Trent Franks

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Reclaiming my time here, Congressman Hoekstra, the main difference is that that document that you hold in your hand primarily chains down government. It dictates to government, not to the individual. It empowers the individual. You know, when George Washington and some of the other Founding Fathers put this together, they did something that was singular in history. They were in a position to arrogate all kinds of power under themselves. They had just thrown off the Crown. They had done some amazing things. The people of this Nation loved them, and they could have had any kind of power, any kind of government mechanism, really, that they had tried to put together, but they did something very amazing, and it has changed the world. They said, for once, we are going to empower the individual. We are going to give the individual the rights, and we are going to tell government what it can't do rather than tell the people what they can't do.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I have some prepared remarks tonight about the Pelosi health care reform bill, but you know what I would like to do here in the beginning is just to talk about some things that Republicans believe in. I have plenty of criticism about Ms. Pelosi's bill, and I will definitely make that known in a few moments; but you know sometimes I think it is incumbent upon all of us in this place, rather than just saying what we're against, to say what we're really for. Republicans have believed since the beginning of the party that no matter who one was, that they had the right to be free, the right to live, and the right to pursue their dreams. This is something that we have felt was the essence of America from the very beginning. In fact, the Republican Party was born out of a commitment on the part of a group of people that believed that African Americans were human beings deserving of the same protection that all other human beings had, even though the Supreme Court of the United States had said that, under Dred Scott, that Dred Scott, a slave, was not a human being or not a full person under the Constitution. Of course, you know there was some unpleasantness about that debate, Mr. Speaker; we had a great Civil War in this country. But the commitment on the part of Republicans to restore equal protection to all people regardless of their station in life sustained them in that crucible of that horrible Civil War, and I hope that Republicans will maintain their commitment to that no matter what happens. We have been debating a great deal on trying to make equal access to health care in this country, and Republicans believe in that with all of our hearts. I've often heard in this Chamber, What are the Republican ideas? They have challenged us and said that we really don't have anything that we believe in, that we are just the Party of No. That is such tragic injustice because there are about 40 bills that have been introduced into this House by Republicans saying what we wanted to do with health care reform, and we have not had the opportunity for any of those bills to be presented on this floor, and oftentimes even our amendments are not allowed. Mr. Speaker, for a moment let's just ask ourselves, What has given America the most powerful economic engine and force of productivity in the face of human history? It has been that thing called freedom, that thing that allows each person to pursue, to the greatest extent possible, what they believe to be true and good, whether it be in the area of their own self-interest or the area of trying to help other people or in the area of just trying to make a better world, that we believe freedom created innovation, it created a sense of almost dreaming about what could be. That innovation, I think, is probably the most important difference in the effect of the Republican's version and the Democrat version of health care reform. Republicans believe that when health care is in private hands, that even the providers of health care--sometimes because they want to make money, sometimes because they want to help others--but the providers of health care are always seeking new ways and better ways to do things, new innovation, ways to come up with new, less expensive, but more effective procedures. I think that we all delude ourselves if we believe that we can accomplish making affordable health care available to everyone if we don't focus on this thing called innovation. Let me, if I could, deviate and give an example, Mr. Speaker. There was a time in America where the government controlled our telephone company. It was true that our telephone company--at that time we called it Ma Bell--was a private company, but it was almost entirely controlled and regulated by government. Of course you know you had one old clunker telephone and you had to dial the number, and of course sometimes the operator would get smart with you if you asked her what time it was. It was a government-run system with all of the attending bureaucratic nightmares. And the equivalent in today's dollars for long distance would be about $3.10 a minute. It was a real disaster. Now, it was nice just to have a phone system, but the reality is we never really saw a great deal of innovation. But then, when I was just a young man in the legislature, we decided that maybe it was time to break this thing up and give it to the private sector and see if they couldn't do something better with it. And what happened was profound; we created a system that would serve everyone. In other words, we told those companies that if you're going to provide telephone service, you've got to make sure you provide it to the senior citizens up in the mountains or something like that that wouldn't be able to compete in the regular process. We've got to make sure that they're taken care of, and they were. But something else very wonderful happened, Mr. Speaker. When we turned the telephone company and broke it up and said now we're going to let the private sector come up with the innovations that they could and we're going to see if they can provide a better mousetrap for the country, if they can provide better telephone service at a cheaper price, look what happened, Mr. Speaker, look what happened. Today we have cell phones, almost everyone does. You can pull up the Library of Congress on your cell phone. It is astonishing. The BlackBerrys that we carry around here can send messages anywhere on Earth, and we can even pull up our Web site. Boy, I'll tell you, for those that are narcissistic, that is a great little item. And it is just an amazing thing what has happened. And guess what else has happened, Mr. Speaker? Today, long distance is around 3 cents a minute; sometimes it's less than that. It's getting to the point where a lot of the companies are just offering a system that you can say, well, you've got unlimited dialing and phone and voice and text now that you can use all you want for $50 a month. Isn't that amazing, Mr. Speaker? But that was because innovation occurred. I truly believe that this country has shown a proclivity to create innovation that could absolutely revolutionize the health care industry in a way that almost none of us can imagine at this moment. Would we have imagined 25 or 30 years ago that the telephony, the telephone systems of this country, would be so amazingly transformed when we put it into private hands? Now, it was true that some of the people that were in that area were motivated by profit. Some of them made money, some of them lost money, some of them went broke. It was a typical free enterprise situation. All the chaos and the attending realities went along with that. People went broke; people made money. But the end result was the American people were served in a wonderful way and today we have the most magnificent communication systems in the world, and almost everyone takes part in that. The poorest of the poor have a better life because we deregulated the telephone companies. And it had this magnificent effect on all of America. And now we are able to do things that we never could have done before. Yet it seems like, when government has something, that innovation is stifled and that the things that would create a better system are somehow suppressed. Because, after all, what is the incentive for innovation in a government-owned system? If you're a bureaucrat, you have a certain amount of money, and you are tasked with the job of delivering the service in your mission plan. It's not an evil or a bad thing. It's just a bad system. It just doesn't work very well, Mr. Speaker, because the bureaucrat kind of has two options. He is not in charge or she is not in charge of innovation. He is in charge of the delivery system that government doesn't deliver very well. He has to make kind of a calculation. Well, we've got so much money, and we want to make the services available, and sooner or later, he or she runs out of money from the budget--it always happens--and they have to make some very hard choices. When that occurs, there is rationing or somehow they will distribute it in ways that are more amenable to the budgets that they have. It's just a very difficult situation. I'm sorry that bureaucrats have that difficulty. It's a difficult thing to be a bureaucrat, and I kind of feel sorry for them, but I don't want to make more of them, Mr. Speaker. I don't want us to lose sight of the greatness of America and forget that it is not too late to make a better world. We cannot give up our freedom and expect that somehow socialist policies will do the same thing for the family of man as this thing called ``freedom'' has done for America. It has never happened. Any time you have ever turned over any major process to a socialist environment or to a socialist enterprise--that's really a bad word. ``Enterprise'' and ``socialism'' don't belong in the same sentence. Any time you turn it over to a socialist, bureaucratic system--again, ``system'' is probably being pretty charitable--what happens is that all of the ways to improve the system are diminished or are completely eradicated. So, Mr. Speaker, I think it's important that we don't lose sight of what made us a productive country. In that sense, what Americans need to realize is that there are ways that we can improve the health care system. There are ways that we can fix what is broken without breaking what is working. About 83 percent of Americans believe that the health care system is working for them. Now, there are many people who simply cannot afford health care insurance, and they need it and they want it. Republicans have come up with a very simple approach to that, and that is either through tax credits or through some type of drafts or vouchers or something along those lines that we can put in the hands of people who cannot afford health care insurance, and we let them then be empowered to go out and to buy health care policies from the private sector which best meet their needs. Now, there is still a raging debate about how much we should do or how we should do it or if we should do that. I understand that because I think that can move us in a dangerous direction as well, but it is still the safest way that we can use the mechanism of government to somehow provide for those who are less fortunate. In the final analysis, it is important that we empower the individuals and not empower government, but if we did it the right way, if we could see innovation occur, Mr. Speaker, and if we could put this thing back the way that the Founding Fathers first envisioned it, health care would be one of those magnificent advanced systems in which everybody would be able to go to their own doctors and say, Well, you know, I've got this problem, and they say, Well, you know, we've got this new system that could really fix it. I'll give you one example, Mr. Speaker. It is something that is completely untested yet, and it is something that isn't finished, and it is something that doesn't work yet, but there is an effort to try to treat cancer in a new way by injecting a substance into the body that disperses throughout all the cells in the body. It even passes the blood-brain barrier, and it literally is able to be disseminated into every cell. Now, that is the theory. I want to emphasize in the strongest possible terms that we don't have this kind of process or procedure yet, and it's too bad that we don't. In any case, the dream--the hope--is that this substance would disperse throughout the entire body and that the person would be left in a dark environment and that within about 24 hours this substance would disperse out of the body or would be changed in nature to where it would be diminished or dispersed or eliminated and that the only cells which would retain it would be cancer cells and that, when this substance is exposed to very bright light, it would turns toxic and would kill only the cancer cells. What an incredible idea. What an incredible dream. Now, I know it's a long ways away. I know there will be people who will like to pursue something like that. It's just not available yet, Mr. Speaker, but it could be, I believe. I believe, if we turn the minds of free people loose, that all kinds of wonderful things can happen. Something like that would cost a few thousand dollars, not the tens of thousands or the hundreds of thousands that are spent on advanced cancer surgeries and treatments today. It could change everything. Yet, if we don't allow the free market and free people to pursue those kinds of things, they will never occur, because one thing is very certain in a government-run plan: There are just no pursuits of those kinds of things. That is one of the great tragedies of forgetting that freedom still works. Mr. Speaker, Republicans believe that there are ways that we can empower individuals to be able to go out and do things for themselves and that we can empower even those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it on their own and that we can still maintain this free market freedom that we talk about so often. I truly believe in things like allowing us, as individuals in America, to be able to buy our insurance from any insurance company in America. We can't do that now. If you're in one State, you can only buy, in most cases, across the State that you're in. There are about 1,400 or 1,500 insurance companies in this Nation. If we could allow people to buy insurance from any of those, can you imagine the competition that would occur? Can you imagine the ways that they would work to try to be the ones to sell you your insurance? Can you imagine how much nicer they would be on the phone? Can you imagine that, when something would go wrong, they would try to work with you as much as possible because they would know, if they didn't, they would lose your business? Unlike a private system like that, in a government system, if bureaucrats make you mad, tough luck. It doesn't really matter to them that much. There is no incentive for them to even be kind to you. You only have one place to go, and they know that. They have a monopoly as it were. I just think that that's one of the Republican ideas that could be very helpful. Another one is just tort reform. You know, a lot of people don't know what that word ``tort'' means, and sometimes I wonder how they came up with that term. It simply means that we would try to have some sort of legal reform that would end these frivolous lawsuits which cause medical malpractice insurance to rise through the roof, and it would make all the difference in the world. I mean the fact is that just what we could save on stopping frivolous lawsuits, Mr. Speaker, would buy every one of the 11 million people who we are projecting don't have health care insurance, who can't afford it but who would like to if they could, a Cadillac health care insurance policy. I just think that it is astonishing that we don't pursue things in that direction. There are so many things that we can do, and Republicans have some ideas to do that. I told you, Mr. Speaker, that I have about 15 minutes of prepared remarks on Ms. Pelosi's bill, and I intend to give those, but first, if he would be inclined, I would like to yield to my friend, Congressman Hoekstra, if he is prepared to speak to the issue at all.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Yes, we did.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I think the gentleman is being entirely too cynical. I think the notion that any of the Americans are going to read a 2,000 page bill in the 6 hours that they will have, we have got maybe five speed readers in the country that can do that. So I think you are being too hard on them.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I will just put this in my own perspective the best I can here. I have always believed, as I know the three of you have, that the true statesmanship was the effort to try to look to the next generation. Someone said that a politician looks to the next election, whereas a statesman looks to the next generation. Some of those issues have been my life. I was the director of what Arizona's version is of a children's department. We've always wanted to try to look to the future and look to next generations. That's why I was so intrigued by the gentleman from Illinois' comments about our birthright, about freedom because I believe of all the tragedies in the Pelosi bill, that the loss in freedom is the big one. This is not the first time that we have struggled in this country about that. There was a time when the colonists were here that they were oppressed so badly by the Crown of England that they said that we have to somehow break free. But there were those who were afraid, and I understand that. See, they didn't have freedom at that time. They were trying to gain it. They were trying to go against all odds to try to do what they could. But some were afraid. I will never forget Samuel Adams' words because I think it should apply to all of us here tonight. I think it should apply especially to those on the other side of the aisle that are struggling tonight with how they're going to vote. He said to the colonists who were afraid to fight the King, he said, If you love wealth better than liberty, if you love the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We seek not your counsel or your arms. Crouch down, and lick the hands that feed you, and may your change sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. And I would say today that we need that same call to liberty that they had back then that made them march with bloody feet in the frozen ground to find liberty for us. I have got two little babies at home that are just a little over a year old, and I don't want to throw away their birthright or the freedom that I hope that they will walk in someday. I want them to stand in the light of the freedom that we see on the top of this Capitol dome. May it be.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. It's in the low nineties, Mr. Hoekstra. It seems like what happens every time you send something into the Federal Government for them to send back or disburse, they always whack a little piece of it off as it goes by, don't they?

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 836, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it is so ironic that this Congress is debating the means of covering the uninsured while Democrats are planning to cut the existing coverage of those who need it most--our senior citizens. Nearly 70,000 of those senior citizens will be affected and live in my district, Mr. Speaker. Those senior citizens will experience drastic changes to their Medicare coverage as a result of the $500 million Medicare Advantage cut imposed by the Democrats' bill, H.R. 3200. Democrats may silence all of our Republican bills, but they are wrong if they believe Republicans will keep silent and allow senior citizens in America, who have already spent the majority of their lives contributing to this Nation, to be forced to give up the health care coverage they so vitally need in order to pay for a socialist, government takeover of health care which has failed in every State and in every country that has been unwise enough to allow it to happen.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentlelady, as always. Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to stand here today in strong, wholehearted support of our cherished ally, the nation of Poland, and in strong support of House Resolution 266. And I want to thank Mr. Lipinski, a cherished friend of mine, for his willingness to put forth this resolution. After the recently announced decision by the Obama administration abandoning our promised missile defense interceptors in Poland, our allies' newspaper headlines stated the situation in rather stark terms, Mr. Speaker. One Polish newspaper had the headline, ``Betrayed! The USA has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, it's a travesty beyond words that the United States of America, the bastion of freedom throughout the entire world, would give reason to a loyal ally like Poland to write headlines like that. Poland has strongly supported the United States diplomatically and militarily and has joined with us courageously in combating global terrorism and has contributed troops to the coalitions led by the United States of America both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. For these reasons and so many others, Mr. Speaker, I'm honored to stand here today with my colleagues to warmly congratulate the Polish people on their remarkable accomplishments as a free nation and to express our gratitude for Poland's steadfast partnership with the United States and to affirm our clear and unwavering support for the free democratic nation of Poland. Mr. Speaker, I would go one step further by stating that one of the best ways we could demonstrate our deep love and appreciation for the nation and people of Poland would be to prove that we mean this by extending the Visa Waiver Program to our Polish allies. We've already extended the Visa Waiver Program to 35 other allies, including other European nations like Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and I strongly believe we should have extended this same courtesy to our allies in Poland long ago. Poland repealed its own visa requirement back in 1991 and allows Americans to travel throughout Poland without the use of a visa. The nation of Poland has proven time and again, Mr. Speaker, its steadfast dedication to the cause of human freedom as well as its friendship with the United States, and it is appropriate that they understand that America is grateful. And I just reiterate my gratitude to Mr. Lipinski and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, recently this body moved to cut off all funding, all Federal funding, from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. By now we have all seen reports of several recent videos revealing ACORN employees coaching two young individuals on how to obtain government-subsidized housing to set up an underground prostitution house with underage girls brought into this country illegally. But this is only the beginning of ACORN's criminal activities, Mr. Speaker. ACORN is under investigation in at least 14 States for voter registration fraud. And ACORN workers have consistently employed criminal tactics, including establishing an illegal quota system and illegally compensating canvassers. ACORN has repeatedly reported false information to the IRS and to the Department of Labor. And to cap it off, Mr. Speaker, ACORN and its affiliates have received more than $53 million in Federal funds from 1994 to 2008 and were eligible for up to $8.5 billion more from the economic stimulus bill and the 2010 Federal budget. Mr. Speaker, I believe one of the most overlooked and astounding trophies in ACORN's criminal hall of fame is its role in fighting for policies that led to the mortgage crisis and ultimately catalyzed our current economic recession. ACORN fought vigorously for regulatory reform of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 bill that drastically weakened mortgage lending standards. The result of the new regulations ACORN lobbied for was that banks were no longer rated because they made good loans or their standard of equitable lending, but rather, they were rated based on the number of loans they made, regardless of the ability of the borrower to pay back the loan or to qualify for a loan in the first place. Banks were hit with large fines if they refused to dole out these toxic loans, the majority of which they knew would not be repaid. And if they still dared resist the government's mandate, ACORN would publicly picket them or threaten to hit these banks with lawsuits to force them to comply. Mr. Speaker, although the mainstream media has been largely silent on the ties between ACORN and President Obama, it was actually during this time in the early part of President Obama's career when he was working with ACORN that President Obama was part of the lawsuit to force Citibank to abandon its time-tested lending standards and disperse millions and millions of dollars in high-risk loans. Now this isn't speculation, Mr. Speaker. His name is listed on the records of the lawsuit. President Obama played a significant role in helping to shape the mortgage debacle that caused America's recent and ongoing economic crisis. The result of the lawsuits like the one filed by Mr. Obama and ACORN has been that millions of dollars in toxic loans were made as a result of ACORN and its subsidiaries using the CRA regulations to bludgeon America's financial institutions into making loans they never should have and otherwise never would have made. As we all know now, those toxic loans were packaged and resold on Wall Street, and the entire system began to crumble. If those original loans, Mr. Speaker, that were sold to Wall Street had been made under the traditional, financially sound practices based on income, down payments and credit histories, rather than the politically correct and financially fatal criteria that Barack Obama sued to achieve, the entire financial meltdown might have been avoided. But how many Americans know that, Mr. Speaker? How many Americans are aware of the role that ACORN and one of their lawyers and close allies by the name of Barack Obama played in creating the housing and financial crisis? Mr. Speaker, the ironic reality now is that President Barack Obama is put in the schizophrenic position of signing a bill to defund the very organization that helped to launch his career and ultimately helped get him elected. And the silence from the Obama administration on the ACORN issue has been unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. The Obama administration and liberal Democrats in Congress now have a choice. They can take a sincere stand against corruption by launching investigations into ACORN and work with Republicans to pass the Defund ACORN Act to stop all Federal funding for ACORN, or they can throw their supposed commitment to transparency and accountability out the window for good. Mr. Speaker, let us hope that they will choose to stand against allowing ACORN or any other corrupt organization to receive one more dime of taxpayer dollars now or ever again.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I agree. I guess I just repeat that we were trying to build out these systems anyway. This was something that was already on the drawing board. We want to have a robust system that is able to interdict short-range, medium-range, and long-range. And THAAD and Aegis, none of us on the Republican side would argue one moment that those aren't important, but the challenge is that we're taking away our ground-based system, which these other things are still on the drawing board, in many cases. I thought that Mr. Bishop made a point that was so critical. It might be my last point here, Mr. Chairman, if you would let me make it, because it's really a quote to Mark Helperin in the Wall Street Journal after the President's decision last week to abandon the plans for the European missile defense site. He stated it this way, kind of that historic, 50,000-foot view thing that we're talking about. He said, ``Stalin tested Truman with the Berlin Blockade, and Truman held fast. Khrushchev tested Kennedy, and in the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy refused to blink. In 1983, Andropov took the measure of Ronald Reagan, and, defying millions in the street, Reagan did not blink. Last week, the Iranian President and the Russian Prime Minister put Mr. Obama to the test, and he blinked not once, but twice. The price of such infirmity has always proven immensely high,'' Mr. Speaker, ``even if, as is the custom these days, the bill has yet to come.'' Mr. Turner, I would just say this in closing here. If the Obama administration continues down this road of appeasement and denial, the Nation of Iran will gain nuclear weapons capability and pass that technology on to terrorists, as well as perhaps even the weapons, and this generation and so many to come will face the horrifying reality of nuclear jihad. Those of us who have been blessed to walk in the sunlight of freedom in this generation will relegate our children to walk in the minefield of nuclear terrorism in the next generation. I just hope that somehow reason can somehow be injected back into this system and we can understand, from a historical point of view, that when we stood up to despotism in the past, it was always a good thing. When we counted on appeasement, it always hurt us. I just pray that we can catch it soon enough here. I thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I absolutely do not. You know, we have had a lot of Russian belligerence lately, as you know. They have spoken against this for a long time. But the report surfaced in March of this year that the President was going to offer Russia a promise that the United States would not build the missile defense site if Moscow would commit to helping us to discourage Iran's nuclear program. That was the so-called equation. But you have to recall that Russia was actually the one who has already delivered nuclear fuel to Iran. They were the one who was paid $800 million to help build the Bushehr power plant in Iran that could have implications for building fissile material in the future. Of course, they have been complicit in helping them with their missile program. Moreover, it is just this week--I think this is an important thing to know--Venezuela's Hugo Chavez announced the purchase of more than $2 billion in arms from Russia, including rocket technology, and has declared that Venezuela will get started on a nuclear program with Iran's help. This is some sort of unholy alliance here. To somehow suggest that Russia is going to be a help here, I think, is naive beyond degree.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. You are exactly right. Here is the thing that is most profound to me. Since the timeframe that you mentioned is correct, that means that any alternative system could come far too late to have any influence on Iran's calculus to go forward with its missile program or its nuclear program. The idea if we had the ability to knock down anything they threw up, anything that they should launch, if they knew that America could interdict those missiles, all of a sudden they might say we are taking a tremendous chance, maybe on a military intervention here. You never know, and if the Americans can knock this down anyway, maybe we should reconsider. That was the hope.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Yes, sir. Of course, as Mr. Turner said, on the exact day that the IAEA said that Iran was gaining nuclear capability.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I appreciate the gentleman very much. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, I think all of the previous speakers have covered critically important points. Before I give a statement related to the European site primarily, I just want to say I was struck by the chairman or chairman-to-be, we hope, of the Strategic Forces Committee, your comments saying that the statement that was made by the IAEA related to Iran's nuclear capability came on the same day that the President decided to abandon the European site, I thought were profound. Because, in reality, this ostensible alternative that the President suggests that we can put in place of the ground-based system, we were going to build anyway. That's nothing new. All we have done is to take out the equation of the ground-based system that, as Mr. Akin says, would have had the actual capability of interdicting ICBMs. That's all we have really done. Of course, the system we were building in Europe could have protected the American homeland. Any ability to do that in this so-called alternative that we were going to build anyway will be out around 2020. I just appreciate the gentleman being able to point out that critically important point, because I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Obama administration's decision last week to abandon the European site will go down in history as a crossroads in European and American relations. I am afraid that this and future American generations may be greatly affected. When the administration decided to abandon U.S. plans for a ground-based missile defense site in Europe, I believe the President fundamentally disgraced and weakened this Nation by breaking his word to our loyal and courageous allies in the Czech Republic and Poland. Mr. Speaker, America has become the greatest Nation in history because our word has always meant something. The announcement to abandon the protective missile defense shield in Europe has fundamentally altered that paradigm. After the decision was announced, the newspaper headlines in Poland and the Czech Republic stated the situation in the very starkest of terms. One Czech newspaper had the quote: ``Betrayed, the U.S.A. has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back.'' That's an incredible statement. In the Czech Republic, the daily Lidowe Noviny commented, that's one of their major newspapers, Obama gave in to the Kremlin. This has weakened America's place in the world. Mr. Speaker, President Obama's decision to abandon our faithful allies and instead placate Russian belligerence came on the 70th anniversary to the exact day of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland after two of humanity's notorious monsters named Stalin and Hitler insidiously agreed to divide the nation of Poland between themselves. Our allies deserve better than that, Mr. Speaker, after they stood bravely in the face of Russian aggression and paid a tremendous price politically and otherwise to stand by us. They had a right to expect America to keep her word and to stand by them. But, ironically, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Obama's terribly flawed reasoning for the abandonment of the European missile defense site really has everything to do with Russia, because Russia has always hated the missile defense plan because they don't want American presence in their quote former ``empire.'' Knowing that this would diminish Russia's influence in the region, even though the Russian military would not be threatened in any way by the European site, it would not be any real defense of any kind against the Russian federation strike. Russia's leaders know that if an American radar is placed in the Czech Republic and the American missile interceptors are placed in Poland, those two sovereign countries would be stepping further away from the shackles of Russian oppression in the East and joining with the Americans in the West for the cause of democratic independence and human freedom.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I stood on this floor about 3 years ago and called upon the United States to clearly define its position toward what is now the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran. I then called upon the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council because I believed then that what Western intelligence has long suspected about Iran and what it seems that President Obama is now just beginning to realize, Iran is systematically and relentlessly pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. Today's revelation that they have a second uranium facility at Qom should remove all doubt in any reasonable person's mind about their inevitable intentions. Yet today's announcement at the G-20 summit by the leaders of Britain, France and the United States reveal that Iran has been covertly operating and developing a new underground uranium enrichment facility at Qom. It is disgracefully ironic that today's announcement comes only a week after announcing our abandonment of the European missile defense site which could have protected the homeland of the United States against Iranian long-range missiles, and only one day after President Obama chaired a United Nations Security Council specifically addressing the need to halt the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world. Unbelievably, the resolution passed by the Security Council, under President Obama's leadership, omitted any mention whatsoever of either North Korea or Iran. But regardless of the Security Council's failure to explicitly address the real and present danger that the peace-loving world faces because of Iran's nuclear ambitions, the fact is that Iran has already disregarded three previous rounds of Security Council sanctions and has continued to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapons capability, including building this underground facility and testing the long-range ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver a nuclear payload. We have reached a crossroads with Iran, Mr. Speaker, that will result in one of two outcomes: either Iran transforms the geopolitical landscape by becoming a nuclear power that proliferates nuclear and missile technology to terrorists throughout the world and then threatens the very existence of countries like Israel; or, by the world's inaction, we place the tiny country of Israel in the unavoidable position of having to act unilaterally with military force to protect themselves and humanity from the threat a nuclear Iran would represent to the entire civilized world. We must not place Israel in that position, Mr. Speaker. President Obama's announcement today also offered no assurance and, in fact, was a weaker statement than the statement given by Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy, who rightly said that we live in the real world, not the virtual world, and that the real world requires leaders to make decisions to act. With its languishing economy and literally centuries' worth of natural gas reserves, Iran's claim that it seeks nuclear capability solely for peaceful purposes is ridiculous beyond my ability to express. It is now open knowledge that for years North Korea gave false overtures that it would engage in negotiations over its nuclear program while holding every deliberate intention to continue its covert development of its nuclear program. We are lying to ourselves and to the world that similar overtures, if made from Iran, will be any less disingenuous. And the implications for our children and our future generations are profoundly significant, Mr. Speaker. The world must act. As one former Israeli Ambassador put it, ``The game is over.'' Iran is no longer progressing but has now reached the endgame of diplomatic relations. Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of every sanction and diplomatic effort possible to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities. However, ultimately I am convinced the only two things that will stop Iran from becoming a nuclear armed nation and proliferating nuclear terrorism globally in the future will either be a direct military intervention from America or other nations, or the absolute conviction in the minds of the Iranian regime that that will occur if their march toward gaining nuclear weapons continues. The world must act, Mr. Speaker. For the sake of freedom and for all that free people love, Iran must not be allowed to progress one step further in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Thank you, Mr. King, for yielding. I guess you said it best a moment ago when you just talked about history. Someone a long time ago said that those who don't learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. Someone said that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. But Dostoevsky said it this way: he said, He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future. And I think he capsulized what the liberal intelligencia have done today. They have tried to rewrite history in order to try to shape the future. And it concerns me greatly because if you look just in a cursory glance at history, especially since the nuclear age came upon us, when we had a great enemy in the Soviet Union, they had thousands of warheads aimed at us with nuclear missiles; we had thousands aimed at them. There was almost a fearful tension there because they knew if they launched against us that we could launch against them while the missiles that they'd launched were still in the area and we would destroy each other. So we called this ``mutually assured destruction,'' and there was a kind of a grim peace that was achieved because we put our security in their sanity and they did the same for us. But some things have changed in history since then. First of all, terrorism has come upon us, and, second of all, nuclear proliferation has begun to make a march across the world. And now we live in a generation that sees terrorism or this jihad coming together with nuclear proliferation. And when you put those two things together, all of the historical precedents seem to fade because now you face an enemy with an ultimate capacity, whether it be just a nuclear warhead in one of our cities or launching a missile at us or even launching an EMP attack, that we haven't talked about tonight, but I hope that Members really try to learn about that. We face a situation where an enemy that has no regard for its own life, that they will be willing to kill their own children in order to kill ours, are eventually, if we continue down this path, going to find their way to the nuclear button. And if they do and terrorists the world over gain this technology, it will change our concept of freedom forever. I am convinced that there's nothing that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda would like to do more than put a nuclear weapon about a hundred yards off the steps of this building and decapitate this country. And you say, well, that's an impossible scenario. It's an unthinkable scenario, but I assure you it's not impossible. And to somehow blink and take away our capability to devalue nuclear programs in the world, as missile defense does, or to stop an incoming missile when we have to, to somehow blink in that situation is to hasten a day like that. I hope that somehow we regain our sanity in time and realize how serious the equation really is. I appreciate so much the gentleman yielding to me tonight.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I guess my first postulation here was that Iran, having a nuclear capability, changed everything, because it potentially worked on this coincidence of jihad and nuclear proliferation, where it empowered Iran to give nuclear weapons to terrorists. It's so hard for me to see a world like that, that I guess that's my central focus. The only thing that I can put forward at all is that the President was somehow assured by Russia that that wouldn't happen if we work with Russia. But the problem is that Russia has sold us their influence about half a dozen times now--and we've gotten nothing for it. And, secondarily, the most critical component in a nuclear program is not missile technology. Missile technology is beginning to proliferate the world over. I mean it is astonishing how much missile capability even smaller countries are beginning to have now. That mule is out of the barn, as they say. But the fissile material or the material for making nuclear weapons is really the crux here. And Russia has delivered nuclear fuel to Iran already. So how do we somehow take their word for this situation? It's always amazing to me. I think that Mr. Obama, in all deference to the President, is somehow ignoring the lessons of history. Where we see malevolent individuals or countries push forward to try to push back the forces of freedom, and someone blinks, as Mr. Halpern put it. Someone blinks. There was a time when Gorbachev stared in the eyes of Ronald Reagan. And Gorbachev had to blink because Ronald Reagan didn't. He transcended hundreds of millions because Reagan had the courage to stand strong, even above the din of the liberal media in his own country. There was a time when one of the other Russian premiers tried to stare down President John Kennedy. John Kennedy stood strong and wouldn't back up. Where would we be had that not happened? In just recent days, Mr. Putin stared President Obama in the eye--and Mr. Obama blinked. And it has historic and grave consequences, I believe, for the free world, and especially for America and our future generations. And I am just very concerned as we go forward now that this President is going to somehow say, Well, Iran probably can have a peaceful nuclear program. Well, let me just say to you, by the way, that Iran has so much natural gas that it would be scales of 10 cheaper for them just to produce their electricity with natural gas than to build a nuclear power plant to produce electricity. So that's a completely ridiculous notion. But here's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid this President is either going to naively or somehow, in the hope that he, in his broadmindedness, will convince jihad to change their mind, which they have had for hundreds of years, to change theirs--and it's just not going to happen that way. I fear that he is going to allow Iran to go forward with a so-called peaceful nuclear program that will allow them in a very short period of time to become a nuclear weapons power in the world and translate that to not only proliferation to other rogue states, but to terrorists and, again, take us into that Samarian night when our children may have to face nuclear terrorism. I just feel like if we let this happen now, that we're making a terrible mistake, and future generations will pay that price.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Tragically, Mr. King, the Israelis will have almost no choice. This will be a defensive action on their part because they've already been told by the Iranian leaders that they intend to wipe Israel off the map. This would give them the capacity to do just that. I just think it's a tragedy, beyond my ability to articulate, that we don't have the understanding of what we're really facing here. I think Mr. Obama is simply naive as to the danger and as to the mindset of jihad and as to how serious they really are. You know, they played rope-a-dope with us in North Korea for many, many years; and now we know that they plan and continue to plan to come to a full-scale nuclear weapons capability. The same thing exists with Iran. Unfortunately, I believe only two things will stop Iran from gaining a nuclear capability: either military intervention or the conviction in Iranian leaders' minds that nuclear intervention will occur if they don't stop their march towards a nuclear weapons capability. I'm afraid that Israel understands that. If we don't respond or if some coalition of the Western World doesn't respond, then Israel will be left with no choice.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, let me just say this first with the gentleman's permission: I believe, if the free world places Israel in the untenable position of having to defend itself, which it will have to do if no one else has the courage to stand up to Iran, Israel will have no choice. It has no room for error. Ahmadinejad has said that they want to wipe Israel off the map. One warhead could virtually destroy Israel. We can put eight Israels in the size of my State of Arizona. They're only a one-bomb nation. They cannot abide an Iranian lunatic like Ahmadinejad, who has his finger on the nuclear button with a Shahab-3 that can reach Israel in about 12 to 14 minutes. They cannot possibly abide that. We in the free world know that. If we stand by and force Israel to respond like we've done in times past, whether it be with Syria or with the nuclear power plant in Iraq sometime ago, the Orissa plant, if we put them in that position, then we really fail the whole world because that will enflame the passions of the entire Arab world; and it will, I think, set us on a path of great contention.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I believe that Mr. Helprin is exactly correct. These things don't happen overnight. It takes a certain timeline in order to build both an offensive capability and a defensive capability. We were on track to have our defensive capability in place by around 2012, which would have probably been before Iran could have actually launched a full-blown intercontinental ballistic missile against the homeland of the United States. As it stands now, the ostensible alternative that the President is offering will not even be in place until 2018 or until 2020, at which time the Iranians will be fully capable and will just be ignoring us at that point. It just gives us no real opportunity to use the European missile defense site as a factor to help play in the calculus or to prevent Iran from gaining that nuclear capability. Once they do it, it's just hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Thank you, Mr. King. Mr. Speaker, I just want to express my gratitude to Steve King. The gentleman from Iowa is not only a precious friend, but I truly believe that he is a friend of freedom and a friend of America. All of the things that he has laid out related to the health care reform plan put forward by the majority I completely embrace. There are so many things that are important to discuss in the country today. I mean, one of the things that can be said for the Barack Obama administration is that they're moving fast in a host of different areas. I happen to disagree with the vast majority of those areas, and it makes it very difficult sometimes to pick the priority to speak to. But let me just say, the priority that I would like to speak to tonight, with the permission of the gentleman from Iowa--and maybe we can speak to it as we go here--is this whole issue of missile defense. Mr. Speaker, last week the Obama administration did something that could go down in history as a crossroads in European-American relations. I am afraid that this and future American generations may be gravely affected by his decision. The administration decided to abandon U.S. plans for a ground-based U.S. missile defense site in Europe, and I believe the President fundamentally disgraced this Nation by breaking his word to our loyal and courageous allies in the Czech Republic and in Poland. Mr. Speaker, for many reasons, America has become the greatest nation in the history of the world because our word has meant something. The announcement to abandon the protective missile defense shield in Europe has fundamentally altered that paradigm. After the decision was announced, the newspaper headlines in Poland and the Czech Republic stated the situation in the very starkest of terms. One Polish newspaper had the headline, ``Betrayed!''--betrayed, wow, that's heavy stuff, Mr. Speaker--``The USA has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back.'' The Czech Republic, the daily Lidowe Noviny commented, ``Obama gave in to the Kremlin.'' Mr. Speaker, President Obama's decision to abandon our faithful allies and, instead, to placate Russian belligerence came on the 70th anniversary to the exact day of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland after two of humanity's most notorious monsters named Stalin and Hitler insidiously agreed to divide the Nation of Poland between themselves. Our allies deserve better than that, Mr. Speaker. After they stood bravely in the face of Russian aggression and paid a profound political price to stand by us, they had a right to expect America to keep her word and to stand by them. Mr. Speaker, ironically, Mr. Obama's terribly flawed decision for abandoning the European missile defense site has everything to do with primarily Russia. Russia has always hated the missile defense plan because they don't want an American presence in their former empire, knowing that this would diminish Russia's influence in the entire region, even though the European site would not threaten in any way Russia's military capability. There is no way that 10 ground-based interceptors can have any real effect on the Russian Federation nuclear strike, if they chose. Russia's leaders know that if an American radar is placed in the Czech Republic and American missile interceptors are placed in Poland, those two sovereign countries would be stepping further away from the shackles of Russian oppression in the East and joining with America in the West in the cause for democratic independence and human freedom. But Russian belligerence notwithstanding, reports surfaced in March of this year, indicating President Obama had covertly offered Russians a promise that the United States would cease moving forward with the deployment of the ground-based missile defense site in Europe if Moscow--now this is unbelievable to me, Mr. Speaker--if Moscow would commit to helping to discourage Iran's nuclear programs. Now let us just recall for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that it was Russia that actually delivered nuclear fuel to Iran, and Russia was paid $800 million by Iran for its work on the Bushehr nuclear reactor, which will help Iran make their own nuclear fuel for weapons. Russia has been strongly suspected of aiding Iran's already advancing missile program itself. Moreover, just this week, Mr. Speaker, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez announced that they were purchasing more than $2 billion worth of arms from Russia, including rocket technology, and Mr. Chavez has already declared that Venezuela will get started on a nuclear program with Iran's help. Mr. Speaker, asking Russia to choke off Iran's nuclear program while ceding our only defense against Iranian long-range ballistic missiles is as illogical as a police officer offering his bulletproof vest to a gang of violent criminals in exchange for verbal assurances that they won't use their guns. Our allies, potential allies, rogue nations and terrorist groups all over the world were watching President Obama's capitulation. President Obama swore he would restore America's relationships in the world, relationships the liberal Democrats accuse the Bush administration of destroying. But instead of restoring America's relationships, he has diminished our credibility across the world and possibly beyond repair. Most importantly, Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve to be told the truth about what we actually lost when the President abandoned the European missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic. Today the nation of Iran is defying the Western world in its determined pursuit of nuclear weapons, which would allow Iran and its proxies to hold the entire peace-loving world under nuclear threat. The most devastating aspect of the President's decision--of course aside from forfeiting our ability to intercept long-range ballistic missiles aimed at the American homeland--is that it removed a strong disincentive for Iran to continue with its nuclear weapons program, and that was one of the critical purposes of the European missile defense site from the very beginning, Mr. Speaker. It was meant to create a strategic disincentive for Iran to develop a nuclear long-range missile capability. Iran would have had to face the fact that they were pursuing a long-range missile technology for which we already had a defense. In other words, it would have been like trying to spread a virus when we had already been inoculated against it. Instead, Mr. Speaker, we have forfeited that strategic advantage, and we have gained nothing in return. As timelines exist now--and this is such an important point--as timelines exist now, any alternative to the system the President abandoned will come too late to be a significant factor in preventing the nation of Iran from developing a nuclear missile capability that will threaten the peace of the entire free world and its children. Mr. Speaker, if Iran does achieve a nuclear capability, it will officially launch a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It will allow a corrupt regime--whose leader hates America, whose leader hates Israel and the Western world, and who considers Armageddon to be a good thing--to be able to hold the United States and our allies at risk from a ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead, much like the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. As former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton has stated, ``There is no harm in deploying our missile defenses before ICBMs can reach America. But there is incalculable risk if Iran is ready before we are.'' Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Iran may be ready far sooner than the Obama administration seems ready to admit. Recent reports state that Iran may reach a nuclear weapons capability within as little as 1 year, and The New York Times recently stated that Iran now possesses at least 7,200 centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade enriched uranium and that they have already produced enough low enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear warhead. Mr. Speaker, I sometimes have the hardest time just stating the facts as they are without sounding like an alarmist. But I truly believe this. And I will go on record to say that I hope that the listeners and anyone--including you, Mr. Speaker--are really paying attention. This needs to be said. If the Obama administration continues down this road of appeasement and denial, the nation of Iran will gain a nuclear capability, and they will pass that technology and those weapons on to the most dangerous terrorists in the world. And this generation and so many to come, Mr. Speaker, will face the horrifying reality of nuclear jihad. Those of us who have been blessed to walk in the sunlight of freedom in this generation will relegate our freedom to walk in the minefield of nuclear terrorism in the next generation. Mr. Speaker, the preeminent responsibility of the President of the United States and even of this Congress is to protect the national security of the United States. I believe that President Barack Obama's abandonment of the ballistic missile defense site in Europe fundamentally betrays that responsibility. I am stunned that he does not seem to understand that, and I am sincerely in fear that our children and our children's children may pay a tragic price for that betrayal. I thank the gentleman for the time, and I will be glad to enter into any kind of colloquy or discussions. Thank you, sir.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 711 I inadvertently missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on budget requests, I am submitting the following information regarding budget designations I received as part of H.R. 3326: FY 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill. (1) Recipient: Robertson Aviation Budget Designation: $3,000,000 This designation funds the procurement of internal 200 gallon A-kits and B-kits for installation on UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters operated by the Army National Guard. The Internal Auxiliary Fuel Tank System is a crashworthy, ballistically self-sealing, single-point pressure refuelable internal auxiliary fuel system that has been developed and fielded to H-60 helicopters operated by the U.S. Army Special Operations, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force Combat Search and Rescue, and certain units of the U.S. Army National Guard. Having this system installed on an H-60 helicopter saves lives by reducing the risk of post crash fires by using military standard crashworthy self sealing bladders integrated into rugged aluminum honeycomb fiberglass outer containers. The resulting system provides ballistic protection for aircrews operating in hostile environments and crashworthy protection for all operations. (2) Recipient: Southwest Gas Corporation Budget Designation: $3,000,000 This funding request is for a Gas Engine Heat Pump (GEDAC) demonstration. GEDAC provides essential peak electric and winter gas load reduction. GEDACs not only provide increased energy efficiency, reduced peak electricity demand, costs savings to the U.S. military, resource reductions (water), and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it also diversifies energy sources and provides the foundation for grid independence in electricity production. This type of energy independence is invaluable to a military installation, or other facility of national interest, that has to continue to function in the event of a national emergency. (3) Proposed Recipient: USAF, Air Education and Training Command Budget Designation: $1,500,000 This funding request is for Air Education & Training Command (AETC) aircraft range upgrades, specifically Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR) improvement projects. Air Education and Training Command ranges have an unfunded requirement for enhancements to bring them more in line with the operational capabilities of the F-35. The Barry M. Goldwater Range has an identified unfunded requirement to secure a sensor training area and new instrumented target area as well as two ground moving target sets to conduct real world training which mirrors Global War on Terror requirements. Acquisition of ground moving targets, and development of a sensor training area/instrumented target area within the Barry M. Goldwater Tactical Range addresses the operational requirements which F-16 and future pilots (F-35) will face in defeating urban and moving targets with high precision. (4) Proposed Recipient: Advanced Ceramics Budget Designation: $2,000,000 This funding request supports efforts at the U.S. Army Battle Command Battle laboratory at Ft. Huachuca to aggressively pursue experimental deployment efforts and spiral development of sensor and micro- transponder technologies using the Silver Fox and Manta unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Silver Fox and Manta systems' uniquely compact size and stealth technology coupled with the use of advanced sensors and transponders enable them to detect, track, and isolate the smallest enemy movements, including the emplacement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)--the enemy's weapon of choice against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 670, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye.'' En Bloc Amendment Offered by Mr. Flake