Pete King

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. At the very outset I want to commend Chairman Leach for his leadership in this and the gentlewoman from Ohio, Ms. Kaptur, for the leadership she has shown, indeed, the bipartisan spirit of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services which brought this resolution to the floor. Mr. Speaker, this is a critical time in America's history and if you are on one side of NAFTA or the other the fact is this resolution is imperative, because this will allow the American people to see exactly what went on, to see exactly what American policy has been toward Mexico, what Mexican policy has been, what the role of the IMF has been, what the role of the Treasury Department has been, and also exactly what authority the President had to use the funds. These are very real, serious questions. I think the President should have shown more leadership. If he thought this was in the national interest then the President of the United States had the obligation to go to the American people and make sure they understood where he was coming from. The fact was he did make an arrangement which the American people see to be behind closed doors, so it is absolutely imperative this resolution be adopted so all documents and all data are made available to the American people. I urge adoption of the resolution. gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Visclosky].

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Madam Speaker, for the first 180 years of our Nation, immigrants who came to this country were encouraged to maintain their identity, their culture, their religious beliefs, their traditions. Just as importantly, they were encouraged to learn to speak the English language. This was the glue that bound us together as a nation. This was the common theme that all of us shared as Americans. However, for the past 25 years, our social engineers in Washington have actually been encouraging people not to learn English. We have billions of dollars being spent on bilingual education. We have citizenship ceremonies being conducted in languages other than English. We have signs in government buildings in languages other than English. That is why today, Madam Speaker, I am introducing the National Language Act which will declare English to be the official language of this country. This will require all government publications to be in English. It would end bilingual education. It would end bilingual voting ballots, and it would require all government business to be transacted in English. In doing this, I intend to work with such distinguished Members of this body as the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth], the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson], the gentleman from California [Mr. Doolittle], who have similar type legislation so that we can work together to restore the American dream of all immigrants and allow them to become part of American society.