Artur Davis

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, it is probably somewhat appropriate that I follow my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson) because, like some other Members in this body, I passed from being a child to being a grown man under the Reagan Presidency during those 8 years. And it is appropriate and I am honored to stand here today as part of the great bipartisan tradition in this country to express my condolences to the Reagan family. This is not a moment for party. It is a moment for solemn reflection about America and about someone who cared very deeply about America. Make no mistake, there are some on my side of the aisle who, including myself, have profound disagreements with the direction of what has been called the Reagan Revolution. All of us in this Chamber do not share the same vision or the same viewpoints on a number of the President's policies during the 1980s, but this is a time to give him his due, and this is a time to remember what the best tradition of Ronald Reagan's conservatism meant. One of my strongest memories of Ronald Reagan was one of his last great speeches when he went to the Berlin Wall about 24 years after John F. Kennedy went there, and he said symbolically to Mikhail Gorbachev, then the leader of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev, if you are serious about reform, if you are serious about freedom, come to this place, open this gate, and tear down this wall. And somehow 15 months later the wall was gone. Ronald Reagan was fortunate that he lived to see successes on his own terms, he lived to see the wall come down in Berlin. And I have to believe this: We can debate as historians what caused the Soviet empire to fall without a shot being fired. We can debate as people who follow history what caused the Soviet Union to implode. But we ought to be generous enough this week to say that Ronald Reagan's courage was a part of that. His willingness to stand up to the Iron Curtain was no small part in the dismantling. How do we honor Ronald Reagan? There are different opinions in this Chamber about how we do that. Let me close my time today by giving just one Member's opinion. President Reagan spoke very eloquently of a shining city on a hill. If we are to ever build a shining city on a hill that is America, we have to recognize that a shining city has no hollows, a shining city has no walls, and a shining city is one where all of our people somehow have a foundation and a chance for growth. Ronald Reagan's conservatism, properly understood, oriented to the needs of our times, ought to mean at least this: It ought to mean that we believe in one community in America. It ought to mean that we believe in a community that is strong enough to raise up all of our people and strong enough to reconcile all of our differences. So I end today by saying that whatever our differences with our friends on the other side of the aisle, whatever our differences with the direction of the 1980s, we ought to be secure in the sense that we are all Americans, and we ought to be secure in the sense of freedom that Ronald Reagan spoke about that day in Berlin, because there are all kinds of walls that still need to come down, and to truly salute this man's legacy, that ought to be our business today.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, and I am always glad to see my friends from Florida and Ohio with all the promise that you all represent for this institution. Let me just share an anecdote with you and then talk about that for a moment. I was in rural Alabama, in my home district, about close to exactly a year ago now. It was mid-June of 2003. And I had the honor of being the commencement Speaker at Judson College in Perry County, Alabama. I remember a woman walked up to me after I had done the commencement speech, and she had tears in her eyes. I made the reasonable assumption that she was tearful because her child had graduated that day and they were tears of happiness. She walked up to me and said something that has stuck in my mind for the last year. She said, ``Mr. Davis, I have a husband who is in Iraq right now as a member of the Alabama National Guard, and our daughter did graduate today. My husband, her father, could not be here because he is serving our country.'' And then she went on to say, and she said it brokenly, in the midst of her tears, she went on to say, ``Every morning I get up and I turn my television on CNN and I see the little crawler at the bottom of the screen, two Americans killed, three Americans killed.'' And she said, ``Every morning, when I see that, something just jumps up from my stomach to my throat, and I remember that they always notify the next of kin before they make a release of the names. And that gives me relief for a moment. But until I see those names, I always have the lingering sense of dread.'' That is what she said to me. Mind you, that was a year ago. That was before what has happened in April, it was before what has happened in May of this year, it was before Fallujah, it was before another 300 some Americans had lost their lives. That woman still gets up every morning, and I suspect if I ran into her tomorrow it would be the same conversation. When you talk about Alabama, when you talk about one of the conservative States in this country, there is a myth in this city that people have made up their minds about the war. There is a myth in this city that people who live in the Alabamas of the world have made up their minds. Let me tell you, people in my State and I think people all around the south are searching for some wisdom. They are searching for some guidance. They want enough humility from this city and from the institutions of power in this city to recognize that we are struggling and we are trying to find our way. These are not easy questions by any stretch of the imagination. We know the basics. We know that we have a significant investment of forces in a faraway land and that we are losing our men and women. We know that we have made a commitment, and we know that we are not a country that shirks from commitments once we make them. At the same time, we know that there are so many uncertainties. On June 30, there will be a transfer of power. We do not know what that transfer of power will beget. As I have told so many people who live in my district, there should be no expectation on July 1 that soldiers will be drawn down, that large numbers of soldiers will leave. We do not know what will happen if this new government of 33 people is attacked or falls under siege in the next 6 months. We do not know what will happen if Iraq has elections and they elect a government that is hostile to the United States and we are invited to leave. What would we do at that point? What are our interests at this point in Iraq? Or to put it more basically, under what circumstances will we stay and under what circumstances will we begin to think about going? Those are the questions that the people that you represent in south Florida and the people you represent in central Ohio and the people I represent in west and central Alabama are wondering about today. They are searching for a little bit of humility and a little bit of guidance. There are two labels that get tossed around in this town a lot, pro- war and anti-war; and it strikes me that this, of all conflicts, this, of all foreign policy crises, may be a little too subtle for those simple terms. Like you two gentlemen, and almost all of our colleagues, I spent Monday attending Memorial Day events. And on Monday morning in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I had a chance to stand as close as I am to you right now in proximity to the widow of a gentleman who died in Iraq. His whole family was there. And something occurred to me. What do you say to a woman in that circumstance? She really did not want to hear from me about politics. She really did not want to hear about Bush or Rumsfeld or Tenet. I do not know if she wanted to hear anything about policy or matters of state at all. But I do know that she wanted a little bit of comfort, a little bit of solace, a little bit of understanding. There are so many families like that. That is what they want from us. They want some sense that we empathize with their pain. And we do. There is not a one of us who sits in this institution who does not 100 percent support the men and women who are fighting there. Because at this point they are not fighting for a policy. They are fighting for survival. They do not pick up The New York Times to see if Bush is up or Kerry is up. They are simply trying to stay alive for a few more hours. And a lot of them, by the way, are younger than we are. We are three of the youngest people in this institution. A lot of these people are far younger than we are. So the terms pro-war and anti-war, what do they mean? We have questions in this country, and what we need right now is a little bit of candor, and what we need is a little bit of direction. We have to get past this obsessive focus on personalities. I, like most of you this afternoon, watched the news reports on George Tenet. I do not know the outgoing CIA Director. I do not know if you all do or not, but I do not know him. This does not seem to me to be about George Tenet. It did not seem to me to be about Condoleeza Rice when my fellow Alabaman testified before the 9/11 Commission. It did not seem to me to be about even Don Rumsfeld when we saw the excesses that happened at those prison camps. It is about something larger: What kind of country are we? What kind of values do we have? And how do we operate our institutions to reflect those values? Those are questions that are deeper and more abiding than anything that we are debating from day to day in the halls of public opinion and in the halls of this Congress. So I would just say that what the people need from the President of the United States is enough humility to acknowledge that even the President does not know all the answers. We are close to the 60th anniversary of Normandy, and I do not know how many of my colleagues know the story of the letter General Eisenhower wrote. General Eisenhower, as he was contemplating sending thousands of young men to their fate, wrote a letter that was meant to address a failure, a failure that he personally might not have survived. And the letter said something to the effect that this is my responsibility alone. If there is an error that has been made, it is my error. That seems like more than 60 years ago. It seems like light years ago, sometimes, in this town. Because as you two know very well, sometimes we occupy a town where ``I am sorry'' is the last thing people will say. ``I am responsible'' is the last thing people will say. Or, at best, ``I take responsibility'' is what you say and not what you do. So I think as we move deeper into this election year, as we contemplate the loss of life in Iraq, we all need to find some way to appeal to the better angels in our nature and some way to be true to our spirit and our values. And if we do that, we will find our way home, literally and figuratively. We will find our way to a policy that works for our country, a policy that is oriented in the best of our instincts.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And the difference is, if the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, it strikes me that in the 1930s and the 1940s the leaders of the world had a fair amount of confidence in the people that they served. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had a certain belief that the people they served were capable of rising to the occasion and that they would respond to candor and common sense. Sometimes in this television sound-bite era that we live in, we do not have enough confidence in the people of our country. We have a mind-set that we cannot tell the people in our country full information, and that we cannot let them know a commitment may be a long one because they may not have faith. We cannot let them know the money is going to be three times what we say it is because they may not have faith. We cannot let them know all of these uncertainties because we fear they may not have faith. I have spent a fair amount of time in my life trying cases before juries, and I have won them and I have lost them; but I can confidently tell Members that every jury that I have ever appeared in front of I felt did the right thing in terms of what the facts were, whether it was what I advocated or not. I have that same kind of faith in the American people, that if we tell the American people the facts, I have confidence in our ability to apply those facts to policy and to apply our values to those policies; and maybe we need more of a sense of confidence. Maybe if the administration had had more confidence in the quality of our people, we would have had a clearer, more accurate path painted on where we are going in Iraq. We all know from the work both of you do, we know there is a reason why certain facts were not emphasized. What was the old saying from the movie, you cannot handle the truth, a movie back in the 1990s, there was a feeling and fear that maybe the people just could not handle the truth. I do not know about other Members, but I think they can.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, that sparks another thought I had which I think is worth noting. There was another principle that those leaders had, and it was the principle of sacrifice. They had the moral authority and the willingness to say to this country this cause is so mighty, we have to sacrifice. Contrast that with about a year ago. We were here when all three of us very strongly felt if we were going to continue to have to pay the cost of the war in Iraq and have to bear that burden, maybe it was time to suspend the tax cut for just the top 1 percent of Americans, or maybe just for people earning more than $1 million, and pay for the war and occupation with that money. Now that is sacrifice. It is proportionate sacrifice. It is going to those most able to bear it instead of those least able to bear it, and you are saying that our cause is so strong and righteous we are going to come to the American people and ask them to forgo something. It would have meant something a year ago if the President had done that. If the President had come to the body and said, I care so deeply about this cause, I am willing to abandon one of my own programs, I am willing to walk away from this tax cut for people earning a million dollars a year or more, not because I want to, but because this is a time of sacrifice. That kind of inspiration I think would have moved this country and would have produced an overwhelming response from people on both sides of the aisle. But somehow we have entered a zone where we talk the language of sacrifice at Memorial Day events and events around the country, and we will talk the language again on the Normandy anniversary on June 6; we talk the language of sacrifice, but we run from the substance of sacrifice.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, there is another historical point worth making. None of us were here, we were all too young, but we have all read about the Bay of Pigs in 1961 in Cuba. For some of the younger people listening that do not know what the Bay of Pigs was, it was a failed effort to invade Cuba back in 1961. Lives were lost, and it was seen as a dismal policy mistake. John Kennedy had every reason politically to say this was a plan conceived by the previous President. He had every reason to say that this was something my CIA director foisted on me, this was something I did not want to do, and the military pushed it down my throat. He could have fired a number of people. President Kennedy said something that is worth repeating. He said, ``I am the responsible officer of the government. Defeat is an orphan, victory has a thousand fathers.'' That rings across the last 43 years. Defeat is always an orphan. It is something that happened. I did not do it; it happened. It is always something that no one wants to claim. Whereas victory, everyone wants to share in that and say, I did my part, you did your part. We come back again to the same place. What I think so many of our people want is enough humility from up high, enough humility from the throne that we can conceive the possibility of error. World War II is a wonderful analogy. We got some things wrong in World War II. The greatest President of all time, in my opinion, Franklin Roosevelt, signed the order that led to the internment of Japanese Americans. A Supreme Court that consisted of some of the finest jurists we have ever had approved that internment of Japanese Americans. We all know that was perfectly wrong now. If men as great as Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Jackson and Hugo Black could be that wrong, maybe it should occur to us today that some of the individuals who sit in circles in power today could be wrong. Again, there is a lesson about humility to be learned there.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I thank the gentlewoman, and let me certainly thank my colleagues from Ohio and Florida for their vision in putting this hour together and for making it a regular part of the congressional calendar and the congressional schedule. As I listened to the three of you before I had a chance to participate in this dialogue, something struck me. I am normally one who tends to be resistant to too many political analyses that rest on generation. I am one of these people who thinks that people try to load a whole lot of analytical content into that term when it should not always be there, but this is something that occurs to me from listening to all three of you. Maybe because we are new to this body, maybe because all four of us are relatively new to public life, maybe because all four of us are still young people, we still have a sense of the possible. We still have a sense of how the power in this institution and the power in this government can still be used to make better the lives of some of our people. Sometimes when I listen to our friends and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I honestly think one of the most fundamental differences is that they do not have a very strong sense of the possible. They pretty much want to take this country as we found it. They want to take the divisions in this country as we found them, and they are pretty much happy to get by with that. Maybe what separates us as younger Democrats and as Democrats is that we have a profound sense of what is possible. As I listened to the gentlewoman from California and I think about health care in this country, we do have an enormous amount still to do. One day some historian is going to look back at the fact that 4 years ago, we had a $122 billion surplus, and we somehow did not manage to spend a dime of it on providing health insurance for working Americans who need it, who are playing by the rules, who are doing everything that the system demands of them, and yet they somehow do not have health insurance. We had a $122 billion surplus and could not spend any of that largesse on addressing the problem of the uninsured. Here we are 3 years later, we have a $521 billion, and climbing, deficit. We are spending all of that money, and we are still not spending a dime of it on addressing the problem of the working uninsured. That is something that a lot of the young people who I hope are listening in their college classroom and in their college dorms tonight will hold us accountable for. That we have had an opportunity to spend an enormous amount of the Treasury in this country, and we have never touched this problem. Understand something very basic about the problem of the uninsured. Sometimes when we listen to the debate, we almost think that the uninsured are all poor people. This is the reality. A significant number of people who are uninsured are people who are working and people who are earning between $50,000 and $75,000. Not poor by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of these are people who are working as young lawyers. They are people who are working as young legal assistants. They are people who by no means are what we think of as being on the margins of society. So I would simply make this point tonight when we talk about the obligation that we have as young leaders, one of the most fundamental obligations that we have is to maybe finish some of the business that some other people have left for us, to maybe find some way to deal with some of these problems that have been sitting and festering. Forty-two million Americans are uninsured. That means 42 million Americans are essentially one health crisis away from seeing their financial security wiped out. Again, my sense of the possible leads me to think that we can do something about that, and my sense of the possible leads me to believe that if we do not address this problem and we simply let it fester, that we are going to wake up one day in America, in this wonderful land of opportunity and we are going to see that we can split in two and become two Americas. We become one America for people who are well endowed and people who are wealthy. We become one America for those who are without. And I will close on this point. A lot of us are institutional lawyers. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) I know is an attorney who practiced very ably in California. Unfortunately, in our profession as lawyers, we kind of accept the fact that the more money one has, the better legal service they can get. It is just something that we accept. When it comes to accounting, as we are just finishing the tax season, the quality of one's bank account determines the quality of the accountants that they get. I hope that we never let ourselves lapse into a world where the quality of one's health and their capacity to fight the ravages of disease is a function of how much money they have got, because if we ever enter that kind of a world, we have entered a world that is fundamentally less fair than what we have had and we have entered a world that is less generous than what we need it to be. And I would just in conclusion say this: I know that all four of us are fans of Robert F. Kennedy and the vision that he had for America. He was fond of saying, when he concluded a lot of his speeches, ``Some men see things as they are and say why? I see things that never were and say why not?'' And I think that is our challenge as young Democrats, not just to see the things in this country that trouble us and raise our hands and say why, but to see a better and fairer world and to say why not?

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for raising the issue. One of the interesting things that we often hear in this town and we hear it from the other side of the aisle is we cannot justify their commitment, we are told, by the amount of money that we are spending. A lot of our colleagues and friends on the Republican side of the aisle say we care very deeply about health care, we care very deeply about education, we are just not spending a lot of money on those things and one cannot judge our commitment by that. Most American families, I think, realize that people spend money on the things they value. They do that in their homes and they do that in the United States Congress. We are steadily walking away from commitments that are decades-long commitments to improving the quality of our educational system, improving the quality of health care. We made a commitment, or our predecessors did, because none of us were here. Not a single one of us voted on Leave No Child Behind. But before we got here in this institution, this House passed a bill called Leave No Child Behind and made a commitment to improve education in this country. That commitment has never been funded adequately. It has never been funded to set the original vision that was laid out. And on health care, the prescription drug bill that all four of us voted against, incidentally, last November, this is a bill which has an enormous price tag. It is a bill that will leave large numbers of seniors still without prescription drug coverage. And in so many areas, and this is what is striking I think to a lot of our constituents, they hear about the obligations we are undertaking abroad. They hear about the commitment that we are making to improve the lives of people around the world. What they do not see is a commensurate commitment here at home. And I think we have to recognize that if we want our country to move forward, if we want to fix a firmer and better foundation for our people, that is a matter of resources. It is incredible that we have run up a $521 billion deficit and we have left so many national problems untouched. Now we know why. It is because we have made it a priority to cut taxes by $3 trillion over the last 3 years. We know why, because we have made a commitment to engage in so many crises around the world when there are festering crises here at home. We know why. It is because we frankly have not had our priorities straight in this institution. I strongly believe that we have to identify the unfinished business of America, and as we move into this congressional and Presidential election, maybe there is one very clear and simple challenge we ought to issue to our colleagues and ideological opponents on the other side of the aisle. A very simple question: They are fixated on fixing the world and remaking the world. We have to be fixated on remaking America. Because what are we fighting for abroad? If we are fighting for anything, it is for a vision of the promise of democracy. Well, if we believe in that promise of democracy and we believe that the promise of democracy means expanded opportunity, then surely we have to fight for that here at home. All of us, I know, have a great deal of admiration for John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy was a great Democratic President who believed that we can be bold in asserting our interests around the world, but that we can be equally bold in asserting our vision here at home. You would almost think you could not have it both ways. You would almost think you could not do both of those things, if you listened to some people in this town. We have to have enough confidence and enough belief in the better powers of our government and the better angels of our nature to try to transform America. I will make this last point. There is a reason, I believe, why so many of our people are disengaged and not voting; why so many young people, why so many Americans who are struggling economically do not even want to participate. It is because they often do not hear this institution speaking to their values. They often do not hear their needs and their concerns being addressed. They turn on the TV at 10 o'clock at night and hear us talking about a fair tax that is never going to be, some kind of a complicated esoteric tax thing that is never going to happen. They turn on the television in the middle of the day and they hear us talking about renaming bridges and post offices. They turn on the TV late at night and they hear us talking about cutting veterans benefits, the day we went to war in Iraq. So much of what they hear us say in this institution does not resonate, it does not seem a part of their lives. I think if we want to get people to vote, if we want to get people engaged, then they need to hear something of themselves in this place. They need to hear something of the echoes that are going all around American living rooms echoing in this chamber. It is a very real question of relevance, making the things that our people care about a part of our priorities in setting government.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the nation of Israel, the lone beacon of democracy in a region roiling with tyranny and oppression. In the ongoing war on terrorism, we have no firmer friend than the nation of Israel, and as we seek a lasting peace in the Middle East, we can have no stronger ally. Today we celebrate Israel's Day of Independence in 1948. For more than 50 years our two great nations have forged a bond built on a shared vision of democracy. Our similar ideals and like minded determination protect the freedoms of our citizens and ensure the fundamental principles of equality and pluralism. It is a fact that Israel has had to live in the shadow of danger because it has too often been surrounded by enemies. That insecure existence has demanded the sacrifice of numerous Israeli soldiers, who have fought to keep Israel independent and free in the face of war and terrorism. Today we also call to mind the victims of the attacks Israel has weathered since its' inception. The dead and the wounded remind us of Israel's valor and her willingness to protect the basic aspirations of democracy: human dignity, individual rights, and religious freedom. Today, Mr. Speaker, is the day we celebrate Israel's Day of Independence, and pronounce our steadfastness to her survival and prosperity.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, a lot of us on the Congressional Black Caucus and a lot of us who sit on this side of the aisle are used to being called ``tax and spend liberals.'' It is a mantra that our friends on the other side throw around a lot. I do not know about the gentleman from Maryland, but if it makes you a liberal to stand for full funding for No Child Left Behind, and if it makes you a liberal to stand up for a revitalized Federal commitment to Medicaid, if it makes you a liberal to care about the plight of some of our children and some people who are living in public housing, I know some of us who are willing to wear that tag. We hear a lot of talk during this debate about the tough choices that the Republican majority want to make. I have heard a lot of speakers come to the well of this House and say, we have to be courageous, we have to make these tough spending cuts. I do not think it is courageous, I say to the gentleman, to cut $5 billion over the next 5 years in income subsistence programs at a time when so many children are falling back into poverty. I do not think it is courageous to cut $1 billion from Medicaid when States like my State and the gentleman's State are struggling to draw down the limited Federal dollars that are available. I do not think it is courageous to pare back benefits for veterans. I am so tired, as I know the gentleman from Maryland is, of what is cold blooded being passed off as courageous on the floor of this House. We do need a different set of priorities for America. And all of the Democratic budgets today, the Congressional Black Caucus budget, the Blue Dog budget, and the Democratic Caucus budget, have one thing in common: we make tough fiscal choices. We try to get a handle on this deficit, and we do it on the firmest foundations of our American values. It may very well be that we are vulnerable to the allegation that we are walking away from tax cuts for some; but some of us on this side of the aisle are willing to walk away from tax cuts for millionaires, because I close on this reality: the middle-income Americans in this country are getting about $217 a year out of this tax cut. The average person in my district is getting between $25 and $40 a month. This tax cut that our friends and our adversaries embrace so wholeheartedly disproportionately favors those who are already powerful. In conclusion, their budget does not speak to the best of our values. Our budget does, and I encourage all of our Democrats today to support all three of these budgets.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, let me say this to the esteemed chair of the committee: 36 percent of small business owners in this country will get virtually no tax relief under this bill. The overwhelming majority of sole proprietors will only get very small relief under this bill. We can talk all we want to about the tax cuts. The reality is that for small business owners, it will have very little impact.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, sometimes I know a lot of the people listening to these debates hear us talking about a lot of sound and fury, and you would almost have the impression, when we hear the words ``tax cuts'' over and over again, you would almost have the impression that we are talking about real money for some people. The reality is that for 53 percent of the families who are listening right now around this country, the tax cut they will receive is $100 or less a year, not $100 or less a paycheck but $100 or less a year. The middle-income Americans in this country will receive a tax cut on average of $217 a year, which by my math is around $20-some a month.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay honor and tribute to an outstanding member of our community. Mrs. Debra Glenn has been a driving force and an inspiration for the Expanded Food and Nutrition Program (``EFNP'') in Alabama for the past 3 decades. Through Mrs. Glenn's tireless efforts, EFNP has been a mainstay in providing self-sufficiency and empowerment tools for individuals actively seeking to break the chains of poverty. Mrs. Glenn, who was inspired herself while attending the program growing up in Birmingham's Housing Projects, recalls, ``Every week, I learned simple, affordable recipes that I'd take home and prepare for my mother and brothers.'' Mrs. Glenn goes on to say, ``Those classes opened the door to a lifetime of self- sufficiency and empowerment.'' Empowered to succeed, Mrs. Glenn earned her degree in elementary education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Armed with her degree, she became an administrator with the Birmingham VA Medical Center's Health Care System. A stalwart in the community, Mrs. Glenn is actively involved in many community programs, including but not limited to Children's Hospital Volunteer Program, Chaplain of Heart Matters, Inc., Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Mrs. Glenn's fervent commitment to championing causes of those less fortunate than her clearly demonstrates the qualities that have made this country strong and continues to make her community proud. While sharing her story during a listening session at the National Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (``NAFCS'') in Kansas City, Kansas (October 2002), community leaders from across the country were moved by her (Mrs. Jones) unwavering resolve to provide a better life for those populations that have been underserved. Mrs. Glenn recalls having a strong community driven mentor as she was growing up. ``Mrs. Helen Tibbs-Wilson, retired Extension Agent from Alabama, gave me inspiration and educational instruction I needed to be successful in life. She (Mrs. Wilson) was one of the catalysts God provided to inspire me.'' Accordingly, Mrs. Glenn continues to give back in the same way. Mrs. Glenn has been an indispensable resource for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and she will be truly missed. Her commitment, energy and efforts will not soon be replaced. Mr. Speaker, I stand today representing all those whose lives are richer for having known Mrs. Glenn, and to recognize her efforts and dedication to the community she loves on this second day of March, 2004.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to Jerome ``Buddy'' Cooper, a man who articulated, pioneered, and embodied a progressive vision for the working people of Alabama. On Tuesday, October 14, Buddy passed away after 90 years of a remarkable life. Those countless Alabamians who live better lives due to his efforts will mourn him dearly. An Eagle Scout and graduate of Harvard University, Buddy has continually served his family, his nation, and his community. In 1937, Buddy became the first law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black of Alabama. He remained at the right hand of this legendary Justice for three years until he decided to answer another call. Joining the U.S. Navy in 1940, Buddy served his country for 44 months and during some of the bloodiest naval battles of the Second World War. Following his courageous war service, Buddy returned to Birmingham to begin a long legal career fighting the good fight for the unfortunate, the poor, the disposed, all those whom the Scriptures name ``the least of these'' and was a constant thorn in the side of those who wished to take advantage of them. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy recognized Buddy's work for social justice and racial reconciliation by inviting him to a meeting of 240 attorneys that later became the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law--the group credited with providing official legal support to those civil rights activists and organizations challenging segregation and racial discrimination across the country. In 1996, Buddy was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades-long participation with this select group. Buddy demonstrated the same tenacity and loyalty towards his family that he exhibited in every other aspect of his life. Married to his wife Lois for over 50 years, Buddy exemplified an honest and loving husband, caring for his wife throughout the years of her illness. Their children, Ellen and Carol, were blessed to have a father who wanted nothing more than to love them and watch them grow up in an Alabama that was better than the one in which he grew up. I am proud, Mr. Speaker, today to honor Jerome ``Buddy'' Cooper for his tremendous accomplishments. But, Mr. Speaker, I do so with the bittersweet knowledge that Alabama will be lesser tomorrow for his passing.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, 2 months ago, I had an occasion to give a commencement speech in the rural part of my District. And after the speech, a woman walked up to me; she had tears in her eyes, and I assumed that she was crying about the graduation of her child that day, but she walked up to me and she looked at me and she said, Mr. Davis, I have a husband who serves in the Army National Guard. He has been in Iraq for 2 months now, has been in the Middle East for about a year, and every morning I get up and I turn my television on CNN, and I see that another American life has been lost, and for a span of a few seconds my heart jumps up into my throat, and I wonder until I see the name. When I spoke to that lady, Mr. Chairman, I could not talk with her about the geopolitics of our commitment in Iraq. I could not talk with her about whether or not it was right or wrong for us to engage this conflict because I do not think that she terribly cared. She, like so many other Americans, though, was searching for a solution to this conflict. I would like to be able to say to her that if her family and her husband are asked to sacrifice, that the sacrifice is not just limited to the middle ranks of this country. I would like to be able to say, as the ranking member of this committee said earlier, that if some are asked to pay any price or bear any burden that that will include some of the wealthiest Americans whose taxes have been cut in the last several months. I will vote against this supplemental as it currently stands for a very simple reason. It is unfair to ask families like that of the woman that I encountered in Perry County, Alabama, to sacrifice, when we cannot even ask families who are earning over $300,000 to forego a tax cut that most of them never really sought. This is a time when we have to decide the direction of our foreign policy, but our foreign policy has to be consistent with our values. Our values, and it ought to be the values of the Bush administration as well, do not dictate that we ask sacrifice of only some people. They dictate that we ask sacrifice of those who can most afford to pay it, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution unless the administration can provide a means to pay for it.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me compliment my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) as the primary sponsor of this bill and let me compliment the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) for his leadership on this issue. Let me extend compliments as well to the ranking member of the subcommittee, who is present here today, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who is not here. We do a lot of things in this institution, Mr. Speaker. We argue about a lot of issues, but every now and then we manage to find something we agree on. Every now and then we manage to find something that has enormous bipartisan appeal. And that is how we have arrived at H.R. 1276. Whether it is in the district of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) or my district or the district of the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris), wherever you go in this country, the American dream is very much expressed in terms of whether or not people have a chance to own a home. As the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) said earlier, for the overwhelming majority of people in this country of ours, the only tool of wealth they will ever have, the only significant assets they will ever have is a home. We can talk about all the indices of community engagement, from whether you vote to whether or not you mow your lawn, to whether or not you participate in your neighborhood association. The greatest correlator of community engagement is home ownership. We look at our economy in the last 2 years, and all of us on both sides of the aisle would agree, if you take out the housing boom, if you somehow remove that from our economy, we would be deep in the throes of a 2\1/2\-year recession now. This is very important work, and it is a compliment to the leadership on both sides of the aisle that this bill has made its way to the floor. And it is a compliment to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) that we have arrived at a consensus here today. I want to make a few basic points. We have a lot of unfinished work on the housing front. No one on our side of the aisle would suggest that this is all that needs to be done. No one on our side on the aisle would suggest that the $200 million is the only commitment of resources that we ought to make. But rest assured that this $200 million commitment will result in over 40,000 low-income families receiving help in buying homes. I can say briefly in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, as I travel around my district, we regularly do home ownership events, we regularly do housing events; and I always enjoy seeing the spark that I see in people's faces when they have a chance to finally become home owners. I enjoy seeing the spark when they know they are going to finally realize their piece of the American dream. We have made this bill better. It was a good bill. We have made it a better bill. We have made the formula for calculating downpayment assistance a fair and better formula. We will address the unfinished aspects of this bill related to credit counseling. We will more forward on those fronts. I encourage my colleagues, as I know they will today, to vote overwhelmingly for the American Dream Downpayment Act. I am proud to be one of the original sponsors of this bill, and I again compliment my friend from Florida for her leadership on this issue.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, periodically when I go back to my district, one of the questions I get most frequently asked is, why do we keep turning on our C-SPAN television in the afternoon and hearing this debate on the child tax credit? Why do we keep seeing these motions brought to the floor? I suppose the best answer that I can give, Mr. Speaker, the best answer I can give my colleagues is a very simple one. The reason that this side of the aisle continues to press this issue, the reason that this side of the aisle continues to implore our colleagues to act is because more than any other issue, any other debate we have encountered this year, this question speaks to the fundamental difference between our parties. We continue to make these points because it speaks for, frankly, why we stand on the Democratic side as opposed to the Republican side. And while we may do this every few days, it is always helpful to look at the history of how we got here. Late in the evening of the night that the Republican-inspired tax cut passed this body, there was a relentless effort to get inside the $350 billion number, and for all of the efforts of all of the geniuses that we have on the other side and all of the efforts that were expended on getting inside this limit, there were $3.5 billion outside of $350 billion. One would wonder, if you had to save $3.5 billion at the last minute of a long debate, where would you turn? You might turn to the various corporations who are using offshore accounts in the Bahamas. You might turn to people who are earning over a million dollars a year and getting a tax cut. You might turn to some of the obvious examples of waste and fraud that could have been found. But rather than turn to any of those places, the Republican leadership decided to literally reach into the pockets of families earning between $10,000 and $26,000 a year, the very weakest people in our society. We have learned just in the last few weeks that the number of children living in poverty has grown by 1 million in the last year. We have learned in just the last few weeks that after a decade of people moving from poverty to the middle class, that the trend is now in the other direction. Every single month, different numbers of families fall below the statistical line that separates deprivation in this country from some measure of success. For all of the differences and all of the debates that we have on this floor, I can confidently say that my party would never reach into the pockets of the most vulnerable families in this country to satisfy a $350 billion tax cut number. We need to, and frankly it is nothing less than shameful, Mr. Speaker, that in the last months we have not managed to, find a way to make this simple, corrective step. We have heard some on the other side of the aisle say, well, why give a tax credit to families earning between $10- and $26,000 a year or why expand the tax credit for them? A lot of them do not pay taxes, we have heard. Or a lot of them do not pay a lot of taxes. The reality is, of course, these individuals do pay State income taxes and in many of our States in this time of tough budget woes, those individual State tax burdens are rising. We also know, frankly, that there has never been any controversy around the child tax credit applying to low-wage-earning families. There has never been any controversy over whether the original $600 credit applied. The controversy over this credit arose only when the majority needed to save $3.5 billion. It is interesting that the President wants to fix this. It is striking that the U.S. Senate has voted almost unanimously to fix it, but for some reason, the Republican leadership in the House continues to be unmoved on this question. To put the cynicism in some context, H.R. 1308, the bill that was brought to this floor that purports to fix the gap in the child tax credit does not even allow the tax credit to kick in for these families until sometime next year. There is another basic point, Mr. Speaker. We are experiencing a stagnant, slow, jobless recovery. We are experiencing a recovery where companies are saving costs by cutting back on health insurance and laying off workers. It is a very stale recovery for a lot of our people. So the President talks about stimulus. The President talks about providing a jolt to this economy. What better way to put some life in this economy, what better way to put some energy and some spending power into this economy than by giving this credit to families who are struggling by the margins every single day to survive, the families earning between $10- and $26,000? If stimulus is the rationale for this tax cut, there is no reason that this credit should not be extended to these families. Mr. Speaker, I certainly look forward to this debate today. I certainly invite my colleagues to finally do the right and simple thing, to spend $3.5 billion to fix a problem of fundamental fairness. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I certainly agree with my friend from Minnesota that we need to correct the disparity of military families being left out of this relief. We need to correct all the omissions regarding military families, and for that reason this motion to instruct would provide coverage for families of military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other combat zones as an essential and critical of part this conference report. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) whose district includes so many families who would be deeply affected by this motion to instruct and who has been such a consistent advocate for children living in poverty in this country.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop). The gentleman from Georgia has distinguished himself in this institution not just as a voice for fiscal prudence and fiscal sanity as a conservative Democrat, but he has also distinguished himself as a distinguished advocate for the families who are left behind in this country. His district, like mine, includes large numbers of rural families and large pockets of children living in poverty.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think we may just simply have a factual disagreement between my friend from Minnesota and myself. The motion to instruct would include those families. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) who has so often come to the well of this House to speak on behalf of our party and to speak on behalf of families in need in this country.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we do have these debates every few days; and nothing new, frankly, has been said over the course of the last 4 months. That is depressing, in some sense; but I think, again, it speaks to the very fundamental difference between our parties. No one has yet to come to the well of this House, and today only one speaker even bothered to come down to debate this issue from the other side; no one has yet to come to the well of this House from the Republican side of the aisle to explain why we leave behind families earning between $10,000 and $26,000 when it would not cost us more than $3.5 billion. No one has explained why we leave out of a stimulus package the families who are most in need of having their economic fortune stimulated. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is exactly right. The very leadership that brought this bill to the floor, and actually, to be perfectly correct about it, it is not a bill. The Republican leadership, rather than actually bringing a bill to the floor, brought a rule to the floor and invoked a rare procedural maneuver to take this measure directly to conference, rather than to bring it forward as a bill. Putting that aside, the very leadership that brought this rule to the floor announced a day beforehand that the child tax credit was dead. That had no intent, they have no intent, and they will have no intent to ever create this expanded relief for the families in our country who are working so hard. I close on this note, Mr. Speaker. We wonder sometimes why so few low-income people participate in the voting process in this country. We wonder sometimes why so many low-income families feel left out and feel locked out. We wonder why they feel disengaged. When we have our town hall meetings, they do not even bother to come. We have an answer to that question with the way this issue has been handled: because these individuals who are locked out of so many things in life turn on their television and they hear that tax relief is being passed for millionaires, they hear that tax relief is being passed for the owners of large corporations, and they hear that wider and broader and additional tax relief is contemplated. Yet they hear that they are not worthy of additional relief at all. They are told, as some of my colleagues on the other side have said, that they are welfare cases who really do not contribute to the system and really do not pay taxes anyway, so why get any kind of benefit. We ought to recognize as elected officials, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot leave people out of the system and expect them to continue to have faith in the system. That may be a small cost to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, because a lot of these folks are not a big part of their voter base, but they are part of the America that we have. This party that I speak for today will always be proud to speak for these families, because the kids in this country who live in families earning at the edge of the poverty line and slightly above it, they cannot come to this city and have fly-in week. They cannot hold $50,000 fund-raisers. They cannot hold thousand-dollar-a-head events. Somebody has to speak for them. Somebody has to take the time to come to this floor to speak for their needs and advocate for their cause. The ones of us who do that represent the Democratic Party in America, and those of us on this side of the aisle will always be proud to be part of the party that speaks for those who have been left behind, who lack any other voice. So with that said, I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to instruct and to finally fix this fundamental unfairness in what was purported to be a tax fairness bill earlier this year. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend and colleague from Hawaii for his passion on this issue and for reminding us that in the United States the face of rural America is not simply Southern or Western, it can even be Pacific at times. Let me begin, first of all, by saying or by reiterating something that my friend from Arkansas said, I do not think that any of us on this side of the aisle believe that any of our able colleagues on the other side want to do violence to the interests of rural America or do not care about what goes on in the heartland of America or in the rural parts of our country. We are not having a debate about intent today or a debate about goals today, but we are having a debate about making a system that will work. It is a fact, and it is an eventuality under the bill that the Republican leadership so narrowly pushed through this body, that over a period of time, the prescription drug benefit, that all of us want and have endorsed in some sense, will be phased out and delivered through the private sector in significant parts of our country. Now, that sounds, from a technical standpoint, like a worthy enough aspiration. I have heard my colleagues on the other side defend that kind of a world in terms of the market choices it will open up. I have heard them defend that kind of a world in terms of the choices it will generate for the consumers, for senior consumers. The reality, as so many of us on this side of the aisle know, is this: We can travel to those places in west Alabama, whole places in the rural parts of our country where you simply do not have a private provider network that is capable or available to carry this burden. So when we are talking about expanding market choices, what a wonderful thing it would be if those market choices would be available all around this country. Our seniors are looking to us desperately for leadership on this issue. Our seniors are desperately looking to us to give them a benefit, but not just any benefit. They want one that is fair, and one that is workable, and one that is available all around America. I am genuinely amazed that a lot of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing to have us move into a system where, at best, we can trust the vagaries of the market to provide this benefit for our seniors. I talk as I move around my district to far too many seniors who are having to spend significant chunks of their limited, disposable income on prescription drugs. I run into too many seniors who are having to self-medicate, who are told that they have to take medicine for a certain number of days, and they chop the pills up to extend the timetable. All Members can cite those stories. What a tragedy it would be if we had a huge ceremony and a huge fanfare, and the President stood up and said we had passed a prescription drug benefit bill, and then within 6 or 7 years from now, our seniors living in rural America saw what they expected to be a Cadillac turned out to be a much smaller, less efficient and less effective vehicle. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this motion not because I think the folks on the other side of the aisle have a different set of values, but because I think they misunderstand the market that we have and the choices that will be left to our seniors. I want to address one other point several of my colleagues make. There has been a lot of talk that we are fixing the rural problem because we are addressing the disparities in the reimbursement formulas; and I compliment the other side of the aisle for recognizing that the reimbursement formulas in Medicare have disadvantaged our rural areas, but I will make a very basic point here. If the Republican leadership of this body were serious about fixing the reimbursement formula, it could do it tomorrow. Just as we came to the floor in record time last week to speak to the court that ruled on the Do-Not- Call Registry, we could come to this floor in record time to pass a stand-alone bill that fixes the unfair reimbursement formulas. Right now, the reimbursement formula fix is being held hostage to the completion of this bill. It is nothing more than a bargaining chip at this point to try to bring conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans to the table, and we ought to expose that for what it is. If the leadership were serious about fixing this problem, it should be done tomorrow as a stand-alone piece of legislation. Let us address the hard and serious problem of getting a prescription drug benefit, but let us address, in a separate context, the very real problem of disparities in this formula that burden so many of our areas.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 1308, the child tax credit bill. The form of the motion is as follows: Mr. Davis of Alabama moves that the managers on the part of the House in the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 1308 be instructed as follows: 1. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in the conference report the provision of the Senate amendment (not included in the House amendment) that provides immediate payments to taxpayers receiving an additional credit by reason of the bill in the same manner as other taxpayers were entitled to immediate payments under the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. 2. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in the conference report the provision of the Senate amendment (not included in the House amendment) that provides families of military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other combat zones a child credit based on the earnings of the individuals serving in the combat zone. 3. The House conferees shall be instructed to include in the conference report all of the other provisions of the Senate amendment and shall not report back a conference report that includes additional tax benefits not offset by other provisions. 4. To the maximum extent possible within the scope of conference, the House conferees shall be instructed to include in the conference report other tax benefits for military personnel and the families of the astronauts who died in the Columbia disaster. 5. The House conferees shall, as soon as practicable after the adoption of this motion, meet in open session with the Senate conferees and the House conferees shall file a conference report consistent with the preceeding provisions of this instruction, not later than the second legislative day after adoption of this motion.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his compliments and for yielding time to me today. I want to begin with the comments of my good friend from New Jersey because I think that they reflect a fundamental divide on how our two parties look at this issue. The gentleman from New Jersey is 100 percent correct when he says that the Medicare plan being contemplated would theoretically allow a choice for seniors. He is 100 percent correct when he says that seniors would have the ability to elect between a private managed care plan and Medicare. He is 100 percent correct about the theory and about what is written in this plan. But I come from the Seventh District of Alabama where a significant number of our seniors live in a world very different from a lot of the people who sit in this body. A lot of the seniors in my district live in a space where they are illiterate. They live in a space where they are not able to interpret the difference between a plan A and a plan B. They have trouble navigating every single aspect of their daily lives. Some of them cannot even fully understand their own prescriptions, but yet it is true they will have a theoretical choice as to which plan is better for their interests. One thing that I would hope that this whole body would agree on, Mr. Speaker, is that we do not need to provide a benefit that some people in this society will enjoy but that other people will not enjoy because of their station and place in life. I care, as I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle care deeply, about the seniors who do not have the education, who do not have the background to make the kinds of choices that they will need to make. The problem with this plan, unless it is fixed and made better by the Kind motion, is that it will force our seniors to have to make a fundamental choice, and if they choose wrong, they could find themselves without adequate coverage. There is a deeper problem. Only 19 percent of the seniors in rural America live in an area that has access to a ready managed care plan; less than 20 percent. When the seniors who are listening tonight or the seniors who follow this debate hear that we are passing a prescription drug benefit, they imagine that it is something that will be executed, they imagine that it is something that can be implemented in a way that favors and is fair to them. They do not know about the maze of choice that is in front of them. We can talk all we want in a theoretical sense about the values of choice in our society. We can talk all we want in a theoretical sense about letting our seniors and letting the market combine to make good, efficient choices. This is not always an efficient world. There is no dispute in this Chamber that after the next several years, a significant number of seniors would potentially be left out of this plan. That is something that the Kind motion would fix. That may sound to some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle like paternalism, but a lot of the seniors who live in my district do not want to have to navigate their own way for this set of choices. They do not see it as paternalism, they see it as government lending a helping hand to them. This Medicare program that we have heard denounced tonight as being a ``big government program,'' that we have heard denounced tonight as being another example of ``rampant government,'' it happens to be an important part of the social safety net that we have in this country. The question is, do we tighten that net and make it stronger or do we allow significant gaps to form in that net? As I moved around my rural district during the month of August, so many seniors said to me, Mr. Davis, I would rather have no plan than a plan that I don't understand and a plan that I won't benefit from. So many seniors said, I would rather see you all in the ivory towers in Washington, D.C., do nothing than do something that leaves me worse off. Those are the people that I want to speak to tonight, and those are the people I want to speak for tonight because we have to make sure that this is a plan that would be available to all of the seniors in this country who need it. We can talk all we want about appropriating more money in the House bill for rural hospitals. We still do not give enough. The Senate does far better. Until we address the root of these unfair choices, we will leave our rural seniors worse off. So I support this motion tonight. I will close on this basic point. Most of us in our campaigns in 2002 endorsed the idea of a prescription drug benefit. Most of us go back to our districts and we brag about the fact that we support it. A lot of our friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle are touting that fact in their campaign ads. A lot of our seniors remember just 15 years ago when this body purported to pass a catastrophic health benefit plan that did everything but provide adequate coverage, that did everything but improve their conditions in life. It may be that this part of the session is running to a close, it may be that the clock is ticking, but the nature of what the people elect us to do is to make hard choices. The nature of what the people elect us to do is to make adequate choices. And, yes, sometimes as paternalistic as our friends may think it is, they sometimes elect us to make choices that will affect their lives. So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for this motion to close an unfortunate, but critical, gap that exists between our rural seniors and urban seniors.