Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House passed a SCHIP bill that makes a mockery of the earmark rules. An already seriously flawed bill got worse when it became clear that we would be voting on a bill that had been given a sham earmark certification. Quite simply, this bill contained an earmark, despite receiving the earmark-free designation by the House Rules Committee. The House rules are clear. If a bill has earmarks, it must be identified accordingly. But, somehow, the Democrat majority shoehorned money for specific health care facilities into yesterday's SCHIP legislation and slipped it through committee. I don't doubt there are medical facilities that need funding, but not funding that bends the rules. Are the American people supposed to take proclamations about new ethical standards seriously? If anything, we are witnessing a new atmosphere of hypocrisy, a charade of openness that veils a status quo rife with secret earmark spending. This is not the way this House should do business. Let's get back to doing business the way the American people want, without secret earmark spending and with accountability for every dollar in every piece of legislation.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the 75th birthday of my friend and family's former priest, Father Robert Bond. Father Bob, as his parishioners call him, is a retired priest of the Glenmary Home Missioners with a legacy of loving compassion not only for his church but for the unchurched and the less fortunate. Father Bond currently lives in Micaville, North Carolina, but he previously served in many places including Boone, North Carolina, where he served the flock at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church for 4 years. During his time at St. Elizabeth's, Father Bond typified the church's call to reach out to those in need and share the love of Christ. He was truly ahead of his time in his faithful efforts to bring the power of God's love to those who might never darken the door of a church. Perhaps the most significant contribution he made to the community of Boone was his vision for Camp Dogwood in Valle Crucis, North Carolina. Camp Dogwood was a ministry that Father Bond ran for disadvantaged youth. On the power of his vision and the work of many volunteers, Camp Dogwood brightened the days and brought hope to the lives of many underprivileged children in North Carolina. He practiced the ``No Child Left Behind'' concept long before it was a national slogan. Father Bond's 75th birthday provides a reason to celebrate a life marked by compassion and Christian witness. I wish him many more years of faithful service.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 75th anniversary of Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Temple Emanuel is a Jewish reform congregation in Winston-Salem known for consistently reaching out beyond the Jewish community to embrace people from all walks of life. Temple Emanuel is identified in the area as a community with a long history of actively engaging the issues that confront the people of Winston-Salem. Its example clearly illustrates how important the tradition of American religious communities' involvement in civic and community life is in an age of what often seems like increasing individual disengagement. I commend the members of Temple Emanuel for their faithful example of outreach and investment in others. This ethic is embodied in the leadership of Rabbi Mark Strauss-Cohn. His commitment to service and religious dialogue recently earned him the Everyone Can Help Out Award from the Winston-Salem Foundation for his efforts to bridge religious differences by teaching community classes on Judaism. Rabbi Strauss-Cohn has also led by example by involving Temple Emanuel in housing projects with Habitat for Humanity and other activities. Temple Emanuel was founded as a reform congregation in the 1930s. When it was incorporated, it boasted 63 family memberships. Today the congregation has grown to more than 250 families. I look forward to seeing this fine Jewish congregation continue to grow and make a positive impact on its community. I send my best wishes on this significant anniversary, and wish everyone at Temple Emanuel many more years of celebrating and practicing their Jewish faith and heritage.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate Representative Garrett putting together this Special Order tonight. While I missed the very beginning of it, I know we often share Special Orders when we are dealing with the Constitution, and I think it a bit ironic that we are here on Constitution Day dealing with this issue which we often talk about in terms of the Constitution and the role of the Constitution and the Federal Government in dealing with education. Let me say, first of all, you have been here a bit longer than I have and have worked on some of these issues longer than I have, and you have excellent credentials. But I want to say, to sort of establish my credentials a bit, that I come from a background of education serving on the school board of Watauga County for 12 years. I was an administrator at Appalachian State University, I was an instructor, and I was a community college president. My doctorate degree is in curriculum and teaching in higher education, so this is an issue I am very passionate about and have been all of my life. I understand the importance of education. I understand the importance of an excellent education for helping people break the cycle of poverty and for unleashing talents and skills. I know that No Child Left Behind is not the answer to what we need to be doing in this country in terms of unleashing the tremendous potential that exists with young people in this country. I want to thank you for introducing H.R. 3177, the Local Education Authority Returns Now, the LEARN Act, which would allow States to opt out of the costly and burdensome No Child Left Behind law and return the control to the locals where it belongs. I am proud to be one of the 33 cosponsors of this bill. Again, let me go back to the fact that we are here on Constitution Day and remind people, which I think we need to do on a fairly regular basis, of what the Constitution says about the role of the Federal Government in education. Amendment 10 of the Constitution says: ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.'' Now, I read the Constitution fairly regularly, and I find no mention of education being a responsibility of the Federal Government. I have established my credentials a little bit, and I will establish somewhat my historical credentials. I was on the school board of Watauga County not too long after the ESEA bill was passed. This was part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. There has been a great deal of debate about that bill since then. Of course, most people have lost sight of the fact that No Child Left Behind was, I believe, the eighth reauthorization of that bill. So No Child Left Behind has its origins in the War on Poverty, good intentions, trying to increase spending at the local school level, help children in poverty to do better. But the record of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has been very spotty at best. And No Child Left Behind has also been very spotty at best. What we need to do, again, is go back to the basics, in my opinion, where the role of the Federal Government is reduced in education and the role of the local school board, the local teachers, the local parents is increased. We need to make sure that we are not tying the hands of teachers and principals at the local level. That is what we have been doing with No Child Left Behind. We have been trying to mandate from Washington the way to handle education. I find almost no support for this program in my district. I have had forums with teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members. Many people complain bitterly about No Child Left Behind and the detrimental effect it has had on their system. Now, we found out in talking with them that much of what they are concerned about is not really in No Child Left Behind, but it is in other legislation that the Federal Government has imposed. But, again, what we need to do is unleash the potential that is there for teachers to work with children at the local level. I want to make a few comments, again, about my own experiences with this law and with other iterations of the ESEA Act of 1965 and throw out some things that we know about and have known about for a long time which make this emphasis on Federal funding so frustrating to those of us who pay attention to the research, pay attention to history and know what has been happening. There are thousands, literally thousands, of studies to show that there is absolutely no correlation between how much the government spends on schools and how much students learn. So the more spending we have guarantees nothing in terms of learning. What we do know is that what makes an effective school and what makes good learning are excellent principals and involved parents, and No Child Left Behind actually mitigates against both of those things because of so much emphasis on testing and so much emphasis again on the cookie-cutter approach. Let me say also that no research has ever established that the quality of individual schools is a cause of the gap in test scores among groups of students. What is important is the safety of the neighborhood, income, books in the home, whether there are a mother and a father in the home, how much TV the child watches and what is the level of the mother's education. Education cannot control these factors. We cannot, through our educational systems, make those things different for children. We are going to see gaps in education as long as we see lots of children coming from single-parent homes where the mother doesn't have a good education. We are going to see lots of problems with groups of children when children don't live in safe neighborhoods or when they don't have a lot of books in their homes. We know that schools and school quality contribute little to the emergence of test score gaps among children. Again, government-run schools simply are not going to be able to bridge the gap between what children need to know and what they are currently learning. What we need to be doing, again, is to reduce the role of the Federal Government in the education process and help those teachers who are out there on the line every day dealing with a tremendous range of children in their classrooms, trying to teach the tests so they won't be considered failures. One of the saddest things we have done, I think, with No Child Left Behind is label so many classrooms as failures, so many schools as failures, when people are working very hard doing a lot of good things. We are actually discouraging people from going into teaching and wanting to use their talents and skills on behalf of others. So, I would say that we need very much to go back to local accountability in education, local control in education, and stop letting the 7 percent of the funding that goes into the public schools from the Federal Government be the tail that wags the dog, because so much more of the money is coming in at the local level. Those people know what their schools need, and we need to let the folks there hold their systems accountable. Again, I want to compliment you on the LEARN Act and for bringing this up to folks, presenting the facts, so that people are not being misled by the propaganda that is put out about these things. People would like to control our lives totally from the Federal level, but it is not possible to do. Our framers of the Constitution understood that. They were very wise in it. We need to go back to those principles which gave us fairly good educational systems in the past but are failing us right now in the attempt to control everything from the Federal level.

Ms. FOXX. I also had the opportunity to review that article tonight from The Weekly Standard and was very struck, particularly by the review of the book by Mr. Lieberman. I hope that at some point you will call attention to that a little bit. I intended to do that in my comments. But I think it would be excellent if we were able to enter particularly the review of his book into the record, because he makes many of those same points that I was making about the educational structure. I think he has done a very good service. So I would hope that you would be able to do that at some point in the effort here tonight.

Ms. FOXX. Before you go to that chart, I want to ask you if you would yield to a question.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise today to voice my support for Taiwan and its application for admittance to the United Nations. It is vital that Congress and the Administration support our friend and ally by giving it the respect and dignity it deserves with a seat in the U.N. General Assembly. It is unfortunate that the Secretary General of the United Nations chose to reject without consideration Taiwan's application for membership on July 23, 2007. His unfortunate statement ``The position of the United Nations is that the People's Republic of China represents tHe whole of China as the sole and legitimate representative government of China,'' does not reflect the reality in the Taiwan Straits. For nearly 60 years there have been, two different and distinct governments in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. By admitting Taiwan as a member of the United Nations, there would be no change to the present reality at play in the Taiwan Straits. China's claims to an internationally recognized norm of ``One China'' do not ring true when one reviews the status quo. The Chinese authorities' only actions regarding relations with Taipei are to intimidate and embarrass. China uses military and diplomatic threats to oppose Taiwan's independence and belittle those who make attempts to bring the issue forward. At the same time it insists Taiwan is part of China, and yet does nothing to assist the people of Taiwan in obtaining help for health, wealth or happiness. The Secretary General's argument that the 1971 Resolution 2758 admitting China to the U.N. means the government in Beijing represents the interests of Taiwan as well is flimsy, at best. Resolution 2758 recognized the legitimacy of the People's Republic of China as China's rightful representative, however, there is no authority granted to the People's Republic of China over the people of Taiwan. This does nothing to change the fact that the government in Beijing has no authority over the 23 million people of Taiwan and that the government of Taiwan has had no authority over the people of the People's Republic of China. The United Nations should not dismiss Taiwan's status simply as a matter that has been previously resolved by Resolution 2758. Taiwan's accession to the General Assembly will not change the current state of affairs in the Taiwan Strait. China makes no effort to control or impose its will upon Taiwan's politics or policies. Taiwan conducts elections, enters into trade agreements and conducts business in the international community on its own. Taiwan's admission into the U.N. will have important public health ramifications as well. A seat in the United Nations would help Taiwan secure a place in the World Health Organization. Such a development will reduce the likelihood that diseases such as avian flu could spread through Taiwan's busy ports. Furthermore, the idea of having dual U.N. representation of a [''unified''] country is not unprecedented. When a conflict such as the one facing Taiwan and China exists, it is in the interest of the international community to follow past precedent. I hope the Secretary General, the President and my colleagues will recall that East and West Germany were given two seats in the General Assembly, Belarus and Ukraine were given seats even as part of the Soviet Union and North and South Korea are each represented in the General Assembly. I hope this body and the Administration will stand firm and support U.N. membership for Taiwan.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Gingrey. I appreciate your allowing me to join you and these other very articulate people who are here tonight speaking on this issue. I was not here as a Member of Congress on 9/11/2001, but I am very pleased to be here tonight. As we were outside singing The Star Spangled Banner and our colleagues in the majority were talking about our being united, I was thinking about the fourth verse of The Star Spangled Banner, which very seldom gets sung, but I think is something that is so appropriate for the time that we are in right now. This is the way it goes. I know it by heart, but I didn't want to take a chance tonight, so I am going to look at my notes just in case. It is really my favorite verse. ``O, thus be it ever when free-men shall stand, Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation; Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ``In God is our trust.'' And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.'' When Francis Scott Key wrote those words in 1814, they meant a lot. They mean just as much or more now, and I am, like my colleagues, absolutely appalled at the approach that has been taken to the situation that we are in now by many on the Democratic side. It is appalling that they would question the integrity of the very men and women who are giving them the chance to stand up and lambaste them and slander them the way they are. They completely have forgotten what happened on 9/11. Many American people have forgotten. They don't understand the threat that this country is under and what we are doing to preserve our freedom. There is such irony in the fact that these people would get up and say this again against the people who are risking their lives so they can stand up in the safety of this country and speak freely. It just absolutely blows my mind that they are able to do that. They are being given the ability to speak freely by people risking their lives and people losing their lives every day. There is an arrogance of this Congress too, I think, the arrogance that demanded this report, the arrogance that says we are failing, when, in the face of all of the statistics, things are going so much better. There is an arrogance that says that if there is no strong national government, then things aren't going right. You know, people have forgotten that this country was founded to have a strong local and State governmental structure, and the local and state governmental structures in Iraq are working well. No, it is not going as well as the national level, but compare what we have done with what they have done. We have accomplished very little under the leadership of this Democratic house in the last 8 months; very, very little. You compare that to what they have been able to achieve and think about us. I spoke to a class today, three classes, actually, in my district, and I said to those students, the American people really don't realize in many ways the radical idea that this country was when we were formed. When people came to the United States, before it was the United States, they came here for freedom. They came seeking freedom. All they had ever known was freedom. When Britain tried to clamp down on us, people said we are not going to put up with that. All the people in this country have ever known is freedom. All the people of Iraq have ever known is repression. We have asked them to do in a couple of years what took many years to develop in this country; and, again, it was a totally radical idea never perpetuated anywhere before. And yet they are doing very well at the local and provincial level, just like we did. And now this Congress comes in and says if you don't have a strong national government, you have nothing. You are a failure. That is just not true. And I am simply appalled, too, at the people who want us to lose. How can they not understand the impact of our losing the war against the radical Islamic jihadists? This is not a war in Iraq; this is a worldwide war. One piece is in Iraq, and in many ways we are blessed that we have a concentration there where we can deal with it, because we are stopping them all over. They have not attacked us again. We have successfully defended ourselves from another attack, but they simply do not want to acknowledge it. All they see are the negatives, nothing positive. And I, again, am appalled at the attitude of the people who want the United States of America to fail. My attitude to them is if you can find a better place to live, go live there. If you can't, then stay here, help us defend this country. Help us support our troops willingly to fight for our freedom. Help us to bring liberty to other places in the world. Then we will see a safe world. If not, go someplace else and live.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a fine doctor from North Carolina, my friend Dr. Paula Szypko of High Point. Her commitment to advocating for quality care for her patients is truly admirable. Dr. Szypko will be stepping down at the end of this month as chair of the Federal and State Affairs Committee of the College of American Pathologists. Pathologists are physicians who help care for patients every day by providing doctors with the information they need to ensure appropriate patient care. As a pathologist specializing in anatomic and clinical pathology at the North State Pathology Associates in High Point, she has been a leading advocate for early cancer screening tests, especially Pap tests. No screening test in medical history has been as effective for early detection of cervical cancer in women as the Pap examination. As a member of the American College of Pathologists' Spokesperson Network, she has made numerous television appearances to advance this cause. For her effort she was awarded the CAP William H. Kuehin, Ph.D., Outstanding Communicator Award in 1999. Her commitment to patient access to quality health care led her to meet with President George Bush in 2002, along with former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, at the High Point Regional Health System in High Point, NC, to discuss her concerns about the rising cost of medical liability insurance. Dr. Szypko received her medical degree from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem. Following medical school, Dr. Szypko completed an internship in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, and served her residency at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. While Dr. Szypko will be stepping down as chair of the College of American Pathologists' Federal and State Committee, I know that she will be a strong voice for promoting quality health care excellence in her profession. Please join me in recognizing this outstanding physician for her advocacy and commitment to the patients she serves.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, this bill does absolutely nothing to improve access to a college education. It's a sham. It's another move toward socialism and taking away personal responsibility in our country. I probably have the most experience in this area of anybody in Congress. I worked my way through college, through an undergraduate and doctoral programs without any loans whatsoever. It can be done. It is not necessary for people to borrow $19,000 a year to go to college or come out with that kind of a debt. I've served in the field of education. I've been a school board member, higher education administration. I've directed Upward Bound special services programs, and I know what it's like to have, to be operating these programs. We have absolutely no accountability in the programs that we are passing here, and we need to be doing that. The American people want significant and strong education, but they do not want to see us wasting money like we're wasting here. This is called the College Cost Reduction Act. It does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of going to college. But it starts out a long list of complex new entitlement programs, and my colleagues have spoken very, very eloquently about that. We still are going to have college students stuck with college costs that are going up every week because the Federal Government is involved. We're doing nothing to help the Federal Work-Study Program, which has been one of the most successful programs that the Federal Government has ever gotten into. I can't support a bill that raises the cost of going to college instead of lowering the cost of going to college. This is going to make it even more complicated to do financial aid regulations, even though we're reducing the size of the form. What we need is a workable Federal financial aid system that helps students get a high quality education. But this bill falls far short of that standard by shifting Federal money to the institutions and to loan relief for college grads.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, when most Americans think of open-seas rescue operations, they think rightly about the United States Coast Guard. Our Nation's Coast Guard has a distinguished history of search and rescue missions dating back 217 years. They recently celebrated their one- millionth rescue, and I want to commend the bravery and service of this time-honored branch of our Armed Forces. But it turns out the Coast Guard isn't the only one assisting seafarers in distress these days. North Carolina-based Horizon Lines, a leading domestic ocean shipping company, came to the rescue of 22 Chinese crew members on a 420-foot log ship this summer. The log ship was transporting a load from Papua New Guinea to China, when it encountered the 70-mile-per-hour winds and 24-foot seas of a typhoon. The rough seas apparently caused the log ship's cargo to shift and eventually led to the loss of the vessel. The ship, the Hai Tong, had sunk in the very rough seas and the survivors had been adrift in the ocean 375 miles from Guam for 2 days when the Horizon Lines container ship, the Horizon Falcon, arrived. The Horizon Falcon was the first vessel to arrive on the scene after the log ship's crew alerted the Coast Guard to the Hai Tong's distress. When the Horizon Falcon arrived, it found survivors in the water surrounded by an oil slick and debris from the sunken ship. With the U.S. Coast Guard on the way, the Horizon Line's vessel immediately began a search and rescue operation amidst treacherous 30-foot swells and 40-mile-an-hour winds. The Horizon Falcon's captain, Tom McDorr, navigated through the heavy seas filled with the log ship's cargo and managed to get the huge 722- foot container ship within range of a rescue mission using one of the ship's lifeboats. His brave crew took the small lifeboat into the heavy seas, which still threatened their lives with 20-foot waves, and began searching for survivors of the wreck. Due to the distance of the nearest Coast Guard vessels, at this point there were not yet any Coast Guard rescuers on the scene. The lifeboat, crewed by three of the Horizon Falcon's seamen and under the command of Chief Mate Kevin McCarthy, fought its way through the massive waves and managed to locate and take one survivor aboard with waves crashing down on the vessel from literally every direction. I cannot say enough to commend the bravery of these men who risked their lives to save someone with whom they had no connection. Their selfless act was a demonstration of profound humanity in the face of extreme danger. The danger was so great that as they returned to the ship with a survivor in the lifeboat they were forced to abandon the damaged lifeboat, to the heavy seas. The crew and the rescued seaman managed to climb to safety up the containership's 40-foot pilot's ladder. The heroic actions of the Horizon Falcon's crew continued as another survivor was rescued by able-seaman J. Dacaug. He was secured to the pilot's ladder and went back to the ocean after the additional survivors. He managed to attach a grappling hook to a Chinese sailor even as he was battered by the huge swells and occasionally was submerged completely in the heavy seas. His bravery resulted in another life saved when both men were winched back to the safety of the container ship. The Falcon continued to search through the night for more survivors with the help of additional commercial ships and by the light of flares from a Navy airplane based in Japan. As the Falcon began to run low on fuel, it was relieved by a Coast Guard vessel that joined the search. The Coast Guard finally suspended the search 2 days later after 13 survivors had been rescued. Working against time and the power of nature, the captain and crew of the Horizon Falcon risked their own lives so others might emerge from a disastrous shipwreck to sail another day. Chuck Raymond of Horizon Lines put it well. ``Ever since man has been going to sea, there has been danger. But there also has been and will ever be brotherhood at sea that crosses any boundary. This rescue effort is a shining example of that.'' The Coast Guard also praised the heroic actions of the Falcon's crew saying that their efforts were to be ``commended and do not go unnoticed.'' I completely agree. We live in a time when it is easy to pass up opportunities to help someone in distress with the assumption that someone else will take care of it. But in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, the crew of the Falcon proved that ordinary people can do extraordinary good if given a chance. They deserve to be commended for reaching out across boundaries of language and culture and helping people in dire need. I wish to extend my thanks to all the people at this fine North Carolina company for a job well done. They have shown what they value most, which is to protect human lives at all cost and to reach out to those in need. I hope other companies take notice and follow their lead in this exemplary deed.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute the Appalachian State University Mountaineer football team on their upset of fifth-ranked Michigan this weekend in their season opener. This win was one of the greatest upsets in college football history. Before last Saturday's win, no Division I-AA team had beaten a team ranked in the AP poll from 1989 to 2006. The Mountaineers' win was no ordinary upset. It was a down-to-the- wire game for the history books. The game hinged on the heroic field goal blocked by Corey Lynch with 6 seconds left that secured ASU's 34- 32 victory over one of the most storied college football programs in America. With this upset, it looks like Coach Jerry Moore is poised to lead the Mountaineers to their third straight national championship. By beating Michigan, ASU extends their winning streak to 15 games, the longest among Division I teams. But this victory is about more than winning streaks or statistics. This is about the achievements of a hardworking championship team from a small town in rural North Carolina proving that tenacity counts.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, can the Chair tell us how much time has elapsed since you began this voting process?

Ms. FOXX. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Well, I will say again that we passed one budget in this House that includes the money for all the spending bills. If there is one budget, then it would seem to me that all of the spending bills are tied to each other. Therefore, any spending bill has a connection to every other spending bill. So there is a nexus there, and talking about what is going to happen or what is being proposed in one spending bill is relevant to every other spending bill. I simply don't see how you can separate them. It is going to be especially clear to the American people that that is the case when an omnibus spending bill is brought here this fall and we are asked to vote for, again, the largest tax increase in the history of this country within the confines of a very, very large spending bill.

Ms. FOXX. Yes, I do.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague for seeking the clarification of this. I have been very confused about the majority party not wanting us to talk about the entire budget. This is one piece of an entire budget that this House is going to pass. I don't see how you can possibly say there is no nexus. Every spending bill in this Chamber is connected to every other spending bill, so how can you possibly say that they are not the same? You passed this huge budget with the largest tax increase in the history of this country. The budget sets the spending. I cannot understand why we can't talk about the budget and every other spending bill that we are going to deal with in conjunction with this spending bill, because they are all tied together. I would also like to point out to you that I guess while you are trying to speed us along you are raising all these points of order, which is simply slowing down the process. I find that somewhat amusing, too, as we are trying to move the process along. But it is important that we talk about our rural districts and what the SCHIP program would do to seniors. I have seniors who are going be hurt by this. Point of Order

Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I just stated----

Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I appreciate very much the recognition. Madam Chairman, I think that the American people are probably getting a pretty good lesson on the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness, of this Congress right now. Unfortunately for the institution, the lesson is driving home the poll numbers that show how little regard the American people have for the majority party right now. It is important that we have the opportunity to debate every one of these bills and that we have the opportunity to debate the amendments that are here. I rise in support of the amendment that my colleague from North Carolina has offered. I think, again, that it is important that we do that. It is also important that we have the ability to tie the amendments that are being offered to this agriculture bill to other issues. The majority party may not want to do that. However, it is very important that we do that, because these appropriations bills are all tied together. Last year, there was a great hue and cry from the majority party about how much money was being spent by the Republicans, what profligate spenders we were. Now that the Democrats are proposing spending all this money, it is negligible. $10 million is negligible. $5 million is negligible. It is insignificant. All kinds of words like that are being used. When we try to point out the connection between what is happening in this bill and with the amendments that we are offering to things like the SCHIP bill, then the majority party doesn't want us to do that. Point of Order

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor ``Horn in the West,'' which this year is in its 56th consecutive season and is the third oldest outdoor drama in the United States. ``Horn in the West'' is also the oldest Revolutionary War drama in the Nation. It brings theatre- goers into the life and times of that legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone. Located in Boone, North Carolina, ``Horn in the West'' outdoor drama captured the heart of this great struggle for freedom that was fought by mountain settlers in Appalachia during the Revolutionary War. In its 56 years of existence, the show has wowed more than 1.4 million people with its storytelling ingenuity and historical acumen. To this day it is not only entertaining thousands each year; it is also preserving a valuable story drawn from our Nation's early formative years. ``Horn in the West'' was written by Dr. Kermit Hunter, an accomplished author and playwright who wrote more than 40 other historical productions. Dr. Hunter, who passed away in 2001, was a dedicated spokesman for the genre of the outdoor drama. His drama highlights the early freedom-seeking settlers who migrated to the Blue Ridge Mountains in an attempt to escape from the tyranny of British rule. The story of ``Horn in the West'' is told through the lens of Dr. Geoffrey Stuart, who came to the Blue Ridge with his family to study smallpox. A freedom lover himself, Stuart joined the band of colonists in opposition to the British. ``Horn in the West'' ushers the audience into a great moment in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War when this group of patriots suffers defeat and capture at the hands of the British in 1771 at the Battle of Alamance. Dr. Stuart, a model of the American spirit to forge ahead in the face of opposition, must rescue his son who is one of those captured by the British. The story weaves its way through Stuart's life, his important intervention with the Cherokee tribe, and his partnership with Daniel Boone. ``Horn in the West'' is the story of a man and a Nation coming to terms with the meaning of liberty and independence in a tumultuous time. I am proud to commend the people at ``Horn in the West'' for their steadfast commitment to bringing this important time and place to life for audiences in the town of Boone every year. They embody the ideals of America that this production encompasses: a love of freedom, a strong belief in the common man, and a dedication to what is right even in the face of uncertain odds. The cast and supporting staff and board are dedicated to ``Horn'' and are doing a great job with very limited resources. The Daniel Boone Theatre that houses the outdoor production of ``Horn in the West'' is a magnificent setting for this historical play. When it was first reviewed, the critics raved that the theatrical setting was ``one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, in America'' and that ``the theatre alone is worth the price of admission.'' The Daniel Boone Theatre merits such praise. It is a masterful blend of architecture and landscape. Designed by the NC State School of Design and built in 1952, it deserves its title as the best outdoor theatre in the east. It sits on 35 acres of Blue Ridge Mountain terrain and was designed specifically with ``Horn in the West'' in mind. The theatre blends into the mountains with its careful use of native stone and landscaping. The theatre's designers took great pains to integrate existing vegetation into the landscape so that today enormous rhododendron which were moved up the hill create a natural screen between the theater and the parking lot. The ``Horn in the West'' production and the Daniel Boone Theatre are priceless pieces of North Carolina and American history. They preserve something of our past that in today's era of sound bite and image- obsessed is desperately needed. They remind us of our roots in a liberty-loving and free people who would give everything they held dear for the cause of freedom. My hope is that ``Horn in the West'' continues to dazzle audiences with its depiction of our shared history. It is a valuable part of our history and culture, and I wish it many more decades of successful production

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from California for yielding me this time. Along with everyone else here, I feel it is important to say that I am very much opposed to discrimination. It makes me ill to even think about discrimination that has occurred in this country in the past. But I am also very much opposed to this legislation. We don't need to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When I first went to the North Carolina Senate, I was troubled by the way a lot of things were done there. And someone said to me, If you think that people operate here on logic, you are sadly wrong. They operate on emotion. We have heard some very emotional comments made about this legislation and why it should be passed. Those of us who are opposing it are opposing it on very logical reasons. This bill makes dramatic changes to civil rights law and would have an incredibly far-reaching impact, one which supporters of the bill have yet to take the time to thoroughly and appropriately consider. The underlying bill constitutes a major change in and expanded application of employment discrimination law. Traditionally, civil rights laws have had adequate time for thoughtful review and consideration. However, this bill was brought before the Education and Labor Committee about 24 hours prior to markup and rushed to the floor under a closed rule. It is critical that legislation of this complexity and with the potential for such significant impact be carefully considered and not rushed through only weeks after its introduction. Many other things have been thoughtfully and rightfully said on our side, but I want to say that we need to talk about an area that is most likely to be dramatically impacted is that of our Nation's retirement system. This legislation contains a pension annuity check rule where charges could be brought many years after the discrimination occurs, and it could have long-standing impact on benefits. It could wind up discriminating against a lot more people than we are trying to help as a result of this legislation. It is going too fast. We need to slow it down and do it right. We want to not have discrimination, but this is not the way to do it

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, the first responders of our Nation deserve our great respect and admiration for their commitment to keep the public safe from harm. They play a vital role in securing our communities against our time's many threats to peace. I fully support our public-safety community in its increasingly complex and difficult task. The measure before the House, H.R. 980, would allow the Federal Government to assert itself on an issue that has typically been left to State legislatures. H.R. 980 would establish a national system of collective bargaining for most of the Nation's public safety officers, including but not limited to, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other emergency service personnel (such as EMTs and other first responders) employed by State and local Governments. This legislation does not pass good policy muster for a variety of reasons. Foremost among those reasons is its utter disregard for the 10th Amendment rights of States. My home State of North Carolina has exercised its State rights and chosen to prohibit collective bargaining rights. It has been a Right-to-Work State since 1947. Under the provisions of this bill, North Carolina could no longer exercise its constitutional rights, but would be forced to comply with unprecedented Federal mandates. The legislation also does not include protection for secret ballot elections. Public-safety workers would be at the whims of strong-arming union-boss tactics. But despite the threat to the interests of States and their public safety workers and the fact that it supersedes State and local authority, this bill was pushed through the House under a suspension rule. Fortunately, there is a decent chance this law will be ruled unconstitutional because of the Federal Government's overstepping its bounds and imposing a Federal mandate on States. This bill would preempt State authority to regulate the collective bargaining rights of its State and local public safety employees. While the bill asserts that States would not be preempted, this assertion only applies to States with comparable or greater rights than those required under this legislation. In other words, if a State doesn't match or exceed what the Federal Government wants, it is preempted. H.R. 980 infringes on State rights and it expands the Federal Government's scope and role by creating an onerous national standard for public safety employee labor laws. But there is no real case for enacting this bill--currently 48 States have labor laws governing these workers and 29 of those States would already meet the proposed standard. The dark side of these 29 States that meet the standard is the 21 States that would have to create new labor laws or face Federal Government intervention of imposed regulations. Moving away from how this affects States, H.R. 980 does not provide protections for individual public-safety employees who do not want to unionize--especially in States that do not currently allow such unionization. States often have good reason to prohibit such unionization of public-sector employees. Collective bargaining and the process that surrounds it can cause strife in the workplace that might otherwise undermine Americans' public safety. Although current law already prohibits strikes in the public sector, such prohibition has at times been violated during the collective bargaining process. North Carolina is one of the States that has laws barring monopoly collective bargaining for public safety employees. It would be significantly affected by this bill's mandates. Since North Carolina's laws do not meet these new burdensome standards, the State is faced with two choices: enact or amend its laws that conform to the Federal standard; or have Federal labor law, administered by the Federal Government, govern the rights of its State and local firefighters and public safety officers. With such an imposition, Democrats are empowering the Federal Government to supersede State's rights and set a minimum standard that must be observed, in an area where 48 States already have some form of allowance present. We do not need to expand the Federal role in this issue and it is unclear whether or not this would be constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. For decades, States have exercised their constitutional right to make public-sector employment laws that each State found reasonable. With the passage of H.R. 980, the States would be forced to comply with Federal standards that might not reflect the values of the State and its citizens. This is just one more example of how the majority insists on inserting the Federal Government into more and more aspects of our lives. I believe a no vote on this bill is a protest against continued intrusion into issues best left to States.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague from California. Mr. Chairman, I have been sitting here listening for a while to the debate on this bill, and I have been struck by several issues that have come up that I think need to be mentioned. Some have been mentioned before, but some new ones. I am often asked by school groups what's the difference between Democrats and Republicans? I say to them the very quick definition is Democrats think they know how to spend your money better than you know how to spend your money. Republicans think that the less government we have, the better off we are; and the more money you are allowed to keep, the better off this country will be. I think that this debate certainly exemplifies that. I agree with some of my colleagues who said before, the appetite of the Democrats is absolutely insatiable for increased spending. They never met a program they didn't love to spend money for. They would take every dime. They will take every dime, every penny from the American people that they can possibly take and spend it on programs they think are important. They talk about investing government money. The government never invested any money. It spends money. The private sector invests money and gets results. I would challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Show me the results of these spendings that you do, and then maybe you can argue a little bit about an investment. The other thing that I am struck by is how much last year in this same debate that the Democrats said the free-spending President Bush, busting the budget, doing all this spending; and now they are coming here and defend programs that the President zeroed out because they were ineffective, and they want to put the money back in. That is the height of hypocrisy. There is a limited amount of money that Americans have, but the Democrats don't know that. They want to take it all. And it is true that the budget they passed earlier this year contains the largest or second largest tax increase in America, and that to pay for their programs they are going to have to have more tax increase. This amendment would save a small amount of money, $27 million, but it is a step in the right direction. We have got to start reining in spending, and those of us who have come here in the last few years understand that, those Republicans do, and we want to see the Federal Government more responsive to the American taxpayer, less profligate, and more interested in saving our freedom, not in taking it away by taking away our money and reducing our choices.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my colleague from Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this budget proposal isn't a real surprise; it's business as usual for the Democrats and proves that their promises to be fiscally responsible are just empty rhetoric. If this budget, along with the other budgets that we have been approving, are approved, it signals a return to the Democrats' beloved tax-and-spend model for government. They are very happy to try to run the lives of all Americans from the Federal level. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts have produced a real decrease in the tax burden on North Carolina's married couples, single parents, and families. Almost every taxpayer, low-income, married, single or self- employed, will lose valuable tax cuts under the assumptions made in the Democrat budget proposal earlier this year, and that would cover the costs that are in this budget tonight. The economy is booming. The stock market is doing great. People's 401(k) plans are increasing tremendously. But they want to stop that because they want to spend your money. They think they know better how to spend your money than you know how to spend your money. The Federal Government doesn't have a revenue problem. Revenues increased by 14.5 percent in 2005, 11.6 percent in 2006, and they are projected to grow by an additional $167 billion, or 7 percent, this year, according to the latest OMB estimate. Again, the economy is booming, things are going great, but the Democrats would put a halt on that with their profligate spending. To put it another way, the Federal Government is projected to collect $800 billion more in revenue in 2007 than was just the case 4 years ago, $2.6 trillion in 2007 compared to $1.8 trillion in 2003. We need to slow down spending and allow the American people to keep more of their money. They know how to spend it better than Federal bureaucrats do.