David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman would yield, if he has any time left. I will say that I agree with exactly what the gentleman said. I wish there could have been more in this bill too. But, again, getting input from so many on both sides of the aisle has been a challenge.

Mr. DREIER. I yielded twice as much, 100 percent more, than what the gentleman yielded to me.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Speaker how much time is remaining on each side.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the amendment and on the resolution.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I respond by saying, we stand by our commitment to first amendment rights. We stand by our position of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, but that is the law of the land. We live with it today. We are simply trying to implement exactly what you said on June 19, 1998, when you said there should be even-handed regulation.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself such time as I might consume to respond to some of the arguments of my friend Mr. Hoyer. First of all, let me make it very clear, our position has not changed one iota from what it was. We still believe in transparency and disclosure. We stand by the testimony that was provided before the House Administration, our concern, our opposition to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. So the gentleman is wrong in concluding that we somehow have changed. What we are saying with this legislation is that we should not in any way allow loopholes to exist. All we are trying to do is close a loophole which addresses the concern that my colleague raised when he talked about the need to get unregulated soft money out of the process. We know that every single one of us in our individual campaigns and political parties is forced to comply with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, and yet we have seen $425 million, almost a half a billion dollars, expended in unregulated ways, providing an opportunity for them to influence Federal elections. That is a complete contravention of the goal of campaign reform, and that has been argued by the people who were the greatest proponents of campaign reform, Democracy 21, Common Cause, a wide range of groups, which worked closely and tried to implement the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. On this issue of our having taken no action, on this very day, the House Rules Committee has actually been scheduled in the last hour to be marking up our bill H.R. 4975, the Lobbying Accountability Transparency Act. The Judiciary Committee today marked it up. As the gentleman knows, we at the very early part of this year passed legislation designed to get at the access that registered lobbyists had to the House floor. So we have taken action, and I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we are continuing to focus attention on reform and our quest for the proverbial level playing field. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to my very good friend from Michigan, a former Secretary of State, Mrs. Miller.

Mr. DREIER. I think the gentleman still has time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire again exactly how much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, very, very briefly, not to get into the issue of the dueling quotes, but let me quote from 1998 in the debate on this issue from my friend Mr. Hoyer, who loves to carry in his pocket Dreier quotes. I do not regularly carry this one, but this was just provided to me. In the Congressional Record on June 19, 1998, my friend said, ``In my view, genuine reform must purge from Federal elections unregulated soft money which has become so pervasive. The issue ads, which are so clearly intended to influence elections, must be covered.'' That was the statement made. Let me say also, I completely stand by exactly what I said in that 2002 debate and I stand by that vote as my colleagues stand by that vote. If the gentleman had heard my opening statement, I refer to the fact that we were not supporters of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. We were concerned about first amendment rights. We still are concerned about first amendment rights, but across the street, the United States Supreme Court upheld BCRA when they chose in McConnell v. FEC--

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say that my friend is correct in saying we should look at loopholes and do everything we can to close them. The Republican Party is the party of reform. We are very proud of the fact that we have been and continue to be the party of reform. This is a loophole that needs to be closed so we can get to the kind of fairness that Mr. Shays, the great champion of campaign finance reform, talked about. He and I still disagree to this moment about the issue itself. I believe these kind of limits undermine first amendment rights, but the Supreme Court has upheld the Campaign Reform Act, and I believe if you look at the great champions of campaign reform, Common Cause, Democracy 21, and a wide range of other groups, they are strongly supportive of this measure. I believe we should support this. Amendment Offered by Mr. Dreier Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 755 provides 60 minutes of debate in the House, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on House Administration. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill and provides that the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on House Administration, modified by the amendment printed in the Rules Committee report, shall be considered as adopted. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in full support of H. Res. 755 and the underlying bill, H.R. 513, the 527 Reform Act of 2005. Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of working on the lobbying and ethics reform effort currently underway in the House. Having worked so closely with so many Members on both sides of the aisle, I am very confident that there is a shared goal to protect the integrity of Congress and to uphold the public trust by implementing bold reform. The Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act is moving, as Speaker Hastert directed, through regular order, and it is being considered by five different committees. One way or another, many of the provisions of the bill focus on outside sources of influence, which have rightly been the targets of good government reform for decades, and I am very proud that we have provided leadership in that effort over the years. As Members know very well, the current reform process has looked at everything from travel rules, to gift limits, to lobbying disclosure, a wide range of things. However, this entire good faith effort and the bipartisan effort that we are working on would come up woefully short if we did not address an area where outside influence in the form of unlimited contributions continues to play an enormous role. So today we are considering H.R. 513, the 527 Reform Act. Congress has tried to limit big money in campaigns for many, many years. In fact, I will tell you, I wrote my senior thesis in college on the issue of campaign finance reform on the 1974 act, which was the first big Campaign Reform Act implemented in the post-Watergate era. As colleagues who were here in 2002 will remember very well, we had a very spirited debate on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Among other goals that were put forward, this bill aimed to get rid of soft money. That was the goal that was stated by those who were champions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. They wanted to do everything possible to ban soft money contributions from political parties, getting it out of the political process altogether. Along with many of my colleagues, I expressed very strong reservations about banning soft money from parties. I voted against the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. I was very concerned about it. I worried that by limiting contributions and dictating who could give how much to whom, that we would be violating the first amendment. I also seriously doubted that banning soft money from parties would effectively get that money out of the system itself. As many pointed out at the time, BCRA left an obvious and easy loophole to exploit because it did not, in fact, ban unlimited money from being raised and spent by political groups called 527s. And make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, 527s are political organizations. The purpose of 527s under the law is to influence elections. The Supreme Court has written that 527 groups ``by definition engage in partisan political activity.'' 527s were the natural recipients of the soft money that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act denied to political parties expressly because they are defined by law as political organizations. In fact, many of these 527s were set up only after the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act passed just so they could be the recipients of the soft dollar contributions. Now, as our colleague, Mr. Linder, pointed out during that 2002 debate on BCRA, he said, ``By eliminating the role of parties, corporations and labor unions could become increasingly reliant on loopholes, allowing them to spend funds from their general treasuries to influence elections.'' Mr. Linder went on to say, ``activities that would be undertaken without Federal regulation.'' Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what has happened. Mr. Linder was absolutely right when he portended this. Nonetheless, supporters of BCRA promised that it would indeed get big money out of politics. That, as one colleague said during those debates, would ``end the influence, the undue influence of big money in the political process.'' Where does this leave us today? For starters, the issue of free speech as it relates to limiting campaign donations is no longer a theoretical argument that many of us engaged in. Campaign limits are allowed, and BCRA is the law of the land, even though so many of us opposed it. So while many of us did oppose those limits in contributions, we realize that we are governed by laws. We regularly talk about the rule of law. We are not simply governed by our principles, but, in fact, we are governed by the laws, and now every Member's duty, regardless of how we voted on the 2002 act, is to ask ourselves, is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act working as it was intended? Clearly, Mr. Speaker, the answer is a resounding no, it is not. Soft money still dominates the political landscape. A handful, a very small handful of wealthy people, still funnel money to organizations involved in campaigns. But now it is going to 527s instead of to political parties. Mr. Speaker, the money involved is enormous. In the 2003-2004 election cycle, 527 committees raised $425 million, nearly half a billion dollars. That is $273 million more than before the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was enacted. As predicted, the soft money that used to go to political parties found its home in the so-called 527s. In fact, the top 25 individual donors gave more than $146 million in 2004. As I said, it is a very small group of people, from my perspective, exercising their first amendment rights. But with limits that the court has upheld, I think we have no response other than to respond. Twenty- five individuals, 25 individual donors, again, $146 million in 2004. During the current election cycle, Mr. Speaker, that trend has already continued, and we have already seen more than $58 million expended by the 527s. Now, we are not talking about a leaky roof here where just a little soft money is dripping into the system. We are talking about half the roof missing, and money is literally pouring in to this political system. Since the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act failed to take soft money out of politics, as even the bill's original authors concede, it is our duty to correct a flaw in the 2002 law. After all, if we are going to have Federal regulation of campaign finance, it better be fair, it better be consistent and it better be effective. H.R. 513, the 527 Reform Act, restores balance and fairness to the system by making 527s register with Federal Election Commission and by subjecting them to the same Federal campaign finance laws as political parties, political committees and other political organizations. They would be allowed to raise a maximum of $25,000 per year for their non- Federal accounts and $5,000 for their Federal accounts. Under this bill, 527s will still be able to engage in their political activities, such as Get Out the Vote and voter registration drives. They will just be subject to the hard dollar requirements for their spending. For instance, they will be required to spend only hard money for ads that refer to Federal candidates, and at least 50 percent hard money for ads that refer to a political party. Mr. Speaker, I have offered an amendment to H.R. 513 that removes the limit on the amounts parties can spend in coordination with their own candidates. This was a bipartisan effort that was put together. Parties and their candidates should be free to work together to promote the issues they believe in and the arguments that they support. This change will increase transparency in campaign spending by allowing them to work together, rather than continuing the charade that the two entities don't know each other. There is no danger of corruption when a political party supports its own candidate. 527 reform has the backing of Democracy 21, Campaign Legal Center, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG. Mr. Speaker, this bill is not revolutionary; it is common sense. We are simply closing an enormous loophole by extending existing Federal campaign laws to 527s. Opponents of this legislation claim that soft money now going to 527s would simply be funneled to other groups, such as the 501(c)s, yet there is a huge difference under the Tax Code and in real life between 527s and the 501(c) groups, namely, 527s are organized for political purposes. They exist for the purpose of influencing campaigns. 501(c)s are not established for that purpose. In fact, as a matter of Federal law, 501(c)s are not allowed to engage in political activity as their primary mission. If, as opponents contend, soft money is funneled to 501(c)s and if politics becomes their major purpose, they will be in violation of the law. I will add, if it becomes clear that further reforms are needed, Congress will act. Just as we are taking action now to tighten the existing law, we will be ready to act again. We all know, we have said it time and time again, reform is an ongoing process, and we are very proud to lead the effort for reform. As long as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act remains the law of the land, we must ensure that its provisions are applied fairly to all groups engaged in political campaigns. Now, some opponents of H.R. 513 also argue that subjecting 527s to campaign finance regulations limits free speech. I have to ask, where was this first amendment devotion during the 2002 debate? When I and others were making the point in 2002 that free speech would be violated, supporters of BCRA were awfully quiet on that issue. Regardless of how one feels about that issue, the United States Supreme Court has ruled on numerous occasions that limiting political donations is constitutional. Most recently, they did it when they upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in McConnell v. FEC. So critics of this bill, Mr. Speaker, the very same people who predicted the demise of our democracy if soft money was allowed to flow to parties, now seem to have no trouble opposing a bill that allows soft money to flow to the 527s. Just to be clear, some Members on the other side of the aisle want the very groups that spent more than $320 million on behalf of their candidates and policies in 2004 to be the only ones that can influence elections without dollar limits. To be consistent, opponents of this bill would have to also oppose the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ban on soft money going to parties. You cannot just pick and choose who is worthy of soft money. If it is bad, if it corrupts the system, if it silences the average voter, if it allows the wealthy to buy influence, all things that they argued in 2002, then it is not who receives soft money that is the issue; soft money itself is the issue. Are my friends on the other side of the aisle saying they made a mistake in 2002? Have they reversed their position? Do they now support the utilization of so-called soft money? Do they wish to repeal the soft money provisions that were included in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act? I suspect not. I would urge my colleagues to be consistent with their past positions on campaign finance reform and oppose any dual system for free speech where one group has more protections than another. Mr. Speaker, as with our entire reform effort, we are simply seeking to attain the proverbial level playing field, to make rules fair, to make them effective, and to make sure that they are enforced. We have an opportunity to patch a hole in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that would go a long way toward getting big money out of campaigns, as The Washington Post editorialized just this morning, to close the biggest remaining loophole in the campaign finance system. This is something that supporters in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act believed strongly in in 2002. They have a chance to reaffirm their support today with this up or down vote on this simple issue. And for Members like myself who opposed BCRA back in 2002, we can support H.R. 513 because the legal challenges to the original reforms have been settled, and the shortcomings that we predicted have in fact come to pass. Mr. Speaker, altogether, this should result in a strong bipartisan vote for transparency, disclosure, accountability, and reform. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 755 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a very able member of the Rules Committee and a great champion and understander of the issue of campaign finance and campaigns in general. (Mr. COLE of Oklahoma asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to Mr. Shays, who wanted to respond and then you can close your debate and we will do the same. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Connecticut, the great champion of campaign finance reform (Mr. Shays).

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my very good friend from Fort Lauderdale (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and congratulate him and his colleagues on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee for their hard work on this important issue. As I look around the Chamber, Mr. Speaker, I, of course, want to say that this Illinois nexus here between Davis and Biggert is obviously a great one and very committed to the issue of financial literacy, and my good friend from Texas, Ruben Hinojosa, has done so much to further this cause. I want to say that I remember it was probably a decade ago that Mr. Pomeroy and I stood here beginning to focus attention on this issue. I want to again say how much I appreciate the fact that Mrs. Biggert and Mr. Hinojosa have led the charge here. I believe that this resolution is very deserving of our support. I see my friend Eddie Bernice Johnson here as well, so I suspect she is supportive of this, and Mr. Sherman and others. I do believe if we look at where we are as a Nation today, it is amazing what the 21st century has wrought. We are all so supportive of these dramatic changes that have been made, improving the quality of life and the standard of living for people. But one of the things we point to is the fact we see this emerging investor class; 56.7 million American families are today members of the investor class. What has all of this technological change brought about? Well, one thing is the explosion of the access to all kinds of different financial products and services out there. Many of them are offered to young people who, unfortunately, don't really have much of a grasp or understanding of financial responsibility and financial literacy. That is why what we are doing here today is the right thing. In fact, I am very pleased to see that the Commission on Financial Literacy that has been put into place just yesterday made the decision to move ahead with positive methods of education advancing this cause. If we are going to see the number of investors in the United States of America grow, and as we want to continue to see the standard of living increase for so many people, with that obviously comes responsibility. As people take on responsibility, the best way for them to do it is if they have the kind of literacy that is necessary in dealing with this explosion of financial products and services that are out there. So, I simply want to say congratulations. Here we are, trying to encourage education in science, technology, engineering and math, the STEM Program we were talking about just last week, and as well we are proceeding with the work on our very important higher education bill, and key to that is our quest to ensure that people understand these different financial products that are there. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleagues who have been so involved in this, and I hope very much that we will be able to have strong support for this measure. I hope we have unanimous passage of it. We will be able to at that point see a greater understanding and an enhancement of these toll-free numbers that are out there and all the other educational tools that my friend Mrs. Biggert talked about. With that, I encourage strong support for the resolution.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, every day Americans are living the 21st century economy. We use BlackBerries and cell phones to stay in touch and stay in business. We order birthday presents online. We buy German cars made by American workers in South Carolina. We use Google to find restaurant recommendations. We treat previously debilitating illnesses with innovative pharmaceutical products, non-invasive surgery techniques and cutting-edge medical devices. Nearly every aspect of our daily lives is impacted by our high-tech, innovation-driven, globally engaged economy. It has so thoroughly revolutionized our lives that it almost seems absurd to point out that the modern economy is vastly different than the economy of the 1930s and 1940s. And yet our methods for measuring this economy remain much the same as they did during the Great Depression and the era that followed. Gross domestic product is still calculated by tallying industrial investments like heavy machinery and taking an old-economy view of exports and imports. Mr. Speaker, under this system new factory equipment counts as a long-term investment, but R&D does not. And an iPOD which became a global powerhouse band on the strength of its superior design and savvy marketing strategies, developed by Apple in my State of California, is simply counted as another good imported from China, where the final product is assembled. Clearly, these products do not fully account for the essential role that knowledge and innovation play in our global economic leadership role. Our economic strength here in the United States is no longer based solely on the goods we produce but on the ideas that we as innovative, creative Americans create. We add value and increase productivity, not by manufacturing more widgets, but by improving the widgets' design, by making the global distribution of widgets more efficient, by marketing, financing and servicing widgets. The full value of innovation, knowledge and best practices can be difficult to ascertain, but they have replaced mere goods as the bedrock of our Nation's economy. Michael Mandel at Business Week demonstrates how Wal-Mart is an excellent example of this. Few companies have revolutionized their industries the way that Wal-Mart has revolutionized the retail world. Its operational and managerial innovations have made it a global leader that its competitors fail to emulate at their peril: the big-box format; the everyday low prices; the electronic data interchange with suppliers; the highly sophisticated data analysis, done to such detail that inventory managers know to order extra strawberry Pop-tarts when the weather gets bad, because the data crunchers have discovered that customers stock up on them just before a storm. Mr. Speaker, these innovations and best practices, developed by Wal- Mart and copied by its competitors, have led to enormous productivity gains throughout the retail industry and our economy at large. A study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2002 found that 25 percent of the major jump in productivity that came during the second half of the 1990s was due to gains in the retail sector, of which Wal-Mart is clearly a major contributor. According to the study: ``More than half of the productivity acceleration in the retailing of general merchandise can be explained by only two syllables: Wal-Mart.'' By innovating its operational structure, Mr. Speaker, Wal-Mart became one of the single greatest contributors to American productivity at the height of the tech stock bubble. This is an instructive and remarkable fact, that a single company made a major contribution to the productivity of the world's largest economy, not by building new factories or buying new equipment, but by developing new ideas and applying them so successfully that they transformed their company and their entire sector. And yet, as Mandel points out, these operational innovations, less tangible than a widget but far more valuable, do not get counted in our gross domestic product calculation. They are not tallied as an investment, nor are they counted as an export when Wal-Mart buys stores overseas and applies their innovations and best practices abroad to other countries. Recent GDP numbers have certainly demonstrated tremendous economic strength, with 17 straight quarters of growth, 3.5 percent of GDP growth last year, and projections of nearly 5 percent growth for the first quarter this year. Mr. Speaker, when knowledge- economy intangibles are included, the positive economic outlook becomes all the brighter for us as a Nation.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my special order in the place of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my friend, the great history professor, who understands the importance of education and for his stellar service on the Rules Committee and his commitment to ensuring that we have a good piece of legislation. At the outset, let me say that we obviously have seen Chairman McKeon work in a bipartisan way reaching out to my fellow Californian, Mr. Miller, from Martinez, California, who has also a passionate commitment to dealing with the issue of education. I have to say when I sat in the Rules Committee yesterday, listening to this debate, I was struck by the fact that my friend, Mr. Miller, was regularly nodding his head in agreement with Mr. McKeon when he talked about issue after issue that had been addressed by the majority on the committee. I hope very much, as we proceed with this process, that we are able to once again enjoy the bipartisan support and commitment we had on this issue about 36 hours ago. I also want to say to my friend from Massachusetts who raised the issue of the rule, this is the first of two rules. We have begun with this rule, and we will be providing an opportunity for more of our colleagues to offer amendments as we move on with this debate, which is not going to be a 1-day debate. We understand how important this issue is. I also want to express my appreciation to Mr. McKeon for addressing some of the major concerns that have been brought forward by the leaders of private schools, private colleges and universities. One of the things that we need to recognize in our society is we have pluralism in education. We have spectacular public and private schools of learning. I believe, as we look at the education challenge, it is important for us to take the steps to ensure the strength of both of those. A number of concerns that have been raised by many of my friends in the academic world have been effectively addressed. Mr. Speaker, it was 6 years ago this month that 15 European heads of state met in Lisbon, Portugal, and pledged to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. By their own account, the EU has acknowledged that that goal has failed and will not be accomplished. The German economist, Andreas Schleicher, published a report entitled, ``The Economics of Knowledge: Why Education is Key For Europe's Success.'' As the title indicates, Schleicher concludes in a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy, education is the linchpin. He also concludes that right now Europe is lagging well behind the United States. He ranks the world's top 20 universities and finds that the EU is home to only two of those. I am happy to say that the United States is home to 17 of them, including six in California, and one, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, of which I am particularly proud. Schleicher makes it clear that without a substantial investment in education in the high-tech and knowledge-based fields, the European Union will not only fail to reach its goal of having the most competitive economy by 2010, it will continue to fall further and further behind. The report was meant to be a wake-up call for Europeans, but I believe it should be a wake-up call for us as Americans. We lead the global economy in growth, fueled by the power of our innovation. We are home to the world's best universities where today's students train for tomorrow's workforce, where creative thinkers conduct research and develop new technologies. But as a dynamic, fast- paced, highly competitive economy, we know better than anyone that complacency and stagnation are economic death knells. We cannot assume that today's competitiveness ensures tomorrow's success. If we want to continue to be the global economic leader, we must expand our investment in education. We must better prepare students for the rigorous work that the high-tech workforce demands. We must better equip teachers to provide the educational foundation that our students need. And, Mr. Speaker, we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning continue to be the hotbeds of research where new ideas are tested, new methods are discovered and new technologies are developed. I believe that H.R. 609, the College Access and Opportunity Act, which we are going to be considering, helps us to accomplish each of those goals. It is a critical component of our agenda to enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, and it is necessary to ensure that the next generation of American workers does not find itself reading reports on our lack of top universities and our inability to compete in the global marketplace. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and as we go through this amendment process, specifically addressing concerns that I raised, that we will take on in the manager's amendment, I urge my colleagues to, in a bipartisan way, support this very, very important legislation.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Washington for yielding. I would like to congratulate her on her great commitment when it comes to this issue of America's competitiveness. We all know that President Bush stood right here in this Chamber and, in his State of the Union message, talked about the need to ensure that the United States of America remains competitive. I believe that, frankly, that vision that the President put forward is really one of the underlying priorities and the reason for us with this legislation to continue to pursue it. If we look at the economic standing that the United States of America has today with a 4.8 percent unemployment rate, GDP growth last year that was at 3.5 percent, 4.8 percent projected GDP growth for the first quarter of this year, and the fact that household net worth has jumped 8 percent in the last calendar year, that being in 2005, to a level of $52 trillion and recognition contrary to what we often hear around here, prosperity has improved in virtually every single demographic bracket. What does it say? It says that we as a country are doing something that is right. One of the things that we learned throughout our Nation's history and one of the things that we clearly learn with the vision that is put forth with this amendment that Miss McMorris is offering is we cannot sit on our laurels. We cannot as a Nation be complacent with all of those great things that we are able to point to, that we have accomplished in the last several years when it comes to economic growth and our competitiveness in the world. What we need to do is we need to make sure that we have policies that keep us on the cutting edge. Nothing is more important in pursuit of that policy than our ensuring that we have the best quality education, the best teachers, and that we pursue science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called ``stem package.'' I believe that is exactly what we are trying to do with this amendment. I hope very much that we are able to see strong bipartisan support for this. As I said when I stood here earlier today, I hope very much that we will be able to see strong bipartisan support for this underlying legislation. I congratulate my friend for her fine work. Miss McMORRIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding and, Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to rise in strong support of this amendment. I believe that the whole concept of Teach for America, which is designed to incentivize the top men and women who are gaining their educations to get out and provide education in communities where it is desperately needed, is the right thing to do. And I want to congratulate my good friend from California, Don Fisher, who has been a driving force behind this, and Wendy Kopp, who has been working very hard on it. I have met with her and a number of other people, and I believe this is the kind of model program that will help us deal with this challenge of ensuring that the United States of America maintains its competitive edge.