David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Arcadia High School, AHS, Constitution Team on their first place finish in the 23rd annual ``We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution,'' contest which was held in Washington, DC this past weekend and concluded Monday evening. The AHS team represented the entire state of California in the competition, which tests students' knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and American democracy. After spending time with this outstanding group of students last week, I was confident they would take their knowledge of and dedication to learning about the Constitution and turn it into a great win for Arcadia and California. After winning local and state competitions, these students proved themselves champions at the final competition here in our nation's capital. The City of Arcadia and the entire San Gabriel Valley should be very proud of these outstanding students. On Monday, after three days of simulated congressional hearings testing the students' knowledge of constitutional principles, which were judged by a panel of constitutional scholars, lawyers, journalists and government leaders, the AHS team was announced the winners of this year's competition. I believe very firmly in the tremendous importance of understanding our history and the principles on which our nation was founded. These students should be commended for their mastery of our founding documents and the words of our founding fathers, and I enthusiastically congratulate them on their success. The AHS Constitution Team's victory is a testament not just to the hard work and dedication of these students, but also the guidance and commitment of their teacher Kevin Fox and coaches Gary Kovacic, Jim Romo, Bob Garrett and Karyn McCreary. The members of the AHS Constitution Team are: Robel Abdella, Wini Addanki, Pallavi Bugga, Madyson Cassidy, Andrew Chang, Winston Chang, Greg Chen, Ruodi Duan, Daphne Fan, Kathy Garcia, Jamie Griswold, Derek Ha, Jennifer Hang, Lauren Hanna, Frank Huang, Rayla Hylbom, Michael Kallin, Amanda Kallis, Jesse Li, Andrew Lin, Sangavi Pari, Tim Semenov, Joanna Shen, Kiko Sunata, Bonnie Tam, Andrew Taylor, Catherine Tong and Shen Wang.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 1257, supporting the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month. I would also like to commend the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hinojosa, and the gentlelady from Illinois, Mrs. Biggert, the co-chairs of the Financial Literacy Caucus, for all of their hard work on this important issue. In today's 21st century economy, in which Americans have access to a wide variety of financial products, a greater understanding of finance is critically important to our economy. As we all know, the roots of the financial meltdown can be traced to a number of factors, including unscrupulous lenders who took advantage of consumers, irresponsible homeowners who borrowed more than they could afford and reckless speculators who gambled on bad financial bets. Last year, we enacted into law a credit card reform bill to crack down on abusive lending practices. This law also requires credit lenders to provide borrowers with clear information on lending terms, such as the consequences of making only the minimum monthly payment, late payment deadlines, penalties and interest rate changes. We must hold creditors accountable and ensure full transparency in their lending practices; at the same time, borrowers must carefully review this information and use it to make sound financial decisions. Mr. Speaker, we must all do our part to enhance financial literacy. A strong foundation in financial literacy will help Americans meet today's needs, prepare for the unexpected and plan for future goals. This week, the Credit Union National Association is holding its annual National Credit Union Youth Week to highlight the importance of financial literacy for our children. In addition, on April 27, the American Bankers Association Education Foundation will be holding their annual Teach Children to Save Day. Since 1997, 80,000 bank volunteers have participated to teach 3.4 million children about basic spending and savings decisions. A solid understanding of sound financial principles can also help families trim their expenses and reduce debt. The Financial Literacy Education Commission's website, www.mymoney.gov, has helpful tools, resources and savings tips from a number of federal agencies to help consumers make informed personal finance choices, whether shopping for loans, reducing household costs, planning for savings and retirement, or understanding credit card terms. Mr. Speaker, financial literacy is about opportunity. It is about empowering individuals and families to take control of their finances and effectively plan for the future. Working together, we can encourage Americans to enhance their understanding of personal finance, which will ultimately help to strengthen our financial system and economy. I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Mr. DREIER

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to close the debate as I had begun, by denouncing the charges and smears that we have seen over the past several weeks. Tragically, those of us who serve as Members of Congress for years have dealt with that. It is unacceptable and outrageous, and we all join together in decrying the things that we have seen. Mr. Speaker, there is a high level of frustration over the process through which we have gone, and there is an understandable outrage from people all across this country for the final work product that we have. The process has been, at very best--I am trying to be generous-- unorthodox. The notion of utilizing reconciliation, which is designed to reconcile budget discrepancies, for this, is not the right thing to do. And it has never, ever, since passage of the 1974 Budget Entitlement Act, been used for such a monumental piece of legislation. We have tried desperately to work in a bipartisan way, and everyone talks about this. But, Mr. Speaker, we have reached out, as Mr. Burgess said, time and time again, and we have been rebuffed. The only thing bipartisan about this legislation and the vote that we will see tonight, Mr. Speaker, is not the support for it but the opposition to it. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a 70-seat majority, and yet many of their Members will be joining us, as they did last Sunday night, in opposing this. Why? Because they know that this is badly flawed legislation. It's badly flawed legislation, because, as we listened to so many medical doctors point out, we are told that you can choose your own doctor. We constantly hear that refrain from the President and others. But the question is, With the decrease in the numbers of doctors out there, will your doctor choose you? And then, Mr. Speaker, we get to the question of, Will we or will we not be able to pay for this? Well, $1 trillion, 569.2 billion in tax increases, and tremendous uncertainty is not going to adequately address the challenges that we have. We all want to ensure that no one is denied access to health care because of preexisting conditions. We can do that in a bipartisan way. But, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, this bill doesn't do that. There are people out there who today believe that they will not be denied access to insurance because of preexisting conditions. But, guess what? Because this bill was so poorly put together, right now they are denied access. We want to make sure, and we are happy to work in a bipartisan way, to address that concern. As we look at the fact that we are back here tonight because of those two amendments that were problems in the Senate, the fact that we already have announced problems with the goal of ensuring that everyone has access, is not denied access because of preexisting conditions, and when we look at the challenges that have been put forward time and time again, we simply ask our colleagues: When we work to clean this up, Mr. Speaker, I hope very much we will be able to work in a bipartisan way. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. DREIER. May I inquire of the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Rules how many speakers she has remaining.

Mr. DREIER. And then you plan to close?

Mr. DREIER. So then no more speakers other than your close. Is that it?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to my very good friend, another medical doctor who is with us here, the gentleman from Lewisville, Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. DREIER. We don't have that many. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 1 minute to our hardworking colleague from Indianapolis, Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Athens, Georgia (Mr. Broun), another one of our very able medical doctors.

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ennis, Texas (Mr. Barton), the hardworking ranking minority member on the Committee of Energy and Commerce. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to our friend from Goddard, Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. DREIER. I yield my friend an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my friend how many speakers she has remaining?

Mr. DREIER. With that, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to our very hardworking colleague from Bainbridge Township, Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume, and I would like to engage in a discussion, if I might, with my friend and argue that I totally concur. We totally concur with the need to work on this issue of preexisting conditions. The problem, Madam Speaker, has been that while this was extraordinarily well-intentioned, we've already found that this shoddily put together bill has denied the addressing of preexisting conditions. There are people out there who unfortunately believe, Madam Speaker, that the issue of preexisting conditions has been taken care of. One needs to look at the news reports right now of the problems that exist with our shared bipartisan goal of addressing that issue. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. I will reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a very hardworking member of the Committee on Rules, the latest recipient of the Ronald Reagan award, our friend from Grandfather Community, North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. DREIER. May I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, now may I inquire of the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Rules if she has three or four more speakers? I don't know, Mr. Speaker, if the distinguished Chair on the Committee on Rules has anymore speakers.