Mark Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, for speaking out with such passion and with such authority. Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by sharing a story that is in my heart, a story and some thoughts on a community in my district that has recently shown us all the way that we should respect each other, that we should respect life itself. When I heard for the first time that a shooting had occurred at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota, last week, my first thought was disbelief. That is the last place in the world that I would have ever expected something like that to happen. Cold Spring is a community with well-maintained homes, clean-cut students, and active parents. When I heard that the coach at that school bravely averted further bloodshed, I was not surprised. Many teachers from my time in high school came to mind that may have done the same thing. The Rocori school staff and the Cold Spring community reacted to the incident in a commendable fashion. I have met many of the people from the community there and the St. Paul Parish community, including Father Clydis, at a pro-life dinner hosted in the parish school last year. The parish school gym was packed and the local community members served dinner. I remember the idyllic community scene, complete with a church and an American flag, painted on a wall in the gym. I remember the community choir who entertained us that evening and the song, they sang a German song; and the whole room joining in except for me singing that German song. I know of no town in this great land where it takes their heritage, their families, their community, their faith, their life, people's lives more seriously. Therefore, I had high expectations when I attended a service for Aaron Rollins, a 17-year-old senior who had been shot by a 15-year-old freshman. But I was taken aback when I walked into this beautiful, modern church that seated over 1,000. For a town of less than 3,000 to have such a commitment to a building in and of itself shows their commitment to each other and their faith. But over 1,500 people came out for that service, students, parents, townspeople. The service lasted over 2 hours, 2 hours; but it flew by. Nearly the entire senior class lined up on either side of the aisle as honorary pall bearers. We saw looks of devastation comforted by a quiet faith on the faces of children who had never before experienced such a loss. A large number of them were dressed in khaki slacks and skirts, black shirts and camouflage ties to honor Aaron's love of hunting. But what allowed the gathering not to be overcome with grief was their deeply held belief that even though Aaron barely missed last weekend's duck hunting opener in Minnesota, he now had a new home where the ducks were probably even more plentiful. But watching this family and how they coped with it and the grief that they felt was just overwhelming. They prayed for Seth Bartell who was also shot and remained in critical condition. But the part of the service that really blew me away, really elevated me further for my respect for the people of Cold Spring and really showed us the true spirit of love and life was when twice during the service the young man who shot Aaron and Seth was lifted up in prayer. They prayed that that family who struggled to cope with tragedy, that the community show them the compassion and understanding that we want to see in this world. I think Cold Spring indeed calls us to a higher level. If they can reach out for such compassion towards someone who has inflicted so much pain, how can we not reach out with an equal amount of compassion to those who have done no harm to anyone, the unborn? That is why we gather here. I encourage all my colleagues to vote for this ban of partial-birth abortion. This city whose granite has built beautiful memorials on the Mall here in our Nation's Capital, they have shown us that their values are as solid as that granite. Let us follow their example.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, this last Sunday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on the front page of the opinion section was a picture in Iraq, and above this picture it says, ``Look at this picture. What do you see?'' And then it lists a couple of counterpoints, including one from myself. If you look at the picture, you see a market in Mosul, and you see some fruits up front, you see some women dressed in clean, neat clothes. You see a market with the shelves full, and you see a U.S. soldier from the 101st Airborne watching over that market and making sure that it stays secure. Some in this Chamber have expressed doom and gloom as to what they see. As we listen to the articles in the paper and the TV and the radio, too often we hear that saying, doom and gloom. But there is a different picture that I am going to try to, with several of my colleagues, bring out today. Those who have been to Iraq, as I have, and many of my colleagues, have seen a different picture. There are two sides to this story, and I would argue that the story of advancement, of progress, of moving towards a democracy and an open government, an open economy, is the more accurate picture. I was challenged recently by someone back home in Minnesota who said, Mark, why is not anybody else saying anything positive about Iraq? And my answer would be, well, I am not sure that anybody is reaching beyond some of the press they are getting, because not everybody is going to Iraq, not everybody is looking at other sources. Mr. Speaker, it was Thomas Jefferson who said that you would be better educated if you read nothing than if you read nothing but papers, newspapers, and that is, unfortunately, the case in this situation. Mr. Speaker, the press does a better job of reporting crashes than landings. We are certainly having great reporting of the crashes, but the landings and the progress that we have seen, with progress towards quality of life, progress towards getting Iraqis governing themselves, and progress towards more stability, more freedom in a country that is very diverse and has great potential is something that we are going to try to bring out here today. As I mentioned, I will have several folks joining me, and I would, first of all, like to welcome the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) for some comments that he has.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, one of the first things I did when we landed in Baghdad was I asked the general in charge there, I said, how are things here relative to what we are hearing back home? And he said, with a combination of disgust and disappointment, that it is total distortion. There are so many things that are going on positive here. We in our group saw that. We had a bipartisan group of 11 Members. We went to Mosul, to Tikrit, to Babylon. We drove around in Baghdad, visited the police academy, visited the hospital, met with folks from Iraq who had recently been elected to city councils and to provincial councils, and what we saw was progress in every direction. As we flew over Iraq at night, the lights were on. As we drove through even Baghdad, the markets were up. There were cars and, in fact, traffic jams even in Baghdad as people were getting on with their lives. As we went up to Mosul, we went in a garden variety tour bus, 11 Members of Congress, through the markets of Mosul, and, for the most part, most of the citizens did not really pay much attention to us. They were just going about their normal life in the progress of rebuilding. We passed by schools and hospitals that were rebuilt. So having all of the hospitals up and running again and the schools up and running is great progress, and that is something I was very pleased to see. I know the gentleman as a physician can appreciate what we are doing on the health care side, and I think on all of those fronts we are making great process.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I would say the gentleman is absolutely right on all of those counts. One of the reasons that possibly explains why we get such negative press is that Iraq, like America, is a very diverse country, with a lot of different ethnic groups and different regions throughout the country. And one of those, the Sunni Arabs from which Saddam came, represents about 15 percent or maybe 20 percent of the total population, and that group as a whole received preferential treatment. So as we compare their state today versus where they were before, it is not quite as attractive as the Shiites in the south that were really abused and tortured and done things to that one would not even want to describe in some cases, but some of them as vicious as rerouting the river so that they could not cultivate their crops. Similarly, the Kurds in the north were treated in a like fashion. There were three electrical grids in Iraq prior to us coming in there, and even today; one electrical grid to make sure that all of Saddam's palaces, his almost 50 palace compounds, were lit up around the country. The second was for the Sunni areas around Baghdad, because Baghdad was a showcase to the world to show the world that ``I have a great country here.'' And the third went to the southern and northern regions if there was any left over. Now today, of course, we are treating everybody equal. So in and around Baghdad, it might not be quite up to their preferential status they received before the war, but in the 80, 85 percent of the rest of the country, they are doing significantly better. We also have a situation in Baghdad that really is not talked about enough, and that is that 100,000 criminals, we are talking murderers and rapists and thieves, were let out just before the Americans took over, and their records destroyed, so that these criminals are wandering around the city causing untold havoc to the native Iraqis, making it a much riskier environment than it was before, as well as cheap criminals for hire to go after our soldiers. So within Baghdad, it is a much more challenging situation. It is much more difficult. It is much more risky. Unfortunately, like any capital, that is where most of the press are. But I have to tell my colleagues, when one goes out beyond Baghdad, it is a lot calmer. One does not hear the reports of the attacks on American troops out there. They are working with the natives. They are making great progress. I remember driving down one country road and having several children run down the country driveway to come waving at us and showing their appreciation. And I have talked to many Members, even on the other side of the aisle, who have said one of the things that struck them most was just how appreciative the Iraqis were, particularly outside of Baghdad. So there is good progress. It is not evenly distributed around the country, but that is because Saddam was not evenly treating people in the fashion that Americans have come to expect.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia is very correct. Our soldiers are doing a fabulous job. They are rightly proud of the great work they are doing, and they are not alone. We have long known that the British have had a region of the country around Basra. But while we were there, down in Babylon, also in southern Iraq, they were preparing to turn that region over from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which came in with the initial assault, and turn that over to a Polish-led division, and that has happened. The Spanish are helping them, and just recently this week the remaining portion around Nasref was handed over to the Spanish, which was with that Polish division. So two of the six regions of the country are already being administered by our allies, by a group of almost 30 countries that are providing 20, 25,000 troops; but the gentleman is absolutely correct. The solution here is to have Iraqis protecting Iraqis, and while we were in Baghdad we met with the police academy; and Bernie Kerik, the former police commissioner from the city of New York City, is there on the ground in charge of helping to train these Iraqis. One of the most emotional statements that I heard during my whole trip there was when we were talking to the Iraqi general in charge of the police that are helping to secure Iraq right now. He says as they come through the academy and they learn about the things that we take for granted here in Minnesota from our great police forces around the country and teach them respect for civilians, not to torture, civilian authority, so many other things to keep us secure and protect our civil liberties as well, he says, When they come, I challenge them to be heroes. He says, When I tell them about what a hero is, a hero is somebody who leaves their family, leaves their wife, leaves their children, leaves their parents, lives their familiarity of home and goes to a strange land, suffer through tremendous heat, tremendous deprivations and puts their life at risk for a stranger. Hearing from him how appreciative he was for our soldiers, our Marines that are doing that each and every day and how he holds those men and women up as their heroes was a great comfort and a great reassurance to me, but it is not just from the police. We are adding them on the border patrol. We are adding civil defense units to guard units to take our troops out of those regions and have Iraqis protecting Iraq, and we are seeing that. We had a second unfortunate attempt to bomb the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad; and if we see who it was that unfortunately lost their life in that attempt, it was the bomber himself and an Iraqi policeman that was on guard doing exactly what my colleague was talking about, guarding the treasures of Iraq, guarding their own security and protecting their own citizens. We are moving as fast as we can in that direction. They are taking it on very willingly, and that is a very positive step.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I could not be prouder either and the gentleman is right. We have 130-or-so thousand, from I think it is up to 30 countries now. It is about 55,000 Iraqis on the job making sure that Iraqis are safe, and that number is growing. I think it is the Czech Republic that stepped forward to train another 25,000-or-so on a police program up in their country and get them more on duty to guard their own country. One of the other things that is really very gratifying is that our soldiers are working with the people to make the country better; and as they go on these raids that the gentleman spoke of earlier and they are collecting a million dollars here, a hundred million dollars there as part of those raids of money that was stolen from the American people, they are putting it back to work on projects there in Iraq. In fact, there are 6,000 projects that have been completed and these might be cleaning up the school, making it more presentable and safe and a better learning environment, helping with the hospitals. We were in a neonatal institute there in Baghdad. Helping the water be a little bit cleaner, buying a fire engine for the local fire department, buying equipment for the local police department, on and on and on these projects are going on. My favorite was the 101st Airborne brought 10,000 Screaming Eagle soccer balls for the children to have something to play with, but these are helping to move that forward in an endless number of ways and really making it a better country each day and I think helping to really have a positive working relationship between our brave men and women in uniform and the Iraqi people.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I would absolutely agree. The issue we have is we have a situation where we have a country that is in desperate need and has traditionally been a source of frustration for its own neighbors, disrupting the security of its own neighbors and contributing to terrorism and making us less safe here at home. The question that I would have is when FDR decided that we were going to take Hitler out of Germany, did we ask how much it was going to cost? As I hear our friends on the other side of the aisle lambasting what is going on and lambasting the costs, it is a terrible cost to pay. I do not want to have to pay anything like that. It is something we have to watch over closely and make sure it is well spent, but we cannot not afford to pay it, and when they are talking, I say what if this was FDR? What if this was World War II? Would the same thing not apply? If we look at what we did in Germany, what we did in Japan, we had the best track record of setting a region anew, setting a country anew. In the 50 years before 1945, Germany had helped initiate two world wars where millions of people had died. In the 50 years since, they have been a great contributor to prosperity, to world peace, a great friend and neighbor and a great friend of ours. We can say the same thing about Japan. I have the very real sense that what will happen with our success, that we cannot afford to fail, we must win, we must create a democracy in Iraq, that we will have that same stark contrast between a disruptive past and a future that will benefit the region as much as it has in the past.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Yes. And, Mr. Speaker, one of the things we did not see was all the planned-for catastrophes that never happened. We have challenges, yes, but the dams were not blown up, so they did not flood everybody down river. The oil refineries and the oil wells were not blown up, so they are producing. They are maybe not producing as much as they will in the future, and they are helping to offset the cost we are incurring. We did not have the tribal warfare everybody projected. So there are so many negative things that did not happen at the same time all these positive things are happening.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. The gentleman is absolutely right. The cost of freedom is high, but the cost of not defending freedom is far greater, and I appreciate the gentleman bringing up the mass graves. Our soldiers over there, part of what really drives the fact is that they know they are there for a reason, and they are proud of what they are doing is having seen mass graves. One stands in front of a mass grave, as we did in our group in Babylon where there was 3,000 bodies recovered, 2,100 of them identified but 900 just reburied with whatever personal effects were remaining, were left in plastic bags on top for someone to try to identify them afterwards, and that is out of what they expect to find a 3 to 500,000-people mass grave, a million three people missing. This is out of a country with a population of 26 million where most people can tell you they know somebody who is no longer around, and that is the kind of grave, grave tragedy that we have recovered them from. I am very pleased that we have been joined today by our good friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), who I know has been to Iraq even more recently than I have and has some thoughts to share with us on this subject.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. I thank him for going there and finding out the truth for himself. And I really appreciate your bringing up the elected governments, because our goal there is to get out. Our goal there is to turn over the reins to the Iraqis. But we are not going to do that until there is a constitution that protects the rights of the minorities, the Assyrian Christians, the Kurdish, and so many other minorities there, the Turkamens. Over 90 percent, as the gentleman mentioned, of the town councils have been elected. One of the things that struck me, and maybe the gentleman got the same briefing, they have provincial councils up and running as well. And our troops helped organize those elections, and if there are, say, 30 members on the provincial council, the leaders of the town and the province would come together and elect them, but the generals would hold out, say five to appoint themselves. And that was to make sure we had women involved, that we had the minorities properly represented. And we do have women on the Iraqi governing council, women in the provincial councils. One of the things that struck me is that the Wall Street Journal recently published the first poll that was conducted in Iraq, the Zogby and American Enterprise Magazine did this, and one of the many things that I took away from that poll is when they asked, Do you want democracy or not? Women wanted democracy by a far greater percentage than men. This is a country and a culture that has not always had the same views towards women that we have in this country. We obviously respect the great corrections that they are not only applying throughout our country here, but if you go to Iraq you see many. And I am sure the gentleman saw many servicewomen doing just fine jobs, great jobs, and being wonderful examples for the Iraqi people. And I think that is something that is really another great sign of progress.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. And the gentleman spoke of the satellite dishes. They are watching all kinds of channels now that they never saw before. They are seeing the outside world. If you ask me, Mr. Speaker, what the average Iraqi thinks, the average Iraqi is thinking, how do I get to be like Kuwait as quickly as possible? How do I become a prosperous country? How do I have everything everybody else has? And it is not just the oil Iraq has. And I am sure my other colleague saw the same thing, when we looked down from those helicopters, it was green. They actually grow rice there. They have enough water between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers to flood fields and grow rice. This was the old supposed Garden of Eden. This was the cradle of civilization. So we have, really, a region that has foundations for prosperity, not just oil but water, that can produce a strong agricultural base as well as industry. I know my colleague must have in Georgia many industries that rely on water, and having that diversified economy to employ the people is something that Iraq is potentially uniquely qualified in that region to do.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. And we absolutely saw that. People might ask if everything is so great over there, why do we need this money to rebuild Iraq. Well, I want to point out, it was not due to the war. As we went through Baghdad, and I am sure the gentleman from South Carolina saw the same things, we saw specific buildings, specific floors on buildings that were targeted and that were hit, but right beside that there would be a building standing and continuing in commerce today. But what has caused a need for reconstruction is the fact that Saddam Hussein spent one-third of total income on armaments, and we are constantly recovering huge caches of arms in palaces. We were in one palace complex in Tikrit that had 112 buildings on the palace compound, each one of which could be called a palace itself. When you spend money in such awful ways on destructive things and neglect the people, that is what we are recovering from. We are not recovering from the war. That damage was very tightly focused, and maybe the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) can talk about what he saw in Iraq.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman mentioned, with electricity, we are bringing forth that core concept of equal treatment under the law. No longer does the Baath Party chair or the Sunni Arabs around Baghdad get their electricity before the rest of the country. Everybody is being treated equal. Now the children are also benefiting from those schools. We are not having Saddam Hussein's picture on every other page of the textbooks. We have had some very vicious attacks on Iraq by terrorists recently. This is the new front for the war on terrorism. We are fighting them in their area of strength. Patton said, do not let the enemy pick where you are going to fight, bring the battle to them, and we are. But those terrorists think they are somehow hurting America and dividing us from the American people, but I sense something completely different. When they attack the U.N., they are attacking the people who are trying to help in Iraq. When they attack the Shiite cleric in Najaf, they are creating a common enemy. The Iraqi people and America have a common enemy, and these acts are pulling us together toward the same goal of getting to the point of security and government where everybody in Iraq, as mentioned, can be equal under the law, and that is the final goal that we have to achieve before we turn over the reins.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) helping us do that. This is the front line in the war on terrorism. We are up against people who kill men and women with no mercy and with no shame. One of the most vivid discussions I had was with the vice mayor of Mosul. He said, for you in America, this is a foreign policy issue. But for the jihadists that want to take the world back and have the women wearing veils, and have the men punished if they shave their beards, and have a few guys in beards making all of the decisions, and do what they have not been able to accomplish in so many other areas, if we succeed and have a democracy and freedom and an open economy in Iraq, they will fail and fail forever, because just as Iraq has been a very disrupting force in the region in the past, it has the potential to be a force that expands that freedom, expands that prosperity, expands that openness and that choice to their neighbors, to Iran, to Syria, to Saudi Arabia, and what better way to make Americans secure, to make sure that they are not going to have to be worrying about their security than to plant that freedom in Iraq in that neighborhood. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. We cannot afford to lose. This is a fight that we must win.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple. It increases funding for some incredibly important programs within this bill. The amendment doubles funding for the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, the tax counseling for the elderly programs, low-income tax clinics, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It also increases funding for the high-intensity drug trafficking areas program. These increases are offset by restoring funding for Amtrak to the level originally approved by the committee. We have heard a lot about Amtrak today, and I support intercity rail transit where it can be viable. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney) said that the core of Amtrak was in the northeast corridor, and I am confident with regional support that northeast corridor can continue to thrive and be successful whatever we do at the national level. And where we have even close to the population density of Europe that makes sense, but there are too many lines where we are pouring money in as fast as we can in areas that will never be viable. Given the scarcity of our dollars, we should be focusing on things like high- speed rail or roads or other forms of transportation which make more sense. The simple fact is that Federal subsidies to Amtrak are a poor investment that offer little return. Having done some research, if we look at the Sunset Limited line from Orlando to Los Angeles, that costs $347; and I found 11 different flights that cost less than the average per passenger loss that the Federal Government subsidizes for that route. One of those flights was $232, so this means that the Federal Government would save $115 per passenger if it bought every Sunset passenger a round-trip plane ticket as opposed to subsidizing the long-haul route one way. We can say the same about the Pennsylvanian which has a $292 loss per passenger to go from Philadelphia to Chicago; a plane ticket would cost $135. We would save $157 per passenger. The list goes on and on. Members do not need to be a CPA to understand that when Amtrak's rate of return is twice that to pay for Amtrak as competing services, which would get people there quicker, this is not where we ought to be prioritizing Federal dollars. If we look at the areas I am spending it in under my proposal, as indicated during debate on the rule and general debates, the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes is a new entity within the Department of Treasury. Its purpose is to provide support to our efforts to combat the funding of terrorism and other crimes committed within the U.S. and abroad. We know that terrorism does not work unless the terrorists have money, and so it is important that we do more to deny those who wish to do us harm the means to carry out their intentions. My amendment would also double funding for two programs which provide critical assistance to low-income and elderly Americans when they pay their taxes. The Federal Tax Code is made up of four huge volumes that are each thicker than the Bible. In fact, the Tax Code is over 7 million words long. These programs help people with a task that is far too burdensome and they need more resources. My amendment also increases funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the high-intensity drug trafficking program, two vital elements in our Nation's war on drugs. The principal purpose of the Office of National Drug Control Policy is to establish policies, priorities, and objectives to reduce the illicit drug trade, drug- related crime and drug-related health consequences. From enforcement of our drug laws to treatment of individuals by the tragic effects of substance abuse, this program plays a critical role in helping our country fight this terrible problem. As a father of four, I believe the importance of this work cannot be understated. Finally, we need to do more to help States fight and win their local war on drugs. In Minnesota, police have been battling the devastating problem of methamphetamine production and use. They are in desperate need of assistance. The high-intensity drug trafficking program is a Federal program that many of my colleagues know and respect. From Houston to Los Angeles to the Appalachian region, from Hawaii to New England and throughout the Midwest, this program has helped State and local official tailor highly specialized solutions to unique areas of need. Drug use is a national problem, and we need to fund national programs like the high-intensity drug trafficking program to fight it. My amendment will deliver those resources. Mr. Chairman, the programs funded by my amendment will help the poor and the elderly with the confusing task of filling out their taxes, will help States battle illegal drug use, and help law enforcement officials cut off the financial resources terrorists need before they can act. These are broad, bipartisan programs and ones that every Member should support. I urge my colleagues to vote for my amendment and fund these vital national priorities at the highest level possible.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment made in order pursuant to the rule.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise to support the Millennium Challenge Account. My amendment deals with the manner in which countries are deemed eligible on the basis of public health expenditures. The Millennium Challenge Account and the corporation which will be created to administer it will have three basic criteria for eligibility: nations will be required to rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage freedom. Those nations that qualify will be eligible for grants for projects involving the development of agriculture, education, health, trade and investment capacity. Mr. Chairman, I have a concern about how this will actually work. The administration's plans calls for a country's investment in health to be measured solely on the amount of public sector expenditure. Mr. Chairman, I worry that such a requirement may inadvertently provide an incentive to developing nations to rely exclusively on solutions in the public sector instead of seeking the energy and innovation of the private sector. This oversight might end up hurting fledgling market systems from developing. We need to make sure that we are encouraging nations to pursue private sector solutions to their problems whenever possible. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment if the gentleman from Illinois, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations, will enter into a colloquy with me.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the distinguished chairman for his consideration. I look forward to working with him on this bill to ensure the final legislative product resolves this potential defect in what I believe is an important initiative. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Madam Chairman, I rise today to talk about the role this plays in helping promote the culture of life, a culture that values and respects human life at every stage. I believe that we have a responsibility to protect innocent life whenever and wherever possible, and so I applaud and thank my colleague from Ohio, the chairman of the subcommittee, for including funding in this appropriations bill for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program. This program helps fund safe havens created by laws passed in 42 States that try to reach out to desperate and troubled parents. Too often we hear of infants who have been abandoned in trash bins and alleys and, much more tragically, killed. Just this past week, there was a case in my home State of Minnesota where a mother decided to throw her twin infants over a bridge. We must reach out to these parents who are unwilling or unable to care for their infants and let them know that they can take care of their infants by taking them to a safe haven and leave them in the hands of those who will care for them and see that they are placed in loving families. Let me be clear, safe havens are not a substitute for education and adoption, merely a last resort for desperate parents considering the unthinkable. Safe havens can help avert tragedy and preserve the most precious of all things, innocent human life, but these safe havens only work if those that need them are aware of them. That is why I am sending a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Thompson and to the GAO calling for a review of the safe havens to find out how much of the funding is being spent on raising the awareness of safe havens so we can make recommendations on how it can be expanded and improved.

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota

Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I certainly would. But if the gentleman would like to continue, I would be happy to jump in later. My concern is we are hearing a lot about the debt, and we care about the debt, but what is the goal? Is the goal to get it in balance no matter how it is, and how we get there really does not make any difference, whether it is raising taxes, as there is included in the Blue Dog budget; or is it controlling spending? And I think the real challenge we need to do is that there is a difference in terms of how we achieve that, and I believe that the way that we need to get to the balanced budget is we need to kick-start this economy, get it moving north, generate tax revenue as well as we need to control that spending, and that is where we need to have some more talking. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is right on how do we control spending mandatory and discretionary. So I would be happy to talk about that more.