investment for a stronger America, which will afford more opportunity to every family. I ask for the rejection of this budget in favor of a strong budget that is strong for America, strong for our economy, and strong for opportunity.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. I would just like to thank you for the work that you are doing on this, and I believe our real message is to the many people out there--some of whom may even think that this law has been repealed. They have tried so many times. As you pointed out a little earlier, this is an opportunity that is there for the next 5 days. Get beyond all the political chatter. Turn to a group like the American Cancer Society or the American Diabetes Association. Look at the information that is there. Then go to one of the many enrollment fairs we are having across San Antonio this weekend. There is one up in Austin that is going to go almost 24 hours straight. These are opportunities to get out and do this. I know you had a very successful enrollment fair in San Antonio. I had one over at Progreso Hall. Our colleague, Pete Gallego, had one out at Palo Alto. These have been opportunities for a wide range of our neighbors to come out and participate. We just want to encourage them to do more.

Mr. DOGGETT. I think, if we keep working together, we can find ways to strengthen and improve this, but the main thing is for our families to get out there now. I think, increasingly, most folks are realizing, as you pointed out, with so many efforts to repeal, that the only alternative that they offer is ``Nothing Care.''

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, next Monday, when our country honors an apostle of nonviolence, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Iran will begin reducing its nuclear stockpile. This important action is part of an international agreement to begin implementing the interim Joint Plan of Action that was announced in November. Hope for a nonviolent resolution of our conflict with Iran will appropriately advance on a day that honors nonviolence. Some in Congress have been unwilling to accept these negotiations or to acknowledge that the administration has been successful in uniting other countries around the world in enforcing sanctions against Iran. Indeed, in what appears to have been largely a partisan outcry, some of our colleagues condemned the November agreement late on the Saturday night when it was announced, without knowing what was in it, other than that President Obama had approved it. As a Member, myself, who has consistently voted here to impose tough economic sanctions on Iran, I believe that these sanctions have worked. The choice is not between sanctions and no sanctions. It is between recognizing that our sanctions have the potential to realize our important goals and not give up on them without even really trying. The Iranians are well aware that this Congress can act almost instantly to add even more stringent sanctions if they waver from diplomacy. Can we trust the current Iranian regime? Of course not. That is why the painstaking task of verifying every operational detail of any final agreement is so very important. If done with the thoroughness required, this is a task that may well take more than 6 months; but as negotiations for a permanent agreement get under way, we will have new, regular inspections to verify compliance, something we have not had in the past. To prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, and to ensure the safety of our families and families around the world, a measurable, verifiable negotiated agreement is the wiser course over the unknowable, unlimited risk of war. Those who would intrude on these fragile negotiations now only increase the danger of Iran becoming a nuclear-armed power. They would undermine the international coalition that has enforced the existing sanctions, and they would empower those hard-line ayatollahs, giving them a pretext to stop progress, giving that to the very people, who reject any cooperation and regularly demand death to America and death to Israel. Congress must not impede the diplomatic alternative to war. Ultimately, that diplomacy may not be successful. It may not achieve a final, verifiable agreement; but we should make every reasonable effort toward that end. There are no more important issues considered in this Capitol Building, undertaken by this Congress, than the questions of war and peace. Just as I do not trust Iran, I do not trust war as the best way to prevent a nuclear Iran, and war is the true alternative offered by those here who would interfere or limit these negotiations. Starting a war in Iraq cost us so very dearly, and it did not make us safer. Let's not repeat that deadly mistake. Congress should commend Secretary of State John Kerry, Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, and President Barack Obama for their leadership through tough, persistent diplomacy, through the wise use of American power.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, as a Member who has consistently voted to impose sanctions on Iran, I commend Secretaries Kerry and Sherman for an excellent job in seeking to safeguard our families through tough, persistent diplomacy with Iran. We should fully support their vital efforts. Iranian hardliners may ultimately obstruct a meaningful, permanent agreement; but we should not give them a pretext for doing so. Those here who would interfere or limit these negotiations are really offering the American people only one alternative; it is called war. We have been there and done that before. Military action in Iraq cost us very dearly. It did not make us safer. Let's not repeat this deadly mistake. While difficult and uncertain, diplomacy is already eliminating chemical weapons from Syria. It represents our best hope to prevent nuclear weapons in Iran and assure the safety of our families and others around the world.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this Thanksgiving as our family gathered joyfully for dinner, we thought not only of our happiness, but of the many families that can be torn apart by our broken immigration system. We gave thought to those who were gathered at that very moment here on The National Mall going without food, fasting for justice. And they have been doing that now for weeks. Thanksgiving is about the first immigrants in this land, this land of opportunity. But today, we find too many of our neighbors are denied opportunity because of their immigration status. They can't board a plane. They can't come out of the shadows. They don't know when they go to work in the morning if they will find their family members there at night. This is not right, and the time to fix that is right now. The only thing preventing a bipartisan response to the immigration problems we have in this country is the unwillingness of the Speaker to permit a bipartisan vote on reform legislation. And to those who are not moved by their heart, they should be moved by their pocketbook because of the economic potential of permitting these individuals, two-thirds of which, in Mexican families in Texas without documents, have been here for at least a decade. Let them contribute to America.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee). (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Thank you, Chairman Reichert and Chairman Camp. Mr. Speaker, abused and neglected children in the foster care system are among the most vulnerable children in our communities. These children have the same needs, desires, and dreams as all young people. They need a safe and loving home. They want and deserve the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to fully experience life. A successful adoption provides foster children with these necessities and gives them the opportunity to achieve their full God-given potential. Investing in the success of our foster children is not only good for them; but in so many communities, it is the difference between those young people becoming a community asset and a community liability. It is about reducing future unemployment, homelessness, teen pregnancy, and incarceration. This bill contributes to our continuing efforts to address these issues and to provide permanent homes for abused and neglected children. I am pleased that Mr. Levin and I could work with Chairman Camp and Chairman Reichert to develop this bipartisan legislation to not only extend some important programs, but to make a number of positive changes. Mr. Reichert has outlined some of these. I would add attention to a provision that I authored to help ensure that children don't lose assistance simply because their guardian dies. As a longtime member of the Congressional Coalition of Adoption and a member of the Foster Youth Caucus, I am pleased that we could take these steps in the right direction on a bipartisan basis to help these young people. The legislation both continues and improves the incentives now provided to the States when they increase the rate at which foster children, who cannot return home, find an adoptive family. These new incentives will now be even more focused on the promotion of adoption of older foster children, who are sometimes a bit more difficult to place and who have found difficulty in securing a permanent home. Additionally, for the first time, the bill will reward States for helping youth leave foster care to live with a permanent legal guardian. Recognizing the importance of maintaining the link between family and children in foster care, the legislation also extends a relatively new, but expiring, program known as the Family Connection Grants. These grants go out on a competitive basis to local organizations and State agencies to support various approaches for improving connections between foster families and their children, including linking grandparents to supports and services when they become the primary caregivers for children who would otherwise be in foster care. Another provision that I care about greatly is strengthening of the requirement that adoption funding be spent on promoting adoption rather than being diverted to other purposes. Most notably, this legislation requires States to fully reinvest the funds into post-adoption services and other child welfare activities when these amounts were made available by an increase in Federal funding for adoption support. In total, this legislation will continue the progress we have made over the last 15 years in moving foster children into permanent homes. In my home State of Texas, San Antonio has been viewed as a particular model of success for adoption. Each month, Bexar County hosts an adoption day event that allows families to complete their adoptions in a single day. These are proceedings that have allowed children to have shorter stays in foster care and to move more quickly into stable homes. Judges in Bexar County understand that they are responsible for getting children who experience abuse and neglect into a safe foster environment and are responsible for placing that child with a permanent family if it does not become safe for the child to return home. These improvements in the local adoption system have been encouraged and utilized by important local child advocates like District Judge Peter Sakai and CASA San Antonio. They have allowed for faster and more efficient placement of foster youth into permanent families. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this bipartisan effort, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, surely no Member of the House has expressed more interest in this subject than the founder of the Foster Youth Caucus, our colleague from California (Ms. Bass), to whom I yield 3 minutes.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, hopefully the Senate will respond to our strong show of bipartisan support by moving this legislation this year. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Because they were specifically, as you know, cut off in the rules. The rules of the House, which have existed for so many years, would have given the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentlewoman from Hawaii, or any of our colleagues who are here now from across the country the right to say, Mr. Speaker, let us vote on continuing the operation of the government. Now, why would they deny us that traditional right as Members of the Congress--all Members, Republicans and Democrats--and give Mr. Cantor, as the Republican majority leader, the sole right to do that? I say it is because of fear. They are fearful that this House will continue the government operations, and they can no longer hijack the country the way they have hijacked the Republican caucus and jeopardize the security of our families.

Mr. DOGGETT. There was an understanding, that he acknowledged, reached between the House and the Senate that we Democrats, in order to keep the government functioning, would agree on, for a time this fall, to accept an unacceptable low number that we know won't deliver the level of services that we need for Head Start, for education, and for cancer research.

Mr. DOGGETT. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for the opportunity to join with her on this because the numbers she refers to is back during the summer--and Speaker Boehner acknowledged this last Sunday on ABC. There was an understanding reached between the House and the Senate that Democrats would compromise and agree to a level of government services that we think is totally unacceptable.