Chaka Fattah

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, let me assure the House I have no intention of taking 4\1/2\ minutes to make the comments that I intend to make. I was at SelectUSA, which is a gathering of people that the administration has brought together from around the world who were businesspeople and about investments in America. I was there with a number of Members of the U.S. Senate, Senator Nelson and others. I got a chance at the lunch to sit next to a gentleman who has businesses in the United States--manufacturing businesses--and in South Africa and his home country in Asia and a number of other places. He was saying that, when he travels to America, even though he has got 3,000 employees here, it is almost impossible for him to get the kind of visas and to get back and forth post-9/11 that can make it an efficient business trip for him. It requires such advance planning and so on. I could imagine, in a negotiation, that there could be some consideration when there is a person who has got a multinational business and is employing Americans in Iowa or some other State about their entry and exit from our country. In fact, he indicated that, in these other countries, he has such arrangements, just not in our own. I think that America has got to think about where it is on these issues. This is not the appropriate bill for this. This is a bill to determine the appropriation levels that we are going to fund in certain accounts. We are well off the tracks, and I hope that we vote this amendment down. I am opposed to it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I think that the hopes of having some bipartisan support for this bill is waning. I think it is very unfortunate that we are now at a point where we are trying to intrude in an entirely different area of the President's prerogatives. He can negotiate all he wants. Now, I may not support what he negotiates, but to say you can't even discuss something in a negotiation, I think, is unfortunate. I am in opposition, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's point. Like I was saying, it is nonsensical to assume that whatever the unfettered action of the House is, that it, number one, represents the action of the Congress, because it doesn't. We have two Houses. We have a Senate and a House. And then we are coequal to the President, but the President has certain rights provided to him under the Constitution. If you find no exception in the actions of other Presidents, it is unusual that we would have such enthusiastic language in condemnation of this President's very similar actions. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I think that we are at a point where it is difficult to reconcile what we are trying to do here--that is, in an appropriations bill--with these policy riders. Now, I have heard my chairman claim that the President of the United States has done things that are illegal three or four times. I think that that kind of language is not useful in the debate, nor is it factual, because I think that the President has been acting well in concert with the precedents of former Presidents who have provided clemency and amnesty. And I have heard Members like Mr. King criticize those other Presidents who have provided amnesty, like Ronald Reagan and others, and I have never heard anyone claim that President Reagan acted illegally in those matters. So I find it unusual that we would be in this type of circumstance. I heard the chairman run through a litany in which he also has the Supreme Court finally make some decision, which they have obviously not done yet. So I would like to try to get back on the tracks of moving an appropriations bill. And the point that we have to understand here is that, if we are a coequal branch of the government--that is, the President is coequal to us, but we are one-half of the Congress--then the idea that what the House says goes is nonsensical.

Mr. FATTAH. It is good to see my good friend on the floor. I, unfortunately, can't support his amendment, but I appreciate his work here in the Congress. In the past, unlike those rhetorically who offer notions of support for Simpson-Bowles, I actually supported it and voted for it. I am the only Member of the House that has offered a bill to get rid of the income tax and pay our debts. I wanted to set up a consumption tax, which 150 other countries in the world use. We have got a consumption-based economy. It might be a good notion to find our revenues where the action is. I don't take a backseat to anyone when it comes to fiscal responsibility, but unless we have a global budget deal, it is going to be impossible for us to manage the accounts of what you agree are very important Federal agencies that have very important responsibilities. We are running the most important, the most powerful country in the world. We can't do it on the cheap and be number one. China builds 100 science-only universities in 5 years. It would take us 20 years to build one. We don't have the same kind of decisionmaking process, obviously, and it takes us a while to formulate our decision package; but even when we get there, we have this debate about whether or not we are going to stand up and be the leading country in the world, whether in space exploration or in any of the areas of scientific enterprise in which we have always had the absolute lead. Now we have only a relative lead. There are those who are working in ways that are adverse to insisting on America being number one. Those are people who want to tell the American public that we can continue to have the best military in the world and not pay for it or the best education system and not pay for it. Or you look at our national laboratories, and I have visited Oak Ridge, I have visited Los Alamos and Sandia and Fermi and Argonne. You look at these laboratories. These were major investments. Now, some might call it spending, but it helped America win wars, but also win the economic fight against our competitors by making these investments. I just think that it is not a matter of what we can cut. It is where does our country want to end up. Do we want to be something less than number one in the world? Is that the legacy we want to leave our children and grandchildren? Or are we going to make the decisions that others before us have made, which is that we have to make tough decisions, and we are going to have to carry our own pail of water up the hill, and we are going to have to pay for all that we get. It was Abraham Lincoln who said you may not get all that you pay for, but you will pay for all that you get. So this notion that somehow America can be number one on the cheap, I am not buying it. The world's not going to buy it. We are competing with countries that have a billion-plus population. They are making investments, and they want to eat our lunch, economically. There may be challenges in other ways for our country down the road, and we have to be prepared as leaders to make some tough decisions and to tell the American public that, in order to retain our position, we might have to actually stand up to the bar and pay our fair share. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, can I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I visited Chicago a few years back for the coastal zone conference to talk about how important it was that this administration has finally put forward, and we support, an ocean policy. There have been since 2012 over 15 different amendments seeking to undermine responsible ecosystem-based management of our oceans. As appropriators, we have not been willing to accept these efforts to undermine this. We understand we have a responsibility as stewards. In fact, as a Nation we have more responsibility for the world's oceans than any other Nation in terms of territorially in the world. We have some challenging circumstances. It is good that we now have a policy going forward. I would ask that the House oppose this amendment. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), the former mayor and a great Congressman.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I concur with the gentleman's amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, but I am not in opposition.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I guess redundancy has some utility here because we have been around the rosie a number of times on this same issue, both late last night and now early this afternoon, one amendment after another amendment after another amendment, trying to make sure that our fascination with armor-piercing bullets doesn't escape this debate. So here we have another one, and maybe there is something different about this one than the one before, but I am not able to discern what it is. I am opposed to it. I think that people have a right to weapons under our Constitution. I think common sense suggests people should have a right to weapons, long guns, rifles, for both sports activities and for their own protection. I also think that it is a responsible thing for those who are governing our country to put in place reasonable regulations and restrictions just like the regulations and restrictions that we have here on the Capitol campus. Not only do we spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money for our own police force to protect us, we also say that you can't bring a firearm into the buildings that we work in each and every day. Now, we do this even though we come to the floor and profess our undying love for the unfettered notion of the Second Amendment as interpreted by some that you can have a gun anywhere, in a bar, in a park, in a school, in a daycare center, and at church. Take your gun and ride off into the wind with it. But we won't allow it here. I am just waiting for a Member of the majority, since we have multiple amendments, to come to the floor and to say that people should be able to exercise their Second Amendment here when they visit the people's House, when they visit their elected Representatives, that somehow we want to welcome them and their guns with their armor- piercing bullets, and then I would know that you truly love the Second Amendment and that you see it as an unfettered right anywhere, anytime, and under any circumstances. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Text is most helpful when put in context. It is true that the Constitution says that it is a citizen's right to keep and bear arms, but it says that as part of a well-regulated militia. When we want to focus in on the Second Amendment, it may be helpful for us to have a contextual framework in which the right is connected to responsible and regulated activity on behalf of our community. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I am going to yield to the gentleman from New York on this point. I just want to say something. The point I made was that this restriction on armor-piercing bullets did not emanate with this administration, even though some might want to suggest somehow that this is President Obama's effort. This dates back to a different period of time, when we had a Republican President, and it was put into place to protect law enforcement because the children who have been unfortunate victims of gunshots in their schools or in movie theaters and other circumstances where we have had these mass shootings, they haven't been wearing bulletproof vests. Bulletproof vests are used by our law enforcement officials. There was a concern to make sure that they could be protected while they were out protecting us, right? I just want to be clear, as we go forward, what we are doing here and so that everybody who takes an action on this and, however they may vote, understands that they are voting to provide a circumstance in which there won't be any restriction on the piercing power of the projectile, right? When it is pointed at a human being, it can be deadly, so I just want us to be clear. I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), and I will keep track that he doesn't go over 2 minutes.

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time with just a question, Mr. Chairman, maybe you could inform me, but I believe that the restrictions on armor-piercing bullets predate the administration that you just named. Is that accurate?

Mr. FATTAH. Madam Chair, I rise to assert a point of order on this amendment.