Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the chairman for accepting the amendment, my colleague from California for the kind words that she had to say. We worked on this program for a number of years together. And it has taken us such a long period of time to get the answers that help understand but do not explain what happened. This amendment is intended to get more information to the American people, more information to the families. I do hope that over the coming days that the Director of the CIA, that the people in the intelligence community decide to give the families full access to the Accountability Board. I appreciate the support of the chairwoman of the subcommittee, Ms. Schakowsky from Illinois. This is a case where we have worked uniquely in a bipartisan way to address failings within the intelligence community, to try to right those wrongs, and to try to move us forward in a constructive and positive way. I thank my colleagues who have enabled that process to work and to work effectively. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chairman, I'd like to claim the time in opposition, although I will not be opposed to the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would like to recognize my colleague from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) for 1 minute.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Madam Chairman, I will not oppose the amendment. I support the amendment. I think the report on highlighting the progress that we have made or that we may not have made toward our objectives of increasing the diversity within the intelligence community is something that is needed and something that my colleague has been championing for all the years that we have served on the committee together. I support the amendment and urge my colleagues to support it as well. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chair, I will not oppose the amendment. Although, I do believe, and I would hope that my colleague from Michigan would agree that, perhaps, when we are talking about the scope of this amendment, it is broader than what is just written here. One of the things that we are very, very concerned about which, I believe, should be included in this--because, like you, I believe, if the intelligence community had worked properly, perhaps we could have stopped this attack; but this is not just a matter of connecting databases and those types of things. It is also about missing clues that we had that were highlighted before Christmas Day. What am I talking about? We have known for quite some time that Awlaki was a concern. We saw kind of a mirror image of what happened on Christmas Day a couple of months earlier at Fort Hood, where 14 Americans were killed and where 14 Americans died in a tragic terrorist attack, linked to Awlaki, linked to al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. I had an amendment that went along those lines, but it was not accepted by the majority, and I think it may well have fallen within the scope of the amendment of yours, Mr. Schauer, which you are offering, which says: If we had had these insights into al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, if we had had these insights into Awlaki's involvement with Major Hasan, if we had had these insights into the communications, the emails, between Hasan and Awlaki, what did we do between November 5 and Christmas Day to target Awlaki, to target al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and to use this information that these individuals and this group might be targeting the U.S. and whether we missed opportunities in those 2 months to identify the threat and respond to it? Are those the kind of questions that you might see which could also be addressed in this or are these outside of the scope of what you are looking for? I yield to my colleague from Michigan.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague for that clarification because I think that is probably the bigger untold story here of how much and how many insights we might have had into al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and how we failed to act on that intelligence and how we failed, as we've now been saying for a long period of time, to connect those dots, to be able to put in preventative measures and to actually have stopped Awlaki and al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula from carrying out this attack on Detroit and on the State of Michigan. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chair, I will not oppose the amendment. As a matter of fact, I will support the amendment in its larger context, recognizing that this report by the DNI has to include the time prior to Fort Hood, the Fort Hood attack, and then the time from Fort Hood until Christmas Day. That is the area that we have been trying to get information on from the intelligence community over the last 3 or 4 months, and it has been the area that they have been most reluctant to provide us information on. As a matter of fact, when I was in Yemen on New Year's Day, less than 2 months ago, I was specifically prohibited from getting information on exactly those kinds of questions as to what did the intelligence community know about Awlaki, about al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. The individuals both in the intel community and with the Ambassador were specifically instructed not to share that information, which tells me that there is some information there, and for some reason, they have not wanted to share that information with us. So, with the understanding that that type of information will be shared with Congress in this report, also then recognizing that this may end up being a classified report which you may not have access to unless the committee agrees to provide you access to it, I support the amendment. I look forward to the DNI's completing this report and to his submitting it to the committee. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to talk about a variety of issues. You know, clearly the country faces tough times, clearly our States face very, very difficult times. And over the last few months we have had the opportunity to go and to listen to our constituents at the State level talk about some of the issues that are important to them. My home State of Michigan is struggling today with 15 percent unemployment--the highest unemployment rate in the country. And one of the things that we consistently hear about is, you know, Washington made us do this. I hear people talking about, you know, our State needs to raise taxes. Why? So we can get the Federal highway dollars. And what we forget is that those are our dollars to begin with. Those aren't Federal highway dollars. Those aren't Michigan highway dollars. As a matter of fact, for 53 years, a State like Michigan has received 83 cents on the dollar--83 cents for every dollar that we sent to Washington for our gas tax. And now Washington tells us in tough times, to get that money back, you have to put up a State match. That is wrong. In 2001, President Bush passed--with this Congress' help--legislation calling for an improvement in K-12 education. It was called No Child Left Behind, and it put the Federal imprint on our K-12 education system across the country and across the State of Michigan. That's wrong. Why? Why do we need the Federal Government telling us how to run our schools at the State and at the local level? It's a community issue. It's a family issue. It's not a Federal issue. It's also not very efficient. Just like in the highway bill, the Federal Government forces a State like Michigan to build things we don't need. We build overpasses, but they're for bicycles. We build fences not to protect motorists but to protect turtles. You wonder and say, why are we doing this? This is our money. This is not the priority for our State to get our State moving. So you have got issues with highways, you have got issues with education. And it's not only that the money is being spent unwisely, but it's also being spent inefficiently. Let me talk about No Child Left Behind, K-12 education. I see my friend is going to join me. I welcome him. And, you know, I am talking a little bit about the bureaucracy and the need to return to federalism, and let me yield.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Let me reclaim my time for just a second. I want to make it clear to the people in the Chamber, and I want to make it clear to the people around the country and the people in Michigan, No Child Left Behind was a bill that I voted against because I believed in parental control, I believed in local control, and I believed in State control. I just want to make that clear because I might not have done that as I was describing what this Congress was doing. I had voted to get rid of the Federal highway program or to basically deconstruct it. I want to deconstruct the Education Department and return the rights back to the States so the States can focus on what they need to do, but more importantly that the Federal Government can focus on what it needs to do, trade policy, national security and those types of things. I will yield back.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, I think you and I have had a discussion about this. But I really do believe, and I want to build off the thought that you had, is that our constituents want us to deconstruct Washington. They don't want us to tear it down. They want us to constructively go through the process and shed the things that are not Washington issues, move them back to States, move them back to communities, and move it back to individuals. And if we don't do that, they want to be able to hold us accountable. You and I sat through much of 2009 where we saw an abomination probably much bigger than No Child Left Behind, the health care bill, which was going to take from you and from me, from our doctors, our hospitals, and our States the right to set our own health care agenda. And we were going to probably construct, not deconstruct, but construct a new building here in Washington, D.C., probably several new buildings, filled with bureaucrats, who were then going to make the decisions that you and I historically made about our health care. I will yield.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I have seen this up close and personal in Michigan. And you may have remembered over the last 18 months that as President Obama was developing his economic strategy, he had the Governor of Michigan sitting next to him quite frequently. And I thought that's a good strategy because he could then ask and say, Governor, did you try this in Michigan? And if the answer was ``yes,'' he would say, well, we won't do that at the Federal level. But it seems to be that whether it's cap-and-trade, cap-and-tax, whether it is health care, what we have seen is in Washington, we have adopted many of the same policies that our Governor in Michigan adopted, and the end result is we have seen unemployment grow, we have seen huge deficits that at the end of the year are fixed but they are cut, they are massive cuts in the size of government, we are losing population, so we are seeing our citizens leave. And now we are starting to see that at the Federal level. We are going to have a whole set of massive new tax increases that the President and the Democrats in Congress are going to let the tax cuts expire, meaning it's an effective increase in taxes. Was it 41 new taxes in the budget? I don't remember what the number was. Do you know?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Trillions of dollars. And you and I at the beginning of 2009 we saw unemployment at just under 8 percent.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right. And we are now at?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I want to talk with you briefly about an experiment. You and I have had the opportunity to briefly discuss this idea. What is happening right now in grass-roots America is very, very healthy. People are engaged. And as they have gone through the last year, they saw the passage of a stimulus bill, $787 billion, then they saw a cap- and-tax bill passed in the middle of the night where they added 400 pages in the middle of the night at the last minute.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Then they give us a 2,000-page health care bill, and it gets over to the Senate and they give the Senator from Louisiana $300 million.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The Louisiana purchase. Then we have the deal for Nebraska which says even though you're, as a State, you're pretty healthy--you only have an unemployment rate of under 5 percent--but you don't have to pick up this unfunded mandate that the other 49 States are going to get. As a matter of fact, those other 49 States, including the State of Michigan, are going to pay for your unfunded mandate because I need your vote. So you get your deal.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Well, we know what they think because we saw it a couple of weeks ago in Massachusetts where they said this is absolutely wrong and we're going to stop it. And effectively what the people of Massachusetts did, in that momentous Tuesday night, they had the opportunity to change history, because after watching this House, this Senate and this administration for 12 months, they said, No more. They effectively recalled their Democrat Senator and replaced it with someone who they believed would listen more closely to their demands and their desires and to start deconstructing Washington. That's the proposal that I have in that I said I've been through this before. I was through this in 1993 and 1994. I introduced legislation back then. I called it a voters' bill of rights. And as I was sitting with constituents in my district, and I heard them say, Congressman-- most of them call me Pete--and they said, Pete, we call our Senators. We talk to them about the stimulus bill. We talk to them about health care. We talk to them about cap-and-trade. We talk about them bringing Gitmo to Standish, Michigan, and we always get the same thing. They answer, they are rude, and then they hang up. And then they said, Pete, there's nothing we can do to hold these folks accountable. The earliest we can do anything is 2012 and these bad things may happen. And as I've been listening to them, I asked my staff to go back and get these voters' bill of rights, because I introduced them, we thought through them. It's populism. My colleagues here on the floor don't like it. But one of the lead things that we proposed in 1994, 1995, and 1996 was a bill that said one of the keystones of the voters' bill of rights says that when you call your Senator or your Representative, and they arrogantly answer the phone, are rude, then hang up, and then vote wrong, which traditionally means they are voting for bigger government and taking rights away from the individuals, rights away from the States, you now have an option. The option is that when you leave the meeting where you're talking about this and someone gives you a piece of paper that has a few lines on it and you say, get some voters to sign those lines, and then at the top it says, this is a recall of Senator so-and-so, or a recall of Representative so-and-so, it allows the voters to exercise accountability throughout the process. I wrote an op-ed that hopefully we are going to get published soon. What it does is it allows the people to take back ownership of their government. Michigan is a recall State. I had a mini-town hall meeting yesterday, and I ran into a township official. She is being recalled. It's very, very tough for people when they're recalled. But it clearly humbles people when they recognize that the voters can come back and if they don't like what we are doing, the voters can stand up and say, no, it's time for you to come home because you no longer understand who you work for, and it's time for us to have an opportunity to send someone to Washington that will listen to us.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It's about making it more efficient. You and I know that with No Child Left Behind, when the taxpayer from Michigan, the taxpayer from Lansing, the taxpayer from Detroit, the taxpayer from Holland and the taxpayer from Sault Sainte Marie sends a dollar to Washington for education, it goes through the bureaucracies. It goes through the State bureaucracies. And at every juncture, a PacMan comes out and takes a piece and takes another piece; and by the time it gets to the classroom, there may only be 60 to 65 cents left.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That's a scary thing, and that is exactly the type of process that people don't like. And they don't like the fact that when the President comes out and says during a campaign, when we get to the health care negotiations, it is going to be on C-SPAN so that we can see whether the gentleman is arguing for his voters, fighting for his constituents, or whether that person over there is fighting for the insurance companies or fighting for the unions or whatever. And it is kind of like, we get to there and you are watching C-SPAN at 11:30 at night, and someone walks up to the microphone and says, Hey, we have got a deal.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is like, you are announcing this at 11:30 at night and there is only a few of us that have nothing better to do and we are watching C-SPAN so we know, but nobody else will, and they'll find out in the morning? But that is the transparency. That is where I think this concept of recall gets real power. Recall says I think two things. It says to Washington, stop the midnight deals. The other thing I think that provides a tremendous amount of power and authority is it tells Washington, stop the power grab. Stop taking the stuff away from the States and away from us as individuals. We need to put something back in the process so that the ``rights of States'' has real meaning, has real teeth. Right now, we go through the appropriations process, the States are all at the pig's trough, the feeding trough, trying to get as much money as they can, get more than the next guy. It is kind of like, no, don't send the money here, ever. And if we have the opportunity for citizens to potentially recall their Representatives and their Senators, it creates potentially a whole new dynamic of putting States' rights back at the forefront.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You are exactly right, and this is where Governors need to stand up and say no. I think with the health care bill, I think wasn't there a movement in like 29 States or something where State legislators were saying, No, we don't want it. And why? In the State of Michigan, we calculated, or Heritage or someone calculated that the unfunded mandate for Medicaid alone was $700 million.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is a huge amount for a State budget. But it happens every program. You know, we promise health care for all. No child left behind. No worker left behind. Everybody has a job. We put a little bit of money into the pot and then we pass it down to the States, and then the States get it and they say, Whoa, we thought you were going to pay for all of this. That has been the biggest complaint about No Child Left Behind. Right? All of these mandates, and you didn't give us the money to implement it. Give us more money. It's kind of like, No, don't give us more money. Let us keep our money. Get rid of the mandates, and we will run our own schools.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is a novel idea.