Trent Franks

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

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. 3288: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Recipient: Arizona Department of Transportation, 206 S. 17th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85007 Budget designation: $1,000,000 The Hoover Dam Bypass project was authorized by Congress in P.L. 98- 381. Hoover Dam is a strategic national asset. This project will protect the Dam while ensuring safer traffic flow between Phoenix and Las Vegas. Recipient: Arizona Department of Transportation, 206 S. 17th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85007 Budget designation: $250,000 The Hassayampa Study corridor is located in the Phoenix West Valley. The request would fund an Environmental Impact Statement of the Hassayampa Freeway and the Hassayampa Study Region. This project holds tremendous potential for the West Valley and entire Southwest region by linking Phoenix to Las Vegas through the proposed Interstate 11 corridor.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, America is facing an unemployment and mortgage crisis unlike anything we have seen since the Great Depression. Only months ago, President Obama pledged that he would create 3\1/2\ millions jobs by the end of 2010 and told us that the unemployment rate would stay below 8 percent if we passed the allegedly urgent trillion- dollar ``economic stimulus'' bill. But, Mr. Speaker, since the President has assumed office, employment has dropped by over 2\1/2\ million jobs. We've lost 8 million jobs since the beginning of the Democrat-led 110th Congress, and half a million of those were in June alone. The jobless rate stands at 9.5 percent, and the President himself admits that it's likely to climb over 10 percent. This Congress and this administration must be reminded by the American people that what comprises true economic growth are jobs and economic productivity by the people. Higher taxes, increased regulation, reckless spending, bureaucratic selection of economic winners and losers and out-of-control deficit spending, these are the Democrat policies of the last five months, and they diminish productivity instead of encouraging it. They will kill jobs. And unless we change course, Mr. Speaker, this country faces an unprecedented economic failure.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin).

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, haven't I yielded just 4 minutes thus far? I yielded myself 2 minutes in the beginning, Mr. McKeon 1 minute and Mr. Turner 1 minute?

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I yield the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Griffith) 1 minute.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, might I inquire as to the remainder of the time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam).

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young). (Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun). (Mr. BROUN of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I will yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, an ICBM landing in the United States or over the United States could subject us to an EMP tragedy or destroy one of our cities and change our concept of freedom forever. The only system that we have to defend us in a tested and proven way from that threat is our Ground- based Midcourse Defense. The budget, as it stands now, cuts it 35 percent. This amendment would restore that money to protect our children and families from such a threat. We need to protect this country from madmen like Mr. Ahmadinejad and madmen like Mr. Kim Jong-Il. It is our first duty under the Constitution to do so, and I adjure this body to pass this amendment.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the distinguished gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I support the Hastings amendment because it tries to make sure that groups determined by the Attorney General to be of violent or extremist nature are not recruited into military service. But I take some offense that one of the Cabinet-level officials of our government categorized people who are, quote, dedicated to a single issue such as opposition to abortion or immigration as right-wing extremists, and I am concerned that the amendment might be misunderstood. And I would like to hear from the other side that this is not the intent of the amendment and that we would make sure that someone that was dedicated to the patriotism and protecting their country, which it takes a certain amount of extreme dedication to go out and pour one's blood on a foreign battlefield for the cause of human freedom, and I want to make sure that those individuals are not considered extremists under Mr. Hastings' part of the en bloc amendment. Would anyone speak to that on the other side?

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Yes, I would yield to the chairman.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I guess I am asking the chairman of the committee that the Hastings amendment would not include--the definition of right-wing extremists would not be included in the amendment that's being offered by the Hastings amendment under the en bloc.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, maybe I could just ask for your assurances that people dedicated to single issues in this country such as opposition to abortion or immigration would not be considered extremists and not be disallowed into the military; at least, that would not be your intent under this amendment.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 9.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, nuclear weapons, especially those connected to intercontinental ballistic missiles, represent the greatest danger, the greatest weapon ever devised, threatening the human family. The enemies of the United States are defiantly developing delivery systems for those devastating weapons. Mr. Chairman, to be clear, ballistic missile threats are increasing in the world, and while that threat is increasing, our budget in Congress to effect missile defense is decreasing. My amendment would restore the $1.2 billion that was cut from last year's appropriated amount. The administration and those who support these cuts have created a false choice between theater defense and homeland defense. If this Congress can find $787 billion for a so-called stimulus economic package, then we have no excuse but to also fund both theater defense and the national defense of the American people. Mr. Chairman, North Korea has recently conducted a nuclear test and missile launches, and President Obama has called Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile activity ``a real threat.'' Despite the threat increase, this bill slashes by 35 percent the only system that we have that is tested and proven to protect the homeland against ICBMs, our Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. My amendment would restore these cuts. Mr. Chairman, North Korea is right now planning a ballistic missile launch, and yesterday in fact declared it is ready to ``wipe out the United States.'' We have a chance this moment to restore the funds to make these systems viable to protect the American people from this exact threat. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of protecting the American people and to vote ``yes'' on this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I would just respond by suggesting that to say $1.2 billion in missile defense spending would be wasteful, in the light of the fact that when three airplanes hit this country, it cost us $2 trillion in our economy and nearly $100 billion to clean it up, I think that is shortsighted. With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished ranking member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Mr. Turner.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, today, June 19th, marks the anniversary of what has become known as Juneteenth,'' the name given to emancipation day by African-Americans in Texas. On that day in 1865, Union Major-General Gordon Granger read General Orders, No. 3 to the people of Galveston. It stated: ``The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property . . . It was an event in the early days of the 19th century, and especially in the darkest of hours during the Civil War that turned brother against brother and cost nearly 600,000 American lives, that few would ever have believed was possible, Madam Speaker. And yet here in America, where the words ``all men are created equal'' were formally recognized by government for the first time in history as a self-evident truth, we recognized that reducing the status of a black man to less than human simply because he was black was something that was both abominable to God, and fundamentally incompatible with the principles of human freedom on which America was built. Abraham Lincoln realized that truth, Madam Speaker. He said this about our Founding Fathers: ``In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began--so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built. Mr. Lincoln helped us decide as a nation, Madam Speaker, that regardless of what it cost, we would choose to once again recognize Imago Dei, the image of God in man, and although millions never would have believed it possible, the United States chose to abolish slavery once and for all. Yet today, Madam Speaker, few people who remember and celebrate Juneteenth realize that freedom has not yet fully come to all in the African-American community. Today, Madam Speaker, in the land of the free and the home of the brave; in the same nation that threw off the yoke of slavery and overturned the abomination of a Supreme Court decision that said the black man was not a person and not worthy of protection under the law; today in America, Madam Speaker, the lives of one in two black unborn children are lost before they ever see the light of day for the first time. And though some, captive to an invincible blindness, would deny this reality, Madam Speaker, we are all witness to what has been the deadliest form of discrimination in our country's history: the systematic elimination of millions. Today, fully one-half of all black Americans conceived in this country are killed before they are born, primarily at government-funded abortion clinics placed in our inner cities. Every day, Madam Speaker, almost 1,500 unborn black children are aborted. Black babies are aborted at between four and five times the rate of that of white babies. The daily killing of 50 percent of unborn black American children has cost the lives of close to 14 million black children. That equates to no less than a genocide against black America. It is a tragedy that beggars my ability to describe. This Juneteenth, as we recognize a great victory for human freedom and equality, Madam Speaker, we must also recognize that the most fundamental freedom and basic civil right of all--the right to live-- especially for black Americans, has never been more threatened or under attack. But Juneteenth should also give us hope, because it shows us that nations caught up in something as tragic as slavery can rise to victory and change history. Madam Speaker, I have a painting in my office depicting this floor and this chamber on Juneteenth, celebrating the end of slavery in America. It is a scene of pandemonium and celebration, illustrating the feeling of that day among men and women who realize something truly historic and great had happened--that an entire race of human beings had been recognized for the children of God that they were, and that America had been used to end the 7,000-year reign of the acceptance of human slavery in the world. That picture gives me great hope, Madam Speaker, because it shows that even something as evil and entrenched in human society as was human slavery can be changed. And Madam Speaker, because I have the privilege of living in America, I am just idealistic enough to believe that we can also rise to the occasion in this country and change history again, and end this tragic genocide called abortion on demand. And you know the irony, Madam Speaker, is that it may be African- Americans, who were once enslaved in this country and who are now recognizing that abortion on demand is killing more of their little brothers and sisters than did slavery, who will be the ones to help lead America to place this modern day genocide behind us forever. By the grace of God may it be so, Madam Speaker.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, on Rollcall No. 356, I intended to vote ``yes.'' The motion would have struck $97.4 million from the Federal Prison System in the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010. It would have brought funding in line with the President's request. I believe the level of spending in the underlying bill was irresponsible in light of the crushing level of debt that America is facing. This amendment was a small step in a broader effort that I supported to make this a fiscally responsible bill.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2847: Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. (1) Recipient: City of Glendale, Arizona, 5850 W. Glendale Avenue, Glendale, AZ 85301 Budget designation: $1,000,000 The purpose of this budget designation is to upgrade and enhance the computer aided dispatch and records management system that is used by law enforcement to respond to emergencies in the Glendale community. These upgrades will include modules for booking, records management, dispatch, homeland security, court/prosecutors and wireless ticketing, as well as automatic vehicle location, a system that is currently used by the fire department which results in a much quicker response to calls and includes mapping so that officers can be directed to the call location. Over the past several years, the City of Glendale has become an entertainment and sports destination. The City is home to the University of Phoenix Stadium, a 73,000-seat multi-purpose facility which hosts the NFL Cardinals football games, the Fiesta Bowl, an annual BCS Game and just hosted the 2008 Super Bowl. The adjoining Jobing.com arena is home to the NHL Phoenix Coyotes and hosts numerous events and concerts. The national and regional events held at these facilities have significantly increased the public safety needs and demands on the City of Glendale. In order to protect the public that attends these events, the City of Glendale is pursuing the acquisition of infrastructure equipment that will enhance emergency response time. The Glendale Police Department currently uses a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) which was built in-house in the mid-1980s. The system is difficult to work with and sometimes it is not possible to make changes that reflect the current needs of the Police Department. This project will make the technology improvements necessary to meet the Glendale area's increasing public safety needs. (2) Recipient: City of Surprise, Arizona, 12435 W. Bell Rd, Surprise, AZ 86442 Budget designation: $200,000 The purpose of this budget designation is to aid the Police Department of the City of Surprise in keeping the City of Surprise safe from criminals. The Police Department of the City of Surprise has grown significantly over the past few years in its service provided to the community. In 2008, the department reported an increase of over 12 percent in total incidents, increasing from 81,332 in 2007 to 92,596 in 2008. Citizen calls for service made up a total of 41,372 of the 2008 total incidents. Total incidents include the public calls for service, but also include the activities of officers such as viewed crimes and arrests, traffic enforcement, and other community contacts. The funds will be used to upgrade 75 mobile data computers and purchase in-car cameras to help keep the West Valley safe from criminal predators.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I am.