Jimmy Duncan

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, Ambassador Victor Ashe retired in 2009 as the longest-serving U.S. Ambassador to Poland. Prior to his distinguished service abroad, Ambassador Ashe served 16 years as Knoxville's longest-serving Mayor. Ambassador Ashe has held many other positions in service to Tennessee and our Nation, and he has had one of the most distinguished careers of anyone from my State. Even following his retirement, Ambassador Ashe is being cited for his expertise and continued devotion to our Nation. I call the following article from the website BBG Watch, in which Ambassador Ashe is quoted many times and is reprinted in part below, to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record. I am glad to see my good friend is still working to protect the taxpayers of our Nation: BBG Watch has learned that officials of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) at a federal agency, Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), are alleged to have violated IRS tax rules by employing thousands of private contractors as full-time, long-term employees but failing to withhold taxes from their salaries as they were required to do, according to IRS and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). . . . BBG Watch has also learned of allegations that some IBB officials suspected of these irregularities may be trying to cover up their alleged violations by refusing or delaying release of information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from private individuals, including news reporters and NGO representatives. . . . Allegations have been made that some of IBB officials responsible for employing thousands of poorly-paid full-time contractors who have been denied by these officials basic employment protections and benefits, such as vacations and health insurance, may have also been involved in an attempt to silence and remove from the BBG board a former member, Victor Ashe, and to undermine reputation of some of the still serving BBG members who have questioned their management practices. Alleged retaliation against Ashe is strongly suspected because he was most active among BBG members in trying to expose and prevent waste of taxpayers' money at the agency, but at least two other BBG members who are still serving may have also been a target of a smear campaign. BBG Watch has learned that FOIA requests for documents that may show alleged efforts by IBB officials to silence BBG members and to undermine their reputation are the ones which are not being answered by IBB officials who have not yet produced any documents several months after these FOIA requests were submitted. BBG Watch also learned that there is still a pending FOIA request for additional information about an incident in which a senior Voice of America executive allegedly tried to get officials at the United Nations to revoke a press accreditation of an independent American journalist. BBG's mission is to support media freedom. Some of these officials are still employed by BBG. One of BBG Watch volunteer-reporters contacted Victor Ashe by phone at his home at Knoxville, TN to get his perspective on the developing scandal over violations of IRS tax rules by agency officials where he was a board member until late last year. Ashe is a former U.S. Ambassador to Poland and former popular long-term mayor of Knoxville. He had served many U.S. administrations of both parties in various federal positions. This is how BBG Watch reporter summarized for BBG Watch the phone conversation with Ashe: ``After years of neglect from prior management, Broadcasting Board of Governors is now moving to remedy the mistreatment from a pay standpoint for 35% of BBG's employees who are on contract as opposed to being fulltime federal employees,'' former BBG member Victor Ashe said. ``Of course this is due to the heavy pressure from the Internal Revenue Service and the Office of Inspector General,'' Ashe added. ``One reason BBG has ranked so poorly in Office of Personnel Management (OPM) morale surveys is the way contract employees are treated, as well as the fallout from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) Radio and TV Marti lawsuit from former Cuban American employees in Miami who were illegally dismissed, according to findings by an impartial Federal Arbitrator and legal panels. This lawsuit, which management has lost at every step along the way, continues with costs exceeding $3.5 million. While it may last two more years, cost may exceed $5.3 million by the time it is over. No one seems bothered by this use of tax dollars,'' Ashe added. ``Morale at the three entities, which are Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), remains much higher,'' he added. ``International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) has a terrible history of mistreating contract employees,'' Ashe said. ``Congress needs to act swiftly to correct these problems and monitor carefully how BBG is handling the IRS audit and OIG findings. BBG owes the public an explanation on why this has occurred and how they plan on finding $12 to $18 million,'' he added. ``This is all about righting a wrong. IBB past management thought they could get away with this violation of federal practices and law. Now this seems to be at an end.'' ``Now the BBG board should review the Radio and TV Marti lawsuit by Cuban Americans laid off wrongly over 4 years ago and attempt to settle it. Otherwise, BBG may face $5 million in legal expenses,'' Ashe added. ``I commend Jeff Shell, the new chair, for his efforts to correct the problems he inherited,'' Victor Ashe stated. Jeff Shell and the renewed BBG board have already announced several key personnel and management changes at the IBB and further management reforms are expected. Former IBB director retired at the end of November 2013. But some remaining IBB officials are alleged to be engaged in an attempt to cover up their previous mistakes by unnecessarily prolonging the FOIA process, sources told BBG Watch. Ashe and some of his colleagues on the BBG board have been vindicated in a number of cases where their initial concerns were first strongly resisted by agency officials and later turned out to be correct and their proposed solutions embraced by other BBG members. Among three BBG members who seem to have most annoyed IBB senior staff with demands for accountability, Ashe is credited along with Susan McCue and Michael Meehan with saving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) from a major management and journalistic crisis last year. Ashe received the Glasnost Award for these efforts from a Russian human rights organization. He is also believed to have helped new RFE/RL CEO Kevin Klose rehire Radio Liberty journalists who had been fired by the previous management--an incident which produced a major public relations and public diplomacy crisis for the United States in Russia. In a phone conversation about his previous difficult dealings with IBB officials, Ashe recalled discovering that flu shots were being denied to contract employees at the agency because of their status. IBB officials declined to correct the problem until he went public with the issue and shamed them into recognizing it was a health risk for the entire workforce, since contract employees and federal employees work daily side by side. ``Today I am glad to say all can receive flu shots,'' Ashe was quoted as saying. Alleged attempts to silence inconvenient BBG members and alleged attempts by IBB senior executives to remove Ashe from the BBG board with unfounded accusations to the OIG were described in recent editorials published by the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE Local 1812, a union representing BBG's federal workforce. One OIG team sided with IBB officials against Ashe and incredibly accused him of being too aggressive in pursuing his oversight responsibilities, although it did not mention him by name. That particular OIG team repeated assurances received from IBB executives and, also incredibly, did not discover any substantial waste or irregularities in the agency, which has a budget of over $700 million. It took another, different OIG team to find widespread irregularities in the work of IBB officials, including nonpayment of IRS required taxes. Ashe is widely admired by rank and file agency employees and contractors, as are Governors McCue and Meehan. Chairman Shell has also developed a good reputation among BBG employees for his energy, willingness to listen to critics and some of the initial reforms he has proposed. Ashe's departure from the board was particularly mourned by BBG employees. Their union has arranged with the Knoxville, TN city administration to have a tree planted in one of its parks in honor of former BBG Governor and former U.S. Ambassador. In a recent article in Ambassador Perspectives, a forum of commentary on current world issues by non-career U.S. Ambassadors who have served presidents of both parties, Ashe has proposed several solutions to management problems at the BBG, including appointing a single agency head, confirmable by the Senate, dissolving the current part-time nine-member board, or making it much smaller. The CEO proposal, but without Senate confirmation, is also being pursued by Chairman Shell and the current BBG board. Ashe has also called for bringing Congress more closely into the process of reforming U.S. international media outreach to those countries where independent press is either severely restricted or completely repressed. Ashe told a reporter that ``hopefully, Congress will start holding annual oversight hearings on U.S. international media outreach, which have not been held for six years.'' The key questions, however, are whether anyone among IBB's current government executives who are still in their positions will answer for alleged violations of tax and other federal rules? Who will pay millions of dollars, which have not been appropriated by Congress, to correct alleged mistakes? Can IBB officials get away with not releasing FOIA documents that may expose their alleged attempts to cover up corruption and abuse of power. BBG Watch has learned that at the urging of a least one NGO, a member of Congress known for his support of U.S. international broadcasting mission abroad plans to make inquiries to the BBG to find out why IBB officials are dragging their feet on answering FOIA requests for information that may expose their alleged misdeeds. It's not the first time, and not the last, that we ask: who's in charge of this Agency? As the new Broadcasting Board of Governors members get down to business, we recognize their role of being in charge of ensuring that the broadcasting arm of the United States government carries out its mission for the 21st century. However, we get the feeling that some in top and mid-level management take the position that the bureaucracy is still in charge, will remain in charge, and will make sure the BBG understands who is really in charge. Why should there be any concern? Flash back to the arrival at the Agency several years ago of a former BBG Governor, the Honorable U.S. Ambassador Victor Ashe. A politician, in addition to a diplomat, with extensive managerial experience, he engaged in behavior any official on the BBG should feel comfortable engaging in: he met with the staff, listened to their concerns, opened a communication channel by providing his personal e-mail and started asking questions of management. The backlash was swift and fierce. Ambassador Ashe was warned in private, then warned again more forcefully in public, against assuming his full role as Governor. Apparently he did not get the message. The General Counsel's office--whose main purpose sometimes seems to be not to assist management in respecting the law, but rather in how to circumvent it--drafted new rules that essentially tried to muzzle BBG members, trying to prevent them from freely discussing Agency business. But that did not silence Ambassador Ashe. He had the courage to publicly deplore the diplomatic mess created by the firing of most of the staff at the Russian Service of Radio Liberty. Payback time came in many forms including a rather silly and spiteful incident, when Governor Ashe was refused entry to an event to which he was invited. Other blockades were erected by the resident bureaucracy to thwart any attempts by Governor Ashe to find out what was going on in the Agency including a scandalous contracting-out process. Even the OIG, in its January 2013 report, characterized Governor Ashe's actions as somewhat of a transgression when it wrote: ``He visits widely throughout the agency, offering to bypass IBB management to assure Board attention to employee concerns.'' And yet, Ambassador Ashe did not budge. He continued his fight. So, he was disposed of thanks to a blistering and factually-challenged OIG report that the Union described, and still does, as a `hatchet job'. He could have stayed in his position as a Republican Governor on the BBG. There was no need to push out the only BBG member who had a perfect attendance record at all meetings and seemed to genuinely care, and was competent as well. The Agency would not stand for that and the White House somehow found time to name someone to replace him. AFGE Local 1812 will always be grateful to former Governor Ashe for his intrepid efforts to try to find out what was wrong in the Agency and to fix it. We are also grateful that he did not look at the Union as a pariah. For its part, the Union has arranged with the Knoxville, TN, city administration to have a tree planted in one of its parks in honor of Governor Ashe where he served five terms as mayor. We are considering another project in his honor as well.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to honor an exceptional high school student from my District whose commonsense and eloquent words brought national attention to education policy. Ethan Young, a senior a Farragut High School in Knox County, Tennessee, recently testified in front of the Knox County School Board against Common Core, the one-size-fits-all educational scheme being implemented across the Nation. Ethan's speech was noticed by outlets such as FOX News and Glenn Beck, who called the remarks possibly the best case against Common Core ever made. I have been friends with Ethan's grandmother for many years and know him to be a very passionate and intelligent young man. Mr. Speaker, Ethan has learned through his own experience that, in his words, ``creativity, appreciation, and inquisitiveness are impossible to scale.'' I bring his powerful speech, which is reprinted below in its entirety, to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record. All education policy-makers should listen closely to his wisdom. Speech to Knox County School Board (By Ethan Young) In a mere five minutes, I hope to provide insightful comments about a variety of educational topics. I sincerely hope you disprove the research I've compiled. Here's the history of the Common Core. In 2009, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers partnered with Achieve Inc., a nonprofit that received millions in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Thus the initiative seemed to spring from states, when in reality it was contrived by an insular group of educational testing executives with only two academic content specialists. Neither specialist approved the final standards, and the English consultant, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, publicly stated she felt the standards left students with an empty skill set, lacking literary knowledge. While educators and administrators were later included in the validation committee and feedback groups, they did not play a role in the actual drafting of the standards. The product is a, quote, ``rigorous preparation for career and college,'' yet many educators agree that ``rigorous'' is a buzzword. These standards aren't rigorous, just different, designed for industrial model of school. Nevertheless, Common Core emerged. Keep in mind, the specific standards were never voted upon by Congress, the Department of Education, state or local governments. Yet, their implementation was approved by 49 states and territories. The president essentially bribed states into implementation via Race to the Top, offering 4.35 billion taxpayer dollars to participating states, $500 million of which went to Tennessee. And much like No Child Left Behind, the program promises national testing and a one-size-fits-all education, because, hey, it worked really well the first time. While I do admire some aspects of the core, such as fewer standards and an emphasis on application and writing, it's not going to fix our academic deficit. If nothing else, these standards are a glowing conflict of interest. And they lack the research they allegedly received. And most importantly, the standards illustrate a mistrust of teachers, something I believe this county has already felt for a while. I've been fortunate to have incredible educators that opened my eyes to the joy of learning, and I love them like my family. I respect them entirely, which is why it frustrates me to review the TEAM and APEX evaluation systems. These subjective anxiety-producers do more to damage a teacher's self-esteem than you realize. Erroneous evaluation coupled with strategic compensation presents a punitive model that, as a student, is like watching your teacher jump through flaming hoops to earn a score. Have you forgotten the nature of a classroom? A teacher cannot be evaluated without his students, because as a craft, teaching is an interaction. Thus how can you expect to gauge a teacher's success with no control for student participation or interest? I stand before you because I care about education, but also because I want to support my teachers. And just as they fought for my academic achievement, so I want to fight for their ability to teach. This relationship is at the heart of instruction, yet there will never be a system by which it is accurately measured. But I want to take a step back. We can argue the details ad infinitum. Yet I observe a much broader issue with education today. Standards-based education is ruining the way we teach and learn. Yes, I've already been told by legislators and administrators, Ethan, that's just the way things work. But why? I'm going to answer that question. It's bureaucratic convenience. It works with nuclear reactors, it works for business models, why can't it work with students? I mean, how convenient calculating exactly who knows what and who needs what. I mean, why don't we just manufacture robots instead of students? They last longer and they always do what they're told. But education is unlike every other bureaucratic institute in our government. The task of teaching is never quantifiable. If everything I learned in high school is a measurable objective, I haven't learned anything. I'd like to repeat that. If everything I learned in high school is a measurable objective, I have not learned anything. Creativity, appreciation, inquisitiveness--these are impossible to scale, but they're the purpose of education, why our teachers teach, and why I choose to learn. And today we find ourselves in a nation that produces workers. Everything is career and college preparation. Somewhere our founding fathers are turning in their graves, pleading, screaming, and trying to say to us that we teach to free minds, we teach to inspire, we teach to equip. The careers will come naturally. I know we're just one city in a huge system that excitedly embraces numbers, but ask any of these teachers, ask any of my peers, and ask yourselves, haven't we gone too far with data? I attended tonight's meeting to share my critiques, but as Benjamin Franklin quipped, any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. The problems I cite are very real. And I only ask that you hear them out, investigate them, and do not dismiss them as another fool's criticisms. I'll close with a quote of Jane L. Stanford that Dr. McIntyre shared in a recent speech: ``You have my entire confidence in your ability to do conscientious work to the very best advantage to the students--that they be considered paramount to all and everything else. We're capable of fixing education, and I commit myself to that task. But you cannot ignore me, my teachers, or the truth. We need change, but not Common Core, high-stakes evaluations, or more robots.'' Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to honor an exceptional high school student from my District whose common-sense and eloquent words brought national attention to education policy. Kevin Young, a senior at Farragut High School in Knox County, Tennessee, recently testified in front of the Knox County School Board against Common Core, the one-size-fits-all educational scheme being implemented across the Nation. Kevin's speech was noticed by outlets such as FOX News and Glenn Beck, who called the remarks possibly the best case against Common Core ever made. I have been friends with Kevin's grandmother for many years and know him to be a very passionate and intelligent young man. Mr. Speaker, Kevin has learned through his own experience that, in his words, ``creativity, appreciation, and inquisitiveness are impossible to scale.'' I bring his powerful speech, which is reprinted below in its entirety, to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record. All education policy-makers should listen closely to his wisdom. Speech to Knox County School Board (By Ethan Young) In a mere five minutes, I hope to provide insightful comments about a variety of educational topics. I sincerely hope you disprove the research I've compiled. Here's the history of the Common Core. In 2009, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers partnered with Achieve Inc., a nonprofit that received millions in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Thus the initiative seemed to spring from states, when in reality it was contrived by an insular group of educational testing executives with only two academic content specialists. Neither specialist approved the final standards, and the English consultant, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, publicly stated she felt the standards left students with an empty skill set, lacking literary knowledge. While educators and administrators were later included in the validation committee and feedback groups, they did not play a role in the actual drafting of the standards. The product is a, quote, ``rigorous preparation for career and college,'' yet many educators agree that ``rigorous'' is a buzzword. These standards aren't rigorous, just different, designed for industrial model of school. Nevertheless, Common Core emerged. Keep in mind, the specific standards were never voted upon by Congress, the Department of Education, state or local governments. Yet, their implementation was approved by 49 states and territories. The president essentially bribed states into implementation via Race to the Top, offering 4.35 billion taxpayer dollars to participating states, $500 million of which went to Tennessee. And much like No Child Left Behind, the program promises national testing and a one-size-fits-all education, because, hey, it worked really well the first time. While I do admire some aspects of the core, such as fewer standards and an emphasis on application and writing, it's not going to fix our academic deficit. If nothing else, these standards are a glowing conflict of interest. And they lack the research they allegedly received. And most importantly, the standards illustrate a mistrust of teachers, something I believe this county has already felt for a while. I've been fortunate to have incredible educators that opened my eyes to the joy of learning, and I love them like my family. I respect them entirely, which is why it frustrates me to review the TEAM and APEX evaluation systems. These subjective anxiety-producers do more to damage a teacher's self-esteem than you realize. Erroneous evaluation coupled with strategic compensation presents a punitive model that, as a student, is like watching your teacher jump through flaming hoops to earn a score. Have you forgotten the nature of a classroom? A teacher cannot be evaluated without his students, because as a craft, teaching is an interaction. Thus how can you expect to gauge a teacher's success with no control for student participation or interest? I stand before you because I care about education, but also because I want to support my teachers. And just as they fought for my academic achievement, so I want to fight for their ability to teach. This relationship is at the heart of instruction, yet there will never be a system by which it is accurately measured. But I want to take a step back. We can argue the details ad infinitum. Yet I observe a much broader issue with education today. Standards-based education is ruining the way we teach and learn. Yes, I've already been told by legislators and administrators, Ethan, that's just the way things work. But why? I'm going to answer that question. It's bureaucratic convenience. It works with nuclear reactors, it works for business models, why can't it work with students? I mean, how convenient calculating exactly who knows what and who needs what. I mean, why don't we just manufacture robots instead of students? They last longer and they always do what they're told. But education is unlike every other bureaucratic institute in our government. The task of teaching is never quantifiable. If everything I learned in high school is a measurable objective, I haven't learned anything. I'd like to repeat that. If everything I learned in high school is a measurable objective, I have not learned anything. Creativity, appreciation, inquisitiveness--these are impossible to scale, but they're the purpose of education, why our teachers teach, and why I choose to learn. And today we find ourselves in a nation that produces workers. Everything is career and college preparation. Somewhere our founding fathers are turning in their graves, pleading, screaming, and trying to say to us that we teach to free minds, we teach to inspire, we teach to equip. The careers will come naturally. I know we're just one city in a huge system that excitedly embraces numbers, but ask any of these teachers, ask any of my peers, and ask yourselves, haven't we gone too far with data? I attended tonight's meeting to share my critiques, but as Benjamin Franklin quipped, any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. The problems I cite are very real. And I only ask that you hear them out, investigate them, and do not dismiss them as another fool's criticisms. I'll close with a quote of Jane L. Stanford that Dr. McIntyre, shared in a recent speech: ``You have my entire confidence in your ability to do conscientious work to the very best advantage to the students--that they be considered paramount to all and everything else. We're capable of fixing education, and I commit myself to that task. But you cannot ignore me, my teachers, or the truth. We need change, but not Common Core, high-stakes evaluations, or more robots.'' Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, some are trying to create the impression that the only problem with ObamaCare is the Web site, and the experts will soon fix that. Actually, the biggest problem with the so-called Affordable Care Act is that it is unaffordable. We are already having trouble paying for all of the Federal medical programs we have now. The cost of all of our Federal medical programs have been greatly underestimated at the start. Now with many millions more losing their coverage than the administration predicted, added to the millions previously uninsured, the cost of ObamaCare is already estimated at possibly four times more than when it was passed, and it is not even fully in place. Since it took 3\1/2\ years to even get a screwed-up Web site partially ready, most people don't believe the Federal Government can run our health care system efficiently in the first place. More bureaucratic, less-humane medical care, and all at much greater cost to taxpayers at both the Federal and State levels. This plan is a mess that will ultimately lead to shortages, waiting periods, and a great decline in the quality of American medical care.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, yesterday The Washington Times reported that the U.S. is now spending millions on life skills and art seminars for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The paper said a multimillion dollar Federal contract is teaching Gitmo detainees basic landscaping, calligraphy, and Microsoft PowerPoint, among other seminars and library services. Last July, the Comptroller of the Defense Department reported that the cost of keeping Guantanamo prison open during 2013 would be an astounding $454 million for just 164 prisoners. This comes out to roughly $2.7 million per year for each one of these detainees held in the prison camp. This compares to $72,000 per year per prisoner in Federal high security prisons. Because the Federal Government is so wasteful and inefficient, States are housing State prisoners for half that amount. The taxpayers of this Nation should not be forced to spend $454 million to give the good life to former terrorists. They should be sent to the most unpleasant prison in the U.S., but this and other abuses of U.S. taxpayers will continue until we drastically downsize the Federal Government and greatly decrease its funding.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Tennessean who has helped thousands of people in need across my district. Dr. Tom Kim came to America after escaping North Korea at the age of 6. Through a strong Christian upbringing and faith in God, he was led to a lifelong devotion of helping others. Many years ago, I had lunch with Dr. Kim, and he shared with me his wish to open a clinic that provides free health care to the working poor in my district. The clinic would operate with a mission based on the Bible verse Matthew 25:40, ``Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for Me.'' From that vision came The Free Medical Clinic of America, which this year celebrated its 20th anniversary and 11,000th new patient. What started as a small clinic alongside Dr. Kim's own practice in Knoxville has grown to facilities in four other counties. Most recently, the FBI office in Knoxville gave Dr. Kim the Director's Community Leadership Award. This yearly honor is given to citizens who go above and beyond in service to their communities. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Tom Kim is one of the most selfless and kindest men I have ever known and is a man who possesses a contagious energy to help others. I wanted to bring his devotion to others to the attention of my colleagues. I hope The Free Medical Clinic of America continues to be an example of humanity and Christian service for many years to come. While I came here primarily to honor a health care hero, I also want to make a few additional comments about health care. The more we learn about the so-called Affordable Care Act, the worse it gets. It should be called the ``Unaffordable Care Act'' since cost estimates are already double or triple the estimated cost when it was passed, and Federal health plans have always been lowballed on the front end. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Medicare was supposed to cost about $12 billion after 25 years. Instead, CRS reports that it costs almost 10 times that much, and this year, it will cost six times that amount, or over $600 billion. Premiums are going way up for most people in preparation for the requirements of the new law. The Associated Press reported on August 8: One casualty of the new health care law may be paid coverage for families of people who work for small businesses. Employers are either not hiring as many workers as they ordinarily would, with many trying to stay under 50 employees so as not to be hit by the new law, or are switching people to part-time work. The State of Virginia notified 10,000 part-time workers they would not be allowed to go over 30 hours a week, and some have said the new norm all over the country is two 20-hour-a-week jobs. One leading supporter of the act was famously quoted as saying that we would have to pass the law before we could find out what was in it. Now we are finding out all of the promises about keeping your plan if you liked it, keeping your doctor if you liked him, and that premiums would go down by as much as $2,500 a year were all false, exaggerated, or at least incorrect. Millions have lost or will lose their coverage. Millions more are facing huge increases in their premiums. In our offices, we have helped many people with Medicare and Medicaid problems, and no one wants to see anyone denied medical care. However, before we start another program that we can't afford, we need to do more to eliminate the tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse that exists in Medicare and Medicaid today. More significantly, some people and companies have become rich off of these two programs. The administrators of Medicare and Medicaid need to crack down on those who are turning Medicare and Medicaid into monetary bonanzas. One place to start is in the huge discrepancies in charges by hospitals. A May 8 New York Times article reported that one hospital in Dallas billed Medicare $160,832 for lower joint replacements while another just 5 miles away and on the same street billed the government an average fee of $42,632. Two hospitals in New York City varied by 321 percent what they charged for complicated asthma treatment, one billing an average of a little over $34,000 while the other charged an average of a little over $8,000. Columnist Charles Lane of The Washington Post wrote that Medicare reimburses power wheelchair suppliers $4,000 to $5,000 for a basic chair that costs the supplier $700. Just yesterday, in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, we had a hearing about the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Web site. Already, over $600 million has been spent on this messed up, convoluted, confusing system. It is going to cost billions to straighten it out and keep updating the technology. None of this is going for actual health care. It is just going to some well-connected government contractors who are getting rich at great expense to American taxpayers. What a great law this is, destroying jobs for average Americans but wonderful for lobbyists and government contractors. Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union said: How ironic that while the Affordable Care Act is being blamed for slowing job creation outside the beltway, the law is offering plenty of job opportunities to firms inside the beltway willing to promote it. How sad this is.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I first want to say that I rise in strong support of this bipartisan jobs and infrastructure legislation, and I would like to commend Chairman Shuster and Chairman Gibbs and Ranking Members Rahall and Bishop for working together to bring this very important bill to the floor today. This is one of the most fiscally responsible infrastructure bills that this Congress has ever seen. I think it is fair to say that in my 25 years of service in this body that I have one of the most fiscally conservative voting records possible, so I am proud to support this type of legislation. Every day tons of goods are transported across our waterways. Without basic infrastructure in place, much of these goods would be transported on our already overly congested highways. According to the National Waterways Foundation, a 15-barge tow can transport the same amount of goods as 1,050 tractor-trailer trucks. Moving goods on the water is also the most fuel efficient and environmentally sound method of transportation. In addition, this legislation streamlines project delivery, potentially saving the Federal Government and our taxpayers billions of dollars. While I would never support a project that is harmful to the environment, I do not think we should drag these projects out for years and years and spend megamillions of dollars on studies and drive up these costs to ridiculous levels. This legislation sets hard timelines and caps costs for studies that have to be completed for infrastructure projects. Because H.R. 3080 removes so much red tape and bureaucracy, it helps us complete these projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. This bill, as I said, is a fiscally responsible one. Not only does it not contain any earmarks, as has been mentioned, it deauthorizes $12 billion worth of inactive projects that are no longer needed or feasible, which offsets all of the new authorizations made in this legislation. This bill also authorizes the important flood control projects that we need to prevent natural disasters. We saw what can happen when Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago. That disaster caused an estimated $150 billion in damage, according to USA Today. We need to make smart investments today so we are not foolishly spending billions of dollars after a disaster strikes. I urge my colleagues to support this very conservative and reasonable legislation.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Alaska yielding me this time, and I rise in support of the amendment. Small businesses struggle to stay in business every day, and they should not have to compete against their government, on top of all of the other challenges they face. In fact, sometimes I think we should pin a medal on anybody who is able to survive today in small businesses. Yet every day in almost every congressional district, big government agencies are competing with small businesses. When the White House Conference on Small Business met in 1995, it listed unfair government competition with small businesses as one of the top issues. This is not a new problem. In fact, since the Eisenhower administration in 1955, it became official U.S. policy that: The Federal Government will not start or carry on any commercial activity to provide a service or product for its own use if such product or service can be procured from private enterprise through ordinary business channels. This is a service that can easily be provided by private small businesses, and we should support that. This amendment would simply require the Army Corps to take advantage of the private mapping and surveying services that are available instead of competing with them. I believe this is a very reasonable and responsible amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, you can never satisfy government's appetite for money and land; they always want more. Now we are $17 trillion in debt and are headed to $25 trillion in less than a decade under the best case scenario. Those are figures that are humanly incomprehensible; yet our estimates of our future unfunded pension liabilities are much, much higher. They are, probably, at least $75 trillion or more. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is the one that has put out these estimates, and they estimated recently that interest on the national debt will quadruple in less than 10 years to an astounding $857 billion in just 1 year. If we allow that to happen, the Federal Government could then pay only for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt--nothing for defense, national parks, interstate highways, and so forth. Obviously, future Congresses cannot or would not allow that to happen, so they will then come in with a combination of huge tax increases and a tremendous inflation of the currency. The fight we are in now is over a lot more than the ``Unaffordable Care Act.'' It is a battle for the economic survival of this Nation. Anyone who wants their Social Security or their Federal or military pensions in order to be able to buy anything--or buy much at all in the very near future--should be demanding much more fiscal conservatism now. We either bite some very painful bullets now or we face much more difficult times in the very near future that will make our present problems look small in comparison. We could end up with problems like Detroit has now, but multiplied all across this Nation. President Obama, when he was in the Senate, opposed raising the debt ceiling and said we shouldn't do it to our children and our grandchildren; and when we are in this war now over this spending, this battle for the economic survival of our Nation, Mr. Speaker, surely we do not want to ruin the future of our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the underlying continuing resolution to keep the government open, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time. This rule, and the bill it brings to the floor, also makes sure that people know that we, in the Congress, will not receive any type of exemption or special benefit under ObamaCare. For some reason, the national media has given the President a free pass by not calling on him to compromise, or even negotiate at all, to help keep the government open. The Republicans have compromised and have voted to fund the entire government except for only one bill-- ObamaCare. If a Republican President were refusing even to negotiate, he would be criticized to high heaven by the national media. We simply are trying to treat ordinary individuals the same way and give the same delay to individual Americans that was given to big business. I think this is a very reasonable and moderate approach that Republicans in the House have taken. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans in the House compromised and voted to fund everything in the entire Federal Government but ObamaCare. Yet the President refuses to compromise on anything, even just that one bill. If you think most of the national media is not biased, just consider the fact that they are not calling on the President to compromise at all. The national media apparently believes that House Republicans should be the only ones required to compromise. Then look, too, at the different treatment given Texas State Senator Wendy Davis' filibuster and the filibuster-like speech by Senator Ted Cruz. The elite national media made Senator Davis an overnight sensation and treated her as courageous and even heroic. But Senator Cruz has been blasted in every way by the liberals who control most of the media--a double standard that is both very unfair and very harmful to the Nation. If the Federal Government shuts down, it will be in large part because the national media for some reason feels the President has no obligation to compromise or moderate his views in any way.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Tennessean beloved by thousands of students and worshippers who look to him for spiritual guidance. Pastor Clarence Sexton has lead Temple Baptist Church in Powell for 25 years. When Pastor Sexton took over the church in 1988, the congregation consisted of a few hundred people. Today, the church has grown to more than 6,000 worshippers, and Pastor Sexton's role has expanded to Crown Bible College, where he serves as President. Pastor Sexton first found his calling to ministry in Blount County in my District, where he met his wife Mary Evelyn Rogers and first attended church at First Baptist Church of Maryville. He also served as head pastor at Greenback Memorial Baptist Church. In 1967, Pastor Sexton preached his first sermon on a radio broadcast. Decades later, he has lead Temple Baptist Church into the technological age, reaching thousands through audio, video, and the internet. I have attended Temple Baptist Church many times, and Pastor Sexton is one of most caring men I have ever known. It would be impossible to count the many people he has touched with his kindness, compassion, and grace during his time at Temple Baptist. I urge my colleagues to join me as I salute Pastor Clarence Sexton, and bring his service to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record. His calling as a pastor, friend, and leader will continue to inspire many more.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, before the Federal Government got into health care, medical care was cheap and almost everyone could afford it. Doctors even routinely made house calls. When Medicare was passed, it was predicted that after 25 years it would cost only $12 billion. Instead, it cost 10 times that much. This year, it will cost over $600 billion. All Federal medical programs have cost many times more than was estimated on the front end. Already, we read ObamaCare is going to cost at least two or three times more than it was estimated when it was passed. Federal medical programs make and have made a few people and companies very wealthy; however, they have made it so only multibillionaires can pay what is being charged for medical care. Howard Dean, a former Democratic National Chairman, says that ObamaCare will cause health care to be rationed. The Unaffordable Care Act is taking us toward lower quality, shortages, waiting periods, all at greater expense for medical care. It needs to be stopped before it makes our health care problems even worse than they now are.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, all over this country many thousands are not being hired because of the so-called Affordable Care Act, which is really unaffordable. Many thousands more are seeing their hours cut so they do not go over the 30-hour-per-week threshold. Someone said the new normal is now two 20-hour-a-week jobs. Now the State of Tennessee has had to notify 16,000 Tennesseans they can no longer have coverage under CoverTN, a low-cost health care plan for small businesses and the self-employed. The plan is being abolished because it does not meet all the bureaucratic requirements of ObamaCare. Senator Lamar Alexander said: The new health care law has destroyed an innovative State health insurance plan that is helping 16,000 Tennesseans afford health care coverage. When the President was selling ObamaCare to Americans, he said again and again that people who had insurance they liked could keep it. Despite the President's promises, Tennesseeans enrolled with CoverTN are among the thousands of Americans who are being forced to buy new, more expensive plans with much higher premiums because of the ``Unaffordable Care Act.''

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1541, the Common Sense in Compensation Act. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me this time. I also want to commend him for coming up with this very sensible, reasonable, moderate response in legislation to a problem that's been growing bigger and bigger with each passing year. As the previous speaker, the gentleman from Michigan, mentioned, in one recent 3-year period there were over $340 million worth of Federal bonuses given out. I didn't know about that figure but I have seen some other figures which relate to this legislation that I would like to mention at this time. A couple of years ago, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis completed a study showing that the average Federal employee received a salary and benefits totaling $119,982, while the average private sector employee made a salary and benefits of $59,909. In other words, the Federal salaries and benefits were approximately twice or double what people in the private sector were receiving. The Washington Examiner newspaper, in a lead editorial after that report came out, described these Federal salaries as ``scandalously higher'' than private salaries, and added: With the Federal deficit and national debt heading into the stratosphere, taxpayers can no longer afford to support such lucrative government compensation. Certainly, it's already been mentioned that our national debt is now approximately $17 trillion--a figure that almost no human being can really comprehend. At the height of the recession there was a front-page story in USA Today, which said: Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time--in pay and hiring--during a recession that has cost $7.3 million jobs in the private sector. The report in USA Today said that the ``highest-paid Federal employees are doing best of all.'' I read a report a few months ago that said 6 of the 10 wealthiest counties in this country were all suburban counties to Washington, D.C. In addition to much higher Federal salaries and benefits, Federal employees have the best pension plans in this country, while fewer than 20 percent of employees in the private sector even have any employer- provided pension plan other than Social Security. These very high pensions were started many years ago when Federal salaries often were lower than in the private sector. But that is certainly not the case today, when Federal salaries are averaging about twice what the average salary is in the private sector. Also, Federal employees are allowed to retire at younger ages. Almost everyone, I realize, Mr. Speaker, feels underpaid when you hear about these obscene, ridiculous salaries of CEOs and athletes and movie stars. But Federal employees need to realize that you're talking about just one-tenth of 1 percent of the people. Compared to about 96 to 97 percent of the American people, Federal employees are very fortunate to have their jobs, and are very well paid. I know from my experience with the Tennessee Valley Authority, where they've given out many bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, this situation will spiral completely out of control because Big Government can justify or rationalize almost anything.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. I will simply say that this is a good bill. This is good legislation to limit these bonuses to about 5 percent of these very high salaries. I hope all of my colleagues will support H.R. 1541, the Common Sense in Compensation Act.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Madam Chair, on rollcall No. 315 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, last week the 1,200 page farm bill was defeated. I'm told that the Senate's immigration bill is now 1,922 pages. The previous Speaker of this body, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Pelosi), famously said that we would have to pass the very misnamed Affordable Care Act, we would have to pass it before we could figure out or find out what was in it. The last issue of the Weekly Standard magazine includes an article entitled, ``Our Masters, the Bureaucrats.'' The article says that today there's only one Member of Congress for each 5,150 Federal bureaucrats and says that this bureaucracy is ``too insulated from the people.'' This gigantic bureaucracy has produced so many laws, rules, and regulations that they have not even designed a computer that could keep up with all of them, much less a human being. Almost everyone has violated a Federal law at some point, especially a tax law. An innocent mistake is not supposed to be criminal, but a zealous prosecutor can make almost anything criminal. A few days ago, a woman who described herself as a progressive or liberal Democrat and, thus, would favor all these regulations testified in one of my committees and said, ``at the time each rule was created, it made sense; but over time, the accretion, or accumulation, of rules and regulations ends up costing us money and frustrating the public.'' Our Federal Government has grown so big that it is now almost completely out of control, and the people are suffering because of it. Jobs are killed, small businesses go under, and on and on and on. I started this morning by mentioning the farm bill, so complicated that cost estimates ranged all the way from $500 billion to $1 trillion. We didn't even know how much it was going to cost. Everyone respects and appreciates farmers. We must help small farmers as much as we can. Small farmers are important for our quality of life and our economy. However, one part of the bill that I want to discuss here briefly this morning is the subsidy for crop insurance. Every other business in this country, small or large, pays 100 percent of their insurance on their own. These businesses do not expect or request subsidized Federal insurance. Right now, Federal taxpayers are paying for two-thirds of farmers' subsidies in Federal crop insurance. Most of these subsidies go to the biggest giants in agriculture. These subsidies also primarily benefit a very few multinational insurance companies. The biggest crop insurer is Wells Fargo. And several of these crop insurance giants are operated by foreign companies based in places like the Bahamas, Japan, and Switzerland. That's who the U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing. I'm not advocating doing away with the entire crop insurance program. However, the excessive amount of this subsidy just last year cost taxpayers $6 billion and was one of several reasons the farm bill went down to defeat. Actually, the farm bill should more accurately be called the food stamp bill. I think 20 percent of it dealt with farmers and 80 percent for food. But I did offer an amendment to the farm bill to eliminate premium subsidies from being paid on any Federal crop insurance policy with what is known as the harvest price option. Under the harvest price option, if the price of the covered crop increases between planting and harvest, the farmer's revenue guarantee is recalculated, using the higher harvest price. In other words, giving the farmer more money-- sometimes, significantly more money--than he expected when he first planted the crop. As a result, harvest price options can cause a farmer to receive much more revenue than was guaranteed at planting. According to the Congressional Budget Office, my amendment would have saved at least $7.7 billion over the next 10 years, and possibly even much more in years with a severe drought, such as the $6 billion last year. This amendment was endorsed by the Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Heritage Action, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and a slew of other fiscally conservative organizations, as well as the Environmental Working Group. Professor Bruce Babcock, a professor from Iowa State University who helped invent revenue coverage in the mid-1990s, has said: Crop insurance is not an insurance program. It's a social program. And, he says, because of how American agriculture works, it's a social program that helps the biggest agribusinesses the most. My amendment even got a tacit enforcement from the Farm Bureau because they realized this subsidy has now become too lucrative and too excessive. But the agribusiness lobby was afraid of my amendment and kept it from even being presented on the floor because they were almost certain it would pass. Mr. Speaker, we have to make changes in the future so too much tax money will not go to Cadillac crop insurance programs.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of this very fair rule which has allowed 172 amendments. I rise in strong support of the amendment by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), which would accelerate the paced withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, the American people do not want forever wars that now have lasted three or four times longer than World War II. Afghanistan has simply become little more than a gigantic money pit, with President Karzai and his cronies ripping off American taxpayers for billions of dollars. President Karzai has made it very clear that even he wants us out, but, of course, he still wants us to send him our billions. It is long past the time. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there never should have been a time in the first place for needless wars that keep resulting in the killing and maiming of young American soldiers. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have always been more about money and power than about any real threat to the American people. William F. Buckley changed his views before he died and came out strongly against the war in Iraq. What he said in 2005 regarding the war in Iraq can be said about Afghanistan today. Mr. Buckley said: A respect for the power of the United States is engendered by our success in engagements in which we take part. A point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose, but misapplication of pride. Mr. Speaker, as other speakers have pointed out before me, the underlying bill calls for a spending of $85 billion, or $7 billion a month, for the war in Afghanistan. That is too much. It is time to bring our troops home.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to honor one of the most distinguished men in my home state of Tennessee. Dr. William M. Novick has helped many, many thousands of children all over the world in more than 30 countries. He is someone for whom I have the greatest respect. Dr. Novick currently serves as the Paul Nemir Endowed Chair of International Child Health, Department of Surgery at the University of Tennessee. I cannot think of a more capable or distinguished person to have in this role. During the past 20 years, Dr. Novick has performed more than 6,000 pediatric heart surgeries on the world's poor. Last year alone, he performed more pediatric heart surgeries than the Mayo Clinic. This year, he has devoted his time and talents toward the Caribbean, performing more than 100 surgeries on Dominican and Haitian children. Dr. Novick is currently taking more than 400 cases per year in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and the Middle East, and he has even operated on children of Chernobyl. Mr. Speaker, Dr. William M. Novick is an example of American grace and generosity all over the world. It is fitting he has found a place at the University of Tennessee, home of the Volunteers. I call his accomplishments as the Paul Nemir Endowed Chair of International Child Health, Department of Surgery at the University of Tennessee to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record. I hope to see Dr. Novick's work continue for many years to come.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to talk about a couple of unrelated topics, except that they both are examples of officials in positions of power overreacting to situations and making very bad decisions as a result. Mr. Speaker, when I read that a 5-year-old boy in Calvert County, Maryland, had been suspended from school for 10 days simply for showing a toy cap gun to his friend on the school bus, I was shocked and saddened. I became even sadder when I read the little boy was questioned for over 2 hours by school officials before his parents were called, and the boy uncharacteristically wet his pants during this interrogation. His mother said later this boy was all boy and all about rocks, frogs, and cowboys. This interrogation was ridiculous, and a 10-day suspension was ridiculous overkill. I wondered if these school officials who did this to this little boy had lost their common sense and human decency. I am now pleased that the situation has been partially rectified by cutting the 10-day suspension back to the 3 days he has already served, and I hope the parents' request to remove the incident from the boy's school records are granted. Rigid one-size-fits-all solutions almost never work and frequently lead to very bad, very unfair solutions. I hope that school boards all across this country will at least come to their senses and do away with so-called ``zero tolerance policies,'' especially when it comes to very small children, and especially 5-year-old boys who simply want to be boys. A second topic that I wanted to mention today, Mr. Speaker, is about the Dodd-Frank law. The Dodd-Frank law has produced many thousands of pages of rules, regulations, and red tape in a misguided attempt to rein in abuses by some of the Nation's biggest banks; however, as is the case with most Federal regulations, this law ended up hurting the smallest banks in this Nation and, thus, helping the big banks to get even bigger. Listen to these words from a columnist from the Washington Times: It's been 3 years since the Senate passed the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. So far, the effects are not what Washington promised. More than 200 smaller banks have failed in the wake of Dodd-Frank. Does it comfort them that politicians proclaim smaller banks were exempt from the market distortions lawmakers created? Since community banks are being forced to stay below the asset threshold forced on them by Dodd-Frank, they are lending less and making less. This further strains banks and limits job growth. We have learned once again that whenever Washington announces new regulations, hold on to your wallet. Increasing Federal regulations, Mr. Speaker, always end up helping extremely Big Business, but makes it even harder for our smallest businesses to survive. We have this Big Government, Big Business duopoly in this Nation, and I hope those who continue to vote for bigger and bigger government realize that all they're really helping are the extremely big giants in any industry and they're hurting the small- and medium-sized businesses. I hope that this trend will at least slow down so we don't run more small- and medium-sized businesses out of existence in this Nation. Now, finally, as I hadn't intended to say anything, Mr. Speaker, but my friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), spoke about the very unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was 100 percent correct. I admire his courage in speaking out in the way that he has done. Unfortunately, the Armed Services Committee is about to produce a bill that continues this war funding at the rate of $85 billion for the war in Afghanistan just to continue in other overseas situations like in Iraq where we happen to have had the most deadly month in May that we've had in several years. The situations are not getting better, and this country will be far better off when we start putting our own people and our own country first and stop trying to be the policemen for the world and start doing things that need to be done in this country.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, some people and companies are getting rich off Medicare. Washington Post columnist Charles Lane wrote about power wheelchair suppliers who are reimbursed as much as $5,000 for a basic chair that costs them $700 and sells at ordinary retail for $2,500. In addition, hospitals are charging wildly varying prices for the same procedures. George Washington University Hospital averages $115,000 for a patient on a ventilator while Providence Hospital in the same city averages $53,000 for the same service. In St. Augustine, Florida, one hospital typically billed $40,000 to remove a gallbladder, using minimally invasive surgery, and another hospital in Orange Park, Florida, charged $91,000. In one hospital in Dallas, the average bill for treating ordinary pneumonia was $14,610 while another charged $48,000. I do not want to see one poor person denied any necessary medical treatment. However, we should not treat Medicare and Medicaid as holy and untouchable and allow many hospitals, medical providers, and suppliers to get filthy rich off government medicine.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege to visit Puerto Rico three times over the years and have enjoyed many visits and meetings with citizens and officials of Puerto Rico when they have come to Washington. I believe that Puerto Rico is a beautiful island, but more importantly it has many wonderful people. I have been involved in the issue of statehood for Puerto Rico for many years. While I love Puerto Rico and its people, I do not believe any place should become another state unless an overwhelming majority of its citizens support statehood. This is certainly not the case in Puerto Rico at this time. In fact, support for statehood in Puerto Rico has consistently remained at around less than half the population. I appreciate very much the contributions of Puerto Rico and its citizens to our Country, and I especially admire and respect the service of many Puerto Ricans in the U.S. military. I hope that the U.S. and Puerto Rico continue to have the closest possible ties. When the economy of Puerto Rico is strong, trade with the U.S. increases creating jobs in both places. What is good for the U.S. is generally also good for Puerto Rico, and vice versa. I am always willing to consider and occasionally even support the right of the citizens of Puerto Rico to have referenda or plebiscites on the statehood question. It would be foolish and too expensive to have such a vote every year, but certainly I would not object to having such a vote once every few years. However, my main goal would be to make sure that such a plebiscite be conducted in the fairest way possible. I, and many, many others, felt that the most recent plebiscite was skewed in a way to tilt the election toward statehood. Now, I am told both the House of Representatives and Senate of Puerto Rico have passed a resolution stating that the plebiscite held on November 6, 2012 portrayed a false majority in favor of statehood and prevented an accurate vote on the option of commonwealth status. I want to make absolutely sure that any future plebiscite on the question of statehood be conducted in the fairest way possible and certainly not in a way biased toward any particular outcome. I want to help do everything possible so that everyone can work together to help foster economic growth for those of us in the 50 states, as well as for our friends, the citizens of Puerto Rico. The Senate and The House of Representatives of Puerto Rico

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation and commend Chairman Camp and Mr. McClintock. The Full Faith and Credit Act authorizes the Treasury Secretary to make only the principal and interest payments on our national debt if the United States reaches its current national debt limit of more than $16.4 trillion. The legislation also holds harmless Social Security benefits and requires a weekly report from the Treasury Department regarding the interest and principles payments it has made due to our ever-growing national debt. As almost everyone knows, our national debt is more than $16.4 trillion, a number that is mind boggling and almost unimaginable. Our Federal Government has grown so large that trying to save a nickel for every dollar we spend is difficult. To put $16.4 trillion in perspective, this equates to more than $111,500 in debt per taxpayer. If you stacked $16.4 trillion in one dollar bills, it would stack to the moon 4 times. If we fail to get our spending under control, it will not just be our children and grandchildren who will suffer but everyone hoping to retire in five to ten years as well. If we continue on this path, we will soon be printing so much money that pensions will be worth very little. In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on February 5th of this year projecting the United States will be making a total of more than $224 billion in interest payments on our national debt. By 2023 it is estimated we will be making $857 billion in interest payments on our national debt, almost quadrupling our yearly interest payment. This legislation is a thoughtful, creative way to not dig ourselves further into this hole. We cannot continue our reckless spending ways and expect our creditors to continue funding a Nation that borrows money just to make its own interest payments.

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee

Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, recently the Halls Shopper News in my district profiled a long-time friend of mine, Billy Stokes. Billy is a very patriotic American and someone I really admire and respect. This article is a great tribute to him, and I call it to the attention of my Colleagues and other readers of the Record. [From the Halls/Fountain City Shopper News, April 22, 2013] Working-Class Hero (By Betty Bean) Billy Stokes was playing quarter tonk with a guy named Moses when he had a sudden flash of clarity. A 1970 Rule High School graduate, Billy had gotten a job tending bar at Sam & Andy's after the University of Tennessee had invited him to take a quarter off, and somehow that quarter stretched out into a year and a half as he whiled away slow afternoons between lunch and happy hour with his friends. ``It dawned on me that in 18 months, none of us had moved an inch. So I went back to school and got my degree,'' he said. Forty-plus years later, he's a lawyer with a reputation for being aggressive, competent, thorough, and for winning some huge settlements. A politically active Republican who doesn't mind occasionally going off the reservation--like when he supported Madeline Rogero for mayor in a nonpartisan city race--he's got a Rule High School baseball cap on one side of the shelf behind his desk and a Jellico cap on the other side, In his desk drawer sits a picture, soon to be framed, of the tiny shotgun house in Lonsdale where he grew up. He's also got a picture of the Howard Johnson's where his mother waited tables and the ET&WNC truck his father drove for a living. On another wall there are pictures of him with presidents, senators and governors, including several from his stints as state commissioner of employment security and as special assistant to the governor during the Don Sundquist administration, including one of him dressed in full Santa Claua drag sitting on the back of his Harley-Davidson. ``I'm an old school dude. I like to ride motorcycles, go fishing and am pretty much true to my southern Appalachian roots. I'm probably a typical Scots-Irish male. Whether you got money or I got money, we're all even. Doesn't matter who you are. ``Redneck? That's all right with me, Pretentious is probably not something anybody calls me--I hope. RINO (Republican In Name Only)? I don't care. Madeline Rogero was by far the best candidate in that field of three. A chief executive needs to be a competent manager.'' Growing up His family originally came from Saxton, Ky., just across the state line from Jellico, before they moved to Knoxville. His mother, Thelma, is 89 and still living independently. His father, J.P., died in 1999 and was a truck driver for a company called East Tennessee/Western North Carolina--ET-WNC. ``We called it `Eat Taters and Wear No Clothes'.'' When he was little, he spent weekends in Jellico with his grandparents while his mother waited tables in the D&M, which formally stood for Davenport and Miller, but was popularly called the Devil's Mansion. He's the youngest of three children, and Stokes says his family was faring much better financially by the time he hit adolescence. ``Jimmy Hoffa negotiated a national contract for the Teamsters, and I was the only kid at home, so I had it a lot easier than my brother and sister. I grew up working-class and that's what we need more of today.'' So how did this son of a Teamster become a Republican? ``You'll have to remember--Hoffa didn't have much use for the Kennedys. A lot of Teamsters were Republicans at that time.'' After he finished up at Rule, Stokes enrolled in Maryville College to play football, but injured his ``good'' shoulder. He'd already had surgery on his left shoulder after his senior season. That forced a decision: ``Being short and slow, I decided to quit football and go to UT.'' Becoming a cop After his Sam & Andy's epiphany, he went back to school full-time, supporting himself by working at the General Products warehouse. He graduated in 1975 with a major in psychology and minors in political science and sociology, and started thinking about what to do next. Like so many Lonsdale boys before him, he became a cop. Theondrad ``Sarge'' Jackson, a retired sergeant from both the U.S. Army and the Knoxville Police Department and proprietor of Sarge's BBQ on Texas Avenue (famous for its C'mon Back Smoke) helped him get hired under a federal program at KPD. He was there for less than two years when the new safety director decided to eliminate the program. ``I got laid off in June of '76 and started law school in September of '76. That's when I met Richard Bean.'' He counts the director of the Richard Bean Juvenile Detention Center as one of the three most influential men in his life, along with his father and longtime Republican political boss Loy Smith. Two old police officers--Rass Scruggs and Calvin Housewright, recommended that Bean hire Stokes while he was in law school. ``I benefitted from the good ol' boy system. I worked 3-11 and Juvenile Judge Richard Douglass gave me the key to his office with his law library and I'd sneak over to the court side to study. During finals, Richard would go home and eat supper and then come in and work for me while I'd go sit in the judge's office and study. We were on the quarter system, so we'd go through this every two or three months, and Richard would take care of me because he wanted me to get through law school. We were kindred spirits. I brag about working full-time through law school, but if Richard hadn't helped me, I never could have done it.'' Stokes got his law degree in 1979 and joined the Army JAG Corps, where he served three years. Another thing Bean did for him was to introduce him to Bay Crawford, a schoolteacher from Roanoke who worked at Shannondale Elementary School. They've been married for 33 years, have two daughters, three granddaughters and a grandson on the way. They are also active members of Second Presbyterian Church. Entering politics Stokes came back home in 1982 and went to work for Bond, Carpenter and O'Connor, and became president of the 5th District Republican Club (at Bean's urging). In 1984, Bean and Loy Smith urged Stokes to run for county GOP chair. He served nearly four years. ``It required me to be a lot more partisan than I normally am. I'm an old school conservative and I believe that compromise is not only possible but beneficial. Howard Baker and Bob Dole are my heroes.'' He has good memories of his two years with Sundquist, particularly of working with leaders of both parties on the 1996 Workers Compensation Act, and of taking on the state's tire recycling program. His favorite memory is the time he spent as Tennessee's point person on the Ocoee Olympic events at a time when the Atlanta Olympics committee was considering pulling the plug on kayaking and canoeing. He returned to Knoxville in 1997, and two things happened that altered his world: Loy Smith died suddenly, and Stokes' law partner, Daryl Fansler, a Democrat, ran for chancellor. Stokes supported Fansler, upsetting many Republicans. After Fansler departed for the bench, Stokes put together the highly successful firm that has become Stokes, Williams, Sharp & Davies. In 2004, he took on something that he calls ``a serious miscalculation,'' running against state Rep. Jamie Hagood for state Senate and losing badly. ``I'd suffered a pretty serious injury the year before in a fall-down, and I decided that life is short and you better grab it fast. I had some people encouraging me, and a lot of great help and I'd always wanted to serve in that capacity. ``But I ran an inept campaign. I wish I hadn't gotten beat quite so badly and I let a lot of good people down, but otherwise I've moved on.'' And then he grinned: ``Tim Hutchison got beat worse.''