Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, again it's my privilege to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, this great deliberative body. And I listened to the presentation in the previous segment, it brought a number of things to mind that I expect I'll address because there certainly is a different viewpoint, as we all know. But before I get into the breadth and depth of the topic matter, I'd be very pleased to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry). Introduction of Legislation Addressing Security Concerns

Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his presentation here. And as I listened to his presentation, the Benghazi incident comes to mind. And whether this is relevant or not is a question that I'm not necessarily prepared to answer, Mr. Speaker. But I do want to make a statement on Benghazi. And I would remind people that we lost an Ambassador, we lost other brave Americans. We had multiple injuries and casualties there that perhaps, they run in numbers that might be counted in the dozens. The public doesn't yet know a single name of any of the survivors. None of those on, let me say, our side of this argument of the incident in Benghazi know a single name of the survivors. We don't know the depth of the injuries that took place--and some of them were severely injured. They've been kept under wraps. They've been told, purportedly by the news, Mr. Speaker, that they should not speak and talk about what happened in Benghazi. Now, I remember when Osama bin Laden met his justifiable end. This administration couldn't wait to come out before the cameras and tell us how that all unfolded and couldn't wait to tell us about every detail that wasn't classified on the end of Osama bin Laden's rein as the head of al Qaeda. They even showed us a picture of the situation room and who was in it. We saw the expressions on the faces of the people in the situation room, including the President, including the Secretary of State, including the Secretary of Defense. And we knew when they came into the situation room, when they heard the reports, how the decisions were made in that White House, and we knew when people left the situation room perhaps to go do something else. I don't remember any of them just simply going to bed. But what we don't know is this--and this is what this Congress needs to put together. We need a committee that's comprised of the best individuals that we can find from the relevant committees here in this Congress, or any other individuals in this Congress that have special expertise that would raise their knowledge base and their credibility to the point where we can get the maximum report coming out of this Congress. The circumstances that we have today on looking into the Benghazi incident and the events that flowed from that are several committees that have part of the jurisdiction. The Select Committee on Intelligence has part of the jurisdiction, and they've held some hearings and they have some knowledge. We don't know what that is. Much of it is classified. Much of it just isn't disseminated because that's not the nature of the Select Committee on Intelligence to disseminate information to the public. Another area might be our Judiciary Committee, under the jurisdiction of what was lawful and what wasn't lawful on what took place there and what might we have been able to do. The Foreign Relations Committee has some jurisdiction. Armed Services has some jurisdiction. That's four committees that I can name off the top of my head, Mr. Speaker. Each of them have taken some kind of look into this. But here's what happens. If you take a situation like Benghazi, or any major incident, and you break it down into four components and you assign, or the jurisdiction of each committee chair would look at this and claim jurisdiction, which they rightfully can do in this Congress, they would take their component of it, study it. They might write out a report, and it might be complete and it might be completely accurate. They can send that out, the unclassified portion, to the American people. That report goes out. Say that's the Select Committee on Intel. Then, Mr. Speaker, the Foreign Affairs Committee can meet and they can call the witnesses that they choose to and gather that information and perhaps write a completely objective and completely truthful report and send it out to the public, all of that that's not classified. The same thing can happen with the Armed Services Committee. The same thing can happen with the Judiciary Committee or any other committees that might have some jurisdiction. But, invariably, what you have are silos of information--a silo of information coming out of the Select Committee on Intel, part of it classified that would stay in there; a silo of information coming out of Armed Services, out of Judiciary, out of the Foreign Affairs Committee. And these silos of information, just like silos, don't match up. You can't square the circle with the information that comes because there are gaps in their jurisdiction and because there are gaps in the expertise that doesn't match together like a hand in glove or a finely machined gear. And even if they did match perfectly, you would still have four reports from four different committees presented to the public. Each one would have to be deciphered by whom? Scholars? The press? Who might it be? So if we are going to get to the bottom of Benghazi, we've got to put together a selected committee that represents all of the jurisdictions in the United States Congress and all of the oversight in the United States Congress. And if we do that, then we have the kind of committee, a commission, that is similar in nature to that of the 9/11 Commission, or the Warren Commission, which produced, in the end, one composite report, a book, Mr. Speaker, that the American people can look at, that they can count on it being factual, they can count on it being objective. They can count on it, and they can critique it if they have information out there that challenges it. The Warren Report was challenged, but it stands still as an accurate representation of the facts of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The 9/11 Commission stands alone. That report stands alone as the broadest and most objective and complete report that Congress could put together. And we have acted and reacted on recommendations from the 9/ 11 Commission. We need to do the same thing with Benghazi. If we do not, Mr. Speaker, history will forever question whether there was a coverup on what happened in Benghazi. In fact, we already know there has been. We know that the administration went out and sent Susan Rice out to five different talk shows on Sunday, just several days later, to tell us that all of this violence that erupted in the streets of Benghazi came about because of a movie, a video that was produced. Now, as far as I know, the individual that exercised his First Amendment rights to produce that video may still be in jail. That's the only punishment that's come out, that I know of, from Benghazi. I think he should be released. But that's the first story. And then we've got different stories that were brought out of the administration, pried out, because usually the press, but sometimes an American citizen, found that information, got it out on the Internet, the press found it, and we've been picking up pieces of Benghazi for 6 months. And we still don't have the truth. The people who survived Benghazi need to come before this Congress, under oath, and tell us their story. Now, if there are components of this that are classified, if our national security is at risk, then Members of this Congress should be called into a classified setting and told these are the reasons why we're covering this up. If this administration came open with Members of Congress, we would honor the reasons for a classified standing, but they have not. They tried to cover it up in the first place. They tried to convince us it was a video. Since that time, the argument was made that there was no military relief that could have come into Benghazi because it was logistically not possible. That, I would say, is questionable at best. Piece after piece needs to come out into the public, Mr. Speaker. And I'm a strong advocate for Frank Wolf's proposal that we set up that committee to examine all of this and produce a report for the American people. And so that's simply triggered by my questions when I listened to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. And I would expect that you would ask to yield if any of that was inaccurate. I would be happy to yield to the gentlelady from North Carolina. Honoring the Life and Sacrifice of North Carolina's Mason Vanderwork

Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, and saying a prayer myself: God bless that marine and the United States of America. As we do this transition here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take up some of the topic of the previous speaker in the Democrat hour who spoke about labor and labor law. It was a strong message from often the opposite side of my viewpoint, and I'm compelled to speak to it in this way, and that is this: First of all, labor is a commodity; it's a commodity like corn or beans or gold or oil. That labor is the supply, and its demand of labor sets the price of it, just like any other commodity. Yes, it's human beings and it's lives and it's families. As an employer, I met payroll for over 28 years--1,400-and-some consecutive weeks. There were times that we didn't go to the grocery store during those hard economic times because we met payroll first. That was always the highest priority. The first cash that came into King Construction in the worst years, even when the bank was closed by the FDIC, I met payroll. When that bank was closed, it was, let me see, April 26, Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock. They posted a highway patrolman outside the door with a red tag on the front of it. I found out that they had not only closed up my account, but the accounts of many of my customers. I actually reached into my pocket because I literally had two pennies in my pocket to rub together--it's almost a joke around our family. We still met payroll. We found a way to do it even though I couldn't write a check because the bank was closed. I thank a lot of the people that work for King Construction and the people that we have worked with and for throughout the years. I've been in the trenches with them. I'm the guy that if they're on an air conditioned cab in a machine, I'm down in the ditch with a shovel. I want to make that job go as good as it can. I walked in my office before Christmas one year and I found that my secretary had decorated our Christmas tree in the entryway of the King Construction office with these gold decorations printed out like a Christmas tree--a baby Jesus, a snowflake, a star of Bethlehem. When I looked at that tree and I looked at the decorations, the gold emblems, on the front side was engraved the name of one of our employees, or their spouse, or one of their children. These were the people that I went to work with every day, our employees; but the tree was decorated with the names of all the people that were directly affected by those jobs being available. We would never be a company that's looking at soon celebrating our 40th year in business if it weren't for people that had worked for us for a long time and been part of this family. When there is a death, we go to the funeral of a family member. When there's a baptism, we go to the baptism. When there's a wedding, we go to the wedding. These are people that are like family--actually, there is even occasionally a little connection of blood that goes on, but it's like family, it is family. I have great respect for the people that do labor every day. And I am a blue collar guy here and at home in Iowa. But there are two viewpoints here. Another point I want to make, though, is that labor has a right to collectively bargain. They have a right to bargain as a bargaining group is another way to define that. Nobody has a right to intimidate others. Nobody has a right to be heavy-handed about it, but they do have a right to bargain, and I will always defend their right to bargain. But one of the points that is a big problem for our budget, for example, is this: that the organized labor unions in this country strongly support and promote the Davis-Bacon Act. Now, Davis-Bacon is a law that was passed back in the early thirties by a couple of Republicans from New York. Now, they remind me that it was Republicans that passed that law. I would be the last guy to stand here and say that Republicans are always a hundred percent right, but they were wrong when they did that. They wrote Davis-Bacon, this Federal law that requires that any construction project that has $2,000 or more Federal dollars in it shall be by prevailing wage. The definition of prevailing wage, then, is they go out and survey the pay scale and the benefits package that is normal and typical within that labor market. I can say with utter confidence that that scale is a union scale, not a prevailing wage, but a union scale. They're the people that negotiate this. The people that sit down on the boards and the panels do so. They're not measuring prevailing wage; they're simply measuring union scale and applying that to the Davis-Bacon wage scale. The result is these projects, these Federal projects cost an average of 22 percent more. Now, I have records that go back for years. We do some Davis-Bacon wage scale projects and some are not, so we're flipping back and forth. We've got a pretty good set of records that we've accumulated over the years. In our records, someplace between 8 and 35 percent is the percentage of increase in the cost of a project where there is a federally imposed wage scale. Part of that time is they doesn't know what the wage scale is, and part of the time it is because they're imposing at higher wage than prevailing wage. Part of the reason for that gap is some projects are material intensive and other projects are labor intensive, so you get that gap between 8 and 35 percent. But a standard here is 22 percent--I often say 20--22 percent increase. Now, think of that; think what this means. If this Congress were fiscally responsible and they looked at the unnecessary spending that is part of the prescription of the Davis-Bacon wage scale mandate, then we would see the cost of our Federal project--if we repealed Davis- Bacon, we'd see the cost of our Federal projects be reduced by 22 percent. Now, what would that mean? If there are Federal dollars in a school, that means we could build five schools instead of four. You know there's Federal dollars in a lot of our roads. We could build five miles of roads instead of four. We could build five miles of interstate highway, for example, instead of four miles of interstate highway. We could build five bridges instead of four. How many roads would have been built by now if we hadn't had the federally mandated Davis-Bacon wage scale put in place? How far would we be with our infrastructure? We're a long ways behind in our bridge reconstruction in particular, but also our highway construction. And every year that I've been in this Congress people come to me and they will say we have to raise the road use tax because we don't have enough money to build our roads. Now, road use tax, that really should cause a person to think. That is a user's fee. We pay it in the gas that we buy. We expect that when that nozzle goes into our tank and when we squeeze the nozzle to buy the gas, we watch the dollars--and they go up really fast when you see gas that's over four bucks a gallon--we watch those dollars go up on the pump. But we also realize that between the State and the Federal Government a lot of us are paying 40-plus cents a gallon to build the road that we're wearing out with the car we're putting the gas in. That's a user's fee. But when I came here and started to break this down and ask the question: Of that one dollar's worth of gas tax/user fee that is a Federal piece of this--18.3 cents a gallon--of one dollar of that, how much of that actually goes into roads and bridges? I'll tell you, it adds up like this--then we reduce it a little bit on this number: Three percent, 3 cents out of that dollar went for trails, for bike trails and automobile trails and that kind of thing--3 percent. There was at one time $16 million in one of our appropriation bills to clean graffiti off the retaining walls in New Jersey. I thought, can't they get their prisoners out there with a wire brush to do that? And 28 percent going for environmental and archaeological compliance studies and costs. Twenty-eight cents out of that dollar for environmental interests and archaeological interests, looking for arrowheads and endangered species. Can't somebody else pay for that rather than the people that are driving on these roads? When you add Davis-Bacon to that, another 22 percent. So you have 3 percent for trails, you have 28 percent for archaeological and environmental compliance, you've got 20 to 22 percent for Davis-Bacon wage scale, and 17 percent for mass transit to buy people cheap Metro tickets in Washington, D.C., or subway tickets in New York, or the ``el'' in Chicago, or, what shall I say, the cable cars in San Francisco, subsidized by people buying gas. Add that all up and you're going to find--if you're good at math and paying attention, Mr. Speaker--that number comes to about 67 or 68 cents out of the dollar that goes for something else other than roads and bridges. Now, how can we justify raising a user fee on the gas tax, as we call it, rather than re-prioritizing that gas-tax-dollar pie, where you get a third of the money that's going to roads and bridges and two-thirds of the money that's going to something else? That needs to be fixed. I appreciate the gentleman that spoke earlier. If he would take a stand on that, perhaps we could find a bipartisan solution. Another issue, though, is child labor. He made the argument that it was the unions that drove the child labor issue and now kids don't have to worry when they go to work. That's true, because there's no place for them to work. Hardly anywhere can young people work. Mr. Speaker, I just ask you to think about, let me say, some years ago there was a time when you could pull into any gas station and some young lad would come running out there with a rag in his back pocket. He would fill your car up. He would wash your windshield, check your oil, check your tires, and collect your money and send you on your way. That doesn't happen anymore. There are few of those full-service stations left. One of the big reasons is child labor laws. Today, child labor laws are written in such a way that a 17-year-old young person that is awaiting their 18th birthday can't get on the riding lawnmower and cut the grass around the gas station for pay because that's a violation of child labor laws. They can climb in a car at age 16 in my State and drive wherever they choose to go, but they can't mow the lawn in the gas station that they pull up into to buy their gas. We saw this administration push child labor laws in trying to get it pushed into the agriculture sector. It was the Department of Labor working with the Department of Agriculture to write rules like, unless you're a son or a daughter of somebody that's got controlling interest in a farm--in other words, you can't be loaned out or, as we say in my country, farmed out to the neighbors or to your kid's aunt and uncle or grandparents to do work. They prohibited youth from participating in herding livestock in a confined area, from being more than 6 feet off the ground so they couldn't paint the under eaves on the machine shed, from having anything to do with livestock that inflicts pain, like ear tagging or tail docking or clipping eye teeth or dewclaws on puppies, for example. They prohibited them from being involved in that, but that same girl that's prohibited from being around when you ring the hog can have her ears pierced--or any other part for that matter--without any objection from the same people that are advocating this. We have a nanny state that's run amok, Mr. Speaker. It's gone overboard with child labor laws and tried to push these child labor laws into agriculture. There was a major pushback because the family farm understood the value of work for our youth. They manage the safety best on those farms. They care the most about the people that are there. And the Federal Government would only interfere, and then that child would not have the experience of learning the work ethic by going to the neighbor's or aunt and uncle's or grandpa and grandma's. So even though the labor unions have made, I think, a big contribution with regard to on-the-job safety--the reference to OSHA and the history of that was a good thing. The organization of labor unions to negotiate for better working conditions and wages and benefits package was a good thing. But there has to be some restraint on this. We can't be going backwards. This statement about a fair wage, well, we should be thinking, what is ``fair,'' Mr. Speaker? You can look up the definition of ``fair'' in Black's Law, and you'll find a whole series of definitions for ``fair.'' I say the only time you should use the word ``fair'' when you're talking about law is when you're talking about the State fair or the county fair or the World's Fair, because otherwise, when you use the word ``fair'' to talk about justice and equity, you finally come to this point that everybody has got a different view on what the word ``fair'' means. Anyone that's raised two or more children, Mr. Speaker, knows that there's no such thing as ``fair.'' If you apply a rule to one child, the other child will say, ``That's not fair.'' And if you apply the same rule to the other child, there will be a reason why the first one should be exempted. We can never agree on the word ``fair.'' We don't agree on what a fair wage is. That's why supply and demand needs to establish the wage, not somebody's idea of fairness. The statement about a living wage--a living wage. Well, a living wage for someone in New York City is different from a living wage for someone that lives, let's say, in a low-cost rural area that might be in the Midwest, for example. These definitions of fair wage and living wage are all ways to lever some kind of Federal imposition in that distorts the law of supply and demand. So that takes me around to this concluding part, Mr. Speaker, which is that the law of supply and demand has caused people to come into the United States illegally and take jobs for a cheaper price than allows for them to live in this society. The result of that is that the cost for people who are in this country illegally--just for the welfare parts that they access--is right at $55 billion. If they are legalized in the form that is advocated on the other end of the rotunda in here, Democrats and Republicans, in other words, their comprehensive immigration reform and all the other adjectives they use to avoid using the word ``amnesty,'' the cost goes from $55 billion a year to $75 billion a year. If you track this group of people--we're talking about 11.2 million people. If you track them for a lifetime, the cost of the welfare benefits becomes $2.5 trillion. So, think, Mr. Speaker, this Congress has passed ObamaCare. This is right at near the anniversary of that. Today we voted to repeal it within the, I'll call it, the Ryan budget. That's about $2.5 trillion as it extrapolates itself out on the budget scale. On top of that, ObamaCare dropped $2.5 trillion of debt on the American public. If comprehensive immigration reform, slash, amnesty passes this Congress, that drops another $2.5 trillion of debt on the American people. What we need is a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution, and we need that passed out of the House and out of the Senate with a cap at 18 percent of GDP and a supermajority required in order to raise taxes or to break the debt ceiling that we have, to increase the debt ceiling. If we do that, if we put a balanced budget amendment out here on the floor of the House and the Senate and if it passes, I'll be ready to look at increasing the debt ceiling for the President. If that doesn't happen, I don't see a reason to raise the debt ceiling. Let's stare him down on that until somebody gives in. We need to get this spending under control. Myopic policies and fiscally irresponsible policies are not the way to go. ObamaCare needs to be repealed. We need to restore the rule of law in this country. We've got to shrink down the welfare package that's out here. There are 80 different means-tested welfare programs in the United States--just 2\1/2\ trillion for the illegal component of this and a whole lot more if we don't get these entitlements under control. Mr. Speaker, the solutions are here. They're on this side of the aisle. They're actually in the platform, and I endorse many of them. I appreciate your attention, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it's always my honor to be recognized to speak here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and I'm privileged to hear from the ``Dr. Phil Show'' that we've just listened to over this past 60 minutes. I have a few things on my mind that I'd like to inform you of, Madam Speaker. And I'd start with this: that sometimes we need to take a look at the bigger, broader direction that this Congress is going and this country is going. And one of the things that I've learned, being involved in the legislative process, in fact, back in the Iowa State Senate some years ago, one of my colleagues said we're so busy doing that which is urgent that we're not addressing those things that are important. And that should frame all the things that we do. We should have a long-term plan. We should have a big picture plan, and the things that we do should fit into that. We should be putting the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together under that broader view. And how does that broader view fit? Our Founding Fathers understood it. They understood the perspective of history. They knew where they stood in history, and they acted accordingly. They understood human nature. They understood human universals. They watched the continuum of history to get up to their point, and they made deep, long-term, broad, deliberative decisions that were difficult and debated, they were hard-fought out, and they put those pieces in place for us. It's clear to me when I read through the documents of our Founding Fathers that they understood history and human nature. It's not as clear to me, Madam Speaker, when I serve here in this Congress and engage in debates here on the floor and in committee and in subcommittee and around in the places where we're often called upon to comment or listen to the comment of others, that we're looking at this from the big picture. So something that brought this home for me was on a trip that I was involved in dealing with negotiations with the Europeans, and one of the speakers who was an expert on the Middle East made a presentation about the Muslim Brotherhood. And I'm not here to speak about the Muslim Brotherhood except this: that part of his presentation was that the Muslim Brotherhood is, according to the speaker, a hollow ideology. I put that in quotes, ``a hollow ideology.'' Now he said that they can't sustain themselves over the long term because their belief system isn't anchored in those things that are timeless and real, those things like the core--now, I'm going to expand a little bit--the core of faith, the core of human nature, but a hollow ideology. So when he used that term and professed that hollow ideologies cannot continue, that they will eventually expire because they're sunk by their own weight, rather than buoyed by a belief system, then I began to look at our Western civilization. And we are, here in the United States, Madam Speaker, the leaders of Western civilization. And so when the allegation of a hollow ideology is placed upon the Muslim Brotherhood, I have to wonder: can I make the argument that our ideology is full and wholesome and identifies our values that are timeless? And are the pillars of American exceptionalism restored with the ideology we carry here? And do we strengthen this Nation so that the next generation has the opportunities we had or do we just ignorantly wallow through the day-to-day urgent decisions of Congress without dealing with the broader picture of who we are and, particularly, how we got here? I look back to the time when I first ran for office. I was putting together a document that I wanted to hand out to my, hopefully, future constituents. I believed that I should put a quote in there that sounded wise, and hopefully was wise. As I sat in my construction office about 1:30 in the morning, I wrote up this little quote. Part of it is naive; another part of it, I think, is appropriate. And the quote was this: that human nature doesn't change; that if we ever get the fundamental structure of government correct, the only reason we need to reconvene our legislative bodies are to make appropriations for coming years or adjustments for new technology. Madam Speaker, when you think about what that means, if we ever get government right, if we ever get our laws in place, our regulations in place so that they reflect and bring about the best of human nature, since human nature doesn't change and it hasn't changed throughout the generations, then just make the adjustments for appropriations in new technology, that is a correct statement, I believe. But it is pretty naive about the reality of coming to a consensus on getting the fundamental structure of law correct, let alone the fundamental structure of regulations correct, without regard to the changing technology that always is thrust upon us here. We are continually going to be in an argument, in a debate, about the fundamental human nature, how people react to public policy and about where we would like to see society go. Those of us on my side of the aisle believe that we have values that are timeless. Whatever was true 2,000 years ago is true today, and whatever was sin 2,000 years ago is sin today. There are those on the other aside of the aisle, many of them would advocate that society isn't going in the right direction unless you are constantly changing things, without regard to the values we are changing, without having to grasp for a higher ideal, just grasping for change. If change is the mission and they are launched upon that mission, they believe they are doing good because they are eliminating the things that we have had and adopting something different, not necessarily something better. And they don't even argue that it is better, but they argue for change. I would say this, Madam Speaker: that we have fundamental values, that these fundamental values have been clear to our Founding Fathers. They are rooted in human history. They go back to the time of Adam and Eve. But the things that we should keep track of here are those things that our Founding Fathers looked at as well, that being the rule of law is one of the essential pillars of American exceptionalism. Without it, we can't be a great country. Most of the pillars of American exceptionalism are listed in the Bill of Rights. Our Founding Fathers got it right. When they guaranteed us, in the First Amendment, the freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the press, all of that rolled up in one amendment, think what that means. And I would argue, especially to our young people, Madam Speaker, that if we don't exercise these rights--and our Founding Fathers made it very clear, these are God-given rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote it in the Declaration, as signed by the hands of those Founding Fathers that pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, that these rights come from God. And it is the first time that concept had been argued, established, and put down as a foundation of this Republic. It is not the beginning of these God-given rights; it is the most defensible version of it. I would take us back to the origins of the rule of law, which seems to be getting eroded here in this Congress--in the House and in the Senate and in the White House. I don't have that same charge to the Supreme Court these days, but I would test them in a couple of places, perhaps in a different venue, Madam Speaker. The rule of law, the foundation of the rule of law, I will say that was handed down by Moses, Mosaic Law. And as that law was handed down and we went through those times after the birth of Christ--and we saw during that period of time of Christ that the Greeks and the Romans had embraced Mosaic Law, even though they sometimes good-naturedly teased each other about borrowing their ideas about the rule of law from Moses--it is true, Mosaic Law flowed into Greek law and Roman law. If you look at history, the Romans flowed across Western Europe all the way up into England up into Ireland. They established themselves in a big way because of the rule of law. That rule of law was torn asunder about the time that the Dark Ages began, around 406 AD to around 410 AD, when Rome was sacked and we saw ourselves go into the Dark Ages. And, I will say, the uncivilized began to destroy anything that they saw that was evidence of the civilizations of the Greeks and the Romans. They tore down the buildings. They tore down the symbols, those things that reminded them of the former civilization. Out of that, the Roman church collected and protected many of those documents of the classics and the Irish monks collected and protected many of the classics of the era of the Greeks and the Romans. And we went through those hundreds of years of the Dark Ages when people forgot how to think about the age of reason, how to apply deductive and inductive reasoning, rational thought. That disappeared, and it became the rule of emotion rather than the rule of law, the society driven by instinct and emotion rather than a society that was ordered by rational thought. And how did this come back together? We think we couldn't lose this again today, Madam Speaker. It was lost at one time, and it was reconstructed again after hundreds of years. I think about how that was bridged. There are a number of symbols of the bridging of the classical period of the Greeks and the Romans through the Dark Ages into the Middle Ages and into today. One of those symbols would be the Cologne Cathedral dome in Germany. Now, if I have my history right--and I am going to speak generally, Madam Speaker, because I didn't commit this to precise memory for the purposes of delivering it, but conceptually I will--the origins of that cathedral and that church and that diocese there began about 330 AD or so. Can you imagine, before the fall of the Roman Empire, the Christian faith was building gothic edifices in Western Europe as monuments and symbols of the deep core of their belief system, not a hollow ideology, but a full ideology driven by a Christian faith and followed along by individual rights. The foundation of the Cologne Cathedral dome began to be laid around 330 AD. The architectural plans, as I recall them, for the church that exists today was about 832 AD. Then they began to build for a few hundred years. Around about 1100 AD or so, they ran out of money. Now, we haven't yet emerged from the Dark Ages, but it is beginning. Hundreds of years of Dark Ages and the construction of this church had stopped. They ran out of money. The Dark Ages had suppressed it, and the image and the vision of this not hollow but full ideology had to weather through centuries. Then coming out of the Dark Ages in 1100 AD or so, they began their fundraising drive again. For 600 years they raised money to finish the cathedral that was planned. Architectural drawings were put down on parchment about 832 AD. They picked up those plans 600 years later, the same plans, to complete the church that was completed in the late part of the 19th century and exists today. That is an idea of the length of time that a vision can sustain itself. A not hollow but a full ideology can drive itself through the collapse of the Roman Empire, through the Dark Ages, through the reconstruction period, into the modern era and survive, in fact, survive all the allied bombers that went over it in World War II. That is a vision of not a hollow ideology but a full ideology that is driven by culture, by civilization, by faith. Here we are today. As I listen to that presentation about the hollow ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, I thought: what is our agenda here in Congress? Does this agenda reflect our value system? Does it anchor in these core beliefs that go back in a timeless way? Does it recognize that there are human universals that never will change? And does it recognize that we are motivated by those human universals and that it is anchored in our value system? I don't know that our agenda reflects that these days. It seems as though we are running herky-jerky from one economic issue to another economic issue, not with a long view picture, but with the idea that we are going to get past this crisis and then somehow we are going to put this back together on the other side of the crisis. That's the case with the fiscal cliff. That's the case with reordering the issues of sequestration, continuing resolution, and, later on, the debt ceiling. These are the urgencies that are being addressed, sometimes at the expense of the bigger picture. It would be different if we were dealing with urgencies that were fitting the jigsaw puzzle pieces into the big picture, but I don't believe that we are. I think that we are starting to lose sight of who we are as a people and we're starting to lose our grip on those fundamentals. There is a big difference going on in this country that we have not seen in the history of the United States of America, Madam Speaker, and the difference is this: those of us who believe that we have timeless values and that we need to be reconstructing and refurbishing the pillars of American exceptionalism competing against those who believe that chiselling those pillars of American exceptionalism down and replacing them with something or nothing is preferable to restoring them. I think that that is being driven out of the White House and the people that share common cause, Madam Speaker, with the President of the United States. This movement that he is driving, it divides people against each other. When you see this concept of multiculturalism--which is something that I embraced when it emerged on the public scene because I believed it was a good tool for us to respect all people of all races and all ethnicities, whatever their behaviors might be in life. But I began to see that the people on the other side were using it as a tool to divide, not to unite, a tool to pit people against each other rather than to draw them together. I've seen the President use that in his politics repeatedly to the extent that I've never seen in the history of this country. I did, though, recognize it. When Bill Clinton was elected President, I wrote an op-ed about the method that he used to appoint his Cabinet. That method was: I'm going to put together a multicultural formula and I am going to--and he said this: I'm going to appoint a Cabinet that looks like America. That would be the quote from Bill Clinton after he was elected, before he was inaugurated, as he put the Cabinet together. I thought at that time, the President of the United States should be putting together a Cabinet that best serves America, regardless of what they look like. But that wasn't what happened under the Clinton administration, and I'm not convinced that's what's happened under any subsequent administration, Republican or Democrat, since then. But this President has pitted us against each other along the lines of race, along the lines of ethnicity, with sometimes little comments that are made that aren't so subtle. These things divide us as a people rather than unite us as a people. When you hear the promise out there that people won't have to worry about their rent check or won't have to worry about their car payment, that somebody will take care of you--this idea that government is going to step in and lift the burden off people and take away individual responsibility is something that was pervasive in the last two Presidential races, particularly in the last one, and it undermines the efficiency of the American people. We should be thinking, Madam Speaker, about a Nation of over 300 million people that has some of the longest and the highest and most sustained unemployment rates in the history of this country--the Great Depression would be the exception--and a Nation with around 313 million people in it, a little over 13 million people who have signed up for unemployment, another number of people that approaches that of about 20 million people that are definably underemployed, and that's just a piece of those who are not engaged. When we look at the Department of Labor's Web site and we start to add up those unemployed to those who are of working age simply not in the workforce, we come to a number of over 100 million Americans, Madam Speaker, that are not contributing to the gross domestic product, that are of the age group that one would think we would get some work out of some of them. Now, I recognize in that group of over 100 million there are some that are retired, some are early retired, some are in school, some are homemakers. It's difficult for me to complete the list of reasons why people would not be contributing to our economy. But we seem to think that 100 million Americans not in the workforce doesn't seem to trouble very many people in this Congress, but it's okay for us to be looking at 11 or 12 or 20 million people that are in this country unlawfully, who are working unlawfully, and who are, at least theoretically, taking jobs that Americans might take. At one point, Madam Speaker, I wrote an op-ed that laid out an analogy. It described the United States as analogous to a huge cruise ship--it would also be a sailing cruise ship--with 300 million people on it. You need some people that will pull on the oars and swab the deck and trim the sails and work in the galley and clean out the cabins and do those kind of things up in steerage and in first class and wherever else, and somebody there to man the navigation and take care of the captain. That's all jobs that happen on a cruise ship. And our whole economy and our society is tied together, 50 States and 300 million people. What kind of people, if they needed somebody else to pull on the oars or swab the deck or trim the sails or calculate the navigation, what kind of people would say, We've got 300 million people on this ship and we've got 100 million of them that are sitting up in steerage, but we need somebody else to do the work that those people in steerage won't do, so let's pull off on this continent and load another 10 or 20 million more people on to do the work that people on this cruise ship won't do? No captain in his right mind would sail that ship over there and load a bunch more people on to do work if he had 100 million people up in steerage that had opted out because somebody is taking care of delivering the food, cleaning their cabin, and making sure they have a place where they can stay. That's what happens to human nature when you have a domestic policy that makes it easy to turn the safety net into a hammock. That's something that Phil Graham used to discuss about how it's one thing to create a safety net--and we're for a safety net in here almost universally--but to turn the safety net into a hammock and then ask somebody else to come do work that Americans aren't willing to do is a reach that I'm not willing to accept. Neither do I accept the idea that there's work that Americans won't do. Every single job category has Americans working in it in a majority of that job category. We saw some of that data today, Madam Speaker. So I'd say this instead. We are a country that is richer than any country ever in the history of the world. We have more technology than ever in the history of the world. We have more capital created. We have more human capital, more know-how, more can-do people out there to pull on the oars and trim the sails and navigate the ship and do all of the things that need to happen. This country has all of those assets and all of those resources in greater number and supply by any measure than any civilization in the history of the world, and Madam Speaker, we can't live within our means? We have to run a deficit of $1 to $1.2 trillion and borrow money from the Chinese and the Saudis--and, by the way, about half of this debt is held by domestic debt, the American people that are buying bonds and T-bills. But a Nation that's the richest Nation, the richest culture, the richest economy, the richest civilization in the history of the world has to borrow over $1 trillion a year just to sustain this lifestyle that we have, while we have 100 million--a third of our population-- that is of working age that is not contributing to the gross domestic product. Think of what that means. Think how posterity will judge us if we don't step up to our responsibilities, get our spending under control, bring more of the people into the workforce that are, I will say, living off of public benefits. I would be willing to submit that you won't find someone on the streets of America that can name for you all of the means-tested welfare programs--Federal programs that are means tested--that we have. That number used to be 72. Then it went to 80. This is a number that has been calculated and pulled together by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. I asked him, you know, I used to quote you at 72, now you say 80. What happened? He said, I found some more. I said, Is 80 the finite number, 80 different means-tested Federal welfare programs? He said, Well, there are at least 80; why don't you say a minimum of 80. So 80, a minimum of 80 different means-tested Federal welfare programs, some of them competing with each other, and no one can list them from memory, and no one has the capability of understanding how they interrelate with each other nor how they motivate or demotivate the people that they are designed to help. What kind of a country would do that? And why would we have 100 million people of working age not in our workforce while we're running up a debt of $1.2 trillion a year? We've seen that the per capita national debt now for a baby born in the United States--babies born today, their share of the national debt is $53,000. It went over $53,000 just the other day. So, welcome to the world. You're an American citizen born here by birthright citizenship, but you don't have a right not to contribute to paying off the national debt, and your share is $53,000. What kind of a country would do that and not tighten its belt and not put some of its people to work? And then I end up with these economic discussions, Madam Speaker. They come from smart people who will say, well, the labor force should be determined by supply and demand. Why don't we let human migration follow where the jobs are? Well, Milton Friedman had the answer to that. He said that you cannot have open borders and a welfare system, especially one that is as generous as our welfare system is. So which one can you fix? Can you fix the border problem? Can you fix the welfare problem? I'd like to fix them both, Madam Speaker. One of them is a little easier than the other. We can control the borders and shut off the jobs magnet easier than we can make the case that we should be tightening down the welfare system in this country. But we need to do both. We need to bring the country back within its means. The entitlement system that's out there that fits within those 80 different means-tested welfare programs needs to be completely reexamined. I think Congressman Louis Gohmert is correct when he said we need to put all of the welfare into a single committee so they're responsible for all of the programs that we have. It's the only way we can begin to get a handle on it. The committee jurisdiction is scattered out through multiple committees, and he knows that better than I. The big picture that I started to talk about in the beginning, Madam Speaker, is that we need to identify the pillars of American exceptionalism and we need to refurbish those pillars. The identification of them become the things that we've inherited from far back in the origins of Western Civilization. Mosaic law flowed through Greek and Roman law, and the Magna Carta that was signed in 1215 established individual freedom from the monarch or the despot that no subject could be--let's say no one other than a serf at that time-- could be punished arbitrarily. They had to have the right and the protection of the rule of law. We have these guarantees in our Constitution, freedom of speech, and I'm exercising it now, Madam Speaker, and I encourage all to do so. If we stopped exercising freedom of speech, we would eventually lose it because it would be defined away from us. Freedom of religion fits the same category. If we don't exercise our freedom of religion, it becomes redefined away from us. How about freedom of the press? I would submit, Madam Speaker, that those who abuse freedom of the press, those who do not have journalistic integrity, are undermining our First Amendment right. If every newspaper out there printed things that they knew were dishonest, if they just drove purely a political agenda on the front page, on the side where they're held accountable for journalism, or in their commentary when they print falsehoods as fact, it undermines all of our freedom, because when someone abuses a freedom, they diminish that freedom for all of us. Now, think in terms of this--if that's hard to understand for some folks, Madam Speaker, I'll put it this way: If everybody went out there and abused the Second Amendment right, it wouldn't be long before we wouldn't have the right to keep and bear arms, regardless of what the Constitution says. We have to utilize those rights, and we have to exercise them in a responsible way. The abuse of God-given rights, the abuse of these rights, especially in the Bill of Rights, undermines the rights that we have. But we do have freedom of speech, religion, and the press and assembly. If we stopped exercising them, we would lose them. We have the right to keep and bear arms, not for hunting, not for target, not for self-defense, and not for collection. All of those four reasons to keep and bear arms are--I'll say they are additional rights; it's just the bonus that comes along with it because our Founding Fathers understood that a well-armed populace was a protection against tyranny. I agree with that and defend the Second Amendment because that is what allows us to defend ourselves against tyrants. You can go on up through the Bill of Rights, the right to property in the Fifth Amendment--nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. The Kelo decision took that phrase out of there, ``for public use.'' I think one day, a Supreme Court, if we raise an adequate objection, will have to go back and revisit the Kelo decision. It was an unjust decision that didn't reflect the language in the Fifth Amendment. Property rights is another core of American exceptionalism. Without these rights, freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, without property rights, without being tried by a jury of our peers and the right to face our accusers, without the concepts of federalism and these enumerated powers in the Constitution, that being reserved for the Congress and the balance of them that revert to the States or the people respectively, without those components, we would not have emerged as the country that we are. We can't sustain ourselves as a country that we are to be if we don't protect those pillars of American exceptionalism. In the core of those pillars of American exceptionalism is, as I said earlier, the rule of law. When the rule of law is usurped by a king or a despot or a President of the United States, it diminishes us all, and it diminishes the potential destiny of the United States of America. We've seen, as the President of the United States has decided, that he will enforce the law that he sees fit, and he will not enforce the law that he doesn't agree with. And it's clear in a number of ways, Madam Speaker. The President suspended No Child Left Behind. He won't enforce that. He essentially has waived it off the books. Now, he took an oath to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That is in the Constitution, and it's a requirement. He took the oath, he understands it, he taught constitutional law, but he simply set aside No Child Left Behind. It isn't the issue that I'm advocating here; it is that a President must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Behind that, he suspended welfare to work. In the middle 1990s, there were three times that President Clinton vetoed the welfare reform law. He finally signed it and took credit for it--okay, that's politics--but one component of that was welfare to work. And only one of all of our more than 80 different means-tested welfare programs that we have, or a minimum of 80 different means-tested welfare programs that we have, of all of them, there's only one, Madam Speaker, that requires work. That one is the TANF program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. And it says in there that it specifically prohibits the President from suspending or waiving the work requirement. The President did so anyway. Sticking with this rule of law that has been so damaged by our President, it's also true with immigration law. The immigration law requires that people who are in violation of it be put into the process for deportation. The President has decided he won't do that. Now, it's one thing to have prosecutorial discretion. I agree that the executive branch has to be able to decide which highest priorities are there for the resources of law enforcement. But when the executive branch--the prosecutorial discretion is always on an individual basis, not on a group basis, not on a clear-the-board basis. But look what the President has done. He has issued a memorandum, actually a memorandum that was written by Secretary Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security, that said that we're not going to enforce immigration law. So I'm here to endorse the rule of law and stand up and defend the Constitution. I appreciate your attention. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding and for leading this Special Order on this 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Forty has a lot of biblical implications. Moses led them wandering in the desert for 40 years, and Jesus spent for 40 days and 40 nights. Marilyn and I have been married for 40 years. There are a number of things I would like to tell in this narrative, Mr. Speaker. The first thing I would like to relate is the story of Joyce Zounis, who has delivered to me her narrative, and I will pick out some of the highlights of it and introduce it into the Congressional Record.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I start again from the beginning, Mr. Speaker. This is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I never imagined that we would be here 40 years afterwards, 55 million abortions afterwards, still seeking respect for innocent, unborn human life and the right of personhood that many over on the other side of the aisle also claim one should have once they're born. But they give no right, no dignity to babies who are preborn. I would like to provide some of the narrative here of a story written by Joyce Zounis. Joyce's narrative is about her life. Each one of these are just heart-wrenching, and this is among those heart-wrenching stories shared now by millions around the country. Joyce's story starts out with this in bold, ``We will not speak of this again.'' It's her mother telling her as a 15-year-old girl on the way to the abortion clinic that there would be no discussion outside of what happened that day. That's at age 15. It says that ``the room was filled with many girls,'' of which she knew weren't able to keep it as a secret. They said it won't hurt; it did. They said it would be over real quick; it has lasted 35 years. And 11 years later--here's the narrative, Mr. Speaker: Eleven years, three clinics, two States, seven abortions, not once was I told of the traumatic suffering that would follow, which it did. And on the seventh abortion, Joyce Zounis writes: Several hours later, the vacuum-like noise broke a decade- old trance--``What have I done?'' And as her story continues, she writes about emotional trauma, ``That child lost through choice would devour my dignity''--they didn't tell her that. She said, ``I justified my twisted truth.'' That goes on every day here in America, 4,000 times a day in America. Everyone talks about their right to choose, but no one talks about the result of the choice. She writes, ``I will never forget hearing my firstborn's heartbeat,'' a thing of joy for most people. Instead of joy, I was in shock, terrified that the nurses could see right through me and what I had done to my other children. I was never told you would need to grieve and cry for your unborn, that your life would be forever altered by the horrors of your ``chosen'' loss. Put this in this perspective: 40 years of Roe v. Wade. How did we get here, Mr. Speaker? It's important for us to understand how the creeping decisions of a Supreme Court creep in on the innocent unborn lives of 55 million babies who were victims of abortion, of millions of mothers and of fathers who have suffered the trauma and the heartbreak of finding out afterwards that they carried the responsibility and the burden on their consciences that altered them for a lifetime. It changed their relationships with their other children and with their family members, and it changed their relationships with brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers that they interrelate with in their daily lives. In 1965, we had a Supreme Court decision called Griswold v. Connecticut, and that was the camel's nose under the tent. At that time, Connecticut had passed State legislation that had prohibited the sale of contraceptives. It was supported by the Catholic Church, of which I am a member, and it was litigated to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found a right to privacy, which was manufactured out of thin air. That right to privacy prohibited banning the sale of contraceptives to married couples. That ``right to privacy'' phrase became the foundation, from 1965 until 1973, for Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Those two cases came together and essentially said that you have a right to an abortion at any time, for any reason--abortion on demand. That was the conclusion of the two cases, Doe v. Bolton, in '73. We went on. We got some opportunities to try to make some changes here in Congress; and the beginning of it was the ban on partial birth abortion, which was litigated to the Supreme Court and was turned down. I arrived here on the Judiciary Committee, and we rewrote that language, under the leadership of Steve Chabot of Ohio, so that it would comply with the decision of the Court. It was litigated across the countryside, and I went into the courtroom of Judge Kopf in Lincoln, Nebraska, as he had concluded that the findings of Congress were inferior to the preparation work of the attorneys in that court. Someone had to speak up. I did so in Lincoln that day, and let him know that our congressional findings were deeply deliberated and well founded. I did so through the press, and I found out that he reads the papers. What happened finally was we were able to have a case sustained to the Supreme Court that at least banned the gruesome process of partial birth abortion. In the process of these debates that we've had, Mr. Speaker, it has been useful. We've marched here. This will be the 40th year that hundreds of thousands and, by now, millions of people-- especially young people--have come to Washington, D.C., and have gone out to the basilica for the pro-life vigil mass--or I've seen as many as 15,000 people out at the basilica--all praying together, all singing together, all joining together in an effort to protect and defend innocent unborn human life, and then have come the next day here to the Mall in Washington and marched together from the Mall all the way around to the Supreme Court and then dispersed across the Capitol Grounds to the various receptions and offices so that they could bring their influence. This has changed the conscience of America. This has informed millions of now mothers who might have given up their babies to abortion instead. I'm encouraged by the path that we've taken. I have to believe that, over the years, the millions of voices raising together in hymns and prayer and in the marching have had its effect and is having its effect. There will be a day when we see the end of Roe v. Wade. There will be a day when we respect and revere every human life from that instant, or moment, of conception until natural death. That's what I work for. That's what I pray for. That's what many Members of the Pro-Life Caucus here in Congress have and many people across the countryside have. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to live in a country that has so many millions of people who have great respect for innocent unborn human life, and I will be forever grateful if I live to see the day that Roe v. Wade is finally set aside and that life is protected in law. Joyce Zounis--TV and Radio Producer & Host living beyond the bandaide of abortion ``We will not speak of this again'' were the words spoken to me as my mom and I, a 15-teen-year old high school sophomore, walked into the abortion facility. I too wanted to forget this problem. I was determined to be the one who decided when I became a mom; NOT a positive reading on a stick. Already disconnected, my mind was not on what was about to happen, but of missing cheerleading practice. The room was filled with many girls and to my mom's dismay we saw someone we knew. Our secret was blown. I sat in a room waiting for my name to be called just like any other doctor's appointment but this was like no other. They said it won't hurt; it did! They said it would be over real quick; it has lasted 35 years! Eleven years after my first abortion, I was having my seventh. I was in the same waiting room, walking the same hall, wearing the same gown, taking the same pill, and laying on the same table. To this abortionist's disgust, my pregnancy was further along and required more of his time. Several hours later the vacuum-like noise broke a decade- old trance--``what have I done?'' I began to weep uncontrollably, and this enraged the abortionist. His gestures were rough, and he was morbidly pleased to have me see his bloody garments when he was finished. The nurse quickly moved me to the recovery room and gave me crackers. Within 10 minutes I was rushed out the back door and nauseous on my way home. Eleven years, three clinics, two states, seven abortions, and not once was I told of the physical risks I would suffer later: the necessity of bi-lateral mammograms and fear of breast cancer; ovarian cysts; being bed ridden for five months in my last pregnancy and having to explain the possibly of ``mommy dying'' to my four young children due to placenta previa, which resulted in my losing all but two pints of blood; and, a partial hysterectomy at delivery. Not once was I told of the emotional trauma I would suffer: uncontrollable anger flamed by betrayal, deafening seclusion, and the inability to trust. That child loss through choice would devour my dignity as I justified the twisted truth. Or that deception would slowly creep into all areas of my life including the need to discretely reveal several of my abortions as miscarriages. I was never told I would feel like I was the only one going crazy. Everyone talks about their ``right to choose;'' but no one talks about the choice. In my case this led to sabotaging many life joys. I will never forget hearing my firstborn's heartbeat. Instead of joy, I was in shock, terrified that the nurses could see right through me and what I had done to my other children. I was never told you would need to grieve and cry for your unborn; that your life would be forever altered by the horrors of your `chosen' loss, tormented by the innate longing to hold and know your dead children and their dreams. Or that my five living children would suffer with an impossible mom; trapped by the hidden sadness of her gullible past. Through divine intervention in 1990, I had participated in an abortion recovery program. The tears so long forgotten had begun to form and fall together with the bandaides covering my shameful sorrows. With grateful relief I was able to acknowledge, name, and mourn my seven babies and rightfully publically position them among their siblings. For over two decades, my now deceased mom joined me in telling others that abortion hurts everyone: family, friends, and future generations. We were wrong. Abortion was not the right answer for my untimely pregnancies. I now know that you are forever a mom regardless of the age of your child; 6 seconds, 6 days or 60 years. I was blind to this but now I see. This momma of 12 children chooses to be a voice of truth. In pregnancy you carry the baby for only nine months but in abortion you carry it for a lifetime just with empty arms.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson. South Carolina: John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler. Georgia: William Few, Abraham Baldwin. New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman. Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman. New York: Alexander Hamilton. New Jersey: William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton. Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, this evening on rollcall No. 645, the Conference Report for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, I intended to vote ``no'' but mistakenly cast a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding and for leading this Special Order to honor Jay Pierson. I'm sitting here, I'm glad I've had an opportunity to listen to the other Members talk about Jay Pierson's service to this Congress and this country, and I'm wondering how do I make sense of this? Thirty-four years. Well, Mr. Speaker, 34 years ago, there was a lady that opened up a convenience store in my little old town of Kiron, Iowa. She began accumulating knowledge about the community and what went on around that community. And if you want to know who ran for mayor in '78 or when the place burned down down the street or why there isn't a parking meter or a stoplight in the town, you can ask her, and she'll know. If you want to know contemporary actions, who's working in what field, she'll know. It's the same thing here. There's one person that knows the organism of the House of Representatives, that understands it intuitively, that knows the history, has lived it, and it's one thing to catch up with things intellectually, Mr. Speaker, but it's another thing to feel it in your instinct and in your bones and in your guts. Jay Pierson's got all of that. On top of that, he's had to listen to me as much as anybody over the last 10 years, and for that I do come to the floor to apologize, Jay, for putting you through that long, grueling night all the way up to midnight night after night after night. But I couldn't have done that without your excellent help. Mr. Speaker, actually Jay would correct me and say I need to address you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn't have done it without Jay Pierson's excellent help. And I don't know that he has memorized every cell phone number of every Member of the House of Representatives, I just know he's memorized mine. And I know, Mr. Speaker, that when I'm off doing some of those things, as Jack Kingston said, family events and whatever, not only does Jay know what's said on the floor, not only does he know about the procedures, the amendment, the rules and the history of how we got to this place, but he understands the rhythm of the place, and he listens to all the words. On top of that, he's got the voice inflections down where, Mr. Speaker, he knows when a speaker is winding down, when he's about ready to finish up and it's time to hustle to the floor before the gavel falls. He might also let you know, I think this person is going to go on quite a while, so take a deep breath, and there will be time. And he'll tell you just when. And you'd better listen, Mr. Speaker. When I thought I could push those limits a little bit, I got here a little late. When I listened exactly to Jay Pierson, I got here with just the right amount the time. That's an example in my little tenure here in these 10 years of how all of these Members of Congress have benefited so much from 34 years of accumulated knowledge--irreplaceable knowledge, irreplaceable service, irreplaceable spirit here--and I congratulate, Mr. Speaker, Jay Pierson for that 34-year career here in the House of Representatives, the impression he's made on all of us and his great respect for this institution of the United States America. God bless you, Jay, and Godspeed.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for leading this discussion to have an opportunity to say some things about my friend, Leonard Boswell, across the floor. I have reflected on a number of things. In 1996, I aspired to run for the Iowa Senate. I got there just as Leonard Boswell was elected to come here to the United States Congress. I got to know a little bit about the area that he came from and traveled down to that area a good number of times. Little did I know that a few years later I would arrive here in this United States Congress, some 6 years later, representing not Congressman Boswell, not Lieutenant Colonel Boswell, but his cows. I have stopped a number of times and looked across the landscape and wondered what makes a man the man that he is. Coming from Iowa, especially rural Iowa and growing up in the hills like I did, and walking through those hills and working in that soil and having my hands on a lot of things that are the origins of new wealth, you understand what makes a man who he is when you see the landscape that he came from. And that landscape down there in Decatur County, it's a little hilly. It raises a lot of grass. We, where I come from, don't always think it's the best corn ground, but they're doing better down there with the new hybrids. Now I'm seeing the character of the man who served in this Congress these years, these 16 years, and served in the United States Army for I believe 20 years, the character of the man who took the controls of helicopters time after time as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam, was formed and shaped in the hills that today I have the privilege to represent and that feed those cows that wander out there in that pastureland and won't probably as often go down in that neighborhood to check on them, but I'm glad to know that Congressman Leonard Boswell will have some time to check on those cows because I know he loves them and takes care of them. I also had the privilege to go to Vietnam as Congressman Boswell was going back to Vietnam for the first time since the end of his second deployment there. And he asked me if I would sit in front behind the glass with him as we went all around Vietnam, through Saigon, out through the streets of Saigon, out into the countryside, out on a boat on the Mekong River. And we looked at how the country had changed, how the population of Saigon had gone from 1 million to 7 million during that interim period of time since Leonard so nobly, bravely, and patriotically flew over that landscape. Everybody that he served with didn't come back, but more people came back because of Leonard Boswell, and I know that. I heard some of those stories because I pulled a few of them out; but it is not something that he's brought out front, not something he's worn on his sleeve, as something within the character of the man that sits here with us today. It's part of the character of the man who served Iowans and Americans in the United States Congress these 16 years. For this time I have had the privilege to serve with him, a decade for me, I'm grateful for those times. We've always been able to work together. We served on the Ag Committee together all of that time. There has been a certain communication that has gone on that was often unspoken even in committee when we'd look over across at each other, and somehow Leonard Boswell would know what I was thinking and I think I knew what he was thinking. And that worked pretty good for Iowans, and it worked pretty good for Americans, and it worked pretty good for agriculture. So I congratulate you, Leonard Boswell, on your service to our country all of these years. It's been a stellar career, and it's not over. There's a future also of service that I know will continue every day, and I certainly will keep you in my prayers and in our memories here as I thank you for serving the United States of America and serving here in the United States Congress and serving Iowans the way that you have.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding to me. I point out, Mr. Speaker, that I have served on the Immigration Subcommittee for 10 years. In that period of time, I've sat in on dozens and scores and perhaps hundreds of hearings during that period of time, and gathered information and a knowledge base on these issues. I walked into this issue as a freshman Member of Congress 10 years ago with this statement: the immigration policy that we have in this country needs to be designed to enhance the economic, the social, and the cultural well-being of the United States of America. In fact, every country's immigration policy should fit that standard. We can have debates about the definitions of those three words that are part of that direction, but what's going on here is eliminating a really foolish policy that we've had, and I have long been for the repeal of the Diversity Visa lottery program, and I have long been for setting up a system so that we can promote the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the United States through our policies. In some of the information in hearings, we only control with our immigration policy--depending on whose numbers you want to look at-- between 7 percent and 11 percent of the legal immigrants coming into this country on merit.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman. We only control between 7 percent and 11 percent of the legal immigration into this country on merit. The rest of that doesn't have anything to do with merit and how they contribute to the U.S. This bill does do that. I support H.R. 6429, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and take up some of the issues that I think are so important to the dialogue before us here and the American people to consider as they listen to our discussion. A number of things weigh on me as I come to the floor tonight. And one of them is something that I think is emerging in the consciousness of the American people, Mr. Speaker, in a way that really wasn't there before this administration took office, and that is the massive growth of the nanny state here in the United States of America. We've watched as regulation after regulation have crept in on our regular lives, and some of the things that I've spoken about with you in the past fall down along those lines. For example, the curlicue light bulb. The idea that the Federal Government could ban our 100-watt light bulbs and prohibit us from buying our patriotic Edison light bulbs and require us instead to substitute for those curlicue mercury- laden light bulbs. Now I'll point out, Mr. Speaker, that I have a good number of those-- I'll call them modern--light bulbs in my house. I put them where they make sense. And where they don't make sense, I put in the patriotic Edison bulbs. If I need quick light to walk into a room for just a minute, I want to have an Edison bulb there, not a curlicue, so it lights up right away. I can shut it off right away. It's not on much. It doesn't cost much electricity. If I'm going to have a bulb that's going to be on for quite a long time, then I want to have the energy- efficient bulb. That's a simple decision that a consumer can make--and especially a well-informed consumer. But when you end up with a one- size-fits-all that comes from the Federal Government, you end up with a lot of bad decisions so that it all fits into one formula. That's the light bulb. Another one is shower heads. Several months ago, the Federal Government fined three companies for selling shower heads that let too much water out. Think of that. Too much water. One size fits all. The water supply in let's say Buffalo, up by Niagara, is different than the water in someplace like Tucson; different than someplace like New Orleans or Florida or Iowa. And so we have one-size-fits-all on shower heads. And here's the brilliant presumption on the part of the nanny state Federal Government: the conclusion that in all cases water is going to be more valuable than time. So people can stand under that shower head and wait for their feet to get wet because over the broad calculation of 300 million people you will save some gallons of water that are more valuable to the mind of the nanny state--certainly, more valuable in the mind of the nanny state--than the time that it takes for someone to stand there and wait to get wet. Here's another one. The 55 mile-an-hour speed limit that was imposed a long time ago in this country under the belief that if we all drove 55 miles an hour we would save gas and that would help our energy independence and keep us less dependent upon foreign oil. So the Federal Government dialed the speed limit down to the ``double nickle,'' as we called it, and everybody in the country drove 55 for a long time, even on the interstates, with the misguided idea that gas was always worth more than time. So one day, Mr. Speaker, I was driving down the road in Iowa at 55 miles an hour and I came through this intersection on a county road and I could look in my mirror and see a mile in my mirror, not a car in sight. A lot of cornfields. Looked right, looked left. I could see a mile in either direction. I could see a mile ahead of me. I could cover 4 miles of road by looking out three windows and into a mirror. And there I am driving down the road looking at cornfields, which I love to look at, at 55 miles an hour. I thought, Why am I doing this? Well, it must be the nanny state that has imposed this on me. And I picked up my phone and called--now there's a law against that in the nanny state--but I called my secretary in one of our offices and said, I want to know how many passenger miles are traveled on the rural roads in Iowa each year. Can you get me that number? She came back to me a little later and said, I can't give you the passenger miles but I can give you the vehicle miles on rural roads. So I did one of those little calculations on my calculator that works out like this: if we all drove 65 miles an hour instead of 55 miles an hour, that's 10 miles an hour faster. You calculate how much sooner you arrive at your destination by driving 10 miles an hour faster. Then you calculate that each one of us on the day we were born was granted the actuarial number--at that time I figured it at 76 years-- when you figure those hours that you have in your lifetime at 76 years and then you figure out how many hours you spend unnecessarily looking out the windshield at 55 miles an hour, and you calculate the lifespan, and you divide it into the time saved and the miles that are traveled on rural roads in Iowa each year. And it came down to this: that if we drive 65 instead of 55, we will have saved 79.64 lifetimes of living, in other words, getting to our destination, doing something productive. That has value too. That calculation wasn't made by the nanny state. The nanny state only calculated gas is always worth more than time. Not so in Germany where people get out on the Autobahn and drive as fast in some locations as they have the nerve to drive under the idea that you get them out on the highway, you get them off the highway, you get them out of the way where they're not going to be congesting traffic, and you get people engaged in doing their regular living in life. That's the speed limit, the shower nozzles, the curlicue light bulbs, all examples of the nanny state. But, Mr. Speaker, the examples of the nanny state have surpassed the imagination of almost every one of us that has common sense. When I look at what has come out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, the rule that cooperated with the Department of Labor, worked in conjunction with the Department of Labor, and I asked this question under oath of one of the Under Secretaries of the Department of Labor before the Small Business Committee, did the U.S. Department of Agriculture work in cooperation with the Department of Labor to produce these rules that would regulate farm youth labor? The answer was, yes, they worked in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture. Ag is supposed to know about what goes on in farm families. So Ag worked with Labor and produced rules that said to parents you can no longer control your own children or manage your own children or entrust them to go to work for the neighbors even if those neighbors are aunts or uncles or grandparents of these children. So they wrote the rule that would prohibit farm youth, other than those that are working right there on a family farm for their parents, outside of that zone, farm youth were prohibited under the rule from being more than 6 feet off the ground so they could go out and climb a tree, but they couldn't go out there and get up on a scaffold and paint the undereaves of the machine shed, for example. They were prohibited from being engaged in any kind of herding of livestock in a confinement. So they couldn't walk into a hog building, for example, and have any engagement there. They couldn't herd livestock even outdoors from horseback or from any motorized vehicle. So you'd say to kids, you can't ride horses out here if it has anything to do with what's work. You might be able to do it recreationally, but not with work. I remember a rule coming at me from a convenience store several years ago, and all they wanted to do was just sell sandwiches and pizza and gas and do those things that come out of a regular convenience store. The Department of Labor went into the community and interviewed the high school students that were working there, learning a good work ethic, by the way, how to count change, how to hold up their end of the workload. They interviewed them and they asked them questions. For example, Have you ever worked after 7 o'clock on a school night? One or two of them said, yes, once or twice, and there were two violations of working after 7 o'clock on a school night. Then it was, Have you ever operated the pizza dough maker? Well, no. None of them had operated the pizza dough maker, but once or twice, one or two of them said, yes, I washed the pizza dough maker, but I didn't operate it. These kinds of silly things came out of the Department of Labor, and they levied a significant fine against this good family convenience store operation because they alleged that these youth had violated the rule on working past 7 o'clock on a school night and that they had not operated the pizza dough maker, but they had washed it. That little egg beater inside there that turns, they had washed that. That was too much of a risk for a 15-year-old to have their hands on something like that, surely. So they concluded that the rule reads: operator otherwise use. So washing the pizza dough maker turned into ``otherwise use,'' and levy a fine against this family operation. Why would anybody stay in business if they had the nanny state gestapo hunting down their employees, interviewing them in their home, these kids that don't have any idea why the Federal Government's sticking their nose into something like this, a completely safe and harmless operation regulated by the Department of Labor when we've got all kinds of laws that can't be enforced and aren't enforced. We've got people doing that. Or here's another thing that is idiocy on the part of our child labor laws and that is that a 17-year-old young man cannot get on the lawnmower and cut the grass around the gas station if he's working for somebody else. Violates the rule. But he can get in a car that runs 120 miles an hour and turn the radio up and put his girlfriend over there next to him and drive down the road with one hand, talking and laughing. I didn't say he was driving 120, I might point out, for those people who are willfully ignorant, Mr. Speaker, a car that has the capability of going that fast. We'd hand that vehicle over to somebody that's that age, but they can't run the lawnmower. This is going on just constantly. But the USDA farm labor piece of this thing has gone way too far. And I know they just withdrew the rule, not because they changed their mind, but because there's a political liability involved. I want to keep turning up that political liability so they don't get any more crazy ideas out of that place. But to pass a rule that farm youth can't be over 6 feet off the ground, that they can't herd livestock in confinement, that they can't herd livestock from horseback or from the seat of any motorized four- wheeler quad, that we would call it, that's all banned specifically by this rule. Right down to the point where HSUS must have been in the room writing these rules, because they also wrote rules that the youth cannot be around anything to do with livestock that inflicts pain upon the livestock. Now, there are a number of things that happen that are painful to a newborn baby, I might add, Mr. Speaker, as well as to animals, that's for their best interest and best good, most of it. But if a 15-year-old girl can go get her ears pierced without having any permission from her parents and presumably that inflicts pain upon those earlobes, I'm told it does, but that same girl who can opt into her own earpiercing cannot watch while a calf is being ear-tagged because the nanny state has decided that somehow that would damage her psyche to be around that operation. This is nanny state run amok. It's a reach of the Federal Government into all of these aspects of our lives that's just so completely intolerable for a free people, and we need to push back, Mr. Speaker; and so we are pushing back on some of this. But the one that stands out, I think, the most, it emanates from the First Lady, Michelle Obama. In the lame duck session in 2010, the discredited Congress here and, I'll say, down the hallway in the Senate, passed a bill out of there. It's called the Healthy, Hunger- Free Kids Act, Mr. Speaker. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was written and passed to satisfy the wishes of the First Lady who had the Let's Move Initiative to get our youth in shape. Now, that on its face is okay, and it's probably pretty good that we inspire our youth to get some exercise. After all, that is a big part of the problem with overweight youth. It's been well publicized that 30 percent of our youth are overweight. Now, I haven't gone back to question that number. It seems to be a number that's accepted. But if it could be a higher number, I think we'd probably hear that out of the White House. Thirty percent of our youth are overweight, and there's your consensus number, true or not. Clear back when Bob Gates was the Secretary of Defense under Barack Obama, Mr. Speaker, he made the statement that since 30 percent of our youth are overweight, it is a national security issue because we can't recruit enough troops to go through basic training and be able to keep them trained up into shape, to keep our Nation ready for whatever might threaten us because youth obesity was prohibiting our national security. Now, that causes me to pause, Mr. Speaker, when the Secretary of Defense has all of these things to worry about, and you've got everything from missile defense to our ground troops and multiple places in the world where we have a presence and where we need a presence and threats all over the globe and the Secretary of Defense is making a political statement that 30 percent of our youth are overweight and national security is at stake, so therefore we need to do something to cut down on the weight of these kids. So, I think how is it that we can't recruit enough people in our military, even if there are 30 percent that are overweight and the other 70 percent don't fill the ranks enough voluntarily. Wouldn't you go ahead and take somebody that's 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 or 50 pounds overweight, put them into basic training and just say you didn't make weight so you're still in basic training and we'll keep you in basic training until you do make weight? That is not that complicated. How can a nation conclude that it's a national security issue, that we can't solve that problem. You take an 18-year-old young man or woman, and if they're 30 percent overweight--and maybe that's 30 pounds overweight--it doesn't damage their skeletal system or their muscular system or their nervous system; it's just a matter of carrying too much weight around, and you shrink that down and they're good to go. If that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be so many healthy people around here that formerly were obese. They turn themselves around, they get a good diet and exercise plan, they get slim--and a lot of them stay slim for life--and they live healthy and happy thereafter. And I'm glad to see that. That's what we should do. But we can't be a nation that throws up our hands and says America is in danger because we haven't addressed childhood obesity. That is over-hype. I sat down with some food retailers shortly after Mrs. Obama brought her initiative to get people to lose weight in this country, and they said to me: We're going to take 1.5 trillion calories off the diets of our young people, and in doing so our goal is that they will lose weight and get back in shape. And so how are you going to do that? And their answer was: Well, there is this Power Bar that kids like, and it's 150 calories. We're going to reduce the calories in it down to 90. And then in the single-serving Dorito bags, we're going to take a couple of chips out of there, and then that way we're going to fool these kids into eating fewer calories because they must have a habit that they're going to only eat one Power Bar and they're only going to eat one single-serving bag of Doritos. Mr. Speaker, it's pretty simple: These kids aren't overweight because there were too many calories in the Power Bar or one or two too many chips in the single-serving Dorito bag; they're overweight because they have a voracious appetite, and they don't exercise enough. You cannot fool them by giving them a 90-calorie Power Bar; they will eat two of them and consume not 150 calories but 180 calories. And you can't fool them by taking a couple of chips out of the Dorito bag. They'll just open another bag of Doritos. That's the reality of real life. And somehow we get this myopic vision out of the nanny state that there's a way to trick people into getting slimmer. This gets so bad, Mr. Speaker, that in marking up the previous farm bill in 2007, usually they like to bring somebody in to call for more food stamps that's maybe suffering from malnutrition, or at least they've been hungry part of lives. They couldn't, apparently, find any witnesses like that any longer because the food stamps have been pushed out so hard in this country that they seem to be ubiquitously available. And so they brought in Janet Murguia, the president of La Raza--that's the organization ``The Race.'' This was in March of 2007. She testified that one of the growing problems of obesity is that even though most people know where their next meal is coming from, they don't know where all their meals are coming from. Therefore, they tend to overeat, and when they overeat they become obese. So if we would just give them an unlimited amount of food stamps, then they wouldn't be so concerned about this food insecurity. They would eat less, lose weight, and all would be well with the world. That is a bizarre thought, Mr. Speaker. I can't embrace that way of thinking. I didn't even know how to argue against it. It caught me so far off balance that people are overweight because they don't have enough food stamps, so we'll give them more food stamps and they will lose weight. I deal with this kind of irrational irrationality here in this Congress constantly. It's no wonder that people call for a voice of common sense in this place. So, Mr. Speaker, that's the food stamp argument, the nanny state argument. But it takes me to the school lunch program. The school lunch program is out of control. It is this Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which is the First Lady's bill, that regulates the diet of every kid going to school in America. I went into lunch at Remsen-Union here this week to sit down with them. First I gave them a program on the Constitution--they were great, and I look forward to going back there, I hope. Good, good, young people. When I finished up, I said, Now it's lunchtime. I'm going to go eat your lunch. And they said, oh, you're not going to really, are you? Sure, I did. I sat down. And not picking on their program, it's rationed by the United States Department of Agriculture. They did not have the authority granted to them specifically in the Healthy, Hunger- Free Kids Act to ration calories to our kids, but that's exactly what they've done, Mr. Speaker. They've reached into and grabbed an authority that didn't exist and decided to opt into rationing calories to our kids in all of these schools. So for the first time in the history of this country--we've had nutrition standards, nutrition minimums; you don't give them less nutrition, you don't give them fewer calories than this standard--and that standard has been published, and it's well known among our school lunch program. But Michelle Obama's Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, as interpreted by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, sets caps on calories that kids can get to eat. So, for example, a high school football player, a senior high school, for example, 250-pound lineman--growing, robust, active, working out every day--is rationed to 600 calories for breakfast, 850 calories for lunch. That's 1,450 calories. Now, if you give them another dose of, say, 800 calories for supper, you'll fall far short of the calories he needs to maintain his exercise level and his weight. For me, I need 2,841 calories a day to maintain my weight. That's the formula, and that's also something in practice that I've measured and charted on a spread sheet; 2,841. If you put me on that diet, the ration that the Department of Agriculture is giving these kids, every 8 days, if I'm constricted to that diet--and that's granting 850 calories for a third meal of the day--I would lose a pound every 8 days. I'm past my growth spurt. They exercise a lot more than I do--or at least they should. That's how misguided this is. Same number of calories for a kindergartner as for a fifth-grader. I believe the minimum number is 550 calories. And so a 30-pound kindergartner--which would be a small one--versus a 120-pound fifth grader--which would be a large one--get the same amount of calories. Generally, a fifth-grader is twice as large as a kindergartner. They get the same amount of calories, and it's capped. Another thing that is so bad about this, Mr. Speaker, is that the youth that come in that have the money can go ahead and buy extra food a la carte. So they'll go back, if they've got the money, and buy an extra hot dog and go back and fill themselves up. But these kids that are on free and reduced lunches don't have that money in their pocket, and they're sitting there watching their better-off friends go back for a whole second helping, or the second helpings that they like. It is stigmatizing these kids that are on free and reduced lunch. It should not be. It sets up the wrong scenario in our schools. This Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act says this: The USDA has the right ``to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools during the school day, including vending machines, the a la carte lunch lines, and school stores.'' That's what the bill says. The Department of Agriculture and Secretary Vilsack have decided they're going to cap the calories. It doesn't give the specific authority; they just decided they're going to cap the calories so that--now, here's the formula: 30 percent of kids are overweight by their estimate, so 100 percent of them go on a diet. That's the mentality of the nanny state, Mr. Speaker. And where does this food come from? Agriculture, of course. We have been working to push a farm bill through this Congress for a long time. About a year ago last May, I and my staff and a number of others began putting together a bill. As we went out into the Ag community and asked them for their input on what they'd like to see and what changes in the bill, one thing that came back that stood out above all others is we need a good risk management program. That means crop insurance is the centerpiece of it. I set about to hold that together, and we did the research and laid the foundation. And so far we've held that crop insurance, I think, together pretty well, Mr. Speaker. But that's the crop insurance piece. Many other pieces--the nutrition side of this. We've gone from 19 million people on food stamps to up now to 47 million people on food stamps. That, Mr. Speaker, is a number that creates expanded dependency in the country. The intention of the President and his party. An expanded dependency class votes more for them. An independency class votes more for us guys. So they have pushed food stamps out into people. They've spent millions of dollars advertising food stamps so more people sign up on the SNAP program; and in doing so, they expand the dependency people, those that rely on government. That's been part of the mistake. We set about reforming that. We have a tattoo parlor with a neon light that says we take EBT cards. So, food stamp money goes for tattoos. We also have a fellow that bailed himself out of jail with his EBT card. They're being sold for cash and discounted. That's some of the things that are going on. We need to tighten that up, and the House Ag Committee tightened it up. We tightened it up to reduce those dollars going in so that the people that should not be receiving the food stamps are less likely to get them, and that saved about $16 billion out of the duration of this program, Mr. Speaker. That's one of the reforms in the farm bill. Holding the risk management program together for agriculture and reducing the waste and the fraud and the corruption in food stamps was an important thing. That's what the House Ag Committee bill is about, Mr. Speaker, and I want to see it come to the floor, the committee product come to the floor. I'd like to see it come to the floor just under a closed rule. Let's vote it up or down and let's see where it goes. If it fails, it fails. Then we can go back to the drawing board. If we fail to try, that will be labeled a failure. I came to this city this week to make that point over and over again, Mr. Speaker. We need to move a farm bill out of this House of Representatives. And I recognize that procedurally, at this point, as I stand here tonight, that is an impossibility under the rules of this House. So the best that we can hope for is to bring a farm bill to the floor as soon as we come back after the election. I've asked the Speaker to do this. I've asked the majority to do this. I'm working closely in direct cooperation with the chairman of the Ag Committee, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, who has done a stellar job on bringing a good bill out of committee and preparing it for floor action. He was an utter maestro in putting that bill together, and the work that was done by the chairman and many others, including Ranking Member Peterson, Democrats and Republicans, resulted in a bill coming out of the Ag Committee that only had 11 ``no'' votes, and it was a bipartisan support for the bill. The opposition was also bipartisan, but it was only 11. So whatever the bar was, however high it was, we've cleared the bar. We need to bring a bill to the floor. We need to provide that kind of stability and predictability to the ag community so that they can plan next year's crops and plan their lives. What comes out of this House and out of this Congress and is signed by the President affects land prices, equipment purchases, land sales, farm rentals, the whole configuration, a lot of it is looking down on this farm bill. So let's get it done. I'm looking for that full 100 percent commitment to bring the bill up to the floor when we come back. We've gotten a strong statement out of the Speaker that that's what will happen. I'm looking for reinforcement on that statement before we gavel out tomorrow, Mr. Speaker. But it's essentially important to us that we know which direction we're going on agriculture. It isn't so critical, the policy standpoint, between now and December 31, but knowing, for planning purposes, is valuable. And if we get to, say, December 31 without a farm bill, then we do have a problem on our hands. In the meantime, it's my strongest urging that we hear that kind of commitment from the Speaker and the other leadership, that we'll take this bill up and take it to the floor. It's a strong message now. I'd like to see it become a full commitment before we leave this House tomorrow afternoon to go back for our elections. So, Mr. Speaker, I have vented myself to some degree. I think I've helped inform this body about the nanny state that threatens to subsume this God-given American liberty and issued my urging that we move a farm bill and that we get a commitment to do so when we come back in November. I appreciate your attention and the work that we've done here together as Democrats and Republicans and how we've reflected the voice of the American people. After the election, I hope we get the kind of help in the Senate that we received in the House in 2010. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor and in remembrance on this up and coming one year anniversary of the thirty magnificent lost heroes from the Navy Special Warfare Units, The Army and Air Force. Who so heroically gave That Last Full Measure for God and Country aboard a Chinook Helicopter in Afghanistan on August the 6th, 2011. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families and all of their Brothers and Sisters in Arms, on this anniversary, as I read this poem penned in their honor by Albert Caswell. P01 (SEAL) Darrick C. Benson, CPO (SEAL) Brian R. Bill, P01 (SEAL) Christopher G. Campbell, CPO (SEAL) John W. Faas, CPO (SEAL) Kevin A. Houston, LCDR (SEAL) Jonas B. Kelsall, MCPO (SEAL) Louis J. Langials, CPO (SEAL) Matthew D. Mason, CPO (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills, CPO Nicholas H. Null, SCPO (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratziaff, CPO (SEAL) Robert J. Reeves, CPO (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson, P01 (SEAL) Jon T. Tumilson, P01 (SEAL) Aaron C. Vaughn, P01 (SEAL) Jason R. Workman, P01 (SEAL) Jesse D. Pittman, P02 (SEAL) Nicholas P. Spehar, P01 Expeditionary Warfare Specialist Jared W. Day, P01 Expeditionary Warfare Specialist John Douangdara, P01 Expeditionary Warfare Specialist Michael J. Strange, SCPO Expeditionary Warfare Specialist Kraig M. Vickers, Army SGT Alexander J. Bennett, SPC Spencer C. Duncan, Chief Warrant Officer Brian J. Nichols, Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter, SGT Patrick D. Hamburger, Airmen Tech SGT John W. Brown, Staff SGT Andrew W. Harvell, Tech SGT Daniel L. Zerbe, The United States Army, Air Force, Navy. We Stood! We!

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Chairman for his relentless leadership to get some relief to America's farmers and ranchers who are dealing with this drought. In my home state of Iowa we now have 42 counties that have been declared by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as primary natural disaster areas. The latest crop conditions report in Iowa has 18 percent of the corn declared as ``very poor.'' Only one percent is rated as ``excellent''. Soybeans are in a very similar situation. Our pasture lands are in terrible condition with 55 percent of pasture being ``very poor.'' While lands in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are being opened today for haying and grazing, it really isn't going to amount to much. As a result of these conditions, our livestock producers are going to have a really hard time getting feed. I appreciate that this disaster package will bring some relief, especially to those who have lost animals due to the extreme heat. However, let us not forget that we have work to do on a real farm bill. We need to get the 2012 farm bill done and in proper order, so that we do not have to do ad hoc disaster assistance packages and so that farmers can plan for the future. I appreciate the Chairman and Ranking Member's work on this bipartisan bill that we reported out of Committee and look forward to us finishing our work and bringing the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management (FARRM) Act to the House Floor.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding and for leading this reform debate for real tax reform. In the time I came to this Congress, I have made the pledge that I would push for tax reform. I believed at the time that the debate that had been taking place in this Congress over the preceding years would flow into the following years. I remember the inspiration that came when Billy Tauzin and Dick Armey went around the country and debated tax reform between the flat tax and the Fair Tax. I don't ever remember anyone debating in favor of the Fair Tax having lost that debate. But we had a real tax reform debate. And in this time--and I have pushed in my time in this Congress--I can think of only one time that we have had a serious debate on tax reform, and that was at a time when we had some debate, and I testified before the Ways and Means Committee in favor of a national sales tax. This rule that's before us expedites this debate. It expedites the consideration of a bill providing for comprehensive tax reform. And I look at the conditions that are in here. There are five conditions that are written in, and the Fair Tax meets all of those conditions, I think, by design. I am looking forward to an open debate that will take place at least within the Ways and Means Committee and hopefully come here to the floor. It says to me, as I look at this rule, that the legitimate proposals that would come for real tax reform will be in order before the Ways and Means Committee. So I encourage those committee members, as this expedited debate takes place, to bring your reforms to the Ways and Means Committee. Bring them in the form of amendment. Let's have a real debate. Let's put the Fair Tax up against everything else. And I have done that now since about 1980. And even though I have lost a couple of debates with my wife and some with my family, and even one or two with my staff, I've never lost a debate on the fair tax because the American people understand this--right now, the Federal Government has a first lien on all productivity in America. If you punch a time clock on Monday morning, just imagine, Uncle Sam is standing there by that time clock. When it goes thunk, his hand goes out and he gets into his hand what he wants until he gets his share, and then he puts it in his pocket and you get to keep what's left. Let's change the tax from production to consumption. Let America grow, let America breathe, to quote the Congressman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding. I would point out here we seem to talk in abstract terms about what is really going on. This is a demonstration of dilation, dismemberment, and evacuation that's taking place in the District of Columbia and across this country. Mr. Speaker, here is what takes place. There's a dilation of the cervix. We had testimony of Dr. Levatino who showed his tools. He reaches in and pulls a leg off of this little baby and pulls it out and puts it on a plate. He reaches in and pulls another leg off and does the same thing. He reminded us that this isn't an easy process. It's difficult to do so. You've got to pull hard, then reach in and grab another piece of the torso and pull that out until you count up all the pieces on the plate and you get down to this little baby's head. For the head, there's a special tool to squeeze that little baby's head, crush that head and then pull it out. Who of us could watch such a procedure? Who of us could conduct such a procedure? Who of us? Dr. Levatino did, hundreds of times in his testimony. But his little girl died, and he took 2 weeks off and came back to work again thinking he was going to commit other abortions. He got halfway through, and he said, I looked at that pile of goo on the plate, and I realized that's somebody's daughter. This is somebody's daughter. This is somebody's son. This is a little baby. This is a little miracle of life. This is God's image being torn apart and dismembered and placed on a plate. And I'm hearing it's a constitutional right to do such an abhorrent thing. It's ghastly, and it's ghoulish, and it's the worst thing that I think one could put their hand to. If you can't watch it, you sure can't do it.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. When I saw this rule, it was appalling to me to think about the attempt of the administration, this assault on the sanctity of the family and on the family farm all at the same time. And as we had a witness come before the Small Business Committee, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, under oath I asked her what was driving this rule. Her answer was: It's driven by data; the highest level of injuries in youth labor are on the farm, and so we have to do something to interrupt this injury that's taking on place on the farm. So I asked her: What was the second-highest level of injury in youth labor? Her answer was: I don't know. Not data driven; it's driven by some misguided ideology. It's also been supported by the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, whose team has been working with the Department of Labor. And this has not been withdrawn by the administration, Mr. Speaker, for the sake of them understanding that this is a misguided policy decision; it's been withdrawn because it is a misguided political initiative. So I'm glad it's temporarily withdrawn, and I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) for bringing this legislation to prohibit this rule from being reintroduced again. Let's protect the tradition that made America great.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this is the DOMA limitation amendment. We've seen this last year where it passed out of the House of Representatives with a substantial vote. And it says, as it reads, that none of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the Defense of Marriage Act, which passed here in this Congress in 1996. What we've seen since the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act is an effort on the part of the executive branch to undermine, I believe, marriage between one man and one woman within our military ranks. We saw the President of the United States make some statements along the way that his position was evolving on marriage that seemed to be a signal to the Department of Defense, which issued two memoranda, one of them on September 21, the Secretary of Defense memorandum that identified facilities, and it says that the facilities, our military facilities should be made, the use of them should be made on a sexual orientation-neutral basis. That's a signal that says same-sex marriages on U.S. military bases and U.S. facilities. The second memorandum came 9 days later to our military chaplains, and it says a military chaplain may officiate any private ceremony, on or off a military installation. That's not just permission, that's implied encouragement to conduct same-sex marriages on our military bases, conducted by our chaplains who are, presumably, all under the payroll of the United States Government. This same-sex marriage that has been taking place on our military bases, where otherwise legal around the world, contravenes the Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of Marriage Act means this, actually says specifically this: marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and the word spouse refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. Pretty simple statute being contravened by the directives of the President of the United States as exercised through the Secretary of Defense. And I would point out that the President has demonstrated disrespect for the Constitution and the rule of law on multiple occasions. I just came from the Judiciary Committee, where I reminded Secretary Napolitano of the same thing. Congress directs and acts within the authority of article I of the Constitution, our legislative authority, and the President of the United States, or his executives who are empowered by him, seek to undermine the law of the United States, instead of coming here to this Congress and asking for the law to be changed, or simply accepting the idea that they've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law, and to take care, under article II, section 3, that the laws be faithfully executed. That's not happening, Mr. Chairman, and this amendment prohibits the use of military facilities, or the pay of military chaplains, from being used to contravene the Defense of Marriage Act. The President has now stepped out and said that he supports same-sex marriage in the United States. That is, apparently, the most recent evolution of his position. But an evolving position of the President of the United States cannot be allowed to contravene the will of the people of the United States, as expressed through the statutes of the United States and as signed by previous President Bill Clinton in September of 1996. So I urge the adoption of this amendment. It prohibits the utilization of any of these funds that are in the Defense appropriations bill to be used to contravene the Defense of Marriage Act. I yield back the balance of my time. Under Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC, September 30, 2011.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I have an amendment at the desk, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this is the Davis-Bacon limitation amendment that I believe most Members of this Congress have seen that applies to this appropriations bill. We have an existing code called the Davis-Bacon Act. What it does is it requires that any construction projects that have Federal dollars in them--$2,000 or more--be constructed under what the bill says are prevailing wages. While prevailing wages in 1931 might have been a legitimate evaluation, today, it's a federally mandated union scale determined by a formerly smoke-filled room of people from the administrative side and the construction side of the industry. I've spent my life in the construction business. I've been involved in the construction business since 1970, and I've worked on all sides of this that I can imagine. I've been a recipient of Davis-Bacon wages; I've paid Davis-Bacon wages; and I've done a fair amount of reporting of those wages into the bureaucrats. This law is the last remaining Jim Crow law in the U.S. Code. It was written to protect union workers in New York City from the southern African Americans who were brought up to do a Federal building in that city back during the Depression. And in 1931 there was a Senator James Davis of Pennsylvania and Representative Robert Bacon of New York, Long Island, who, I might add, decided that they wanted to protect the unions in that locale, and so they brought this legislation to Congress and passed it. It has long been union scale, not prevailing wage. And, yes, merit shop employers have an opportunity to introduce those wages that they actually pay, the earned wages they actually pay; but, in the end, it's a formerly smoke-filled room, people deciding it doesn't cost us anything, if it raises our bottom line, we all put our add of our margin on top of that. So we'd kind of like to be able to outcompete the rest of the industry for the opportunity to hire the workers that will receive the highest pay. This is irresponsible on the part of a Congress that now we're finding ourselves nearly $16 trillion in national debt. We have a budget crunch like we've never seen. We've seen a President that's driven this national debt up about $1.33 trillion just in the last budget that the President offered. And we're looking at taxpayers that have had enough. We need a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. We don't need irresponsible spending. We don't need wage protectionism. By the way, Senator Davis and Representative Bacon were both Republicans. They were two of the more misguided Republicans in the history of this country, and I regret that I, as an Iowan, have to stand here and inform this body that it was Iowa President Herbert Hoover that signed the bill on March 3, 1931. I'm pledged to undo this, to repeal Davis-Bacon in the end, because we believe in competition. We're a free and fair competition country that believes in free markets. I have listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts in the past who has said that anytime that you have two consenting adults that are conducting any activity that doesn't hurt anyone else, they should be able to do so without Federal interference. If that's the case, tell me why I can't climb in the seat of my son's excavator and say, ``Just pay me 10 bucks an hour, Dave. That's enough. I need the therapy to get away from this insanity of this overspending government that we have here in this Congress.'' So I urge the adoption of this wage limitation so that we can build five bases, not four; five barracks, not four; five military hospitals, not four. We can do five of everything instead of four if we just let competition set the wages. The quality will be there. The gentleman's about to tell you that it's not. I will tell you, if I spend my life in this, we meet specifications. The high quality of the work is there. The other side of that's just an argument for union wage protectionism. We need to protect the taxpayers. And the unions are fine. If they want to organize, I encourage them doing so. But they need to do so without Federal protection. Compete in the competitive world on low bid like the rest of us, where you have to meet the specifications and the quality of work. Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.