Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address you and of course all the Members here on this floor of the United States Congress. I would point out here in the beginning that it is about 8:15 here this evening, and the President will be giving his major address on Iraq at about 9:01 and so I intend to be asking for an adjournment just right before 9:00 so there is an opportunity to do that transition and that the President does have an opportunity to use this channel to speak to the American people. To begin this presentation this evening, and we listened to the members on the other side of the aisle talk about supporting the 100- hour agenda, Mr. Speaker, I point out that this 100-hour agenda was a number just kind of picked out of the air or off the wall and it turned into a promise. And inside of that promise of 100 hours and to accomplish these five or six things within 100 hours are a whole series of other promises, and it appears as though the most important promise of all is we are going to do all this in 100 hours. The 100-hour promise. And not the promise for bipartisanship and not the promise for the most open Congress in history, and probably not the promise for the most ethical Congress in history. The jury is still out on that, Mr. Speaker, but this thing that preempts all, that trumps all is this idea of 100 hours. Well, 100 hours to the American people might mean at midnight on December 31 when the ball dropped and hit the bottom in Times Square, the clock might start to tick on the 100 hours here in 2007, the new 110th Congress. But I don't take that position necessarily, Mr. Speaker. I take the position that when we gaveled in and went to work here, if you want to count 100 hours, that is fine; if you want to make a promise to get something done in 100 hours, that is also fine. But that 100 hours didn't start for the first week. It didn't start for the first week because we were voting on things other than the six things on the agenda to be accomplished in the 100 hours. And so then the promise that it was going to be bipartisan and an open process, we found out, I guess after Congress began, this 110th Congress, that this open process couldn't be opened up until the 100 hours were over, or otherwise they couldn't get everything accomplished in the first 100 hours. So bipartisanship went out the window a victim of the 100-hour promise, and so did the open kind of a system. The bills didn't go through subcommittee. They didn't go through committee. They didn't go through rules. No amendments are allowed. And yet that was all decided before the 100-hour clock began. So we set up a clock, a legitimate clock, one that actually keeps the time here that Congress is in session. From when we gaveled in this 110th Congress, we gavel in the morning, open with a prayer and the pledge, and we gavel out in the evening. That clock has got a tick on that. We are paying people here to work around this Capitol the whole time the 100 hours is moving. So I set up this clock so the American people can keep track of what the hours are, and I point out this: When we started this morning, we were at 31 hours that ticked away since. And these are just business hours. It is not a stretch; it is not 24 hours a day. It is the hours that this floor is in operation. In fact, yesterday, it was scheduled to be at 10:00, so a lot of people made their plans to be here at 10:00. It didn't work on Monday because of the football game. And I will just reserve my opinion of that tonight, Mr. Speaker. But the 10:00 time to start got moved back to 10:30, got moved back to noon and then got moved back to first votes at 5:30 yesterday afternoon. So some of that is not taken into account here, but as of about now, this 100 hours has clicked up to 42 hours, Mr. Speaker, have ticked away. And there have been a couple of things that have been passed, and some will claim that to be an accomplishment. And I don't intend to take up that issue either tonight, Mr. Speaker. But I would point out to the American people that we are at 42 hours and counting. If you can't count time, you also can't count dollars or people. And it is important to understand the cost to the United States of America and the taxpayers that fund it. And we will be doing some of these tallies after hours tonight to come back with some better numbers tomorrow, and I will bring this chart then to the floor every day until the 100 hours ticks over, and we can make this 100-hour promise something that goes into the dust bin of history. But this 100-hour promise has trumped the other promises. It has been more important than an open system of government. It has been more important than allowing anyone to offer a single amendment to any bill that has come forward here, and each one of those bills are going to change the destiny of America. Maybe a little bit, maybe a lot. But each one will change the destiny of America some. And the people I feel sorry for, all of those new freshmen Democrats, the ones that were elected to office having promised that they were going to represent their constituents here, they would have a voice, they would be effective. They bring with them the vitality of America. They bring the new ideas into this Congress, the fresh blood. The best responsiveness to constituents that you ever will see on average comes with the freshmen. We are glad when they come here every new Congress because it adds new vitality. But that large crop of Democrat freshmen and that smaller crop of Republican freshmen I think have gotten their eyes opened up a little bit. I think they believed they would come here and they would be able to come to a subcommittee and do a markup on a bill and offer an amendment to improve the bill and see it go over to full committee, offer an amendment, improve the bill and bring it to the floor, where amendments would be offered and the bill would be improved and perhaps perfected and passed out of this Chamber, on over the Senate, where we would have negotiations working with them and they would have done the same thing. The sad news for those freshmen is that they don't have a voice in this process. Not a single freshman had an opportunity to offer amendment to engage in debate in a subcommittee, to engage in debate in a committee; didn't have an opportunity to go before the Rules Committee and make their argument as to why their amendments should be made in order. None of that was allowed to the freshmen. And, in fact, the small little group of people that put together this policy didn't consider the wisdom of Congress; they considered the wisdom of the people within that room, and I guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, that didn't include the freshmen, either the Democrats or the Republicans, who now have to reassess what kind of a system they thought they had gotten elected to. And I hope this 100 hours ticks away, and I hope it can be put away into the dust bin of history, and I hope those other promises can be rejuvenated and brought back to life, those promises about having an open system, a system that is bipartisan and a system that allows for amendments so that we can improve the legislation that comes. We are at 42 hours, Mr. Speaker, and the clock will start again. Actually, it will shut off when we adjourn here about 9:00 and it will take up again tomorrow morning when we gavel back in. But, Mr. Speaker, I come here to talk about a big subject. It is a subject that has been consuming the thoughts and the prayers of the American people since September 11, 2001, and that subject is a subject the President will take up here in a little more than 35 minutes. It is the subject of this global war on terror, and primarily the battleground, the main battleground, which is Iraq, in this global war on terror. I have certainly been involved in this since the beginning of the operations in Iraq. I have been over there four times. I have traveled into Afghanistan as well. Each time I go over there, I always stop at Landstuhl in Germany and visit our wounded troops there. And the last time I was over was over Thanksgiving, just a little over a month ago, when I ate Thanksgiving dinner with wounded troops in Landstuhl at the hospital in Germany, and that was the most meaningful Thanksgiving I have ever had in my life. I don't expect to ever top that for a moving Thanksgiving where one can really be in awe of true courage, true patriotism and true sacrifice. And I believe we are going to hear a speech from the President in a few minutes from now that is going to be, I think the tone of it could have been written by those people that have sacrificed the most, our soldiers and Marines and airmen that have perhaps given a limb, perhaps been wounded and crippled for life. I have not yet met a wounded soldier who said to me, ``This is a lost cause.'' They believe in the cause. They want to get back to the fight. They want to get back to the people they feel responsible for, and they want to complete the mission. The wounded troops will stand with the President in the speech he is about to give and the families of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, the Gold Star families, the families that have traveled across America and been here in Washington, D.C., a number of times and were in my office a week before I went over to Iraq. Some of those Gold Star families, those that have lost a son or a daughter over in Iraq or Afghanistan, some of them have also traveled over to the Middle East, also traveled into Iraq and got to visit the Iraqi people. And one of the fathers who lost his son killed over there in Iraq said to me: ``We cannot pull out of there. It is different now. We are committed to that cause. Lives have been lost. The soil in Iraq is now sanctified with American blood. It is not so simple that we could just walk away. We cannot. We must stay. We must prevail. We made the commitment to go there; we are invested in it; we must prevail.'' As I looked him in the eye, I know what kind of pain he has been through, that soaked in with me, Mr. Speaker. And so I traveled over there in the aftermath of their trip, and as I went alone this time, I didn't go with a congressional delegation, I just went alone, and I had an opportunity to sit down with General Abizaid and close the door and talk and ask questions and probe a line of reasoning and then take on another line of reasoning. I had the opportunity to do the same thing with General Casey, although staff was in the room for that one. I also sat down with General Corelli and did the same thing. I had two meetings with Ambassador Khalilzad. And then each time I walked into a mess hall, or I would just holler out, ``Is anybody here from Iowa?'' And invariably there would be Iowans there. And there is an instant connection between you and someone from your State. You know where they are from. You know what they believe in. You have an understanding about their background and where they come from. You know what sports teams they support, or at least you can find out quickly, and we have those little arguments, Mr. Speaker. But when I index the things that I hear from our top officers that are in the field and what I hear from the people on the ground, and as I talk to people through all ranks and travel across Iraq and also Afghanistan in this last trip, put back together a kind of strategy and come to a conclusion as to where we need to go and what we need to do. And let's look at this thing, Mr. Speaker, from two broad perspectives. One of them is the idea that I am hearing over here on this side of the aisle, and this is not a new idea from the people on that side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker; they slipped language into the Department of Defense appropriations bill that would have by now prohibited all operations in Iraq. And that was Mr. Murtha's language that went in there that prohibited any basing rights negotiations in Iraq, which would have meant, had that language prevailed that when our agreement on any of our bases in Iraq had expired, we couldn't negotiate a new one. So, over time, we would have had to give up base after base after base until we had to pull our troops completely out of Iraq. That is not a lot different than the amendment that came out of an appropriations bill on this floor, Mr. Speaker, back in 1975 when a large Democrat majority took over and decided that they would take us out of the operations in Vietnam, and they introduced legislation successfully that forbid a single dollar from being used to support the South Vietnamese military. Not a dollar that can go for a bullet, for food, for a helmet, for a pair of khaki uniforms, no air cover, and nothing could go on offshore in South Vietnam either. So they shut down their operations in South Vietnam. And the South Vietnamese had defended their own country for 3 years, but when their resources dried up, their military collapsed. Some of those things are being maneuvered right now, and I can hear this come out of the debate on the other side of the aisle. But here are the scenarios: One scenario is listen to the people over here, Mr. Speaker, who would say, well, let's unfund this operation. Let's bring our troops home now. Let's get out of there because it is sectarian strife and you can't resolve a civil war and it is just brother fighting against brother and why do we want to get involved in a family feud? All of that that substitutes for rationale. But what they are really looking at is if they get their way, the reality in Iraq is different than their perception, I believe, and I would like to have them pay a little more attention, maybe go over there with a real intention to learn. But a year ago in Iraq there was violence over most of the entire country scattered around. And the argument I heard from this side of the aisle over here was, well, let's get out of there right now, get the Americans out because, after all, they are the targets and Iraqis just want to have their own country. They object to Americans walking on their soil. So if we would leave, there would be nobody for them to shoot at, and then peace would break out all over Iraq, and the government would take over, and everything would be peaceful and fine. That was their argument then. Well, it was flawed, of course. But there was violence over most of Iraq. A year later, now, most of the violence is confined to Baghdad. Eighty percent of the violence is in the Baghdad area. So peace has broken out over most of Iraq. And if you talk to the soldiers that have been over there that are running missions and convoys and doing patrols, they will tell you that most of Iraq seems very, very normal, that you go down the street and off on the road and the Iraqi kids come out and wave and the Iraqi people are open and friendly. The men are open and friendly. The women are a little more shy and a little demure. That is their culture. But they travel where they want to go, and the only thing that makes them realize that there is a war is when an IED goes off. So we are getting there, and the Baghdad area is the area that needs to be controlled and pacified. The rest of the country is pretty good. If we pulled out now or if we pulled out in the near future, the involvement and the interference that comes from Iran would be imposed on the Shiia section of Iraq, which is actually a little more than the southern area of Iraq, which has got most of the oil in it. It would be Baghdad and some of the areas to the north of there and all the way south down to Basra, into the hands of the influence of the Iranian Shiia, who are right now funding and training, equipping and arming terrorists in Iran and sending them into Iraq and supporting some of the militia personnel there like Muqtada al Sadr. I happen to have his picture here. This fellow has been a nemesis for a long time. And I put the date down here. That was the date that I was sitting in a hotel in Kuwait City watching Al Jazeera TV. Muqtada al Sadr, the head of the Mahdi militia, came on Al Jazeera TV, and as I watched that he said in Arabic with the English crawler underneath: ``If we keep attacking Americans, they will leave Iraq the same way they left Vietnam, the same way they left Lebanon, the same way they left Mogadishu.'' Muqtada al Sadr. Now here he is being supported by the Iranians, funding his militia, helping to train his militia, and paying some of them to plant IEDs and attack Americans. Iran is conducting a proxy war against the United States from the sanctuary of their sovereign nation of Iran and sending in the munitions and the militia and the insurgents to attack Americans there, and this man is their surrogate, and he must go. It is more complicated than the people on the other side of the aisle would say. They would argue that it is just Shiia and Sunni that are fighting each other. There are six to eight different factions fighting each other there. Sadr is one. The Badr Brigade is another. Al Qaeda is another. There are Sunni criminal groups that are fighting. There are other groups, the former Baathists, that are fighting. You can add these pieces up, Mr. Speaker, but in the end it is more complicated than just simple sectarian strife. It is a power struggle, a power to provide security and safety within some areas of the community, the effort on the part of Muqtada al Sadr and others to drive some of the Sunnis out of Sunni sections of Baghdad so that they can have their internal hegemony within the city of Baghdad. But this all happened because there was somewhat of a vacuum there and we didn't go in and take this man out when we needed to do that. And he has been to some degree protected by Prime Minister Maliki, who this afternoon made a statement that essentially puts Muqtada al Sadr on notice. He tells the Shiite militias to give up. ``Prime Minister al-Maliki has told everyone that there will be no escape from attack,'' said a senior legislator who is close to Maliki. ``The government has told the Sadrists,'' Muqtada al Sadrists, `` `if we want to build a state, we have no other choice but to attack armed groups,' '' this being the armed groups, Mr. Speaker. So I will say there are two main points that I want to hear the President address tonight, and one of them is militias must be taken on and taken out and they are getting an opportunity to surrender right now because Prime Minister Maliki has put them on notice. They must be taken on and taken out if they don't surrender. This is the lead that has got to go. The second one is Iran must cease and desist from their proxy war against the United States from the sanctuary of the sovereign nation of Iran by sending in insurgents who are trained, equipped, funded, and armed by the Iranians. And, by the way, IEDs that are being detonated that are blowing up Americans and killing Americans are being made in Iran and smuggled into Iraq. If we pull out of Iraq now without a successful safe country there, the result will be Iran will control the Shiia section of Iraq. They will control most of the oil in Iraq. They control the Straits of Hormuz now. They would control the outlet, the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates River, the Umm Qasr ports, the export area for Iraq's oil. They would have a stranglehold on 40 percent of the world's oil, which is a death grip on the world economy. They would be in a position to continue to enrich themselves, and their money chest would be pouring over. They could then accelerate their nuclear weapons development. They could either build more and build them faster or buy them where they could get them, perhaps from North Korea, and you would see Iran much more quickly become a dominant nuclear power with an ability not just to put a nuclear missile into Tel Aviv but the ability to do so into Western Europe and within just a few years the ability to do so clear into the United States of America with a death grip on the oil and the world, 40 percent of the oil, which controls the market, Mr. Speaker. That is what we are looking at if we pull out of there. The stakes are too high, and that is why the President rejected, I will say politely ignored, the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. But we should keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, that there was a million dollar appropriation here that went to the United States Institute for Peace and out of that came the Iraq Study Group. Now, why, if we wanted to figure out how to win a war, would we go to the United States Institute for Peace and ask them to give us some advice? That makes about as much sense as going to the Syrians or going to the Iranians and saying, can you help us solve this problem? Why don't you give us some constructive recommendations? It is not in their interest to give us constructive recommendations. It is in the interest of the Iranians and the Syrians to undermine our effort there so that they can get us out of the Middle East and they can impose their influence on Iraq, not the other way around. We will not get constructive advice from Iran or from Syria any more than we got advice on how to win a war from the Iraq Study Group because I believe that they thought that their charge was how do we get out of this? Let's figure out how to get out of this. Not how do we win? But the President, to his credit, went to the Pentagon and said, I don't want to hear from you how we get out of Iraq. I want to see a strategy for victory. I wish he had done that a couple years ago, but I am glad he did it now. I am looking forward to his speech; and, as I said, I will be sure we adjourn here before the President's speech that will happen right at 9 o'clock. But, at this moment, I would very much like to yield to my friend from Tennessee, Mr. Zach Wamp.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I rise to express concerns about the budget items in the Democrat Rules package. I believe that we can do better and this proposal does not go far enough. I am committed to curtailing special-interest, pork-barrel spending and reforming earmarks. While on the face it appears Democrats are concerned about reducing the deficit because they mention Reconciliation. This is only smoke and mirrors. Simply put, the language in their rules package makes it easy to raise taxes and difficult to reduce them. The language allows the use of expedited procedures (budget reconciliation) to raise taxes. At the same time, the language prohibits using reconciliation for tax relief. We need transparency, accountability, and better control for the federal spending process. Earmark Reform and Reconciliation are baseless without a Rescission process for cutting spending. Businesses and families often review their planned budget with actual spending on a monthly basis to spot and eliminate unnecessary spending. While common sense would lead taxpayers to believe that similar oversight exists for our federal budget, this would be wrong. Congress has no formal process that allows members to force votes to trim wasteful spending at any time after federal spending gets signed into law. Soon I plan to introduce my legislation, the Cut the Unnecessary Tab (CUT) resolution, that would make any unspent federal funding vulnerable to a recorded vote for cuts at the beginning of each fiscal quarter. Any Member of the House could offer an amendment to these quarterly bills to cut spending. Under my bill, Members of Congress will have four opportunities every year to propose elimination of programs that are superfluous or incompetent. This gives Congress a tool that individual Members can use to bring the chamber into commonsense spending cuts. No longer would any Member of Congress have the excuse that one individual acting alone would not have a way to reform the Federal Government's spending. It is my hope that the Democrats live up to their promise for no new deficit spending. However, I fear that it's a plan to raise taxes. The resolution allows Democrats to increase spending as much as they like-- as long as they ``pay for'' it by cutting other spending or--more likely--by chasing that spending with ever-higher taxes. This watered down PAYGO proposal does not reduce current spending--it stops tax cuts. This PAYGO applies only to NEW spending. All previous PAYGO versions were enforced by across-the-board spending cuts--that's what created the incentive to control spending. But the Democrats' PAYGO is enforced only by a point of order--which they can easily waive for their pet spending increases. Congress can and must do better. The easiest and best way to stop the growth of federal spending and let American families keep more of their hard earned taxpayer dollars is to make these tough decisions now.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I do have to speak up for Iowa, although I wish Iowa was playing in the national championships coming up. Mr. Speaker, not long ago, Members and leaders of the current majority party of the House spent countless hours attempting to draw the attention of the American people to what they defined as a culture of corruption here in Congress. Hoping to use this, they wanted to turn this phrase, usher in a new Democratic majority. That was their wish on election night that Members of the new majority stood in this Chamber prior to that, and on numerous soap boxes across the country and promised that if the American people gave them the chance to run things here on Capitol Hill, they would do things differently. Mr. Speaker, I agree that things should be done differently here in this body. Last year in the 109th Congress, I introduced H.R. 4967, the Sunlight Act, and that was of 2006. This bill would have, on a number of things, required that bills, conference reports, joint resolutions and amendments be available to the public on the Internet in a searchable format before a bill could be voted on. It also would have required and will require, if passed, privately funded travel be approved in advance by the Rules Committee with the costs being fully disclosed in 5 days. It would require that Members report exact assets and liability values on their financial disclosures instead of vague ranges, vague ranges that allow a Member to report between $5 million and $25 million in assets. That is too broad a range. A $20 million range would require the subject of debate to be projected on the wall so it is visible to Members and people that are in the gallery. It would require that donations to political campaigns be reported in a searchable, sortable format on the Internet and have that within the last 30 days each day, within each 24 hours a report be filed. I believe that passage of my Sunlight Act would do much to raise the levels of transparency in the affairs of this body, and it would also restore the public's confidence in our Members. It is disingenuous for the majority claim that they want to change things when they don't want to give a consideration of commonsense reforms like those outlined in this bill. Yet this bill, as I worked it hard last year, could not earn one signature from a single Democrat as a co-sponsor. Now, I am refused the opportunity to even offer this as a bill. This is my only opportunity to even make the argument. So I would make this argument, Mr. Speaker, that there were a lot of campaign promises that were made. It seems to me that the one that is the most obstructive to all of us is the promise to accomplish this series of things in the first 100 hours. The first 100 hours has been redefined. Many of these promises will be also given up on, and it will be difficult, and in many cases, impossible to keep those promises. Mr. Speaker, why don't we just waive this promise of accomplishing all these things in the first 100 hours so the people of America can be heard on the floor of the Congress.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, Mr. McHenry's input into this dialogue that we have here is essential. I look forward to the pugnacious Mr. McHenry's deliveries on this floor and in committee and before the media over the next 2 years of the new 110th Congress. As always, Mr. Speaker, it is a profound honor and privilege to address you on the floor in the United States House of Representatives, the people's House. As I bring up this subject matter that is here before us, I have a series of things, random thoughts on the passing scene, focused on current events will be my message here today. There are mistakes that are made and there are things said and done in political campaigns that don't always reflect the wishes or the policy, but things are said sometimes to win elections and then you have to follow through on that. We have had some standards to look back on. The first 100 days of the presidency, many Presidents have made their pledge that in the first 100 days they are going to move pieces of policy, and they have endeavored to keep those pledges. When the Republicans took over the majority in 1994, they also made a pledge in the first 100 days that they would bring, at least bring to a vote a series of reform changes called ``Contract With America.'' Looking back on that, and it depends on your analysis and definition, but something like two-thirds of that agenda was passed into law. I believe all of it was voted on in this Congress. But yet it was done under a regular order. It was done under an open process, and it was done by bringing the legislation of the Contract With America, which I am comparing now to this first 100 hours of the new majority's agenda, comparing those two initiatives that were brought up in the campaign and the pledges that were made. But they were brought through in regular order in the Contract With America in 1994. Regular order meaning that the bills were introduced and they were brought to subcommittee where they had a full subcommittee hearing and there was open debate and there was an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to offer their amendments into the subcommittee on each of those pieces of legislation. As it came out of subcommittee, it went to full committee where there was an opportunity for the full committee members to weigh in. As we know, the committees are where we have established and developed expertise. If you look at the chairs and also the seasoned veterans on committees, both Republicans and Democrats, and I look at the Judiciary Committee where there is a tremendous amount of seniority, and I have the honor to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, there is a replete, not necessarily complete but a very replete body of knowledge within the minds of the members of the committee and the staff. And of course the history and the resources that are there. That is why we put legislation through the subcommittee and committee processes so we can weigh in with our judgment and bring our individual expertise to bear, and we have an opportunity to hear from our constituents because they will read the language and they will parse the words and let us know where the flaws are. Mr. Speaker, my first step into public life was going from the private sector, being a construction company founder, owner and manager into the legislative arena as an Iowa senator. And the first thing I learned was the law of unintended consequences. In other words, you can have a good idea and it sounds perfect to you from your limited perspective. You can put that down into the form of a law, and if I were king for a day as a younger man, I might have offered some of those ideas I had earlier in my political career as an edict that I believed should have been the law of the land and lay that out there and give a bob of my scepter and declare that to be law. But my mistakes would have been as a younger, less experienced man, and sometimes still today those mistakes, I didn't understand the law of unintended consequences. I didn't understand that my ideas needed to be vetted across the spectrum of the other people that I served in the State legislature with, and I carry that experience with me into this Congress. I didn't understanding that I needed to float those ideas out to the various constituency groups that are there to be voices of individuals, and I didn't understand that I needed to float those out to individuals and get those ideas out in the press and publish my bills so that people that are interested can look in and weigh in and make phone calls, send e-mails and write letters, come and visit and lobby as individuals or join up with their various constituency groups that are out there to be able to analyze and be a louder voice as members of a group so that all of the expertise that America has to offer can come to bear on the judgments and decisions that we make here in this Congress. But that whole process that I have described, the process utilized in 1994 with the Contract With America, that entire open, bipartisan process has been usurped by this rules package that has been brought here to the floor of this Congress. We learned essentially a new term. I don't know if anybody in this Congress understood it at the time. Some did, I imagine, because they came up with the effort on the rules. I came down here to put up my first vote on a motion to commit. Now I have voted many times on motions to recommit. Mr. Speaker, if I may describe that. A motion to recommit is a motion that says if you bring a bill to the floor and then it gets debated here on the floor, the motion to recommit says we want to recommit it back to committee and sometimes recommit it with instructions back to committee because there are Members here in the full House that didn't have an opportunity to weigh in on that bill as it came through committee. They didn't sit on the appropriate committee, for example. So they had a viewpoint that needed to be considered. And if a motion to recommit is successful here on the floor, that says a majority of the Members of the full House of Representatives have concluded that there are other ideas that needed to be considered, send it back to committee with instructions so those other ideas can be considered. That is a motion to recommit. But we voted on a motion to commit, not recommit, a motion to commit. A motion to commit is send it to committee. And the reason it is a motion to commit rather than a motion to recommit is this legislation has not gone through committee. It has not gone through the subcommittee process or the committee process. It simply then is legislation that was held very tight. I don't know if it was in a locked briefcase, but it was something that the public and press didn't have access to. Members of Congress didn't have access to it. In fact, I believe many of the lower ranking Members of the majority party didn't have access to this legislation. It was secret legislation that was thrust upon us and the only opportunity that we have is a nondebatable motion to commit to committee for the first time because it didn't go through the committee process. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that is inconsistent with the pledge that was made throughout the election process and throughout the campaign process. There are a number of quotes that were identified, and I have some of them. I don't have all of them. One of them by now-Speaker Pelosi was this, and this was on CNN on November 9, so 2 days after the election. That would have been Thursday. She said, ``Democrats are ready to lead, prepared to govern.'' I don't quibble with that part of the statement. But the completion of the sentence is, ``ready to lead, prepared to govern, and absolutely willing to work in a bipartisan way.'' Mr. Speaker, there is no definition of bipartisanship that I can apply to this process unless many of the Members of the majority party were as shut out of this process as the entire minority party was. I suspect that is the case. I don't want to parse the language in there, I just want to say that the spirit and intent of that statement, ``willing to work in a bipartisan way'' has been violated here, but maybe not the technical definition of that. We can expect these things because we have a house full of lawyers that are good with language and they will find a way to convolute this language to be able to defend themselves. So I point out this process. Motion to commit, nondebatable motion. All you can do is plead for a recorded vote, and that is the only opportunity to voice objection, but there is not an opportunity to improve the legislation. And that is really what we need to do, always, all of us in a bipartisan way, at least provide an opportunity for amendments in the process. That means in the subcommittee process and in the full committee process, and then here on the floor of the House of Representatives in open debate so the public can evaluate this process, not a secret or closed process, but an open process to the public. We owe you that, America. We owe you an open and clean process and we owe you an open dialogue and an open debate. If we don't do that, you will be drawing conclusions such as they don't believe in what they are doing enough to be able to have an open debate. What kind of work is being done here that we are not able to have it withstand the scrutiny and the criticism that might come from the public if it were an open process. So I will submit, Mr. Speaker, that promises get made during campaigns. There were many promises made during the last campaign that will not be kept by the new majority party. But the promise that seems to be the one that is sacrosanct is the promise that in the first 100 hours we will do these things. In order to accomplish these promises of achievement within the first 100 hours, which is comparable to the first 100 days in presidential promises or the promise of the 1994 new majority, in order to achieve those goals and keep those promises, the promise we will do it within the first 100 hours, the only way to meet that was to take this bipartisanship and set it aside and suspend it at least temporarily, if not permanently, for the 110th Congress, and to set aside the subcommittee process and set aside the committee process. We have one more avenue here that there can be an open forum, and that is the rules process. At least a member can bring an amendment to the Rules Committee, explain their amendment in open forum and ask for a vote on their amendment as to whether that amendment can be allowed to be considered here on the floor of the House of Representatives. I was astonished there were this many amendments when I came here as a freshman a couple of Congresses ago. I was astonished that there were so many amendments that were turned down, that did not see the light of day. But there was an opportunity to present them to the Rules Committee, and I did that many times and I got turned down many times as a member of the majority party. But we don't even have a rules process that is open enough that you can present your amendments to the Rules Committee. In fact, I believe the Rules Committee, as an example already, will not be meeting, it will simply be a decision that is made by the leadership of the majority party, and the recorded votes of the Rules Committee will be secret. That is part of this package, as I understand it, too, Mr. Speaker. So of all of the promises that will be broken, the one that should be broken is the one that is sacrosanct, the promise of accomplishment in the first 100 hours. If we could just look at that and say we understand your motive, but this is not conducive to bipartisanship or open process; in fact, it is not conducive to good legislation because the good ideas of Democrats and Republicans are shut out of this process. I will just ask this of now-Speaker Pelosi: Why don't you just break one promise instead of a series that will ultimately be broken, and break that promise about 100 hours so that you can keep your promise about bipartisanship, and keep your promises about an open process and ethical process. That is far more important to the American people than a promise to accomplish certain legislative endeavors within the first 100 hours. This 100 hours is meaningless to the American people. All of this has to go over to the Senate. The Senate has to be willing to take it up. The Senate has to be able to vote cloture on some of this, and I think it will be filibustered, and it has to get to the President for signature. Timing is not as essential, it is the policy that is important. It is important to have an open process, it is important that we weigh in and that amendments be allowed to be offered and that they be considered and that they be voted on so the American people can have confidence in this process. And sometimes, sometimes, this body, this great deliberative body of the people's House, will reach the right decisions. In fact, I believe often we will. When we do so with public debate and an open process, we reach the right decision for the right policy for America and we also reach it by using the right reasons, the reasons of open dialogue that allow people's positions and their knowledge to come to that debate. Sometimes we will make the wrong decision, and when we do that, if we have open dialogue and open debate, then at least it is arguable that we have arrived at the wrong decision, but at least we followed the right process, and we can't fault the reasoning on how we get there. I would compare Gerald R. Ford, and may he rest in peace, Gerald R. Ford, whom we said good-bye to within this past week, the man who came to the Presidency after having served 25 years here, Mr. Speaker, in the House of Representatives, a man who was almost without guile as President. A President who made decisions at a time when we needed someone who had absolute integrity. The person who had confidence, the confidence and the endorsement of Democrats and Republicans at the time, Mr. Speaker. And with Gerald R. Ford as President, when he made a decision, when I agreed with him and he laid out his reasoning and his rationale, when he made the right decision, he made it for the right reason. He thoughtfully deliberated on the components of the information, the interactivity of them and what the result would be and what the constitutional foundation was on that decision. And he made his decision, and he told us why. And that established confidence in the integrity and the judgment, in the intellect, and the character and in the faith of Gerald R. Ford. When he made the wrong decision, and I will just say when I disagreed with him would be my definition of the wrong decision, he still laid out his argument. And when he laid out his argument, I could not fault him for using the wrong criteria. It was well thought out. He made his arguments well. When we disagreed, I would have a different argument. But those kinds of debates that he had within himself, he earned that respect of us for President Ford. That kind of deliberation, that kind of integrity so far in the 110th Congress is nonexistent because there hasn't been an opportunity to have that debate on any of this that has come to this at this point and the rules deny there be that kind of debate and deliberation in the future. So I talked about the new motion, still it was in the rules, but a motion to commit. New to use. You will hear a discussion, Mr. Speaker, about PAYGO. PAYGO means pay as you go. It means something different to Democrats than it does to Republicans. And I will say that when Republicans talk about PAYGO, we mean we want to pay as we go, as do Democrats, but we believe we should constrain spending and slow the growth in government and we should find ways for reconciliation and maybe do a rescissions package so that we can rachet this spending down to keep it within the revenue stream. We believe that the Bush tax cuts have absolutely flat out been proven to stimulate this economy. Revenue is up. Revenue has increased significantly since the Bush tax cuts were put in place. That is why our deficit has been reduced. It is because revenue has gone beyond our expectations. But the PAYGO argument for me is I want to slow this growth in spending so that we can get the size of our Federal Government back in line with the size of our revenue stream. For example, last year there were mistakes made by the majority party in the last couple, three Congresses. I believe that there was too much money that was spent, Mr. Speaker, and I think that we should have shut that down earlier. I was surprised when I came to this Congress as a freshman in January of 2003 that there wasn't a balanced budget that I could simply endorse, jump on, and go to work with. It was a condition where we were dealing with the reality of the politics rather than the necessity of balancing the budget. And in order to produce a balanced budget, I would have had to create my own with my new staff, who didn't really have that time and understanding of this overall 2.7 or $2.8 trillion national budget. But things crept away from a balanced budget, and we know why. We know there was the bursting of the dot-com bubble that took place and it was necessary, and I could go into that perhaps on another date, Mr. Speaker. And we also know that we faced an attack on September 11 that shut down our financial industry and that the effort was to turn our United States economy into a tailspin. It needed to be brought out of that nosedive, and the tax cuts that we passed brought it back up out of that nosedive. We knew that we had to engage in a global war on terror and it was going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars to be able to defend Americans that had been killed in greater numbers on our soil than ever at any time in history, and we set about to do that. So three big things sent us into a deficit: the bursting of the dot- com bubble, the attack on September 11, and the necessity to fund the effort in a global war on terror. Those three things. And as the stimulants took place on the tax cuts, it has taken a little while to get them to take hold, but there is no argument that this economy is the strongest and most powerful economy that I have experienced in my lifetime, and it is measurable by a lot of different ways. Anything that goes up and is good for the economy is up. Anything that goes down that is good for the economy is down, and the opposite is also true. This has been a powerfully strong economy with growth in something like 18 of 19 previous quarters, and all of that growth has been up around the 3 percent level. So this economy has been powerful, and this growth has been really a great position to be in to be able to say let us let the economy grow us out of this. Let us slow this growth of balance. Let us balance this budget. But let us not balance it, Mr. Speaker, with tax increases. That is what PAYGO means to Democrats. The tax cuts have provided the growth in our revenue stream. Tax increases will diminish the growth in our revenue stream. But their idea of pay-as-you-go is to increase taxes and increase spending, as we heard Mr. McHenry say, to the tune of $800 million in this package. That $800 million won't be paid for by cuts in other line items in any significant way. That, in their mind, is paid for by tax increases. As has been stipulated by the new incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel of New York, none of the Bush tax cuts he would say he would support or endorse. And as you listened to him respond across the media airwaves, it always came back to the only way that you could characterize his position was we are going to increase taxes. When you increase taxes, you slow this economy. Ronald Reagan once said what you tax you get less of. What you tax you get less of, and what you subsidize you get more of. But I want to talk about the what- you-tax-you-get-less-of component of that, a very wise statement of President Reagan's, and that is in our infinite lack of wisdom here in the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, we tax all productivity in America. In fact, the Federal Government has the first lien on all productivity in America. And you can measure that by personal income tax, corporate income tax, capital gains, taxes on interest income, taxes on dividend income, taxes on your pension, taxes on your Social Security. I am forgetting some of those taxes. How about your savings and investment? Any way you can describe productivity, the Federal Government is there to tax it; so we get less productivity because we tax our productivity in America, and Democrats are poised to increase the taxes on our productivity. What you tax you get less of. If you are paying a 10 percent income tax and you are making $50,000 a year and they want to raise that tax up to let's just say 50 percent, why in the world would you try to increase your revenue stream by 50 percent if your taxes are going to go up by the average of 50 percent and 10 percent, say, roughly 30 percent on average? That will not happen in the minds of the American people. That is why organized economies never work. That is why Marxism has failed. That is why socialized economies, managed economies, have always failed. Free enterprise has been the thing that has provided incentives so that people could produce all they could produce and they had an incentive to be able to keep the max amount possible and still be able to provide the services that are necessary to hold our sovereign state together. Democrats want to raise taxes to balance the budget. Republicans want to cut spending to balance the budget. So last year I put together the formula that would get us to a balanced budget. And if we just wanted to do it all at once, we need to be looking at what that balanced budget was to do that all at once. And we say, first of all, there is nondiscretionary spending. This is the kind of spending that is already in the formula, that is, what it is going to cost for Social Security, what it is going to cost for Medicaid, what it is going to cost for Medicare. That is most of them, those formulas that are automatic transfer payments that are already set up in the equation. That is nondiscretionary spending. Many people think you can't affect that. That we shouldn't change it, maybe adjust the rules in such a way that there would be fewer recipients or fewer dollars of Medicaid, for example. That needs to be addressed, and we have tried to address entitlement spending. That is that nondiscretionary spending and the other phrase for it: you are entitled to Social Security. You are entitled to Medicare. You are entitled to Medicaid. But the rules of those entitlements are in the code today, and those rules are something that can be changed and adjusted. And I am not here to talk about how to do that specifically, although I do have some ideas on how to approach that, but we need to address entitlement spending. That was the President's effort when he came out right after his second inaugural address and traveled the countryside and spoke about reforming Social Security. That operation will collapse at some point unless we have the political courage to touch that third rail and fix it. That is an entitlement. Another one is Medicare. Being from the State that is last in the Nation in Medicare receipts on a per capita basis, there is much that must be done to help our people out who are on the short end of that stick. But entitlement spending is a component of this. They want to increase taxes rather than adjust entitlement spending. And the more they can grow entitlement spending, the more they can take us into socialism. And I don't want to have a managed economy. I want to have a free enterprise market economy. That is what I came here to promote and defend. PAYGO for Democrats is raise taxes; PAYGO for Republicans is cut spending. And last year for the 2007 fiscal year, which much of that is still ahead of us, we could have left entitlements in place. We could have left defense spending in place at the appropriated levels that we have now and done nondefense discretionary spending. That is the rest of the budget that I haven't mentioned. Mr. Speaker, nondefense discretionary spending could have been appropriated at the term of 95 percent of what it was for the 2006 fiscal year and we would have had a balanced budget. Some of the Democrats have pledged to support a balanced budget that does not include increasing taxes, that does include reduction of spending in nondefense discretionary, that discretionary spending that doesn't put our Nation at risk. Ninety-five percent of the 2006 fiscal year, that doesn't mean an increase. That actually means a decrease of 5 percent in funding. Well, if I have a family budget and all of a sudden I look around and I think I am going into debt here and I guess I am not going to be in a position to pass that debt along to my children, and we should not be, then we need to be willing to live within our means. And whatever your means are, most of us, if we had to look back and think we can have a balanced family budget if we would just reduce our overall spending down to 95 percent of what it was last year, we would willingly make that adjustment, recognizing that we haven't been as responsible as we should have been, and made the budget adjustment. That is the kind of PAYGO we need to do in this Congress. We need a balanced budget here, yes, Mr. Speaker, but not PAYGO with tax increases. Pay as you go without tax increases. That is the Steve King position, and I believe that will be a core position on the part of many of the Republicans. Another way that we can adjust, address spending, is the earmark reform. I have been in strong support of earmark reform. I have stepped in and voted for 16 of the 17 that Congressman Flake brought to the floor of this Congress in the 109th Congress, but I don't think that really does the job. They are pieces that I agree with. But I want to do some real reform here, Mr. Speaker, and I am prepared to introduce a bill. It is a bill that I introduced last year. The problem is this, we talk about giving the President a line item veto, so that when there is spending that comes out, and maybe you want to talk about the Bridge to Nowhere, that is one of those issues that has been raised up as a earmark. Well, if the Bridge to Nowhere comes up, or the Cowgirl Hall of Fame comes up or some of these other earmarks that have been rather notorious in the media, we would ask the President, under a presidential line item veto to veto that, take it out of the budget, save that $273 million or whatever the number might be for any of those items, or $1 million line item veto to maybe study the nocturnal habits of the salamander, or whatever it might be. You know some of those, Mr. Speaker, they have been out in the news. These are earmarks that get slipped in, generally at the committee level, as the bill is being drafted. It comes out here. No Member of Congress has an opportunity to evaluate those earmarks, nor an opportunity to bring an amendment that could strike those earmarks from the bill. They arrive in a compromised fashion often as a conference committee report that comes back in the negotiations between the House and the Senate. It comes to the floor. We have got to vote on it to move to keep the government operating, and what happens is, there are line items in there that have been earmarked by people who are inside that conference committee, and these Members of Congress here, Democrats and Republicans, are held accountable for voting ``yes'' or ``no'' on pork projects that they didn't know was in the bill. I would illustrate it this way, when I first came to this Congress, there was a 3,600 page omnibus spending bill. I was only here about 3 days, or maybe even two, and that bill came to the floor of this Congress, and 20 minutes after it was made available to my staff to evaluate, the final vote went up here on the floor of the House of Representatives. That process meant that I was accountable for all of those earmarks that were in that omnibus spending bill, those 3,600 pages. It is one thing to try to evaluate a bill and read what's in it, it is not possible within the time we had, but it is at least possible to evaluate something that is in the bill. Try and find, Mr. Speaker, something that is not in the bill. Try and look through 3,600 pages to determine that there are omissions as well as the issues, the earmarks that are in the bill. This process does need to be more open, so I have drafted the CUT Act, and it is cut unnecessary tab, and the tab references, if you have a tab in an eating or drinking establishment, we want to cut this tab. I believe this, that Members of Congress need to have a legitimate opportunity to have their own line item veto. I think every Member of this Congress should be able to offer an amendment to a bill that strikes out the line items of their choice under an open rule. So the CUT Act does this, Mr. Speaker, it allows once a quarter, four times a year, for a bill to come to the floor under an open rule, and it may just be a shell bill, it may not have a single line item strike in it, but it allows under an open rule any and every Member to bring forth their list of objectionable spending, objectionable earmarks, and have them offer those earmark strikes. All it would do is be a rescissions bill that reduces spending, and the reduction in that spending goes to address the deficit. When the deficit is addressed, then it goes back into the general fund, which ultimately reduces our national debt, gives every Member of this Congress an opportunity to have a line item veto of their own offered to all Members of Congress. So let us say there is a crazy appropriation out here that got slipped into a bill. It will surely happen, Mr. Speaker, it will happen hundreds and perhaps thousands of times. Let us just say that the blogosphere out there is lit up, that people go to their Web pages, and they scrutinize the work that we do. We need to give them a lot of access to do that because they are the next watch dogs on this Congress. It used to be that the watch dogs sat in this gallery, and many do, and I am glad they are here, but then as those watch dogs were also up here in the press corps, and then the press wrote, and it got into the newspapers, and sometimes, weeks later, had got out into the press in the corners of the United States of America Well, now we are real-time. We are real-time, and it has been press real-time for a long time, but it is even better now because we have an Internet, we have a blogosphere. Let us just say that there is a completely objectionable earmark that has been slipped in by a committee chairman, or maybe an agreement with a ranking member, that comes out of a conference committee, and it comes down to the floor of this Congress. Let us just pick the nocturnal habits of salamanders for $10 million, to have a subject here that we can talk about and understand. Well, we don't really need to understand the nocturnal habits of salamanders, at least at that kind of experience to the taxpayers. But whatever the motivation was that put it in there, we will not see it. We will not have time to read the bill. But that bill then, once it passes a conference report, goes to the President, and he will sign that bill, because there are many things in there that we must have to keep the government operating, and now we have got $10 million wasted on the nocturnal habits of salamanders. There is nothing Congress can do about it, we have done it. We have been complicit, our rules have been complicit in allowing these things to happen, not just with this earmark, Mr. Speaker, but hundreds and even thousands of them. My CUT Act allows this, it allows a Member to stand up on the first day of the quarter, hopefully it will be the leader and the leaders, and they will say, I have a bill at the desk made in order under the rule, and this bill is the CUT Act bill, then that allows the shell bill to come up like an appropriations bill, only this is a deappropriations bill, a rescissions bill, that every amendment that strikes spending by line item is in order, and the Members can flock over here to the Capitol, and being responsive to their constituents, being responsive to their constituency groups, being responsive to the bloggers out there, that have gone down through this legislation, have read every single line item, have read the details and the nuances of it, read every details and the nuances of it; and then, these Members of Congress can come here, offer their amendments to strike the $10 million that would be spent for the nocturnal habits of salamanders, and you can add line after item after line item, strike after strike to that. When that happens, we will have an open process, a process that will allow for the people of the United States of America to weigh in on our appropriations that we are doing here. That, Mr. Speaker, is a description of how the CUT Act works. A lot of us would like to see the President with a legitimate and effective line item veto. But I believe this Congress deserves a legitimate and an effective line item veto. It is why I put a lot of research into this, I have examined it, I have floated it out to the various constituency groups. I have asked them for their input because I don't want to have unintended consequences. I want to be able to provide a process here that is good for the future of America, an open process, a process that gives everybody in this Congress a line item veto, at least to offer the amendment. When that bill passes off this floor, and I don't envision just eliminating $10 million on the nocturnal habits of salamanders, I envision there to be 25 or 50 or 100 or 300 or more line items that are accumulated into that bill that are struck. Because individually, they will not be able to withstand the scrutiny of the majority of the Members of Congress, because you, the people of America, and the American people, I should say, actually, Mr. Speaker, will insist that we be fiscally responsible and that we not waste money. So let us just say that there are now 100 line items strikes, each one of them representing an amendment to the CUT Act bill that is in order, and that $10 million to the nocturnal habits of salamanders is the first one, and that saves the taxpayers $10 million. We go right down the list of those things that you know about, Mr. Speaker, those things that are in the media, strike after strike after strike, and we have now accumulated 100 different strikes, line item vetoes, and out of those 100, there is in there, perhaps, let us pick a round number, $1 billion. Now this bill, then, passes off this House of Representatives, and it goes over to the Senate, where we ask them to take it up. We cannot write their rules, Mr. Speaker, but we can ask them to take up a bill that we pass here, a rescissions package that has the full support of the American people that cuts $1 billion out of our spending that reduces our deficit and when, successfully, we are at the balanced budget level, pays down the national debt. That is the CUT Act, Mr. Speaker. That is a line item veto for Members of Congress. That is Congressional accountability. That is the kinds of things that we need to have an opportunity to debate here on the floor of this Congress when we kick off this 110th. That is the kind of amendment that has been shut out of this process, not just out of the process of subcommittee and committee, but shut out of even being presented at the Rules Committee so that there can be access to the media for the debate, the deliberation, and so that there will be people that can be held accountable for their vote when they decide they don't want this kind of an open process. I submit that there is no desire for this open process on the part of the majority. I believe that I need to continue to beat this drum, and I will. To package the PAYGO argument up and move on to the next component of this, PAYGO, for Republicans is, control and constrain spending to achieve a balanced you budget, no new taxes, less spending, balanced budget, fiscally responsible, PAYGO for Democrats is buy what you need to, spend what you need to pass by your Members, raise taxes, so that you can say that you balanced the budget. That will work until you kill the goose that lays the golden egg, what you tax you will get less of. We will get less tax gas production in America as taxes increase. That means then that there will be less revenue coming in, coming off of the production in America, and eventually this economy will be constrained It will shrink, and we will have, we will finally kill the goose that lays the golden egg. We will have to come back around, reduce tax again, stimulate again, do what we did in the aftermath of September 11 to reduce tax, do it in the Reagan way, do it in the John F. Kennedy way, the Reagan way, the George W. Bush way, those things, those tax reductions have always increased and stimulated our economy. That doesn't seem to be something that is within the scope of understanding on the other side, because there is a different agenda. It is a socialization agenda. So, that is the description of PAYGO, Mr. Speaker. Now, the next component that I want to talk about within this rules package is the idea of ethics reform. Ethics reform, I agree, we needed to reform some ethics. We didn't do enough in the 109th Congress to reform ethics. We did things that were, I thought, window dressing. My view on ethics is that, I mentioned the bloggers a little bit earlier. We need to give the American people sunlight. They have got to have sunlight on this process. That means that we should not have rules that are written and reports that are written in such a way that the information is difficult to access, or difficult to understand, or impossible to legitimately analyze and draw real black and white conclusions. But in truth, that is the system that we have today, and it is the system that has been improved some over the years, but it has got a ways to go. The system that I would submit is under a package that I have offered called the Sunlight bill. That means that I want a light on the things that we do. I think that we live in a fishbowl anyway, all 435 of us, we are scrutinized by the press whenever we show up in public, we are recognized, and that is great, it is flattering. It is a tremendous honor to be able to represent the people here in the United States House of Representatives. The trade-off for that is you don't get a lot of privacy. The requirement for that is that you report your finances, for example, and that we report our campaign finances, as well as our personal finances, and we report our financial dealings. That includes real estate transactions, purchases. But we have a system that is not open. We have a system that is not accessible. We have a system that is not really sortable, and it is vague enough that you can't draw clear conclusions from that reporting system that we have. I have offered the Sunlight Act to fix all of that and to make it more, and I am going to say far more, accessible to the American people. First and the easiest one to deal with is the Federal Election Commission reporting. Now, all of us have to go out and raise money in order to get elected to this Congress. Money is a necessity for the people to express their freedom of speech. If we don't raise the money, eventually someone will spend a lot of money. No matter what our level of integrity is, you cannot sustain a seat in the House of Representatives if you are not willing to go out and raise some money and be able to advertise on a political campaign. It is unfortunate. I don't know that it was envisioned by our Founding Fathers, but it is necessary. Mr. Speaker, if we concede the point that money has to be raised by Members of Congress, and it does, then we also need to discuss, and I believe, concede the point that we should have full reporting of our campaign finances, and we do have a law that requires full reporting, and I don't want to imply that that doesn't exist, it is just that the reporting isn't necessarily in real- time. It isn't necessarily in a format that is accessible. So if it is not accessible, easily accessible, then it is not as full as the reporting should be. The Sunlight Act asks this, that the Federal Election Commission reporting, our campaign finances, be reported in real-time. And it sets up some parameters on how much time you have if you receive some revenue from an individual or from a PAC, the timing of that is a little looser until you get down to the last 30 days of a campaign. In the last 30 days the Sunlight Act requires that you file those campaign contributions every 24 hours, every single day, the last 30 days, you file those campaign revenues. Somebody hands you a check, that gets deposited, but it gets reported the same business day. That is not too much to ask when you have that kind of flurry going on. We have to do a lot of things on a real-time basis, and that is one of them. But that is only, but to report that, to report it to the FEC and have the FEC bring that report out in their own good time, in a time that it is not possible for the public to understand where the monies come from, and we agree, I believe, that utilization of funds to advance a candidacy or to advance a cause are political speech, but free speech. So if funds are speech, and the reporting of those funds is an open process, it needs to be in a timely fashion. So say if there were, what if there happened to be an entity out there that was one who was rejected by Democrats and Republicans but put a lot of money in a campaign and that didn't show up until after the election, Madam Speaker. But the public, had they known that, might have voted for the candidate who didn't receive those funds. That is my argument as to why we need to have real-time reporting. But I want to take this back to the blogosphere. We have people out there that have their blogs and they are watching the mainstream news media. They are interacting with other blogs. They have their information conduits that come from whatever their access points are. Maybe they happen to be in politics, or maybe they are just a pundit that is well wired and well connected. And they might see information that the rest of the country doesn't see. That is how news is gathered. So the bloggers are gathering the news and they are writing their opinions and sometimes they are taking information and then sorting it in a fashion that people can use it and they can understand it. I submit that we should submit ourselves, Madam Speaker, to the scrutiny of the blogosphere; that we should have FEC reporting, campaign finance reporting in real-time in a searchable, sortable, downloadable format that will allow anyone out there in America that has access to a computer or to the Internet to go click on that information, if they want to know where Steve King's revenue stream came from, download that into a database that you can sort. If you want to sort it alphabetically, sort it alphabetically. If you want to sort it by dollars, biggest contribution down to smallest, do that. If you want to sort it by date, do that. If you want to sort it by name, do that. But we should put that information out to the public so that you can scrutinize, in the public, where our campaign funds come from, so that you can evaluate sometimes the positions that we take. Because if they can be indexed to the influence of money, you need to hold us accountable. We owe you our best judgment. We don't owe the public a vote that is a bought vote. And the public needs to have an opportunity to identify if there is someone who is influenced too much by money, and it needs to happen in real-time. It needs to happen every single day 30 days prior to an election. That is part of the Sunlight Act, to shed light on our Federal Election Commission reporting, real-time, Internet accessible, downloadable, searchable, sortable database so that the American public has access. Now, Madam Speaker, that would take care of the reporting on our FEC documents. Essential open process, put me in the fish bowl, make it real-time. I am already in the fish bowl. Let's be honest and open about it and we will get these adjustments made, and they will be made by the people out there in the country, and that is where it should be. The next part of this that needs reform even more, Madam Speaker, is our personal financial reporting from an ethics perspective. And I will reiterate that when a Member of Congress files a financial disclosure form and files it under the ethics rules that are there, they sign that document and pledge that it is true and accurate and done so within the rules and the guidelines of ethics. And to violate that, to willfully violate that and falsely report is a felony. It is a felony. It is worse to report wrong data on your ethics than it is to come into the United States illegally. It is a felony to report inaccurate information willfully on our financial disclosure forms. But we have ranges of financial reporting, ranges that, not all of them committed to memory, and I didn't come down here prepared to go through them component by component. But I can just give some examples off the top of my head, Madam Speaker. And it works kind of this way. If you have liabilities, I am speaking again in general terms, not to the specific numbers within their financial reporting. If you have liabilities, perhaps between zero and $100,000, you put a little X in that column on this little kind of little spread sheet but it is a paper spread sheet. So you put an X in there and say, well, I owe somewhere between zero and $100,000. Or maybe you say I have no liabilities. And if you have assets that might be within $250,000 and $750,000, you put a little X in that box. Well, then if you want to analyze what somebody is worth, you might have $100,000 worth of debt and they might have no more than $250,000 worth of assets, but you can't determine if they have no liability or $100,000 worth of liability and you can't determine whether they have $250,000 worth of assets or $750,000 worth of assets. And so as people go up the line in their reporting, the difference, the dollars in disparity get greater and greater and greater to the extent that, Madam Speaker, we have a Member seated in this Congress who reported low six digits in net worth assets 5 years earlier, and then 5 years later, showed up with somewhere between $6.4 million and $25 million in net worth. How does a person make $6 million in assets or, excuse me, in net worth value over a period of 5 years on the salary of a Member of Congress? How could a person expand that from $6.4 million on up to $25 million. Those questions cannot be legitimately answered without the Department of Justice and search warrants and Ryder trucks and filing cabinets loaded up to take into the investigation and computers being picked up and brought in and a massive financial analysis to figure out what really was going on. Were there taxpayer dollars that were pouring into this? Was there a Member of Congress that was enriching himself at the expense of the taxpayers? That is why we have the reporting of our finances. But the ranges that are in there don't allow for the public to see that early enough to be able to call that question, get it into the media and bring that Member into bay so that it doesn't get completely out of hand. This one, from my viewpoint, looks like it is completely out of hand, and I think it is going to take more tha months yet for Justice to be able to do complete scrutiny of this and find out what really happened. But if that Member that I am referencing, and if every Member, and I am speaking about every Member in this Congress, were required to put down exactly the dollar amount of their liabilities and exactly the dollar amounts of their assets so that you could look at their net worth, and understand that there is an amount of appreciation that might come with real estate investment. There might be an amount of appreciation that comes with stock options and investments. That needs to be reported. That should be traceable and trackable, and we should be required to put down exact dollar amounts, not ranges. Not a range of $5 to $25 million. If I were in that range, it is a lot of difference between being worth $5 million and $25 million. Where did the money come from is the reason that we have to report our finances. The American people, Madam Speaker, do not have access to that information. That allows unethical Members of Congress to hide the worth that they may have been gathering in a fashion that is less than ethical. I believe we need to have sunlight on all of the financial proceedings, not just our Federal Election Commission reporting, not just our campaign side, but on our personal side as we are required today, but not in a range, not in a range of $5 to $25 million, not in a range of zero to $100 now, or $250,000 to $750,000, but in a range that is to the nearest dollar. Exact reporting, and, Madam Speaker, do so in real-time. Do so in a downloadable, searchable, sortable database format, so that the bloggers out there, or anyone who has access to the Internet, be it a public library or their laptop on the bus or whether it is their hard- wired computer that sits in their basement, can sit down and say, I think I have been watching somebody here that is my Member of Congress. I don't know how they are doing so well. I am hearing rumors out here. Let's see what's really happened and go look and see, if we are going to be an open process, let's be an open process. Let's put sunlight on everything that we do in this Congress, Madam Speaker. Let's put real-time reporting, downloadable, searchable, sortable formats on our FEC reporting for our campaign funds. Let's do that same thing for our personal finances. Let's open this up to the American people. Let them scrutinize our finances and the movement of our finances so that if some Member can be in here in the year 2000 with a net worth of perhaps $100,000, and in the year 2005 have a net worth of $6.4 million, or more, the American public can ask the question, why. Why did that take that kind of jump? It is not something that can be analyzed or justified unless there are special conditions. Those conditions, those circumstances have not been addressed at this point. I believe we need sunlight on everything that we do, sunlight on our campaign stream, sunlight on our personal finances. And while we are shedding light on what is going on here in the Chamber, Madam Speaker, it is a bit of a surprise to many of us who come into this Congress to walk down here on the floor of Congress and hear a debate going on and it doesn't seem to be fitting with the debate we were watching on C-SPAN on the television in our office in the 5-minute walk over here. Things have changed. And you can walk on the floor of this Congress and thinking you are coming to weigh in on the debate of H. Res. 5 and find out you are debating H.R. 3495. Now, neither one of those bills has a name in my mind. But we have names for these bills too that help describe what it is we are debating. And we are sitting in this technological era, where I have just called for real-time access for financial reporting of the Members of Congress, but the people that are sitting in the gallery here in this House of Representatives, Madam Speaker, unless they have got some kind of ear piece in them or some kind of a BlackBerry that they are allowed to have and I don't know that they are, that can tell them what is going on here on the floor of Congress they will not know when they walk in this Chamber what this debate is all about. They will not know the bill that is before us. They will not know the amendment we are discussing. They will not know why some of the rhetoric doesn't match the language of the bill and the intent of the subject we are talking about. They can't know, Madam Speaker, because there isn't a single sign around this Chamber that tells the people that come into the gallery to witness the people's House what it is we are actually talking about. And if a Member of Congress walks in and they have been 1 minute or 5 minutes or 10 minutes out of the loop in their walk from their office and their watching their C-SPAN camera to come over here, the bill may have changed or a bill may have been temporarily deferred. It might be a different one that is taken up. And in that transfer of that subject matter, they can't know unless they walk over here and interrupt the person or the staff and ask what are we discussing, what are we debating. What is happening. I thought I came over here to talk on H.R. 6, and instead I am over here on H.R. 3094. The reason that we don't know that is because we don't use the simplest of technology, a technology that at least when we vote puts the number of the bill up here on either end of the Chamber, illuminates it on the wooden panels so that you can see the vote that comes up. There is no technological reason, there is no procedural reason why we can't just ask for the sunlight bill on finances, why we can't just shine the light up on the wall, a subject matter that is being debated, the number of the bill that is being debated and the name and perhaps the number of the amendment that is also under discussion at the moment. That would allow anyone who comes in off the street to witness the debate and deliberation of the people's House to immediately sit down and understand what the debate is all about and understand what the amendment is and who has got the amendment up, and they will figure out then instantly who is the proponent, who is the opponent, and the process becomes more open. The simplest thing that should be nonpartisan, this very simple idea is not just my idea but an idea that is supported and endorsed by many. I would ask if we could submit this idea to the freshmen that have come in. Those who have come out of State legislatures understand that the technology is there and has been there for years in State legislatures. When you walk into the chamber of a State House or a State Senate almost anywhere in the country, the subject of the bill is illuminated on the wall, the bill number is illuminated on the wall, the name of the person offering the amendment and the number of the amendment is offered on the wall with a short description of the bill, the amendment, so that the public can easily see what is going on, so that the members who are elected can walk in the room and instantaneously understand the process that they have walked into and be able to pick up immediately and engage in the process. That is part of the light that needs to be shined on this process, Madam Speaker. And I raise this issue up with this particular discussion because it happens to be something that is almost without cost. It should be absolutely bipartisan. In fact, it should be nonpartisan in its nature. Everyone who serves here should be interested in being able to have easy access to the process and the procedure we happen to be under. And it is something that allows the people in the gallery to understand what is happening. Right now, it could have ``Special Order by King'' on there. They could have a little clock on there to tell me how much time I have left before the gavel drops and my time has run and expired. But at this point I would ask the Speaker how much time I have remaining.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Oh, boy. The gentleman will then immediately conclude my discussion, and I really appreciate that I have been able to bring it to that conclusion in exactly the 60 minutes that have been allowed. I appreciate also the privilege in speaking to you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlewoman for recognizing me and yielding time to me. And I particularly want to take an opportunity here to thank Congressman Jim Leach for his years of service to this country and this Congress, and to the thoughtful process that he has brought. There is a legacy left with my friend Jim Leach here as well as a legacy from Norman Borlaug, and all of us are justifiably proud to be from a State that can produce these kind of people, both Jim Leach and Norman Borlaug. I wanted to point out that the work that Norman Borlaug has done to alleviate starvation in the world has put to rest many of the Malthusian arguments that we have heard over the 40 or so years that I have paid attention in the debate and the deliberation in this country: What is the limitation on what we can do to raise food and fiber and energy now for people, not just in America, but around the world. And I have had the privilege to travel into most of the continents and meet with the people that raise the food and the fiber, and, in our case, the energy in those places. And the fingerprints of Dr. Norman Borlaug are all over this planet, all over this globe, and on the dinner table of everyone with the 6-plus billion people that now inhabit this Earth. We don't know what that limitation might be for the population, but we know it is far greater because of Dr. Norman Borlaug.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding. As always, I consider it a privilege to address this body and address you, Mr. Speaker. Especially I consider it a privilege to address you, Mr. Speaker. I come to the floor to stand in support of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. It is a bit of bizarre debate from my perspective. I believe the debate should be on what instant life begins rather than how we might kill an unborn baby and especially on how we would avoid perhaps inflicting pain on an unborn baby that is about to be killed, and I am talking about 20 to 22 weeks and beyond. We have a law in this country called the Humane Slaughter Act, which says that an animal cannot be slaughtered unless it is rendered unconscious in a rather painless way. We also have a law called the Animal Welfare Act, which gives the Secretary of Agriculture authority to regulate how laboratory animals might be euthanized in a compassionate, humane fashion. And we can't raise up an unborn baby to this level? It is astonishing to me that we are here and that there are people that oppose this bill. It is high time it has been brought to the floor. It is a baby step, if you will, Mr. Speaker. And I applaud the gentleman from New Jersey for being the lead on the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for 6 powerful years leading the Judiciary Committee. The Supreme Court created a mess and hurt the Global War on Terror with its unnecessary and unconstitutional opinion in the Hamdan case. The Supreme Court had no authority to hear the Hamdan case. The Detainee Treatment Act gave the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit exclusive jurisdiction over the validity of any final decision of an enemy combatant status review tribunal. The Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ignored the provision of the DTA and a longstanding line of its own precedents which stood for the principle that Congress can limit jurisdiction in pending as well as future cases. The DTA provided that: no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay. The plain language of this statute clearly applies to cases pending at the date of enactment. The Supreme Court should have reached this conclusion, relying on their own precedent, but they failed to do so. In response, this legislation, H.R. 6166, has been carefully drafted so that the Court can fully understand that it applies to both pending and later filed cases. It was not necessary for Congress to be so specific, but in order that the Court will not make the same mistake twice, Congress has carefully chosen the language ``pending on or filed after the date of enactment'' in section 5 of this legislation. In his dissent in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Justice Scalia reminded the majority that they failed to cite a single case where such a jurisdiction limitation provision was denied immediate effect in pending cases. I agree with his opinion that the cases granting such immediate effect are legion. The Court's opinion has had yet another fatal flaw. In order to apply the Geneva Conventions, the Court decided on its own that the Global War on Terror was not of international character. I cannot imagine that even the majority on the Court believed their own opinion. The Global War on Terror can in no way be characterized as a mere civil war. It is a war between Western Civilization and militant Islamic fascists from all around the world. It does not take place only in legislation. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. KING of Iowa. It is a war between Western Civilization and militant Islamic fascists from all around the Muslim world. It does not take place only in one nation. Global is international. The Court decided the conclusion they desired and then shoehorned their decision to fit a preferred result, substituting their judgment for the constitutional judgment of Congress and of our Commander in Chief. And that was during a time of war. By doing this, the Supreme Court's majority in Hamdan further undermined our Constitution which relies on the separation of powers. The unconstitutional intervention by the Supreme Court in Hamdan could have been handled by Congress and the President in another way. Under article III, section 2, Congress could have reasserted our clearly defined authority to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and to grant jurisdiction to any inferior court of our choosing, as expressed in the very plain language of the Detainee Treatment Act. If we had not been a Nation at war, a Nation urgently concerned about protecting our citizens from attack, Congress may well have advised the Court of their unconstitutional intervention and the Court's obstruction of the ability of the Commander in Chief to protect America from our enemies and ignored the Court's decision. The necessities of war won out over the separation of powers, and for the first time the Supreme Court has engaged in setting parameters in war fighting beyond our national borders. Because of our national security, Congress and the President jumped through a series of hoops set by the Court, rather than carry on a protracted power struggle over the Constitution with the Court. But, Mr. Speaker, Congress concedes no power to the Court not defined in the Constitution or specified by statute.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I appreciate the gentleman's work on this bill and many bills throughout the years. I rise today in support of the Child Custody Protection Act because it returns the fundamental right of parenting back where it belongs: to parents. Eight in 10 Americans favor parental notification laws. Forty-four States have recognized the important role of parents in a minor child's decision to have an abortion by enacting parental involvement statutes. Even so, many of these laws are being circumvented by individuals who simply transport girls across State lines to another State without parental notification laws. And, too often, these individuals are grown men who have sexually preyed on underaged girls and use abortions to cover up their crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that a parent's right to control the care of their children is among the most the fundamental of all liberty interests. The Supreme Court has consistently recognized that parents have a legal right to be involved in their minor daughter's decision to seek medical care, including abortion. The Supreme Court has also observed that, and I quote, ``the medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and can be lasting. It seems unlikely that the minor will obtain adequate counsel and support from the attending physician at an abortion clinic where the abortions for pregnant minors frequently take place.'' The Supreme Court has also stated that, and I quote, ``minors often lack the experience, perspective, and judgment to recognize and avoid choices that could be detrimental to them.'' Mr. Speaker, no one has a child's best interest at heart more than their parents. Minors have to have parental permission to be given an aspirin by the school nurse. Twenty-six States have laws requiring parental consent before minors can get body piercings or tattoos. Parents must be able to play a role when their minor daughter is contemplating such an important decision as what to do with an unplanned pregnancy. Please join me in supporting the Child Custody Protection Act.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I urge support for H.R. 2679, the ``Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005.'' This bill prevents American taxpayers from having to subsidize judicial activism, encouraged by liberal groups bringing establishment clause cases. Today, taxpayers are being forced to pay for the lawyers of the ACLU who demand the removal of religious text and imagery from the public square. These organizations attempt to make public policy through the courts, instead of Congress where such actions belong. How many times will we stand silent as intolerant organizations such as the ACLU strong-arm the American people into removing cherished symbols of our Nation's heritage and faith? These actions are not compelled by the Constitution or supported by the will of the people. ``To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.'' Thomas Jefferson said that, and contrary to the ACLU, I believe that what our founding fathers believed in and stood for is still relevant today. American taxpayers currently have to pay for ACLU ``victories.'' ACLU press releases, sadly I must say, tout quite a record. For example: The County of Los Angeles was recently forced to remove a tiny cross from its official seal, symbolizing the founding of the city by missionaries. The removal of this cross is costing the county around $1 million, as it would entail changing the seal on some 90,000 uniforms, 6,000 buildings, and 12,000 county vehicles. In San Diego, the ACLU forced the Boy Scouts out of Balboa Park because of the organization's religious beliefs, and taxpayers were required to pay $950,000 in legal fees and court costs to the ACLU. In Barrow County, GA, the ACLU received $150,000 from taxpayers after a Federal judge ordered the county to remove a framed copy of the Ten Commandments from a hallway in the County Courthouse. In Redlands, California, the city council was forced into changing its official seal but didn't have the funds to revise every symbol that contained the old seal. Now Redlands' residents see blue tape covering the tiny cross on city trucks, while some firefighters have taken drills to remove the cross from their badge. These are just a few examples of the kinds of cases the American taxpayer is forced to subsidize. Americans should not be compelled to pay the lawyers who remove historic American symbols. The Public Expression of Religion Act would stop this action. I am glad to be a co-sponsor of this bill, and I urge support for its passage.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006. This bill reaffirms the inherent authority of State and local law enforcement to voluntarily investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, detain and transfer to federal custody aliens in the U.S. in order to assist in the enforcement of the immigration laws. Presently, many cities are enacting so-called ``sanctuary'' policies, which prohibit local police from asking about a person's immigration status or reporting illegal aliens who commit crimes to immigration authorities for deportation. Passed in 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act forbids localities from preventing their police officers from asking for or reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. Existing federal law says: Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual. Despite this ban, some cities continue to prohibit their officers from asking about immigration status or providing information to the Federal Government. Make no mistake about it: This is a situation of local governments blatantly violating Federal law. As a result, U.S. taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back onto the streets. Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country, rather than deporting criminals according to U.S. law. These sanctuary policies have disastrous consequences. Our State and local governments serve as the front line of defense against terrorism and criminal aliens. Every murder, every rape, every violent gang crime committed against Americans by illegal aliens is an utterly preventable crime. If we better enforce our immigration laws to keep criminals out, we will save lives. We must use the law enforcement resources we have, at every level, to enforce our laws, with the end result of making our Nation a safer place for our grandchildren to grow up in.

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 appreciate the privilege to be recognized on the floor of the United States Congress again and the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and hopefully enlighten some folks as they listen in on our conversation here tonight, Mr. Speaker. But as I listen to the previous conversation here on the floor, generally that will help or redirect the things I am about to say as I get down here, and perhaps I could just take a few of them from the bottom back towards the top. One of the things I would point out as a distinction from my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I especially appreciate their continuing their dialogue here until such time as I arrived, but one of the things that was repeated over and over again over the last hour was the ``rubber-stamp Congress,'' the ``rubber- stamp Congress.'' And we have to take that to mean exactly what it is intended to mean, as the allegation that this majority in Congress rubber stamps whatever it is that the President says that he wants. And nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. I would point out that if this is a rubber-stamp Congress, and, in fact, we should do it this way: when the President proposes an agenda, a piece of legislation, a piece of policy, if we need to endorse a piece of foreign policy, then we need to evaluate that to the fullest extent that we can. We need to bring the collective brains together in this place, and we need to have a vote in this Congress. We do that. We do that, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we initiate all spending here in this House of Representatives. That is according to the Constitution. The deliberation comes from here. When the President has a budget request, he puts his budget together and offers it to the Congress. We evaluate that budget. We produce our own. In the time I have been here, we have not rubber-stamped the President's budget. We have produced our own. And we have had some struggles with the President on the things that we were not willing to fund and on some of the things that he wanted to and vice versa. That is as it should be. We are to put our collective brains together and come to a compromise conclusion so that we can get appropriations passed out of here. That is not rubber stamp. That is hard-fought due diligence done not just in the Budget Committee that puts some limits on our appropriations, but done in every appropriations committee within the limits of the authorizations that are done by the standing committees, and in that process we are carrying out our constitutional obligation and doing due diligence, Mr. Speaker. Not a rubber stamp. And if it were a rubber stamp, the President's budget would get a rubber stamp. There wouldn't be deliberations here, and he would get his way. Sometimes he gets his way; sometimes he does not. Sometimes the Congress holds sway over the President. But it is far from a rubber stamp in that process. Many of the initiatives that the President has brought forward have been denied by this Congress. And, in fact, the allegation that it is a rubber-stamp Congress fits right into the same breath as ``the President wants to privatize Social Security.'' Well, there are two things wrong with that statement. The President has never stated that he wanted to privatize Social Security and neither has anyone in Congress who I know of. In fact, I would challenge the minority to identify a public statement by any Member of Congress that they wanted to privatize Social Security. That is the mantra. That is the allegation. It is false. No one in this Republican majority has taken a position to privatize Social Security. Neither has the President, Mr. Speaker. The President has stepped forward and said, I want to reform Social Security. Well, one of the promises that just got made by the other side was they would fix Social Security and they would balance the budget. We know that the only way, with the propensity for spending that comes from that side of the aisle, to balance the budget, would be if we raise taxes, raise taxes, raise taxes. And then it only lasts for a little while until business activity begins to shrink, shrink, shrink; and at that point you could either make a decision on whether you want to cut taxes to stimulate the economy or whether you want to continue to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Rubber-stamp Congress, Mr. Speaker? Rubber-stamp Congress? The President wanted Social Security reform. He went out in the cities of America before gathering after gathering, before the media, everywhere he could and invested a tremendous amount of political capital just in the aftermath of his fantastic second inaugural address that took place here on the west portico of the Capitol building. We left that address full of enthusiasm and optimism for the second term of President George W. Bush. And the agenda that he drove was to reform Social Security, save it so it doesn't go bankrupt, save it so it can be there for the next generations, and preserve and protect and guarantee the sacred covenant we have with the senior citizens. We pledged that we will hold their benefits together, that we will not increase the funds that are paid into that. We will not increase the payroll tax. We will hold the benefits together for the senior citizens, and the President proposed an opportunity for young people to take a portion of their payroll tax Social Security contribution and put that into a personal retirement account, a limited retirement account. Not a wild investment kind of a venture capital thing but a controlled kind of investment that the Federal employees all have access to as part of their pension program that they have. Tried, true, very popular among Federal employees. Offer the same thing to young people in America and guaranteed to our seniors. The President invested a tremendous amount of political capital and a logical, rational solution for Social Security. And what happened, Mr. Speaker, was the other side of the aisle demagogued the issue and over and over again stated, they want to privatize your Social Security. They want to turn it over into the markets. They want to dump it into Wall Street, and it is all going to blow up and the markets will crash and everybody will be broke and live in poverty forever after. That was the demagoguery that America was faced with, and that scared senior citizens off their support that was necessary to reform Social Security. That demagoguery costs Social Security reform. The very people that stood in the way of it are the ones that are now tonight saying, we will fix it. But, you know, Mr. Speaker, they don't have the tools to do that. They demagogued the only tools that can fix Social Security unless you want to just raise the rates. And if you want to raise the rates, there is no sense in doing it next year because it is something that could be adjusted anytime along the way. But the truth is that there is a surplus coming into Social Security right now, and that Social Security trust fund is a little over $1.7 trillion, and that is an IOU from the government to the government. They are actuall bonds printed on cheap copy paper, no more valuable than this piece of paper right here, Mr. Speaker. And those bonds are in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, West Virginia, keeping track, stacking up, 3, 4, 5, $8 billion to a bond, an IOU from the government to the government. And even when we use the resources from the year when this runs out, and this surplus runs out in about 2017, that is when the revenue stream goes negative. When the revenue stream goes negative, we are going to have to find some money because that $1.7 trillion is not money. It is IOUs from the government to the government. It is like writing yourself an IOU and then putting it in your pocket. Well, I am going to cash that IOU in on myself in about 2017. But even if that money were there, over the period of time from 2017 until 2042, that fund of $1.7 trillion, which will have grown substantially by then, will diminish and reduce itself down to zero by 2042, Mr. Speaker. So the reform that is promised here tonight on the other side of the aisle can only be, We will raise the rates and we will take it out of the pockets of the working people. In fact, the working people of America pay the highest percentage of their revenue into payroll tax of anybody in the country. We look at a regressive tax, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but especially Social Security is a regressive tax. It is .0765, 15.3 percent altogether for the payroll tax. And that 15.3 percent, if you do that calculation, and I do not have the number in front of me, but it will be in the area of for the first $10,000 you earn, you will pay $1,500 in tax. That becomes a 15 percent tax on the payroll of someone who is making only $10,000. And once you go up, that percentage rate you hit the trigger, the cap point, and then the percentage that you pay in a payroll tax goes down. So this is a regressive tax that would be increased in order to, I suppose, keep a promise in the first 100 days that we would reform Social Security. But you are not told we are going to increase your payroll tax on the poorest people in America, the highest percentage, the most regressive tax, we are going to increase it. It is the only solution if you are not willing to allow young people to have a portion that they earn to invest so that they could have the same kind of benefits that our senior citizens have today, and the same kind of benefits that we guarantee to our people that are, say, 50 and above all over the United States today. We will keep that sacred covenant with our seniors. And I stand here and say this, Mr. Speaker, and I am confident when I make this pledge, and I am confident that I represent perhaps the most senior congressional district in America. The State of Iowa has the highest percentage of its population over the age of 85 of all of the States in the Union. And in the 99 counties in Iowa, of those 99 counties, I represent 10 of the 12 most senior counties in Iowa. We are healthy. We get fresh air. We work. We get exercise. And we live longer in western Iowa than maybe anyplace else in America, for a congressional district. But out of that 10 of the 12 most senior counties in Iowa in the Fifth Congressional District, and Iowa being perhaps the most senior State in the Union, I believe I represent the most senior congressional district in America. When I stand here, Mr. Speaker, and say, we will keep this sacred covenant with our seniors, we will not raise the rates on you, and we will not reduce the benefits, that is our pledge to you. You are the greatest generation. You have carried the torch for us ever since you cut your teeth on the Depression and fought and won World War II, carried us through the victory in the Cold War, and the transition into this time when we will keep our pledge. The promise to reform Social Security in the face of that, I would be interested in the details of that plan, Mr. Speaker. But a rubber-stamp Congress? Cannot possibly be. That argument cannot sustain itself at the same time that you demagogue the President's need and leadership to reform Social Security. You demagogue that issue and then say you are a rubber stamp. If this had been a rubber-stamp Congress, Mr. Speaker, the President would have by now had Social Security reform. Most of us wanted to vote for it. We did not have the 218 votes or we would have passed it, and it would no longer be an issue. But it was killed by the other side. And now they say rubber-stamp Congress. The argument does not hold up. If you cannot pass the President's agenda, no matter how hard you try, you are not a rubber-stamp Congress. And that is not the only thing, Mr. Speaker, but there are a series of those. And then the argument that things would get done within 100 days, does that include the Senate? We pass an awful lot of legislation out of this House of Representatives. This is no do-nothing House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. We have sent piece of legislation after piece of legislation over to the Senate, where it goes over there to die a death of asphyxiation because they cannot crack the 60 votes that is necessary to beat the filibuster, the cloture vote. Who are the people over there obstructing legislation? The people that are in the minority in the Senate, just like the people that are in the minority here in the House of Representatives, the ones who are obstructors, pointing their finger at the people that have been passing legislation and actively moving policy that is good for America and saying, you are do-nothing. Well, if nothing gets finally accomplished and onto the President's desk for a signature, it is not because this House of Representatives did nothing. In fact, it is not because the Republican leadership in the United States Senate did nothing; it is because the obstructors in the minority party on each side of the aisle stepped in the way, did everything they could to slow down the process, obfuscated the issue, demagogued the issue, and then said, you are do-nothing. That would be like having somebody dump sugar in your gas tank and then argue that you were not there on time when you went to go to work, blame you for something that they did. Another case in point would be the energy issue that was raised here. We are going to solve the energy problem in America is what was said. We have been working to solve this energy problem in America. And, Mr. Speaker, and for the information of the minority leader in the United States Congress, I will point out that we are producing more renewable energy than any country in the world today, right now, today. I have heard people on this side of the aisle say we need to go to Brazil and learn what they are doing with ethanol down there, because we need to do what they are doing. Well, the problem with that is two- or three- or tenfold, Mr. Speaker. And one of them is Brazil is producing ethanol out of sugar cane. We do not have a lot of sugar cane here; we are not likely to get a lot of sugar cane here. But we are producing it out of corn. And we will produce it out of cellulosic material such as switchgrass, cornstalks, hay grounds, you name it. But to go down to Brazil to learn what they are doing with ethanol, when they are making it out of sugar cane, and they are making a lot of it with archaic equipment, when Brazil, even though they burn far less ethanol than we do, cannot produce enough to meet their own needs, and to repeat the argument that Brazil is a 100 percent, they are burning 100 percent ethanol, it was not made here tonight, that I heard, Mr. Speaker, and I want to clarify that, but I have heard that on this floor before, that is a false statement when you hear that. I went down to Brazil. I looked at their operations down there. I went to their ethanol production and their car production facilities. I went to their gas stations. I drove down their roads. They only have 20,000 miles of hard-surfaced roads in Brazil. And their ethanol production, as a percentage of the gallons burned on the roads, all of the roads in Brazil, is only 15 percent; not 100 percent, 15 percent. That is all, Mr. Speaker. If you take out of that mix the diesel-burning vehicles, the cars and the trucks that are burning diesel fuel and just get them down to the vehicles that are flex-fuel gas burners, ethanol burners, those cars that can conceivably be retrofitted to burn ethanol, then your number becomes 37 percent of that is ethanol, and the balance is gasoline. They have a blend. We burn a 10 percent blend in Iowa. That is popular across the country. That is a standard ethanol mix. But the blend that they use is 25 percent. When we got down there, they had just dropped the 25 percent blend down to 20 percent because Brazil did not have enough ethanol to meet the demands of their marketplace. So they burn more gas, less ethanol, did not have enough sugar cane, and were not able to produce enough ethanol, and we are considering going down there to learn from them. Mr. Speaker, I would submit the United States of America produces a lot more ethanol than Brazil does now or ever will. And we are in an aggressive growth mode. It is such an aggressive growth mode that now, in fact today, there is discussion in the hearing in the Ag Committee about how we are going to have enough grain left over to feed our livestock if a huge percentage of it goes to fuel production. And I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that in my congressional district there were producers there that for the first time, I will say the first time anywhere, the first time in history, owned shares that were invested in an ethanol production facility for corn, and a biodiesel production facility for biodiesel. And so they had to make a decision do I plant more soybeans because I am likely to get a better return off my shares invested in the biodiesel plant, soybeans go into that diesel, or do I plant more corn because I am likely to realize more profit when my corn goes into my ethanol plant. What do I do? I have got, say, 1,000 acres. How do I balance that all out? Those questions were being asked by producers when they put the crop in the ground this spring for the first time ever, and next year there will be hundreds more with the same happy predicament, Mr. Speaker. And the list goes on and on. And in the Fifth District where we are close to the number one ethanol producer in America, I believe we will be there by the end of next year, there are at least 14 ethanol production facilities that are up and running, on the drawing boards, or have broken ground, or are under construction, one of those three phases, at least 14 in the congressional district, the 32 counties in western Iowa that I represent. And there are more of them out there that I have not caught up with the business transaction on that yet. But there is a tremendous amount of investment going into ethanol production all throughout the Corn Belt. We started, actually Minnesota initiated some very good policy that initiated home-grown engineering that has now grown into the region where I live, and into that region in Minnesota, north central Iowa, western Iowa, and parts of South Dakota and Nebraska as well. That home-grown engineering has been a real, real asset to the development of ethanol production. But we produce far more ethanol in the United States than they do in Brazil. We have more modern technology than they have in Brazil. There will be over $1 billion of capital investment in my congressional district this year alone put on the ground for renewable energy production facilities, including wind chargers. So there is a lot of progress being made economically. But, Mr. Speaker, there is also a lot of progress being made to provide this supply of ethanol, and provide this supply of biodiesel with the renewable fuels that take the burden off of Middle Eastern oil and give us more freedom, more autonomy, and make us less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. That is what is going on with energy from the renewable energy perspective. It is a dynamic time. I would add, also, that in the State of Iowa, if you add the counties that are in our neighboring States, one county in Minnesota, Illinois, I better say Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, that circle of our neighboring States, just one county in, you add that to the ethanol production facilities within the State of Iowa, and you are looking at about 61 ethanol plants all together. Sixty-one. And they will probably all not get built. But if they do, they will be able to process every kernel of corn that we produce in the State of Iowa, which causes us to have to make some adjustments. Absolutely. Up until just a few days ago, all of the biodiesel production in Iowa was in the Fifth Congressional District, Mr. Speaker. And we are aggressively building out biodiesel production. That is going to go out to the limits of the Soybean Belt. Ethanol production is going to go to the limit of the Corn Belt. And cellulosic is a few years away, but there is high, high hopes for what it can do with the potential for energy. Those things are happening. They are happening now. We provided the tax credits. We have put the structure in place so that individual entrepreneurs could invest their capital, could put together the business transactions so that we can have ethanol production and biodiesel production that is large in scale, efficient in its operations, and available to the American consumer like it is today in growing quantities. These plants are averaging 75 million gallons a year, roughly, or more. It is a significant quantity of renewable fuels. Who is going to solve this energy problem? The people that are here that have provided for the ethanol, biodiesel, the people that have passed legislation that is going to provide for better sitings and more sitings for the refinery of crude oil that comes into this country. And we cannot refine all of our crude oil anymore because it has been an environmentalist barrier that has blocked the construction of oil refineries, and it has limited our ability to process. So we find ourselves buying more gas, more diesel fuel on the market rather than refining from crude oil and keeping those jobs here in the United States. Who stands in the way of that, Mr. Speaker? The people on this side of the aisle. The people that argue that, well, you cannot have that oil refinery in my back yard, the NIMBY phobia. You cannot have that oil drilling rig offshore from my State. And so we have this situation where we are growing the renewable energies in the United States aggressively and dramatically, and at the same time we are sitting on a tremendous amount of oil, a tremendous amount of natural gas, being blocked by environmentalist elements that you will find in that caucus in huge numbers, in my conference in very small numbers. But it is not the Republicans that are holding the energy development up in the United States, it is the other party that is doing that, Mr. Speaker. We need to be drilling up there on the North Slope of Alaska. We did so successfully starting back in 1972. That has been an environmentally friendly operation going on up there, and one of the measures would be that the caribou herd in 1972 was 7,000 head, and now, as of about 3 years ago, the last numbers I have seen, that caribou herd is 28,000 head. Now, we could not have damaged the environment and had that kind of a growth in the caribou herd on the North Slope. But if you go east to ANWR, the same kind of topography, there just is not a native caribou herd. They do come in from Canada and have their calves there and go back again about the middle of June, the latter part of June. But we can do even better there with the new technology that we have. What nation, what nation, especially an energy-dependent nation, would sit here and refuse to tap into massive supplies of crude oil that we know lay underneath the North Slope of Alaska, in ANWR, along the shore in the arctic coastal plain? What nation would leave that oil there and buy from the Middle East and buy it from Hugo Chavez? The more money we send to them, the more belligerent they get, Mr. Speaker. It defies logic. But it is being held up by that side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, not this side of the aisle. Outer continental shelf drilling, we know there is a minimum conservative investment of 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore. We are trying to open up the legislation to get that drilled. It is a narrow little transaction going on. We should do far more. We should simply open up the whole thing and let development come in and start pumping that gas out, pump the oil out, get it into this market, grow the size of the energy pie, provide more and more Btus of energy from all sources, and then start apportioning the percentages of those sources according to whether they are a finite or a renewable source so that we can have a well-managed energy policy. Mr. Speaker, I think we can get there. We are moving down that path. But every time a person on that side of the aisle is elected to this Congress, there is a great risk, and the odds are they are going to vote with the green interests, whether they understand the issue or not. That is why we have trouble with our energy policy. That is why this Congress can't open up those energy fields. And do not be deluded for a minute, Mr. Speaker, into thinking that there is going to be an opening up of ANWR or the outer continental shelf if there happens to be some people from the other side of the aisle that will get their hands on a gavel. There be less of that kind of energy, not more. Energy prices will go up. If you believe in the law of supply and demand, there would be under their scenario less supply. There would probably be then more demand, which means the price would go up on energy. They will not solve the energy problem. We have offered the solutions here, and we have had to squeeze them past them, and we are going to keep doing that until such time as the American people send us more allies here to get this job done even better. So, the idea of the energy situation is something that I think that needs to be explored. And if were a rubber stamp Congress, as the other side of the aisle alleges, then we would be drilling in ANWR right now, we would be drilling on the outer continental shelf right now, Mr. Speaker. We would have a significant supply of energy for the American people to consume. Oil wouldn't have peaked out there above $75 a barrel. Thankfully it is down now. I would like to tell you that I am going to take responsibility for the gas prices here over the last couple of weeks. I don't have any credit for changing those prices in the last couple of weeks. I would like to take credit for it, but I can't. But I bought gas for $2.10 last weekend, Mr. Speaker, just last weekend. $2.10. It was up over $3 gallon, I remember $3.07 a gallon perhaps a month ago. So as the price of gas spirals downward, part of that is because you have marginal wells that weren't pumping, there wasn't profit for them to be pumping, and when oil prices went up, it paid them to pump that oil out on to the market. So when you raise the price, you can buy a lot more oil, and a lot more oil gets explored. Chevron found a tremendous find down in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is one of the largest finds anywhere at any time. As that field gets developed, that will change the price of oil worldwide and it will make it more available to us here in the Western Hemisphere. So I am looking forward to moving forward. We will solve every energy problem here in the United States of America. We have the ability to do that. We have the incentive to do that. We just need to get the people out of the way that don't take a rational position, but take a protectionist position. I would challenge them, if we should be starved for energy, Mr. Speaker, I would say to them if we should be starved for energy, then where do you stand on opening up ANWR so we can get that into the pipeline? Where do you stand on opening up the outer continental shelf? I think we know, Mr. Speaker, because the votes are on the board. We have had a number of votes on those issues in here, and we know what happens. The other side of the aisle blocks those agendas and they don't produce a constructive result. They simply say ``we need to pass a law that says Detroit has to make a car that gets 50 miles to the gallon.'' Then that fixes everything. Well, it just may not be possible to make a car that will haul my family that will get 50 miles to the gallon, so to legislate that kind of efficiency is not a very good return on our legislative investment, Mr. Speaker. So, a number of these promises will not be kept, and I am trusting the American people won't provide that opportunity, because they will understand that. But I would like to shift us over, if I could, Mr. Speaker, to another field of interest, and that field of interest would be the Afghanistan and the Iraq theaters that are there. As we review those circumstances, I have been refreshed on the issues that are before us in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that we have exceeded the expectations in Afghanistan for a long time. Yes, we have conflict going on there now. There has been some resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. We need to keep in mind also that these kind of conflicts are seasonal. This is the seasonal push that wraps up, and by winter they go back into the mountains and hole up again, it is too cold at the high altitudes, so there isn't a lot of activity going on in the wintertime. But when the weather is warm and people can move about, that is when our troops have been attacked and that is when we have descended upon them. But every time it has been the Taliban that has dramatically lost the encounter. And it will continue to take some of these kinds of operations in Afghanistan for a considerable length of time. But while this is going on, NATO troops are standing up, American troops are supporting them, and troops from other countries are coming in under the command of NATO. We are getting Afghanistan handed over more to the coalition of international forces underneath a NATO banner. That is a very good thing, Mr. Speaker, and it is a very positive transition that is taking place in Afghanistan. We need to understand that when you go into a country that has no tradition of a liberal democracy, no tradition of being able to go to the polls and vote, select their national leaders, direct their national destiny, they don't have that tradition, they don't have the experience, they don't have the culture that they can get to this place where we are fortunate to be in this country without some help and guidance, and are glad for that help and guidance and they are reacting towards it and they have had a significant amount of stability in Afghanistan that has flowed from the liberation that took place within a couple of months of the September 11 attacks here on the United States. I consider it to be a very successful operation in Afghanistan. We need also to keep in mind that there are elements there that do cause violence. One of them is just the tribal conflicts that have gone on there for century after century. Those tribal conflicts still exist. We would be deluding ourselves if we tried to convince ourselves that there are not going to be tribal conflicts going on over the next decade or half a century or maybe even a century. It is hard for that to get all put away. So there are likely to be some flare-ups that are just tribal conflicts in Afghanistan. That is the way it has been. That is the frictions that have been there for millennia, and that is the frictions that are likely to be there at least into the future of our lifetimes. So there will be violence that comes from tribal conflicts. There will also be conflicts that come from the temporary resurgence of cells of the Taliban. We are always able to go into those areas and pacify those areas, and the local people have been supportive of our troops and they are supportive of the NATO troops. So that is an issue that we will have to continue with. Then there is just plain simple criminality that goes on. It goes on in any country in varying degrees, and at some point you get the rest the violence toned down, the Taliban violence, some of the tribal violence that is more likely to happen under these circumstances today than it might be when there is more stability in Afghanistan. So when the tribal violence gets toned down and the tribal violence gets toned down, then we are just left with the criminal violence that is there for the most part, and it needs to get toned down to where it is manageable, and at that point the police force takes over. So the progress that is being made in Afghanistan should give us good cheer. It should give us good optimism. It has exceeded the expectations of this Congress, and it is to the credit of our President, it is to the credit of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Pace, General Myers, who has commanded this during that particular period of time, our commanding officers, our intelligence, our logistics. Our troops on the ground, our soldiers and Marines that have served so well and honorably, have turned out a result in Afghanistan that exceeded our expectations and continues to be promising. So, Afghanistan is moving along at an optimistic rate. In Iraq, Iraq, Mr. Speaker, has been a little more difficult. In fact, significantly more difficult, but far from hopeless. Far, far from hopeless. The allegation was made today that in Iraq we are in a civil war. I have defined a civil war here on this floor before Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those who don't think it through. For the benefit of those that want to throw that term around without being challenged on the validity or accuracy of their prediction, they say ``civil war'' because I think secretly, well, not in secret, a civil war in Iraq would serve their political interests. I don't know what they secretly wish for, but a civil war in Iraq would serve the opposition to this White House, to this majority, it serves their political interest. So they come to this floor regularly and say civil war in Iraq, civil war in Iraq. It can't be substantiated by fact. I have defined what a civil war would like look. It would be when the Iraqi military, Kurds and Shi'as and Sunnis alike, put on the same uniform, strap on the same helmet, charge into the same combat situations together, guarding each other's back, when those people that are defending the freedom and the safety and providing for the security in Iraq, the Iraqi military, that are now over 300,000 strong, when they choose up sides and start shooting at each other, that, Mr. Speaker, would be the definition of a civil war. It is not a civil war. It is not likely to be a civil war. But there is rising sectarian violence that does threaten some stability in Iraq. It is also the violence that comes from the insurgents, from the terrorists, from al Qaeda. Those people are a smaller percentage. But we have to discourage and eliminate the local militias taking that security into their own hands. That security needs to be in the hands of the authorized personnel from the government of Iraq that ultimately will end up answering to Prime Minister Maliki in that pyramid chain of command that has to go out through that country. As the days and weeks and months go by, more and more Iraqis are trained, more and more are performing well, and more and more the Iraqi people are starting to see that their future is with a strong and prosperous and unified Iraq. I want to give credit to a good idea, Mr. Speaker, that came from the gentleman who has added so much to the fiscal discussion in America, Mr. Steve Forbes. His idea was, and I have given it some thought and it is intriguing to me and I am inclined to be supportive and ready to endorse such a concept, Mr. Speaker, but he suggests that all the oil revenues in Iraq really belong to the Iraqi people. A significant percentage of those revenues need to go to the government of Iraq in order to run the government and fund the operations that go on there. But to set aside a percentage of that oil revenue and then divide that up among Iraqis, so much to each Iraqi citizen. He said if you did that in the fashion that Alaska does that with their people, I believe he said that the annual check for being an Alaskan that comes from the oil revenue is about $834 a year. If that number, $834 a year, is something that provides for Alaskans to have a stake in Alaska, can you imagine what a similar check like that would do for Iraqis to have a stake in Iraq? The idea that if the oil flows out of Iraq, prosperity flows in, you are not cut out of that economic equation if you are an Iraqi. If you register yourself as an Iraqi with an address, you end up with a group of citizens from Iraq that are on a certified voter registration list, a list of people there, people who will live by their own identification and have to because that check will find them if they are who they say they are. It is an intriguing idea. It is an interesting idea, because it does unify and move towards the unification of the Iraqi people. If they all have a vested interest in producing a lot of oil and shipping that oil out of Iraq and those royalty checks that would come in, come into the national coffers and be distributed out to the Iraqi people, they are going to be keeping their eyes out when somebody comes out to sabotage a pipeline or an oil well or a refinery or a distribution terminal out in the Gulf. They will protect their interests, and they will all line up, I believe then, against the people that are seeking to destabilize Iraq. It is a good idea, and it is an idea that I hope our President takes a look at and one that can be discussed over in the Middle East. But this was never going to be easy, and the idea that Iraq is a diversion in this global war against Jihad fascism could not be more erroneous. Mr. Speaker, if Iraq was not a threat to us, then what other Nations were not a threat to us? I would ask, produce that list. Put them up on the board so we do not have to worry about them anymore, and we do not have to send anyone in there or be prepared with a military contingency plan. We can simply turn our focus on to the place where the folks on the other side of the aisle allege we ought to be putting it which I do not know where that is, Mr. Speaker. All I know is they tell us where it is is not, and they contend Iraq was never a threat. In fact, today, in the aftermath of Hugo Chavez's speech before the United Nations, Mr. Speaker, that nearly frothing at the mouth, radical, emotional, unstable speech that was delivered by Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela on the floor of the United Nations, where he said things about our President that were way beyond the pale, and remarks that the junior senator from Iowa said, I can understand where he is coming from. He said there were people by the thousands that lit a candle and marched in Tehran September 11 in support of the United States and in sympathy with the United States for being victimized on that day by those terrorist attacks and that all of the Muslim world was on our side on that day. This is the statement of the junior senator from Iowa, Mr. Speaker, but you know, it needs to have a different clarification. There may have been people walking in the streets of Tehran that lit a candle in solidarity with the United States. I would expect they were the people that were the moderate Muslims, the ones who were well- educated, and they were working towards a future and they had a measure of freedoms until the Ayatollah came in 1979. I imagine those people that were walking with candles with solidarity towards the United States back in 2001, September 11, were the very people that are our allies today. But the junior senator said we turned them all into enemies and now we have polarized and alienated the Muslim world against the United States. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that a more objective truth is the truth that in almost every major Muslim city in the world on September 11, when that hit the news, there were people dancing in the streets with glee because the United States had suffered those blows on that day. That is the reality of it. They showed their true colors. In fact, in some of the Muslim enclaves in the United States, people took to the streets to celebrate, and in some of the mosques in the United States, the Imam preached about what kind of blow was landed on the United States favorably. These are facts of historical reality, Mr. Speaker, and I have spoken towards the tale end of this about just the United States, but across the world we have had radical Islam line up against us and it is not just because we are the ally of Israel. I will say that Israel is the bulls-eye in this global war that is going on right now. They would like to annihilate Israel because they see that as doable. They would like to annihilate the United States because they believe we are the antithesis of their culture. I would submit that it is not a culture they represent. I would ask this question. In the last 700 years, Mr. Speaker, is there anything in that culture that is aligned against us, radical Islam, is there any contribution that that civilization has made in the last 700 years that would be a contribution in the area of math or science or physics or chemistry, any kind of medicine? Is there any kind of contribution in the last 700 years, Mr. Speaker? I hope that there is someone that can come up with a contribution in 700 years from that civilization that has declared war on us. I cannot find it. I asked Middle Eastern scholars to find it for me. They seem to be stumped as well, Mr. Speaker. And so is it a civilization that we are at war with or is it a defunct civilization, hardly a civilization at all, one that lashes out, one that worships death, one that we could never understand and should not try because it is not rational? It is not rational from a Western civilization viewpoint. No deductive reasoning approach will help us figure out the Middle Eastern, suicide Jihadists, fascist mind. But what we must do is change the habitat for the people who believe that their path to salvation is in killing us. That culture has to change or this war will not be over, and this price that has been paid with nearly 3,000 lives on September 11 and nearly another 3,000 lives since that period of time in the theaters of Afghanistan and in Iraq, will continue to mount week by week, month by month, year by year in a perpetual conflict until such time as we change the culture of the people who believe their path to salvation is in killing us. Mr. Speaker, it is not Islam. It is not the Muslims that are the problem. They are the host upon which the parasite Islamic fascist lives, and a parasite will attach itself to a host, which Islamic fascism does to Islam. It will feed off the host, which Islamic fascism does to Islam, and it will reproduce on the host, which Islamic fascism does to Islam. Sometimes it attacks the host. Sometimes it drops off and attacks another species, goes through another cycle and attaches itself back to the host again. That is what is going on, and I am asking the moderate Muslim world, help us eradicate the parasite from within your midst. That is the only way we can do it in a relatively painless fashion. It must happen because they have pledged death to all of us who do not subscribe to their perverted version of the religion. So, Mr. Speaker, those are the circumstances that face us and the people that dance in the streets with glee in Muslim cities in the world where radical Islamists, the Islamic fascists, the people who are at war with us, and it is not that we made them enemies after that period of time. It is not that going into Afghanistan or going into Iraq made them enemies. They were our enemies before then. They danced in the streets on the very day that the junior senator from Iowa said there were folks in Iran carrying candles, and I thank those people in Iran. I believe they were, but I believe they are still with us. Our enemies are still against us. That dynamic has not changed except for the habitat has changed in Afghanistan and changed in Iraq. No longer can either one of those locations be a terrorist staging area, terrorist training grounds or terrorist breeding grounds. That has changed because freedom has arrived in both of those locations, even though we have got some work to do in Iraq. I would shift to another subject matter, Mr. Speaker, and one that I think is important to have a brief discussion on. We have taken some significant steeps here on the floor of this Congress to resolve the biggest problem that this United States has, and that is, how are we going to provide national security if we do not control our borders, if we do not enforce our immigration laws, if we cannot bring together a solution that resolves this issue. The statement was made over here on the other side of the aisle that they would provide a comprehensive immigration reform policy. Well, that comprehensive immigration reform policy that they are talking about, Mr. Speaker, is the one the President presented. It is the one the Senate has passed. It is the one the President had endorsed. It is the one the Democrats want to vote for, and do you know, Mr. Speaker, if this had been a rubber stamp Congress, we would have comprehensive immigration reform. But the truth is, this House of Representatives has blocked the amnesty legislation that is proposed by the gentlewoman from California, the esteemed minority leader who spoke here on the floor within the last hour, and also by the President and also passed by the United States Senate. That is amnesty, pure and simple. Although it is complicated and convoluted, it has come back to the big scarlet A word, amnesty. The American people have rejected amnesty, amnesty in any form, amnesty by any name. They want enforcement. They understand that there is an average of 11,000 illegals pouring across our southern border, not every day, Mr. Speaker, every night. That is when the action starts. Every night, on average, 11,000 illegals pour across our southern border. The border patrol has testified here that they stop perhaps 25 percent to 33 percent. Testifying witnesses have also said that in the last fiscal year, the border patrol intercepted 1,188,000 in an attempt to come into the United States, just on our Mexican border. The year before it was 1,159,000 that were arrested trying to come across our Mexican border. Now, to do that calculation, Mr. Speaker, if you take the 25 percent number or someplace a little higher than that of interdiction that I gave, that means more than 4 million people attempted to cross our southern border last year and the year before. When I go down and talk to the border patrol agents and I say you are getting 25 percent enforcement on people that are breaking into the United States, they say, no. The most consistent number they give me is perhaps 10 percent, not 33 percent, not 25 percent, perhaps 10 percent. One officer who was an investigative officer and should have been in the position to know, when I posed the question to him and said do you stop 25 percent, he broke up in hysterical laughter, Mr. Speaker. He said, no, not 25 percent. I said how about 10 percent? Not 10 percent. About 3 to 5 percent is about all they stop. So calculate these numbers out. The population of the United States is growing, Mr. Speaker, and it is growing a number of ways. It is growing every night when 11,000 illegals pour across our southern border. For the period of time it works like this. Every 8 seconds, on average, another illegal comes into the United States. In that 8-second period of time, what is that comparable to? Oh, a bull ride, if you do not get bucked off, is 8 seconds. Every, I think the number is 7.6 seconds in America a baby is born. So every time a baby is born in America, an illegal jumps the border. Our population is growing simultaneously. Illegals in this column, newborn babies in this column and that graphical number is going up and up simultaneously almost to, well, within the 3 to 4/10ths of a second. Every 8 seconds an illegal crosses the border, every 7.6 a baby is born, and every time a bull rider gets on that bull, by the time you hear the bell, another illegal has jumped across the border. That is how intense this is. 11,000 people a night, 4 million people a year, and it goes on and on and on. The leadership and the majority in this Congress, the Republican majority, understand that it is a terrible wound in our border that has to have a tourniquet put on it. We have got to stop the bleeding, Mr. Speaker, and so we look at a number of ways to do that. I will say behind me is a model of the concrete model that I have designed, and that came not because I sat here and listened to testimony, although a lot of that data mattered. It did not come about because I listened to other people around here talk, although I listened to them. I put together a number of ideas, and a year and a month ago, I called for a fence on our southern border. It was an opening round that was designed to sell the idea, and the idea gained momentum although I was criticized roundly for such a radical statement, but the idea gained momentum, and 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days later, 114 days later, we passed the fence legislation off the House of Representatives, 700 miles, double wall much of it in the most important strategic locations, and leaves us open I believe to continue to build more fence on our southern border. We can put a fence in. We can put this concrete wall in that I have designed that is behind me here, Mr. Speaker, and we will do this, but the reason that we need to build a wall on the border, contrary to the position that was taken by one of our esteemed newspapers today is because we have an open border that is not even marked for hundreds of miles. Anybody that wants to, you can walk, crawl, run or drive, occasionally fly, across that border is free to do so. We have not even defined the border, and yet the force of 11,000 people a night, 4 million people a year, $65 billion worth of illegal drugs coming across that border and people that want to get a job and for a better life, I concede that point. The force of all of that together cannot be stopped by putting border patrol agents shoulder to shoulder on the border. We can do that. It would cost a lot of money, and we have to have backup people, but that is not the best and most economically viable solution. If we build a barrier, we can force all human traffic through the ports of entry. That is what I submit we do. I would put a chain link fence down on the border itself, and then I would put the concrete wall in 100 feet. I would design it this way. I would put wire on top, and that wall would be the structure that would be too difficult to cut through, pretty difficult to go dig under. It would have to be patrolled and have sensors, but I believe that this 25 percent effectiveness that we have today would turn into a 90 or 95 percent effectiveness if it is managed, maintained and controlled and has sensors put on it and cameras to back it up and we integrate our technology along with our physical barrier, Mr. Speaker. Then I would submit to the American people, if there are some things we have not considered adequately in this debate, this idea of a comprehensive bill that really says amnesty starts with a couple of premises, one of them is that there are Americans that will not do this work. And, truthfully, every single job there is to do in America is being done by natural-born Americans, people that have birthright citizenship here, those who are born to a mother and a father who are both citizens. Traditional Americans are doing every single kind of work there is in this country. We have a 30 percent dropout rate in our high schools in this country. Those young people who don't have a continuing education, that don't have a high school education, they need the lower-skilled jobs. Some of them, that is what they want out of life, but their opportunities are being taken from them by the price being undercut of money going to illegal workers in this country by the millions. The 30 percent of the dropouts then end up on welfare, on crime. They end up not being the quality of citizens that they could be, not realizing their potential, because the entry-level jobs and the kind of jobs that they haven't access to because of their limited education are being taken away by illegals. That is point number one on that issue. Then there is the argument of we don't have enough people to do this work. That is another falsehood, Mr. Speaker. And I would submit the response to it this way, that is, if you are a corporation and you are looking to move into a city or a town, a region, or community to establish a new production facility of some kind, and you need to know what the available labor supply is to evaluate that location versus perhaps several other locations, Mr. Speaker, what you would do is you would send a little team in there to evaluate the area, and you would meet with the mayor, the chamber of commerce, the development corporation, maybe meet with the law enforcement people to get a sense of what the crime rate was, and you would meet with the educational people and get a feel for that whole community. And to evaluate whether there is enough labor supply there, you wouldn't do what the advocates for amnesty are saying. They are saying, well, there is only a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, which means that is a full employment economy. Well, first of all, it is not, Mr. Speaker. During World War II, we had a 1.2 percent unemployment rate, and that still wasn't a full employment economy, but as close as it has been in the last century. So I submit that as a number to measure that is a lot closer to full employment than 4.7 percent. Just the same, there are 7.3 million people in the United States that are on unemployment. That is not the only number you would look at if you are a corporation looking to place a facility in a location. You would go in there and do a study and say, not how many are on unemployment, yes give me that number, but your question would be, what is the available labor supply? And what is the educational level of these workers? And what is the wage scale here? And what are we going to have to provide for benefits to compete for these employees? You would ask those questions and you would get your answer. And for the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, it works out this way, the available labor supply is this: We have 143 million people working. We have 7.3 million people that are unemployed. But we have not in the workforce between the ages of 16 and 69, 61,375,000. Pardon me, that is to the age of 74. Wal-Mart hires people to be greeters there and they enjoy their days. So that is 61,375,000. You add to that the unemployment rate, and I look at this number on this chart, 7,591,000, the most current number that I have. It takes me up to 69 million nonworking Americans. So if you would like to reduce that smaller number there, that is about 7 million or so between the ages of 70 and 74, fine, you can take this number down to 61 or 62 million people. But we have maybe, maybe 7 million working illegals in America and maybe 70 million nonworking Americans. So what kind of a rational policy would not hire one out of 10 of the nonworking Americans rather than bring in tens of millions of people here, 66 million people by a significant number of analysis of the Senate version of the bill, match the total number of all Americans naturalized in all of our history, double that, 66 million from 1820 until the year 2000 and another 66 million, and employ about 60 percent of them and end up with having to support the deficiencies in health care and a burden on the infrastructure when you have got 70 million people in America that are not in the workforce today that are of working age. Mr. Speaker, this approach often defies logic. The people that have a vested interest are the ones that are driving this debate. The libertarian powerful business interests on the other side, they are making money on this deal and they are using that money to advance an illogical approach that does not take into consideration the long-term best interests of the United States of America. And the liberals on the other side see political power, so open the borders. And that is why they are hollering and calling for what they call a comprehensive immigration plan, which is an amnesty plan that would bring in 66 million new people. And what we know about them is when they come into a place, they will assimilate into the politics of the locale where they arrive. And that means they aren't going to be bipartisan split down the middle. If you can get them to go into a Democrat enclave, that is what they are going to be. If you could get them to go into a Republican enclave, that is what they are going to be. If anybody doubts that, just ask yourselves, how many Irish Catholic Bostonian Republicans do you know? I understand there are two. I know one. They have not assimilated into the politics of the rest of America; they stay in their political enclave. That is what will happen with the newly arriving immigrants into this country as well, just to add another point to all this, Mr. Speaker. So I submit we need to establish an immigration policy that is designed to enhance the economic, the social, and the cultural well- being of the United States of America and use those considerations and no other. If we do anything otherwise, we are opening up our borders to be the relief valve for poverty, and we know that there are at least 4.5 billion people on the planet that have a lower standard of living than the average citizen in Mexico. And so we cannot be the relief valve for poverty unless we are willing to accept a population in the United States that would exceed, say, 5 billion people or more. What should the population of the United States be 50 years from now, 100 years from now? A significant question. What is our future? What is our destiny? This is a long-term issue, and it is one that needs to have serious consideration. But enforcement, seal the border, and birthright citizenship, shut off the jobs magnet is what we will do, and we will build a fence and we will start it this year.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for yielding and for her leadership on this important issue. And I also thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for his support for this resolution and for his leadership on many of these foreign relation issues that we have. I am very pleased to be here on the floor today, Madam Speaker, to address this issue; and I rise in support of H. Res. 942 to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Iranian constitutional revolution. The current totalitarian regime of the ayatollahs presents a threat to world peace. It is important to recognize that Iranian history contains within itself the evidence of internal representative constitutional aspirations which would free the Iranian people of oppressive tyranny. In 1906, the people of Iran brought about a peaceful constitutional revolution to limit the autocratic power of a corrupt regime. As such, it was among the most significant turning points in Iranian history; it and resulted in the establishment of an elected parliament, the Majles, and the creation of a representative system of government, including checks and balances and the separation of powers. While the constitution that was ultimately drafted as a result of the revolution was never fully implemented in Iran, it presents the Iranian people with an important starting point in their present-day struggle to overcome the tyranny of the ayatollahs. Much like the situation that we currently see in Iran, before the revolution in 1906 Iran was ruled harshly by leaders who did not have to respond to the will of the people. As the people of Iran watched their leaders squander away their nation's land and resources, they were emboldened by the democratic revolutions that were at that time sweeping through Europe and Latin American. The people of Iran saw what was happening in other countries and demanded similar reforms. Just as today's Iranians see their needs overlooked in their leaders' attempts to hasten the coming of a worldwide radical Islamic state, the destruction of the assets of Iran before the 1906 revolution resulted in widespread poverty, food shortages and plague, though the rulers demonstrated no obligation to relieve the needs of the people. After years of agitation and a number of failed attempts to bring about representative constitutional reforms in cooperation with Iran's rulers, the reformists chose nonviolent means to establish their demands. Early in 1906, some 16,000 Iranians gathered in the mosques and the public places of Tehran, organized camps, commissaries, and sanitation facilities and established order; and they simply stayed there. In modern terms, it was a giant sit-in that lasted for weeks. And on August 5, 1906, Mozafareddin Shah signed a decree authorizing the creation of a freely elected Majles which was the first task of writing a permanent constitution. The constitution that was created was a modern representative document created upon the model of the Belgian Constitution that met all the requirements of the four demands of the revolutionary democratic movement. The establishment of an independent judiciary was one. The second was establishment of an independent legislature, with members directly elected by the people. The third was a socio-political progress, including the separation of religion from the affairs of government. I will repeat, the separation of religion. The fourth was a commitment of the government to the territorial integrity of Iran. And in 1907, in one of the most unfortunate events of the Iranian history, Mozafareddin Shah died, and with him died the full implementation of the representative constitution. Nevertheless, the 1906 constitution has always served as a beacon of liberty for those striving for freedom in Iran. All people on the face of the Earth ought to have the right to live under a constitutionally prescribed government that is representative and responsive to the will of the people. The 1906 Constitution of Iran provides the people of Iran with a blueprint for constitutional government that is a product of their culture and their needs. It has demonstrated that Iranians could come together, using their own resources and their own traditions, to create a liberal representative constitutional state. And even though a corrupt dictatorial reactionary regime has ruled in Iran since 1979, the 1906 Iranian Constitution inspires hope for a free Iran today. Madam Speaker, I hope the recognition contained in this bill can help inspire Iranians to rise up and expel their country's dictators. Given the current threat the Iranian regime poses to global security today, the whole world should join in supporting and encouraging the Iranian people's fight for freedom and constitutional representation. I ask my colleagues for support of this important legislation and pray for the day that all of God's children live in freedom and liberty. Draft 1906 Iran Constitution In the Name of God the Merciful, the Forgiving. WHEREAS in accordance with the Imperial edict dated the fourteenth of Jumada althani, A.H. 1324 (=August 5, 1906), a decree was issued for the establishment of a National Consultative Assembly, to promote the progress and happiness of our Kingdom and people, strengthen the foundations of our Government and give effect to the enactments of the Sacred Law of His Holiness the Prophet, AND WHEREAS, by virtue of the fundamental principle (therein laid down), we have conferred on each individual of the people of our realm, for the amending and superintending of the affairs of the common-wealth, according to their degrees, the right to participate in choosing and appointing the Members of this Assembly by popular election, THEREFORE the National Consultative Assembly is now opened, in accordance with our Sacred Command; and we do define as follows the principles and articles of the Constitutional Law regulating the aforesaid National Consultative Assembly, which Law comprises the duties and functions of the above- mentioned Assembly, its limitations, and its relations with the various ministries of the country. On the Constitution of the Assembly. Article 1--The national consultative assembly is founded and established in accordance with the Imperial edict of the fourteenth of the Jumada al-thani, A.H. 1324 (August 5, 1906). Article 2--The National Consultative Assembly represents the whole of the people of Iran, who (thus) participate in the economic and political affairs of the country. Article 3--The National Consultative Assembly shall consist of the members elected in Tehran and the provinces, and shall be held in Tehran. Article 4--The number of elected members of the national consultative assembly has been fixed, in accordance with the electoral law, separately promulgated, at one hundred and sixty-two, but in case of necessity the number of the members may be increased to two hundred. Article 5--The members of the national consultative assembly shall be elected for two whole years. This period shall begin on the day when all the representatives from the provinces have arrived in Tehran. On the conclusion of this period or two years, new representatives shall be elected, but the people shall have the option of re-electing any of their former representatives whom they wish and with whom they are satisfied. Article 6--The members of the national consultative assembly who have been elected to represent Tehran shall, as soon as they meet, have the right to convene the national consultative assembly and to begin their discussions and deliberations. During the period preceding the arrival of the provincial delegates, their decisions shall depend for their validity and due execution on the majority (by which they are carried). Article 7--On the opening of the debates, at least two thirds of the members of the national consultative assembly shall be present, and, when the vote is taken at least three quarters. A majority shall be obtained only when more than half of those present in the Assembly record their votes. Article 8--The periods of session and recess of the national consultative assembly shall be determined by the assembly itself, in accordance with such internal regulations as itself shall formulate. After the summer recess, the national consultative assembly must continue open and remain in session from the fourteenth day of the month of Mehr (Oct. 6th), which corresponds with the anniversary of the opening day of the first assembly. Article 9--The national consultative assembly can sit on occasions of extraordinary public holidays. Article 10--On the opening day of the national consultative assembly, an address shall be presented by it to His Imperial Majesty, and it shall afterwards have the honor of receiving an answer from that Royal and August quarter. Article 11--Members of the national consultative assembly, on taking their seats, shall take and subscribe to the following form of oath: (Form of the Oath.) ``We the undersigned take God to witness, and swear on the Qur'an, that, so long as the rights of the national consultative assembly and its members are observed and respected, in conformity with these regulations, we will, so far as possible, discharge, with the utmost truth, uprightness, diligence and endeavor, the duties confided to us; that we will act loyally and truthfully towards our just and honored sovereign, commit no treason in respect of either the foundations of the throne or the rights of the people, and will consider only the advantage and well-being of the people and the country of Iran.'' Article 12--No one, on any pretext or excuse, shall have any right, without the knowledge and approval of the national consultative assembly, to molest its members. Even in case of the members committing some crime or misdemeanor, and being arrested flagrante delicto, any punishment inflicted upon him must be with the cognizance of the national consultative assembly. Article 13--The deliberations of the national consultative assembly, in order that effect may be given to their results, must be public. According to the internal regulations of the assembly, journalists and spectators have the right to be present and listen, but not to speak. Newspapers may print and publish all the debates of the assembly, provided they do not change or pervert their meaning, so that the public may be informed of the subjects of discussion and the detail of what takes place. Everyone, subject to his playing due regard to the public good, may discuss them in the public press, so that no matter may be veiled or hidden from any person. Therefore all newspapers, provided that their contents are not injurious to any one of the fundamental principles of the government or the nation, are authorized and allowed to print and publish all matters advantageous to the public interest, such as the debates of the assembly, and the opinions of the people on these debates. But if anyone, actuated by interested motives, shall print in the newspapers or in other publications anything contrary to what has been mentioned, or inspired by slander or calumny, he will render himself liable to cross-examination, judgment and punishment, according to law. Article 14--The national consultative assembly shall organize and arrange, in accordance with separate and distinct regulations called the Internal Code of Rules, its own affairs, such as the election of a president, vice- presidents, secretaries, and other officers, the arrangements of the debates and formation of committees, etc. Duties of the Assembly, its Rights and its Limitations. Article 15--The national consultative assembly has the right in all matters and issues to propose any bill which it regards as conducive to the well-being of the government and the people, after due discussion and deliberation thereof in all sincerity and truth; and, having due regard to the majority of votes, to submit such bill, in complete confidence of safety and security, after it has received the approval of the senate, by means of the Prime Minister of the country, so that it may receive the Royal Approval and be duly carried out. Article 16--All laws necessary to strengthen the foundations of the country and throne and to set in order the affairs of the realm and the establishment of the ministries must be ratified by the national consultative assembly. Article 17--The national consultative assembly shall, when occasion arises, bring forward such bills as shall be necessary for the creation, modification, completion or abrogation of any law, and, subject to the ratification by the senate, shall submit it for the royal sanction, so that due effect may thereafter be given to it. Article 18--The regulation of all financial matters, the construction and regulation of the budget, all changes in fiscal arrangements, the acceptance or rejection of all incidental and subordinate expenditure, as also the new inspectorships (of finance) which will be founded by the Government, shall be subject to the approval of the national consultative assembly. Article 19--The national consultative assembly has the right, after the senate has given its approval, to demand from the ministers that effect shall be given to the bills thus approved for the reform of the finances and the facilitation of co-operation between the different departments of the Government by division of the departments and provinces of Iran and their respective offices. Article 20--The budget of each ministry shall be concluded during the latter half of each year for the following year, and shall be ready fifteen days before the festivities of Norooz. (March 21, the Iranian new year) Article 21--Should it at any time be necessary to introduce, modify or abrogate any bylaws regulating the (functions of the) ministries, such change shall be made only with the approval of the national consultative assembly, irrespective of whether the necessity for such action has been declared by the assembly or enunciated by the responsible ministers. Article 22--Any proposal to transfer or sell any portion of the national resources, or of the control exercised by the government or the throne, or to effect any change in the boundaries and frontiers of the kingdom, shall be subject to the approval of the national consultative assembly. Article 23--Without the approval of the national consultative assembly no concession for the formation of any public company of any sort shall, under any plea whatsoever be granted by the government. Article 24--The conclusion of treaties and covenants, the granting of commercial, industrial, agricultural and other concessions, irrespective of whether they are granted to Iranian or foreign nationals, shall be subject to the approval of the national consultative assembly, with the exception of treaties which, for reasons of state and the public advantage, must be kept secret. Article 25--All government and national loans, under whatever title, whether internal or external, must be contracted only with the cognizance and approval of the national consultative assembly. Article 26--The construction of railroads or chausses, at the expense of the government, or of any company, whether Iranian or foreign, depends on the approval of the assembly. Article 27--Wherever the assembly observes any defect in the laws, or any neglect in giving effect to them, it shall notify the same to the minister responsible for that department, who shall furnish all necessary explanations. Article 28--Should any minister, acting under misapprehension, issue on the royal authority, whether in writing or verbal, orders conflicting with one of the laws which have been enacted and have received the royal sanction, he shall admit his negligence and lack of attention, and shall, according to the law, be personally responsible to His Majesty. Article 29--Should a minister fail to give a satisfactory account of any affair conformable to the laws which have received the royal sanction, and should it appear in his case that a violation of such law has been committed, or that he has transgressed the limits imposed (on him), the assembly shall demand his dismissal from His Majesty, and should his treason be clearly established in a Court of Law, he shall not again be employed in the service of the State. Article 30--The Assembly shall, at any time when it considers it necessary, have the right to make direct representations to His Majesty by means of a committee consisting of the president of the national consultative assembly and six of its members chosen by the six ranks. This committee must ask permission, and make an appointment for an audience with His Majesty through the Chief of Protocol. (Wazir-i-Darbar). Article 31--Ministers have the right to be present at the sessions of the national consultative assembly, to sit in the places appointed for them, and to listen to the debates of the assembly. If they consider it necessary, they may ask the President of the assembly for permission to speak, and may give such explanations as may be necessary for purposes of discussion and investigation. On the Presentation of Issues to the National Consultative Assembly. Article 32--Any individual may submit in writing to the Petition Department of the Archives of the assembly a statement of his own case, or of any criticisms or complains. If the matter concerns the assembly itself, it will give him a satisfactory answer; but if it concerns one of the ministries, it will refer it to that ministry, which will enquire into the matter and return a sufficient answer. Article 33--New laws which are needed shall be drafted and revised in the ministries which are respectively responsible, and shall then be laid before the national consultative assembly by the responsible ministers, or by the Prime Minister. After being ratified by the assembly, and signed by His Majesty, they shall be duly put into force. Article 34--The President of the national consultative assembly can, in case of necessity, either personally, or on the demand often members of the assembly, hold a private conference, consisting of a selected number of members of the national consultative assembly, with any minister, from which private meeting newspaper correspondents and spectators shall be excluded, and at which other members of the assembly shall not have the right to be present. The result of the deliberations of such secret conference shall, however, only be confirmed when it has been deliberated in the said conference in presence of three quarter those selected (to serve on it), and carried by a majority of votes. Should the proposition (in question) not be accepted in the private conference, it shall not be brought forward in the national consultative assembly, but shall be passed over in silence. Article 35--If such private conference shall have been held at the demand of the president of the national consultative assembly, he has the right to inform the public of so much of the deliberations as he shall deem expedient; but if the private conference has been held at the demand of a minister, the disclosure of the deliberations depends on the permission of that minister. Article 36--Any minister can withdraw any matter which he has proposed to the assembly at any point in the discussion, unless his statement has been made at the instance of the assembly, in which case statement has been made at the instance of the assembly, in which case the withdrawal of the matter depends on the consent of the assembly. Article 37--If a bill introduced by any minister is not accepted by the national consultative assembly, it shall be returned, supplemented by the observations of the assembly; and the responsible minister, after rejecting or accepting the criticisms of the assembly, can propose the aforesaid bill a second time to the assembly. Article 38--The members of the national consultative assembly must clearly and plainly signify their rejection or acceptance of bills, and no one has the right to persuade or threaten them in recording their votes. The signification by the members of the assembly of such rejection or acceptance must be effected in such manner that newspaper correspondents and spectators also may perceive it, that is to say their intention must be signified by some outward sign such as (the employment of) blue and white voting-papers, or the like. On the Introduction of Bills and Other Proposals by the Assembly. Article 39--Whenever any bill is proposed by one of the members of the assembly, it can only be discussed when at least fifteen members of the assembly shall approve the discussion on that bill. In such case the proposal in question shall be forwarded in writing to the President of the assembly, who has the right to arrange that it shall be subjected to a preliminary investigation in a Committee of Enquiry. Article 40--On the occasion of the discussion and investigation of such bill as is mentioned in Article 39, whether in the assembly or in the Committee of Enquiry, notice shall be given by the assembly to the responsible minister, if any, concerning that bill, that if possible he himself, or, if not, his deputy, shall be present in the assembly, so that the debate may take place in the presence of one or other of them. The draft of the (proposed) bill, with its additions, must be sent from ten days to a month before the time (with the exception of matters added at the last moment) to the responsible minister; and so likewise the day of its discussion must be determined beforehand. After the bill has been discussed in the presence of the responsible minister, and in case it should, by a majority of votes, receive the approval of the assembly, it shall be officially transmitted in writing to the responsible minister, so that he may take the necessary actions to implement it. Article 41--If the responsible minister cannot, for any reason, agree with the national consultative assembly about the said bill, he must offer his excuses to it and give it satisfaction. Article 42--Should the national consultative assembly demand explanations on any matter from the responsible minister, the minister in question must give an answer, which answer must not be postponed unnecessarily or without plausible reason, save in the case of secret matters, the secrecy of which for some definite period is to the advantage of the country and the people. In such cases, on the lapse of the definite period the responsible minister is bound to disclose that matter in the assembly. On the Conditions Regulating the Formation of the Senate. Article 43--There shall be constituted another assembly, entitled the Senate, consisting of sixty members, the sessions of which, after its constitution, shall be contemporaneous to the sessions of the national consultative assembly. Article 44--The regulations of the Senate must be approved by the national consultative assembly. Article 45--The members of this assembly shall be chosen from amongst the well-informed, discerning, pious and respected persons of the realm. Thirty of them shall be nominated by His Imperial Majesty (fifteen of the people of Tehran, and fifteen of the people of the provinces), and thirty shall be elected by the people (fifteen elected by the people of Tehran, and fifteen elected by the people of the provinces). Article 46--After the convocation of the Senate, all proposals must be approved by both assemblies. If those proposals shall have been originated in the Senate, or by the cabinet of ministers, they must first be amended and corrected in the Senate and accepted by a majority of votes, and must then be approved by the national consultative assembly. But proposals brought forward by the national consultative assembly must, on the contrary, go from this assembly to the Senate, except in the case of financial matters, which belong exclusively to the national consultative assembly. The decision of the assembly, in respect to the above-mentioned proposals, shall be made known to the Senate, so that it in turn may communicate its observations to the national consultative assembly, but the latter, after due discussion, is free to accept or reject these observations of the Senate. Article 47--So long as the Senate has not been convoked, proposals shall, after being approved by the national consultative assembly, receive the Royal assent, shall then have the force of law. Article 48--If any proposal, after undergoing debate and revision in the Senate, be referred by a minister to the national consultative assembly, and be not accepted, such disputed proposal shall, in case of its being of importance, be reconsidered by a third assembly composed of members of the Senate and members of the national consultative assembly elected in equal moieties by members of the two assemblies. The decision of this (third) assembly shall be read out in the national consultative assembly. If it be then accepted, well. If not, a full account of the matter shall be submitted to His Majesty and should the Royal judgment support the view of the national consultative assembly, it shall become effective; but if not, orders will be issued for a fresh discussion and investigation. If again no agreement of opinion results, and the Senate, by a majority of two thirds, approves the dissolution of the national consultative assembly, this approval being separately affirmed by the cabinet of ministers, then the Imperial decree will be issued for the dissolution of the national consultative assembly, and at the same time orders shall be given for the holding of fresh elections, the people, however, have the right to re-elect their former representatives. Article 49--The new representatives of Tehran must present themselves within the space of one month, and the representatives of the provinces within the space of three months. When the representatives of the Capital are present, the Assembly shall be opened, and shall begin its labors, but they shall not discuss disputed proposals until the provincial representatives shall arrive. If, after the arrival of all its members, the new assembly shall by a clear majority confirm the first decision, His Most Sacred and Imperial Majesty shall approve that decision of the national consultative assembly, and shall order it to be carried into effect. Article 50--In each electoral period, which consists of two years, orders for the renewal of representatives shall not be given more than once. Article 51--It is agreed that the kings of our successors and posterity shall regard as a duty of their sovereign state and an obligation incumbent upon them the maintenance of these laws and principles, which we have established and put into force for the strengthening of the edifice of the country, the consolidation of the foundations of the Throne, the superintendence of the machinery of Justice, and the tranquility of the nation. 14 of the month of Dhu'l-Qa'da, in the year of 1324 A.H. (=December 30, 1906). ``These constitutional laws of the national consultative assembly and the senate, containing fifty-one articles, are correct. (Dhu al-Qi'dah 14, A.H. 1324'' (=December 30, 1906). (Underneath the concluding words is the signature of the Muzaffaru'd-Din Shah, and on the back of the page are the seals of the then Crown Prince or Wali-'ahd (the deposed Shah, Muhammad'Ali), and of the late Mushiru'd-Dawla.)

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New York, and I am pleased to be called a real gentleman here on the floor of Congress. I am very pleased to be standing here to endorse the King bill, and the chairman's work is exemplary. I also endorse the definition in here of operational control of this border. It is a right-on-the-spot definition that we need to adhere to across this country. Last August 22 I called for a fence, August 22, 2005. The news media lambasted me for a radical idea. Since that time, this House has voted to pass a fence, and the Senate has voted twice to pass a fence. It has now become bipartisan, and the White House understands the need for a physical barrier on the border. Two thousand miles, and we are spending $8 billion a mile to watch the border. That is $4 million a mile, $8 billion a year; $4 million a mile, and $2 million will build a fence and a wall. Then we can have an effective operational control that meets this definition. So we need to have a fence and a wall on this border, and we are also watching today as 4 million illegals cross this border a year, that's 11,000 a night. Santa Ana's army was 6,000 strong. Twice that number every night is coming into America. You can't sit on the border in the dark like I have and listen to that infiltration and believe that you can do it with something called virtual. It has got to be a physical barrier. There are $65 billion of illegal drugs pushing on that wall. We can shut all of that off and save America drug addicts at the same time. I support the bill.

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 appreciate the privilege and the honor of addressing you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. I was listening to the presentation by the 30-Something Group here over the last hour, and quite often it redirects the message that I intend to come down to this floor to discuss, and of course this evening is no different. Being a proud and committed member of the Republican Party, and when I hear continually the message, rubber-stamp Congress, rubber-stamp Congress come out over here, and in the same breath the question, the President wants to privatize Social Security. I don't know anybody that has advocated for the privatization of Social Security. I don't think you can find any seated Member of the Republican Congress or the President himself that has said, I want to privatize Social Security. So that is a scare tactic that is designed to spook people, but it surely is not something that is an objective revelation of the truth. The President did, though, invest significant capital in reform of Social Security. It was the centerpiece in his second inaugural address. And after his second inaugural address, with great optimism and enthusiasm, the President went out and invested month after month after month in an effort to reform a Social Security program that will ultimately collapse, reform it for, not for the senior citizens. There was nothing in his proposal for the people who were 55 years old and up. There is not a way that we can make the actuarial numbers change that. We keep our faith and keep our sacred covenant with the senior citizens. That is something that is clear throughout everybody in this Republican Conference and all the people that are involved in this policy that I know of: Keep the faith with the senior citizens. I represent perhaps the most senior congressional district in America. Iowa has the largest percentage of its population over the age of 85 of any of the States in the Union, and in the congressional district that I represent, the 32 counties in western Iowa, I have 10 of the 12 most senior counties in Iowa. So I will argue that I represent a higher percentage of seniors perhaps than anyone else in the country. And yet they understand that we will keep our sacred covenant with the seniors. We will hold those benefits together. There was nothing proposed by the President, nothing introduced by any member of this Republican Conference that would have reduced by a single dime, one single benefit to any senior citizen. What was proposed was that a portion of young people's contributions to Social Security could go into a personal retirement account, a controlled account, the kind of an account that would be an approved account that would be the same thing as the Federal Retirement Investment Funds that many of us are part of, many Federal employees are a part of. In fact, all of them that have the ability to direct some of their funds into retirement do invest into that. It was a wise and a prudent proposal. It was something that looked downrange. We know that Social Security starts to go into the red in about 2016, 2017. There is $1.7 trillion in the Social Security trust fund. It is only a promise; they are only IOUs in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, West Virginia. That money will have to be paid back out of the labor of our children someday. But the surplus growth stops in 2017 and it begins to decline until about 2042, where it is gone. At that point, something has to happen. The President's looking downrange. A lot of us have looked downrange. We didn't get to change the Social Security program as much as we would have liked to, we didn't propose to for our senior citizens, because you simply cannot do that because there is not time to grow funds. So the proposal was for whom? Mr. Speaker, I will submit the proposal that the President burned up so much precious political capital on was for the 30-something group, and the 20-something group, and the teen- something group, and the younger-than-teen-something group, and for all generations yet to be born in America to be able to own a part of their own future, to be able to invest that and to be able to count on the same type of returns we have guaranteed as a sacred covenant to our seniors. That is what that is about. And that is why it is so ironic that the 30-something group has rejected the very thing that is designed for their generation and mischaracterized it in a very cynical fashion and called it the privatization of Social Security. It is anything but. But it would be and it is still the best and only legitimate policy that has been offered before this Congress that can bring us out of almost certain bankruptcy of Social Security downrange, at a point where it will not be a factor to our senior citizens but for the 30-something group who have rejected it and decided to scare everyone in America for cynical political reasons. The statement was also made by the gentleman from Florida that the only party that has balanced the budget is the Democratic Party, and that was without a single Republican vote. How can a statement like that be passed off here on the floor and not be challenged? We know when the budget was balanced. It was balanced after and only after Republicans took the majority in the United States Congress. And that happened in 1994. I will say that the young people that came in here in this Congress and took over the majority in 1994 were committed, fiscally responsible people that came here to make a difference, and they did. They squeezed that budget down, Mr. Speaker. They challenged President Clinton, Mr. Speaker, and they took this thing down to the point where President Clinton refused to allow a continuing resolution that would have kept the government operating. The government was shut down not because Republicans spent too much money, Mr. Speaker, but because they hadn't spent enough money. And so the challenge laid. Government was shut down. Who would have to give in? Finally, Republicans said, okay, we will give you a little more money, Mr. President, if that is what it takes to keep the government running, to keep things open, to keep services going to needy people. We will keep the government running by giving you some more money. And in spite of that, they still balanced the budget. The Republican majority in this Congress balanced the budget in spite of President Clinton, not because of him. And it sure in the world was not without a single Republican vote. It was only with Republican votes. I guess I will say that it was with Republican leadership and Republican votes and perhaps some on the other side of the aisle did vote for that. They might make that argument, so I will just concede that point. But it surely wasn't Democrats balancing this, and it wasn't without a single Republican vote. Again, the allegation: A streamline of rubber stamping. Think about that statement. Mr. Speaker, a streamline of rubber stamping. This Republican Congress rubber stamping the President? If that had been the case, the 30-something group and the rest of America would have had Social Security reform. They would have had the kind of program that would have allowed the younger generations to take a portion of their contributions and invest them so that they could ensure their own financial security. If it had been a rubber stamp Congress, the President would have gotten what he wanted with Social Security reform, and I would have loved to have given it to him, because it was a good plan and a good proposal. But there wasn't a rubber stamp because there were enough Republicans that were, I will say, attacked relentlessly in their political campaigns by these kind of scare tactics that intimidated them to the point where they backed away from the Social Security reform, and we didn't quite have the 218 votes to do the thing that was best for America. No rubber stamp for the President, because this Congress does think for itself. It is 435 independent minds, and it is 230 or 231 Republicans that absolutely come here with a mission in mind and they draw their own conclusions. They represent their districts and they represent the people in their districts and their carry their values here. We didn't have enough of a consensus. And I am frustrated. I would have liked to have rubber stamped that, because I had a chance to look at it and it was a good program, but we couldn't do it. Then, if this is a rubber stamp Congress, it seems to me that the President came before the American people on about January 6 of 2004 and he made a speech that I will call the guest worker speech, and it was a major policy speech on what the President would have liked to have seen with immigration. Now, he did speak somewhat to enforcement, but I never got the thread in that speech that that was the message at all. He wanted a guest worker, temporary worker program. And he said without that, we can't enforce the law on the rest of the criminals and the drug dealers that are coming across the border. I don't agree with him on that. I think we have to cut down on that huge 4 million annual number of illegals, that huge human haystack coming across the border, and we have to seal the border. We have taken steps to do that today. But if the President would have had a rubber stamp Congress, he would have long ago, when he asked for a guest worker program from this Congress, and he went out hustling across this country, speaking over and over again of the need for a guest worker and temporary worker program, he would have had that. He would have had it a long time ago, Mr. Speaker, if this had been a rubber stamp Congress. So there are three powerful things really wrong with the earlier statements. The rubber stamp itself is utterly wrong. We would have had Social Security if it had been a rubber stamp Congress and we would have had a guest worker program if it was a rubber stamp Congress. It was not. And those are probably two of the highest priorities the President has brought to this Congress in the 109th Congress, and neither one are law today or likely to become law any time soon. Let me say also that when I listened to the gentleman from Florida say we have to rewrite that cartoon, that is a caricature that comes out here on the floor of Congress on a regular basis. He says I also have some facts over here. Well, I don't think the word also is going to apply, because from what I saw, they were not facts. They were not even solid opinions. Then another statement that was made by the gentleman from Florida was, we don't have health care in America. We don't have health care in America? There is nobody in America that doesn't have health care, Mr. Speaker. Everyone has access to health care, including the 12 or 22 million illegals that come into this country and show up at our emergency rooms. Everyone has access to health care. No one is denied emergency health care. Yes, there are people that are uninsured, and maybe more would be insured if someone was ever denied health care, but they are not, because we are a compassionate Nation and we take care of people in this country. We do not slam the door at any clinic or any hospital in the emergency room when people need help. We, at a minimum, stabilize them and, generally, we provide them with adequate care. As a matter of fact, it isn't just people in America that have access to health care. It is people that live on our borders who have access to free American health care. A case in point would be that several months ago I was down on the southern border at Sasabe, Arizona, and there at the port of entry station, as I walked in there to talk to some of the border patrol officers, and as I was speaking with the commander of that shift, we had only spoken for a minute or two when he got an emergency call and he said, excuse me, I have to take care of this. So he stepped away and made some calls, and when he came back he said, well, there has been a knifing on the other side of the border, just within a mile or so. There is a community on the south side there that comes right up to the border. And, yes, it is a smugglers' community, and it swells by about 2,000 during the day, and those 2,000 disappear at night and a new bunch comes back again. They smuggle drugs through in holes through our border. A couple points to the east and a couple points to the west of that port of entry that allows legal traffic through, and perhaps 150 to 180 vehicles a day come through that port of entry at Sasabe, Arizona, and the estimate is that two crossings east and two crossings west, all four of them have more illegal traffic than there is legal traffic going through Sasabe. But there, when I stood in Sasabe, Arizona, there was the emergency call. The commander of that shift made the calls and found out that there had been a fight on the other side of the border, and likely was over a drug deal, and that there was a young male individual, say in his early 20s, who was knifed over there and the ambulance was coming from Mexico into the United States. So our border patrol agent, and this being a routine act that happens, as he told me perhaps four times a quarter, so 16 times a year. What are the odds I would be standing there when that happened? But he made the calls. Routine. He called two U.S. ambulances to come to that port of entry to meet the Mexican ambulance that was coming across the border, and he called the helicopter out of Tucson to come down and pick him up so they could life flight that person, of questionable character, who had been knifed in a fight that was likely over a drug conflict, life flight him up to the University Mercy Hospital at Tucson. Well, as I stood there, we talked about that, and the two ambulances he had called from the U.S. arrived, I would say shortly after the ambulance came in from Mexico. It was about 15 minutes for the ambulance from Mexico and perhaps 25 minutes for the ambulances to come from the U.S. to that port of entry. The Mexican ambulance was just simply a meat wagon. It looked like an ambulance on the outside. On the inside there was a gurney and a wounded young male that had been knifed underneath the rubs up into the liver. At the time they didn't know if he had a punctured lung or not, but he needed oxygen. The U.S. ambulances had oxygen; the Mexican ambulance did not. The Mexican ambulance had surgical gloves and maybe a touch or two of bandages here or there. No medicine, no oxygen, hardly anything to treat him with. So the U.S. ambulances came in, they put oxygen on him, stabilized his condition, and got him to where he had as much care as they could provide. Then the helicopter landed, they loaded him on it and took him off to Tucson to the Intensive Care Unit up there. This was a Mexican national, wounded in a fight in Mexico, brought into the United States for health care through the port of entry, and the word is ``paroled'' to the hospital in the United States for the purposes of saving his life. And the medical people did save his life. And I don't object to that. I don't think you can let people die. We do not let them die. We don't let them die outside the emergency rooms of our hospitals or our clinics. In fact, we bring people into the United States on a ``parole'' to give them free health care in order to save their life because we are a humanitarian nation. The statement that we don't have health care in America couldn't be more false. Not only do we have health care for everyone in America, we have health care for people that are wounded outside of America and brought in here when we know there isn't a chance in the world they will pay a single dime for that. And, by the way, I went to the hospital the next day to visit that individual, and I looked at the accounting on the cost, and it was roughly $30,000 to fix him up and send him back to his home country. He was a rough looking individual, but he looked a lot better the next day than he did the night he was knifed in the liver. So health care for everybody in America. Health care for people outside of America. It is false to say people don't have health care. The picture of the handshake between Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because they shook hands, somehow the implication is, or the 30-something group would have you believe that that is some kind of a bond between Iraq and Iran and now they are going to conspire against the United States. For what purpose? First, I would submit that I have shaken hands with a lot of people, and I generally smile when I do that. I would wonder if there is anyone that serves in this Congress, out of the 435, that hasn't at some point shaken hands with their opponent in their political race. Doesn't mean they are your enemy. They are not. They are just your opponent. But we shake hands with all kinds of people, and the implication cannot be drawn because that two national leaders shook hands that somehow they are conspiring. Not at all. What one can presume from that is that they have diplomatic relations, Mr. Speaker. And those diplomatic relations, then, can turn into something good rather than something bad. From 1980 until 1988, the Iranians and the Iraqis fought each other, and over a million people were killed in that conflict. I don't think anyone in the world wants to see that again. I am glad they are shaking hands. I don't expect they are conspiring. In fact, I don't think so because I listened to the speech that was given here on the floor of this Congress by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. And the statement was made by the gentleman from Florida that the Prime Minister said bad things about Israel here on this floor. So I took the trouble to download the speech and read every single word in this and looked for any reference to Israel whatsoever, good or bad. Mr. Speaker, I am going to include this for the Record and challenge anyone in America to find a reference to Israel in this speech by Prime Minister Maliki. If they can find some oblique reference, I would be very interested in what he might have said that could be interpreted by the gentleman from Florida as being a bad thing about Israel. As I read through the speech, I found some interesting statements that should be brought up, rebuttals to the remarks made as the picture was held up here tonight. One of the statements by Prime Minister Maliki was, speaking of September 11, ``Your loss on that day was a loss of all mankind, and our loss today is a loss for all free people.'' He continued, ``And wherever humankind suffers a loss at the hands of terrorists, it is a loss of all humanity.'' We are bound in this together. He continued, ``It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror. Iraq is the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror.'' Do you think Admadinejad might have downloaded the speech? He has to be aware of this because this speech was as public as anything that the Prime Minister of Iraq has ever done. I am proud of the words he spoke here, and he could feel that he meant it. He spoke about, history will record the bravery and the humanity, but he said the fate of your country and ours is tied. The fate of Iraq and that of the United States is tied. ``Should democracy be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror permitted to triumph, then the war on terror will never be won elsewhere.'' Mr. Speaker, this statement, made by Prime Minister Maliki here on the floor of this Congress not that long ago, July 26, 2006, is a seminal statement of this global war on terror and the seminal statement of the political campaigns that are going on between now and November 7, because the American people need to understand what happens if we don't persevere and ultimately succeed with a free country in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki's statement: The fate of our country and yours is tied; should democracy be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror permitted to triumph, then the war on terror will never be won elsewhere. Think of the implications of that statement, ``The war on terror will never be won elsewhere,'' Mr. Speaker. If we should not persevere in Iraq, as many on this side of the aisle would like to do, sack up their bats and go home, that is the attitude I pick up, they are trying to convince us we cannot prevail. In fact, I happened to have read at least significant parts of von Clausewitz's book on war. He states that the object of war is to destroy the enemy's will and ability to conduct war. The enemy's will and ability to conduct war, I reduce that down into the Steve King vernacular, which is, a war is over when the losing side realizes they have lost. There is will and ability as stipulated by von Clausewitz in his book on war, and part of the object of war is to destroy their ability militarily to conduct war and to destroy their will. When they run out of men and material, it breaks their will down. But the strength of the will to conduct war is an integral part of the strength of a nation. If you can break down that will, it is cheaper to break down the will than the military. It is cheaper in lives, it is cheaper in treasure. So a very essential part of conducting war is to destroy the enemy's will to fight. Instead, we have people on the floor of this Congress, Mr. Speaker, that continually, every opportunity they get, come down here, and they must forget, at least that is the best characterization I can come up with, they must forget when they speak here, Mr. Speaker, their words are taken down and their words are reflected across through the Internet. Their words are transmitted around the world. And the leaders of our enemy, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as well as their rank-and-file members, are watching on al-Jazeera. They are watching on the Internet. They are watching as these words unfold, and they are encouraged by the words of defeat that I hear on the other side of the aisle. In the end, it costs American lives. But Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq said the war on war will never be won elsewhere should we allow ourselves to fail in Iraq. Imagine if we deployed troops out of Iraq, pulled them back inside this shore, curled America into a fetal position and guarded every school, every baseball game and football game, every bus stop and hospital, and still watched the attacks come, especially on our women and children, turn the United States of America into one huge Israel. But no matter where terrorists attack us, we could never launch another foreign exposition because politically we could not get it out of this Congress because they would point and say, it is another Iraq. Look, we lost in Iraq. Some of the people on the other side of the aisle went to Iraq and surrendered before we liberated them. Now they are redefining what failure is and saying, I predicted it. We cannot let this country fail, Mr. Speaker. We have a destiny that we need to fulfill and that destiny promotes freedom throughout the globe and throughout the ages. Maliki said in his speech, Iraqis have tasted freedom and we will defend it absolutely. He was interrupted with thunderous applause for that statement. And he reached out to us and let us know that it is radical Islam, not Islam, that is our enemy. He gave us a line from the Koran. He said, ``God says in the Koran'', notice he referenced God, ``surely we have honored all children of Adam.'' The brotherhood of man and woman is tied together in the reference to the Koran made by Prime Minister Maliki. He said, ``I believe these human rights are not an artifact, a construct reserved for the few. They are a divine entitlement for all.'' What an American vision. What a statement to make on the floor of Congress. It resonates with patriotic Americans. It resonates with all people. He continued, ``It is on this unwavering belief that we are determined to build our nation, a land whose people are free, whose air is liberty, and where the rule of law is supreme.'' He continued and said, ``This is the new Iraq which is emerging from the ashes of a dictatorship despite the carnage of extremists, a country which represents international conventions and practices noninterference in the international affairs of others.'' Just a portion of this speech, nothing in here about Israel. There is plenty in here about freedom and about the aspirations of a newly freed people. As I have looked them in the eye over in Iraq in the times that I have been there, I have seen that desire to build a country and a nation. I gave a speech to the Baghdad chamber of commerce on a hot August day; and they asked me shortly before we arrived at the hotel in Baghdad. It was the hotel that was rocketed while Wolfowitz was there some few years ago. And so I said, yes, it fits in my schedule, I will do that. I walked in the room. The count was 57 Iraqis and members of the chamber of commerce sitting at their dinner tables. They started to introduce me, but time was short. I wanted to know, where is my interpreter. They said we don't have an interpreter; this chamber of commerce speaks English. I thought that is quite unusual to be in a country like Iraq and be able to address a group of people, 57 strong, business leaders in Baghdad, and have them all speaking English. I gave a speech, and they laughed at the right time and had the right reactions. They spoke English. They came up afterwards and surrounded me with their business cards and desire and ideas to rebuild Iraq. It was encouraging to watch the spirit within them. If they can get the oil out of the ground and get the revenue stream coming back into that country, they will be a long way along in their recovery. The argument that this is a situation when we go alone, repeated over and over again; the gentleman from Florida made that statement, we went it alone in Iraq. I have been over to Iraq a number of times. I remember standing in the headquarters of the Coalition forces in Basra. General Dutton of the British army was there. As we stood there and had an informal conversation, I began looking at the flags on the shoulders of the soldiers. The Coalition troops have the same uniform with their flag on the shoulders. I took pictures so I could remember which nations were represented, and I can remember a few. Great Britain, yes. The Netherlands, yes. Romania was there, the Australians were there. The Poles were there. The Danes were there. There were probably three or four other countries represented just in a random group that were standing around there, the Coalition Forces. I don't think the gentleman from Florida went to visit the Coalition Forces. He visited the American troops and forgot there were thousands of troops there that came from other countries and have been in Iraq from the beginning and have stayed there. In fact, the Japanese sent 1,000 troops into Iraq because they understand the value of freedom, even though they are a relatively passive nation. Then the half a dozen or so generals that disagree with the President's policy in Iraq, and the continued argument that the President did not listen to his advisers. And now they have these retired generals that say, we should have done this or that. The President has always listened to his advisers and generals. He understands he is not going to call these shots from the Oval Office. He is going to say, you are going to have what you need to get this job done. But six generals, it appeared to me there are a few more, but that is the count that I had, they appear to be positioning themselves for some future role in politics. If we watch them, I believe we will see one or more emerge as at least an adviser to a Presidential candidate, if not a Presidential candidate themselves. But I will see your six generals and I will raise you 9,000 30- Somethings. There are 9,000 generals in the United States military, and they stand with the commander in chief. So you have a long way to go to convince me that just because you find six folks with political aspirations, we should alter our entire mission in Iraq to accommodate them. They would find something else to be critical of. And the most outrageous statement of all from the gentleman from Florida, We have a plan in the war in Iraq. His question to Republicans was: Where is your plan? Well, I think maybe he got that script wrong. I think he probably understands that we do have a plan in the war in Iraq. It is the commander in chief's plan. I support it. I support moving towards freedom for the Iraqi people. My question is, 30-Something Democrats, people who think ``Republican'' is a four-letter word, where is your plan? And I would further submit that after 60 minutes of that kind of diatribe, I wonder what the suicide rate in America is, Mr. Speaker? Actually, I came here to talk about a different subject matter. What I want to talk about is the accomplishment that we made here on the floor of Congress today; and that is, for a long time the American people have understood something that has taken quite awhile to go through to this Congress and the White House. That is, we have porous borders in America. The American people understand when they see people show up in their streets, taking jobs in their communities, and when children are coming into their schools and they are born in a foreign country and they don't have the kind of documents that would demonstrate that they have come in through a legal channel, and they start to see 1,000 of them show up and take jobs, and in Iowa, for example, it would be in our packing plants, there is a real large social movement going on. The blastosphere opened up and began to tell America the facts of it all, and some of people came down to the floor of the Congress and made this case, my good friend Tom Tancredo among those. The people understood this immigration issue long before Congress was able to react. We need to be in a position to lead, not to follow. But this time I think we are following the lead of the American people, and I am happy to do that, although I would like to be a little more up front. But that message came to this floor over and over again, led by Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and a number of the rest of us stepped in and joined him. We have been carrying that message consistently at heart now for a number of years, for me it is 4 years here in this Congress, carrying this message. I sent out a survey into my congressional district, it will be 2 years ago last March, and it went to 10,000 households randomly selected by a computer, so it would have been Democrats, Independents and Republicans scattered across the district in a random location, and it was a survey on immigration. I knew what I thought. I believe we need to enforce our immigration laws, seal our border, force all traffic to ports of entry, and birthright citizenship and the anchor babies, shut off the jobs magnet, do all those things and a lot of people go back home. I believe a lot of people do that. I believe the record is replete with statements to that effect and a number of pieces of policy that add to that overall philosophy. But the immigration survey that I sent out to the number of 10,000 randomly selected households asked a whole series of questions about immigration. That was the only subject matter. The most significant question that I asked in that survey was on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most intense, how intensively do you agree with this statement, and then the statement reads, in the survey, that we should eliminate all illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration. Reducing legal immigration is not something that I have actually called for, but, and all illegal immigration, reduce legal immigration, and how intensively do you agree with this, with 10 being the most intense. Out of 10,000 mailed, we received 1,800 and, I think the number was 96 respondents. So a number that approached 19 percent returned, which is about 3 times what your average return rate would be on that kind of a mailing. On that question, we should end all illegal immigration, and reduce legal, how intensely do you agree, 82 percent put down 10, 82 percent. Some of them must have held their pen like a dagger the way they wrote their notes and their comments on the surveys. As I went through those and read them through, 82 percent said end illegal immigration, all of it; reduce legal. By the time you added the 7, 8s, 9s to those 10s, 97 percent agreed with that statement, and only 3 percent had an opinion down on the other side of the scale, only 3 percent. I would submit that if I sent a survey out to the district with a random selection like that, and I said Steve King says the sun comes up in the east, do you agree or disagree, I do not believe I would get a 97 percent agreement out of my congressional district, but 97 percent want to have border control, and they want to have enforcement. That is what we tried to provide in this Congress, and we have made some significant progress. Last August 22, I have to back up, it was a year ago last August 22, is a little over a year ago, I hosted an immigration summit in Iowa. I started out in Des Moines with radio and a lot of print coverage and some video coverage on there. I had a host of very good speakers on the immigration issue, Tom Tancredo came, my good friend from Arizona and powerful leader on the subject, J.D. Hayworth from Arizona; Jim Gilchrest was there, who was the original founder of the Minutemen. We had other speakers that added on to that, and one was the father of a son who was lost in the September 11 attack in New York, Kris Eggle, and they spoke about the importance of enforcement of immigration laws. But if we had done so, we may be and likely could have thwarted the attacks on September 11. But what happens to this country if we continue our porous borders. On that day I stood up and said, I want to build a fence, I want to put a physical barrier on this border, and I want to do it for 2,000 miles. For starters I would put a 10 foot high chain link fence, and I would top it with barb wire. I said barb wire because I am kind of a farm country young guy. The press printed it as razor wire. I don't take issue with that, probably razor wire makes a little more sense than barb wire. But I would put the fence there. I would move it about 100 feet, and I would build a concrete wall that I designed and demonstrated on this floor in Congress. It is unlikely that I will get an opportunity to demonstrate that tonight, but that's the position that I took August 22, 2005. I have here with me the clippings from some of the newspapers after that. They were not very impressed with that idea. They thought it was a kind of radical, reactionary and ineffective proposal. So there are about four articles here that have reference to that, and they mostly undermine my position and seek to ridicule me for having a, apparently, narrow mind and not having thought this through. What this they forgot, that I go to the border, I look at the circumstances down there. I gather the data, I talk to the Border Patrol personnel. I talk to the people that live there. I talk to the retired Border Patrol personnel. I see the carnage, I see the litter. I go to the national parks and talk to the park rangers there. When they have human traffic that is streaming across that border and the numbers that they are, and I sit down there on the border, in the dark, for hours, utterly quiet, and listen, listen when I can't see, but just dim shadows is all that I can see. I can hear vehicles coming from the Mexican side of the border, and they stop by a big mesquite tree about 150 or so yards out there south of the border. The fence is just a fine barb wire fence, the wires are stretched apart in places, that is where the illegals go through. They don't fix it back up, as one could imagine. They leave it open for others. There was a water tank that was there on the Mexican side that is there. That was where they can get their last load up of water before they start off on 20, 25 miles of desert on the U.S. side to be picked up the highway a ways. I sit there and listen, and I hear the vehicles come down through the desert. On one particular vehicle, I could hear the muffler dragging all the way along. They get by that mesquite tree, and they stop and the doors open. Then you have to listen, and you can hear the sounds, and it is people clearly piling out of the vehicle. You can hear them drop their packs on the ground as they get out, and they must be picking them back up again. You can hear a little bit of talk, a little bit of whisper. Then they start off through the mesquite to come out into the border to come into the United States. You can hear their packs go through the fence and be set on the ground on the other side, and sometimes occasionally dropped on the ground. You hear them climb through the fence, they pick their packs back up. You can see the shadows. You can't quite count them, you can see the image of the shadows as they go off and into the desert off north, following whatever kind of a beacon they have and may be watching, however they guide themselves, to go on into the United States. Now, this happens across that border on an average night of perhaps 11,000 people pouring across that border a night, 11,000, to the tune of 4 million a year. How do I know this, I serve on the Immigration subcommittee. I sit in on hearings two, three, four times a week, witnesses that come forth, they are both expert on the matter, both pro and con, experts that bring real data to us. The Border Patrol's information is this, that they stopped, last year, 1,188,000 illegal border crossers, 1,188,000. What a huge number. Santa Ana's Army was only 6,000 strong, and the Border Patrol stopped 1,188,000? What a huge universe of people that is. Theoretically at least they turned themselves and said go back through there and many of them they took down to the turnstile and watched them as they went back in Mexico. The year before the Border Patrol stopped 1,159,000. So I asked the question, of the Border Patrol, and of their representative, what percentage of the attempts across the border do you intercept? What percentage of success do you have? The answer that I get back consistently is 25 to 33 percent. When I go down to the border, and I ask the Border Patrol that is actually doing the work down there, what percentage are you interdicting, and they give me answers like, the most consistent answer I got was 10 percent. I don't know if that really is it. One of them when I said 25 percent broke up in hysterical laughter. He said, no, that number is closer to 3 percent of the drugs and 5 percent of the illegals. Now, that was an ICE inspector that should know, even if they are wrong. Now, if they are right, it is more than 10 million a year. If they are wrong, and the testimony of 25 to 33 percent, and this is all a guess, admittedly, then it is perhaps 4 million a year coming across our southern border. Now, how many go back? We don't know the answer to that either. We know some go back. We don't know if it is big numbers, as a percentage, but we know it will be big numbers because there are 4 million or so that do go across. We also know that 65 billion, that is billion with a B, dollars worth of illegal drug, come across our southern border every year. Ninety percent of the illegal drugs in America are coming across our southern border. Sometimes they come across in semis, sometimes they come across in straight trucks, sometimes they come across in pickup trucks. In fact, while I was down there, they interdicted a pickup truck that had a false bed in it, about 7 inches of false bed. Underneath there, there were 18 bags of marijuana, about the size of a cement sack, perhaps weighing about 10 pounds each. I will submit 180 to 200 pounds of marijuana underneath the false bed in the pickup. We took the jaws-of-life and pried it open, went in there and pulled those sacks out. The driver, I am going to tell you, I believe, was a MS-13 gang member, the most violent gang we have ever seen in this hemisphere, the gangs that behead and dismember and do other things so atrocious I will not repeat them on the floor of this Congress. This individual had a MS-13 tattooed on his arm here, he had tattoos from his waist to his neck. He had every look about him as an MS-13. He was perhaps a decoy, because they get so many interdictions of drugs down there, they cannot prosecute them all. So they will send off someone who has got a smaller load, 180 to 200 pounds, to be a diversion to be able to run the larger load through there, cost of doing business. Well, if one spends a few hours down on the border at night and listens and perhaps would have infrared night vision of some kind that they could watch, actually watch the people, they would come to the conclusion that it isn't the folks that are coming into the United States that want to simply get a job working on farms or whatever it is they do to improve their lives, just they are coming here for a better life. Actually, the position that has been taken by the administration, we cannot stop people that want to come into the United States for a better life. It is too powerful a force. We have to let them come in and legitimize them by giving them some kind of identification. But I would submit that we can stop people from coming into the United States for a job, for a better life. We must be able to stop people from doing that, because the force that drives them isn't nearly as powerful as the force that drives people to bring illegal drugs into the United States. So I am going to say we can stop lettuce pickers and people that want to work on farms and factories in plants. We must do that, because if we can't do that, we don't have a hope of being able to stop the illegal drug smugglers that are coming into the United States. So when they come through in a semi, which is more rare now, or smuggle through in a straight truck, when there has been a diversion, or maybe a pickup load gets through with the marijuana load under the bed, when that all happens, large quantities of illegal drugs come into the United States. But that is not the only way they come in. They also come in on the backs of burros, individuals who are sneaking into the United States with 50 pounds of marijuana on their back. They might back 15 miles or further to get to the United States border to walk across the U.S. desert, and then get across that border, as ICE described while I saw there, and walk across the United States and walk another 20, 25 miles and be picked up along the highway somewhere. They toss their marijuana into the truck. Some get into the truck and go on and stay in the United States. Some return back to Mexico and get another load. Some turn around and walk back, all the way across the desert to get another load. That is the kind of thing that is going on. With that kind of force on the border, with that kind of push, a push of 4 million people a year coming across that border, intercepting 1,188,000 of them, $65 billion worth of illegal drugs; 90 percent of the illegal drugs in America coming across that border, that includes the marijuana, the cocaine, the heroin and the methamphetamine, which is a big, big problem. We have shut down the meth labs essentially in Iowa. That just meant that it used to be 85 percent of the meth came from Mexico and Iowa. Now it is much closer to 95 or more percent of the methamphetamine comes from Mexico because we shot down the meth labs in Iowa. But these burreros will haul 50 pounds of marijuana each and they will come in groups of say 8 to 10, 10 to 12, up to 50. In fact, there is a pack train of them that went up to 100, each with marijuana on their back, roughly 50 pounds, carrying that across the desert. And they drop litter all over the desert, Mr. Speaker, and invade our natural areas. In fact here I have here on this stand a picture of a natural area, and it is quite interesting. This is a picture of one of four locations where the long-nosed bat, an endangered species, inhabits a nest. And this is on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. I have met with the National Park Service director, and this location is the location where this bat cave, as you see was invaded by illegals. This was one of their stopoff points. They could get in there and get cool and rest up a little bit for their trek across the desert. So as they came into this bat cave, they chased out something like 1,600 bats that lived in there, and the bats left. We don't know where they went to nest, necessarily, at least I don't, but for 2 years there wasn't a bat in this cave. So now we are down to three locations where these rare, long-nosed bats can live and reproduce. So the National Park Service looked at this and said boy, we really don't like to build fences around in our refuge, but what are our alternatives if we want to save the bats? So they followed a path that seemed to work, and that is put this wrought iron fence around here that has spikes that lean out, it is about a $75,000 project, Mr. Speaker. They built a fence around the bat cave, and when they did that, the illegals did not come into the cave any longer and the bats came back. The bats have been in there reproducing ever since in roughly the same numbers they were before their cave was taken over by the continual flow of illegals that are coming across our natural refuge. So, I would argue to those that say a fence doesn't work, here is a perfect example of how a fence worked. At least it kept them out of the cave, and now we have a species of bat that is going to be more healthy than they would have been otherwise. This is just an interesting little thing that I did. I have said that the people that vote for amnesty will be branded with a scarlet letter A for amnesty. So, Mr. Speaker, by Ajo, Arizona, there is a big letter A up there on the mountainside. I took a picture of that. We colored it up so it is scarlet. That is the scarlet letter A. That is the brand. We don't need amnesty. That is why it has a bar across it. We need to have the rule of law. We need to respect the rule of law. That is part of America. This, Mr. Speaker, is the fence and concrete wall that I designed. You can see this portion here, this will be slip-form footing that goes down perhaps 5 feet, and it would be 5 feet, and you form a slot in there and you can put a trencher in and put this slip form in and pull it all in one motion and pour concrete as you go, trench and pour concrete. So this gray portion becomes the footing, and you can see where the white portion drops down, and that is the slot. These are pre-cast concrete panels, Mr. Speaker, and they would be about 13\1/2\ feet long. They drop down into this slot, I think that says 15 inches, perhaps 18, but we end up with a constructed height of 12 feet high. These precast panels weigh about 9,800 pounds. They come in on trucks. You pick them up with a crane, you drop them in that slot. You can just pop them in one after the other, just as easily as I have demonstrated on this floor how that can be done. Once they are put together, you can put a little wire on top. That wire is a disincentive for people from climbing over the top. You can put sensors on there, vibration sensors. We can put night vision on there. We can do all kinds of things to make sure that this wall is not breached, Mr. Speaker. Walls make sense. Fences make sense. The bat cave is safe from the illegals. We can make America safe from the illegals by simply spending some of this hard-earned cash. The $8 billion being spent to fund our Border Patrol on the southern border, we can make a one-time capital investment. It is about $4 million a mile now being spent to control our border and we get about 25 percent efficiency. If we would spend about $2 million a mile all the way through those 2,000 miles, we would end up with a far higher percentage of efficiency. I believe that number would go over 95 percent, if we patrol the border, if we put the sensors on. Surely a fence isn't the only solution, but it is a great big, wonderful effective tool for our Border Patrol. They could finally aspire to get operational control of the border. Then, Mr. Speaker, there needs to be a solution for the locations where water is going to run across through the gullies. We have these solutions in place in many of those locations already. These are H- beams that are driven in, steel beams that are staggered and welded together here on top with a horizontal beam so they can't be spread apart. This lets the water through. It will collect the trash and over time you have to clean the trash up, but no one can go through there except some wildlife can get through, and it does work. It is a little more expensive, but we will have to do that where the water runs. There are engineering solutions to everything we might want to do. This, Mr. Speaker, is an example of what is happening to our national parks. I am not certain whether this is in Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument or in the Cabeza Prieta. But it doesn't matter. This is federally preserved land. This is precious natural resources that we want Americans to have access to. Look at what we have. Graffiti painted on the stones. Graffiti that probably will take years and years and years to ever weather away, if it does at all, something that is really very difficult to clean up when the paint goes into the pores of the stone. Down here is just a small example of the kind of litter that we are finding in our national parks. Some of that litter, it is estimated that an average illegal will drop about 8 pounds of litter as they cross the desert. Eight pounds times 4 million people is a tremendous cleanup problem, and it threatens our natural resources, Mr. Speaker. It threatens the wildlife. In fact, about one-third of Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument is now off limits to the public because the concentration of illegals is so intense that the park officers fear for the safety of American tourists in our own national parks because they are threatened. And that would be the Oregon Pipe Cactus Monument where there officer Kris Eggle was killed in a shootout with drug smugglers coming across the border. I have been to that location. There is a memorial that is there. In his memory and the memory of the other officers who have given their lives for security, I am committed to security for this border. So today, Mr. Speaker, we passed 700 miles of fence off the floor of this Congress. This is the third time we have had a good fence vote here on the floor, by my recollection. The Senate has had two good fence votes over there. They are going to get another one. They are going to get this bill. I am happy to call it the King bill, thanks to Peter King from New York. They are going to get a bill over there, and my advice is to the U.S. Senate, chew on that awhile. I expect the voters will chew on you awhile. We are going to take this message to the American people and say let us continue with this message on enforcement. Fences work. There is proof positive that they do. No one says where we have built them that we should tear them down. They are essential tools. They are a capital investment, they are a one-time investment, and, yes, we have to patrol, and, yes, we have to maintain them, but we get a great return on that capital investment. That means it doesn't take as many Border Patrol officers to secure this border. It means that they can be deployed to places where they can be more effective. It means that the 4 million people that are coming across our border and the $65 billion worth of drugs will have to find a way to try to sneak through a port of entry, which many will try to do, and we can beef those up and put more resources there, or they will go around the ocean and get out there where the Coast Guard can do their job, Mr. Speaker, and the Coast Guard has interdiction abilities that supersede those, or I will say they are superior to the Border Patrol. So, I am ready to force all traffic through the ports of entry. I think we must do that. I call upon the United States Senate to pass the legislation that we passed on the floor here today. August 22, 2005, I said build a fence, build a wall, build a barrier. 114 days later, this Congress passed that legislation as part of a larger bill. And I have watched as perhaps the most liberal Member of the United States Senate voted to authorize a fence and voted to fund a fence. This extreme notion that comes from a conservative Member of Congress is mainstream, Mr. Speaker. The White House recognizes we need physical barriers to assist and that we need to have enforcement at the border. We will have that. We will get that done and we are moving quickly. It won't all be done by November 7, but a lot of the pieces will be put in place by this Republican Congress. And I am proud to serve with you all, and I am looking forward to being part of this solution. I am looking forward to going down and setting some posts myself. [From the Washington Post, July 26, 2006] Iraqi Prime Minister Addresses Congress Al-Maliki (through translator). Thank you. Thank you. In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, Your Excellency, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Vice President, honorable ladies and gentlemen, members of Congress, it is with great pleasure that I am able to take this opportunity to be the first democratically and constitutionally elected prime minister of Iraq to address you, the elected representatives of the American people. And I thank you for affording me this unique chance to speak at this respected assembly. Let me begin by thanking the American people, through you, on behalf of the Iraqi people, for supporting our people and ousting dictatorship. Iraq will not forget those who stood with her and who continues to stand with her in times of need. Thank you for your continued resolve in helping us fight the terrorists plaguing Iraq, which is a struggle to defend our nation's democracy and our people who aspire to liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. All of those are not Western values; they are universal values for humanity. They are as much for me the pinnacle embodiment of my faith and religion, and they are for all free spirits. The war on terror is a real war against those who wish to burn out the flame of freedom. And we are in this vanguard for defending the values of humanity. I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror. Let me be very clear: This is a battle between true Islam, for which a person's liberty and rights constitute essential cornerstones, and terrorism, which wraps itself in a fake Islamic cloak; in reality, waging a war on Islam and Muslims and values. And spreads hatred between humanity, contrary to what come in our Koran, which says, ``We have created you of male and female and made you tribes and families that you know each other.'' Surely (inaudible) of you in the sight of God is the best concept. The truth is that terrorism has no religion, Our faith says that who kills an innocent, as if they have killed all mankind. Thousands of lives were tragically lost on September 11th when these impostors of Islam reared their ugly head. Thousands more continue to die in Iraq today at the hands of the same terrorists who show complete disregard for human life. Your loss on that day was the loss of all mankind, and our loss today is lost for all free people. And wherever humankind suffers a loss at the hands of the terrorists, it is a loss of all of humanity. It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror. Iraq is the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror. History will record their bravery and humanity. The fate of our country and yours is tied. Should democracy be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror permitted to triumph, then the war on terror will never be won elsewhere. Mr. Speaker, we are building the new Iraq on the foundation of democracy and are erecting it through our belief in the rights of every individual--just as Saddam has destroyed it through his abuse of all those rights--so that future Iraqi generations can live in peace, prosperity and hope. Iraqis have tasted freedom and we will defend it absolutely. Every human possesses inalienable rights which transcend religion. As it is taken in the International Convention of Human Rights, they transcend religion, race and gender. And God says in the Koran, ``and surely we have honored all children of Adam.'' I believe these human rights are not an artifact construct reserved for the few. They are the divine entitlement for all. It is on this unwavering belief that we are determined to build our nation, a land whose people are free, whose air (ph) is liberty, and where the rule of law is supreme. This is the new Iraq, which is emerging from the ashes of dictatorship and despite the carnage of extremists, a country which respects international conventions and practices noninterference in the internal affairs of others, relies on dialogue to resolve differences, and strives to develop strong relations with every country that espouses freedom and peace. We are working diligently so that Iraq returns to take the position it deserves and it plays a positive role in its regional and international environment as a key, active player in spreading security and stability, to give an example of a positive relationship between countries through denouncement of violence and resorting to constructive dialogue, solving problems between nations and peoples. And we have made progress. And we are correcting the damage inflicted by politics of the previous regime, in particular with our neighbors. My presence here is a testament of the new politics of a democratic Iraq. Ladies and gentlemen, in a short space of time, Iraq has gone from a dictatorship to a transitional administration, and now to a fully fledged democratic government. This has happened despite the best efforts of the terrorists who are bent on either destroying democracy or Iraq, but by the courage of our people who defied the terrorists every time they were called upon to make a choice, by risking their lives for the ballot box. They have stated over and over again, with their ink-stained fingers waving in pride, that they will always make the same choice. Over fear . . . Protester: Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now! Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now! Hastert: If our honored guest will suspend for the moment, the chair notes disturbance in the gallery. The sergeant at arms will secure order by removing those engaging in disruption. Protester: Bring them home now! Hastert: The gentleman may resume. Al-Maliki (through translator): Hope over fear; liberty over oppression; dignity over submission; democracy over dictatorship; federalism over a centralist state. Let there be no doubt: Today Iraq is a democracy which stands firm because of the sacrifices of its people and the sacrifices of all those who stood with us in this crisis from nations and countries. And that's why--thank you--I would like to thank them very much for all their sacrifices. Iraqis of all persuasions took part in the unanimously democratic election for the first parliament formed under the country's first permanent constitution after eight decades of temporary constitutions and dictatorship, a constitution written by the elected representatives of the people and ratified by the people. Iraqis succeeded in forming a government of national unity based on an elected parliamentary foundation, and includes all of Iraq's religions, ethnicities and political groupings. The journey has been perilous, and the future is not guaranteed. Yet many around the world who underestimated the resolve of Iraq's people and were sure that we would never reach this stage. Few believed in us. But you, the American people, did, and we are grateful for this. The transformation in Iraq can sometimes be forgotten in the daily, futile violence. Since liberation, we have witnessed great accomplishments in politics, the economy and civil society. We have gone from a one-party state, ruled by a small elite, to a multi-party system where politics is the domain of every citizen and parties compete at all levels. What used to be a state-controlled media is now completely free and uncensored, something Iraq had never witnessed since its establishment as a modern state and something which remains alien to most of the region. What used to be a command economy in Iraq, we are rapidly transforming into a free market economy. In the past three years, our GDP per capita has more than doubled. And it is expected that our economy will continue to grow. Standards of living have been raised for most Iraqis as the markets witness an unprecedented level of prosperity. Many individuals are buying products and appliances which they would never have hoped to afford in the past. And, in keeping with our economic vision of creating a free market economy, we will be presenting to parliament legislation which will lift current restrictions on foreign companies and investors who wish to come to Iraq. While we are making great economic strides, the greatest transformation has been on Iraqi society. We have gone from mass graves and torture chambers and chemical weapons to a flourishing--to the rule of law and human rights. The human rights and freedoms embodied in the new Iraq and consolidated in the constitution have provided a fertile environment for the ever-growing number of civil society institutions which are increasing in scope and complexity and provide a healthy reflection of what is developing beneath the violence. The rights chartered in the constitution will also help consolidate the role of women in public life as equals to men. And help them to play a greater role in political life. I am proud to say that a quarter of Iraq's Council of Representatives is made up of women, but we still have much to accomplish. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, our nascent democracy faces numerous challenges and impediments, but our resolve is unbreakable and we will overcome them. The greatest threat Iraq's people face is terror: terror inflicted by extremists who value no life and who depend on the fear their wanton murder and destruction creates. They have poured acid into Iraq's dictatorial wounds and created many of their own. Iraq is free, and the terrorists cannot stand this. They hope to undermine our democratically elected government through the random killing of civilians. They want to destroy Iraq's future by assassinating our leading scientific, political and community leaders. Above all, they wish to spread fear. Do not think that this is an Iraqi problem. This terrorist front is a threat to every free country in the world and their citizens. What is at stake is nothing less than our freedom and liberty. Confronting and dealing with this challenge is the responsibility of every liberal democracy that values its freedom. Iraq is the battle that will determine the war. If, in continued partnership, we have the strength of mind and commitment to defeat the terrorists and their ideology in Iraq, they will never be able to recover. For the sake of success of the political process, I launched the National Reconciliation Initiative, which aims to draw in groups willing to accept the logic of dialogue and participation. This olive branch has received the backing of Iraq's parliamentary blocs and support further afield from large segments of the population. I remain determined to see this initiative succeed. But let our enemies not mistake our outstretched hand for forgiveness as a sign of weakness. Whoever chooses violence against the people of Iraq, then the fate that awaits them will be the same that of the terrorist Zarqawi. While political and economic efforts are essential, defeating terror in Iraqi relies fundamentally on the building of sound Iraqi force, both in quantity and capability. The completion of Iraq's forces form the necessary basis for the withdrawal of multinational forces. But it's only then, only when Iraq's forces are fully capable, will the job of the multinational forces be complete. Our Iraqi forces have accomplished much and have gained a great deal of field experience to eventual1y enable them to triumph over the terrorists and to take over the security portfolio and extend peace through the country. The other impediment to Iraq's stability are the armed militias. I have on many occasions stated my determination to disband all militias without exception and re-establish a state monopoly on arms and to guarantee citizens security so that they do not need others to provide it. It is imperative that the reconstruction starts now. While small sections of central Iraq are unstable, large sections have remained peaceful, but ignored. For far too long, these were most deprived areas of Iraq under the previous regime and have been the most valiant in Iraq's struggle for freedom. We need to make an example out of these stable areas as models for the rest of the country. Reconstruction projects in these areas will tackle unemployment, which will weaken the terrorists. They will become prototypes for other, more volatile regions aspire to. Undoubtedly, reconstruction in these areas will fuel economic growth and show what a prosperous, stable, democratic and federal Iraq would look like. Members of the Congress, in this effort, we need your help. We need the help of the international community. Much of the budget you had allocated for Iraq's reconstruction ended up paying for security firms and foreign companies, whose operating costs were vast. Instead, there needs to be a greater reliance on Iraqis and Iraqi companies, with foreign aid and assistance to help us rebuild Iraq. We are rebuilding Iraq on a new, solid foundation: that of liberty, hope and equality. Iraq's democracy is young, but the will of its people is strong. It is because of this spirit and desire to be free that Iraq has taken the opportunity you gave us and we chose democracy. We faced tyranny and oppression under the former regime. And we now face a different kind of terror. We did not know then and we will not bow now.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Coble for recognizing me and giving me the privilege to speak on this issue today before this Congress. Mr. Speaker, since the attacks by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, future attacks on American soil and around the world have been thwarted by intelligence gathered by terrorist detainees. These terrorists have confirmed that al Qaeda operatives are relentlessly planning and pursuing future attacks against our citizens and infrastructure that could dwarf in comparison the destruction caused 5 years ago about now. Information gathered from terrorists detainees has led to the capture of other al Qaeda terrorists, such as those held by the CIA and currently transferred to Guantanamo Bay. I have here some pictures of these individuals to help familiarize the Congress and the people with the kind of enemy we are up against. This is a picture of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, commonly known as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, those cowardly attacks on the United States. There is a long list of the transgressions of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, including his role in the failed Bojinka plot, which was designed to detonate explosives on commercial airliners over the Pacific. He asked Osama bin Laden for the manpower and the funds to carry out the attacks on the United States on 9/11. He plotted several other attacks, and he is, right now, under the custody of the United States of America, in the process of being brought to justice. This is Abu Faraj al-Libi. Al-Libi had direct operational responsibilities, and he serves as a trainer at al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. He is another individual who is dangerous who plotted against the United States, who had no motivation, from my value system, to do so. Another terrorist, Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah was the third detainee here and was, at the time of his capture, trying to organize a terrorist attack in Israel. As well, he has been active in smuggling terrorists, and dangerous chemicals for the purpose of manufacturing weapons, into Afghanistan. Then I would submit the fourth terrorist, being Ramzi Bin al-Shibh. Ramzi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden in person and accepted proposals to martyr himself in an operation against the U.S. Ramzi was the primary communications intermediary between the 9/11 hijackers and al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan. He relayed messages by e-mail and by cell phone. This man knows a lot about the terrorist network, and I believe we have learned a lot from him, but he needs to face justice as well. Mr. Speaker, this is the face of the enemy in this global war on terror. It is a unique war in our time. Past wars have always been against a clear enemy, which had been another sovereign nation; but we are now fighting a hateful ideology that infiltrates many different nations. Unfortunately, sometimes surveillance programs are not as tight as they need to be. We need to turn them up.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Gingrey from Georgia. And those sacrifices in the past have indeed been significant, and every life is equally cherished whether it is in today's conflict or a conflict back in that era. Madam Speaker, I would pose this question: Would anyone like to be on the side of the other guys? Would anyone like to be sitting there without the resources that we have, without the firepower, without the intelligence, without the tactics that we have, without the finances to support that, and without the 300 million people that stand behind our military and the ability to go out and recruit? Our recruitment is up. One thing that is different between Desert Storm number one and Operation Iraqi Freedom is that we had about 2.4 million people in our armed services than at the beginning of the liberation of Kuwait. Now we are down to about 1.3, 1.4, because in the aftermath of Desert Storm, there was called the peace dividend, and that is when the Clinton administration came in and decided we can provide all the money we want to grow social programs by simply cutting the military. That is the peace dividend, we are going to grow social programs. Well, a million men and women came out of uniform in that period of time, and now we sit here thinner. And I am ready to beef these numbers of troops up some more to take some of the load off of the ones that we have so they we don't have to deploy so much. But the folks on the other side that are sitting there, and their recruitment, they have got a count of people coming into Iraq that have watched al-Jazeera TV perhaps, people that would infiltrate in from Syria and Iran, and their weapons, their munition, their funding all needs to be smuggled in to them and they have to cower and hide and sneak around like rats day and night to try to find an opportunity to detonate a bomb, not confront us face to face, but to detonate a bomb. And they know that they cannot win tactically, and they know that the only way they can win is if we lose our resolve. And at that point, I want to point out an experience that happened to me over there in the Middle East. This is the poster of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Now, he is the individual that today I would say is the surrogate to the Iranians because he is a Shia, because he has been in here fomenting violence on a regular basis, and he has had his militia. And there was a time when the casualty rates from American troops on his militia and the coalition troops on his militia was so strong that he really considered take up a career in politics because he didn't have much militia left over there in those days. He has since built it up some and his militia is operating, although in a restricted fashion, within Sadr city area Baghdad. But as I was over there a couple of trips ago sitting in Kuwait City in the hotel waiting to go into Iraq the next day, I had on al-Jazeera TV. As it came on, on TV, and Muqtada al-Sadr is a dentist, I think, he came on television. He was speaking in Arabic and they had the crawler going on underneath, so I could track him. And he said, if we keep attacking Americans, they will leave Iraq the same way they left Vietnam, the same way they left Lebanon, the same way they left Mogadishu. That was June 11, 2004, and it was on al-Jazeera TV. I wish I had the tape of that. I haven't been able to quite find that. But I know what I saw and I know what I heard, Madam Speaker, and that tells us why we must prevail in this conflict. The price for cut and run to the future of the security of this country would be cataclysmic. If we pulled out of Iraq without a government there that can provide safety and security and freedom and a tactical position in the world, if we pull out of there before those goals are reached and ensured, the price will be terrible to the destiny of the world and the security of the world, and the terrorists will be emboldened and Iraq will become their terrorist training ground, their campground, their deployment ground, the place where they would be insulated from the rest of the world because, after all, if the United States didn't come in there, if we ever pulled out, heaven help us if we ever tried back because half of the people in this Congress would stand up and resist that. We must prevail while we are there; otherwise, that same sentiment that comes out of Muqtada al-Sadr will be on the lips of every person that is our enemy. They will think that the Americans will lack resolve. And, in fact, we would not have resolve because if any terrorist flare-up came up anywhere else in the world, if we didn't finish the job in Iraq, how do you make the case to go someplace else? How do you make the case to go to Syria? And what if Iran continues with their nuclear build-up? How would we ever have the resolve to take that away from them, to say to them, Iran, we have decided the date that your nuclear effort will cease, and the only option to you is try to divest yourself of that nuclear capability before that day comes. Oh, and by the way, we aren't telling you what day that is. That is the kind of price that would have to be paid for the next several generations if we don't stay in Iraq and finish this job. As General Casey said the last time I was over in Iraq, he said the enemy cannot win if the politicians stay in the fight. If the politicians stay in the fight. And yet I hear, especially on the other side of the aisle, let's get out of there, we can't win. These are sometimes the same people that surrendered before we ever got there. And they are trying to get their prophecy fulfilled by encouraging the enemy to attack us. And that encouragement of the enemy is costing American lives, and it is encouraging not only our enemy but it is encouraging the people around them, the countries around them that support al Qaeda and the terrorists within Iraq. And the people that are doing that support comes out of Syria, it comes out of Iran. And I am starting to come to the conclusion that Iraq can't really be the safe country and the free and prosperous country that it has the potential to be as long as Iran is fomenting terror within the boundaries of Iraq. But we know the Iraqi people love freedom. They have had a taste of freedom. And when I watched the way they react to me when I go over there, I watch the interest that they show, I am convinced that there is a future for them and they want that free future. But if we also compare into this the Israeli situation where simultaneously Hamas attacked in Gaza and Hezbollah attacked in the north, now, what could coordinate such an attack like that? Iran. Iran whom I am reported sent tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, because Hamas, the Sunnis, weren't quite tied as tightly with Iran. So a little money helped, and they unleashed their attacks in Gaza and had to face the Israeli defense forces there. And Hezbollah, clearly a surrogate of Iran, began to fire their missiles into Israel. Look at the violence that is being fomented, the terror that is being pushed out of Iran today, Madam Speaker. That violence that in the Middle East is there today is rooted in Iran, rooted in Iran that just last month celebrated the centennial year of the formation of their constitution, a short-lived constitution, but a constitution that laid out the parameters for a free people. Iran has a tradition of freedom as well, Madam Speaker, and as old as it is, 100 years old, I believe the date was August 6, 1906, and to commemorate the centennial of that I hope that we move a resolution to acknowledge that date. I hope the Iranian people will be inspired to go back into the streets and grasp their freedom from the despotic rulers that are the ones that are fomenting so much terror and so much hatred, and take the control away from the madman that would continue to develop nuclear weapons and threaten to use them. We know from historical experience that when tyrants threaten, they generally follow through. And it was the British who learned that when they tried to negotiate in Munich with Hitler. And when they came back with a letter that said we will guarantee peace for the next hundred years, it didn't last very long; it lasted until the 1st day of September 1939 when the Nazis attacked Poland. But Hitler threatened and he followed through. Ahmadinejad is threatening. He will follow through because he is not afraid of anything. He is not deterred by a threat. He has a view that things are inevitable; and if he can kill enough people, his one religious cleric will come back, the 13th Imam or whatever his name is. And that is a radical approach to it all, but he would drive an entire people into oblivion. And if they get a nuclear weapon and the ability to deliver it, Tel-Aviv will be the first target, and he will threaten the rest of the Middle East and he will keep building missiles that will fire longer and longer until he is threatening Western Europe, and pretty soon he will be threatening the United States, just as that growing capability in North Korea has the potential within a very short time of threatening the United States. We simply cannot let nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them into the hands of madmen. There is not a rational regime. He doesn't represent the people of Iran. The people of Iran are a modern, moderate society, and they would like their opportunity at freedom. They would like their opportunity at prosperity. And I hope that they reach up and grasp that before it is too late, before annihilation is brought upon Iran by their leader. And so on this date, this fifth anniversary plus one day of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, on Pennsylvania, on the Pentagon, I wish, Madam Speaker, to thank and give gratitude to our military men and women who have so selflessly served with great courage, great bravery, great fortitude in a foreign land. The safety that the American people have been able to enjoy over the last 5 years are to the credit also of our emergency personnel and our intelligence system that is there and the security that is put in place. There has been a good network, Madam Speaker, and we need to be ever vigilant and ever increasing our network. There are places where we are vulnerable, and we are working to bring that vulnerability under control. But over the last 5 years we have a lot to be thankful for. We are a prosperous Nation. We have recovered from this. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership on a whole variety of subjects. It appears to me whenever we have an important issue before us, we have the opportunity to hear a share of the wisdom of Mr. Gingrey, who comes to the floor quite often and carries his voice to the American people. As I pick this up, I reflect upon a number of things, some of the things that we did and some of the stopgap measures that we put in place. I mentioned the PATRIOT Act. That PATRIOT Act, one of the important things it did was eliminated the firewall that prevented the CIA from exchanging information with the FBI. Had that firewall not been there in place, if they had been able to exchange the information, it might well have foiled the terrorist plot that attacked the United States on 9/11. So we looked back on where were the holes in our system and we set about fixing the holes. The PATRIOT Act fixed a lot of the holes, and we are a lot safer because we have passed the PATRIOT Act. There was a national debate on the PATRIOT Act. There were those that came forward and said, well, it is going to infringe upon people's rights, and there will be people who will have their library cards examined, and somehow Big Brother is going to figure out what our reading list happens to be out of a public library. That has not happened. I am not sure what the concern actually was. My reading list is all the way through my library in my office, and you can take a look at that. You can learn a lot about people if you observe their reading list and learn what is going on in their own library and what it looks like. But libraries are one of the top locations to exchange information by spies and terrorists, because they are such an easy location for people to walk into and out of and leave information in a specified place within a book or simply have that conversation and pass the material and the information there. But also the public libraries that were opened up that had Internet access. On those computers, perhaps, was information that can save thousands and maybe even millions of lives. In spite of the allegations that there would be people who would be individually singled out and unjustly have their privacy invaded by the PATRIOT Act, as many hearings as we held, and I believe it was 13 hearings before the Judiciary Committee, I specifically offered a number of witnesses an opportunity to name a single case of a single individual American who had had their rights, their freedoms, their privacy trampled on, infringed, or even specifically threatened. The closest thing I got was a vague allegation about some obscure librarian in Texas that no one could chase down. These were all specious arguments designed to undermine the PATRIOT Act. If that had been successful in doing that, your safety would have been undermined as well. But we passed the PATRIOT Act and we reauthorized the PATRIOT Act, and it was the right thing to do for America, not just in the short term, but for the long term. It is pretty impressive to see a bill that was passed quickly in the wake of a crisis withstand that level of scrutiny after all of those hearings and all that public criticism and emerge without a single incident that can be named to a specific individual at least, only allegations. The PATRIOT Act made us safer. The REAL ID Act makes us safer. There were at least 5 of the 19 terrorist bombers on September 11 who could have been, would have been removed from the United States if we would have been just applying the law in the local places when they had a false driver's license or when they weren't in the United States legally. We tightened this up with the REAL ID Act. There are something like 800 different kinds of identification that come before law enforcement officers. They do a great job, but there is literally no way they can have enough knowledge to examine the validity of 800 different kinds of identification. So the REAL ID Act standardizes and raises the legitimacy up of a driver's license. When you think about it, Madam Speaker, when you go to rent a movie, it takes a government-issued ID or a legitimate ID, a picture identification. We don't have that same kind of standard, or didn't have necessarily for climbing aboard an airplane and flying into the United States or flying out of the United States or flying around the United States. So we tightened that up with the REAL ID Act, with an intense debate, a lot of criticism. Whenever you change things in America, people are going to rise up and resist. It is the nature of this free society that we live in that we debate these issues intensively. It is also natural that the resistance comes up with all kinds of stories about how bad and how ugly it will be if you pass an act that changes the status quo. It is also a matter of fact, a matter of fact, Madam Speaker, that once you pass good policy, the criticism disappears, because the cases that are alleged to have happened do not materialize if you pass good policy.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege and the honor to be recognized on the floor of the United States Congress, and the opportunity to address you, Mr. Speaker, and the people that are listening in around the country. You know, as I listen to the message that has been delivered here by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I think we share a sentiment in balancing a budget one day. We don't always share exactly the same sentiment on how to get there, but I am looking for black ink, and I intend to be in this Congress to approve a black ink budget. I want to say that to my colleague from Arkansas one of the ways I would do that is tighten down this spending. In fact even on a discretionary budget, Mr. Speaker, if we just spent 95 percent of the money we spent this year we would have had a balanced budget. That is one way we can get there. We need to present a balanced budget and go from there. But I want to support the gentleman in his philosophy, and I am not for raising taxes, I am for doing it by restricting our spending, because we need to keep this growth run going. We are something like 17 consecutive quarters of growth. I am confident they have averaged over 3 percent. There have been only been about two quarters, and I can only think of one where our revenue was less than a 3 percent growth. This is an astonishing success for our economy. Mr. Speaker, I come here tonight, though, to talk about September 11, the fifth year anniversary to commemorate this day that passed us yesterday, and to renew our resolution to defend our people in this country and to promote freedom and to defeat our enemies. One of the things that happened, though, in reference to the debate that took place in just the previous hour, was our Pentagon was hit, we had a plane that was heroically taken to the ground in Pennsylvania, and we had the planes that went into the Twin Towers and shut off our financial centers in the United States. It was a direct assault on free enterprise capitalism. It was a direct assault on our financial markets, and it did shut down our markets for a short period of time. It also required us to spend billions of dollars in security in this country. So, our spending went up, our revenue went down, the economy was starting to drop down into a recession mode, and the President stepped up and took a leadership role. Some of that leadership role was to mobilize troops and send them to Afghanistan. Some of that leadership role was to deal with the impending financial crisis. By doing so, we addressed the tax cuts to stimulate this economy. Who would have thought, Mr. Speaker, that those tax cuts that were implemented the following year, and the second round that we did here in 2003, would have put us on this run for this unprecedented economic growth? We have a strong economy, we have recovered from the attack on our financial center, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars just in our national security, our domestic security, as well as additionally our additional costs in taking that fight to the enemy, taking the tip of the spirit of the Middle East and elsewhere. It has cost a lot of money to move forward in this global war against these terrorists. Yet, the economy in the United States is strong. Mr. Speaker, not only do we have a strong economy, an economy that I believe, if it hadn't been for the attacks on the United States, if we hadn't had to spend the money militarily, if we hadn't had to spend the money for our domestic security, create this expensive airport security that we have, I believe our budget would have balanced. In fact, the economy has grown so well that we actually have our revenue stream has gone up by $274 billion more than was anticipated and estimated. That is the kind of rebound that this economy has done. That is the way to balance this budget, control the spending, not increase the taxes. Let the economy grow us out of this, show fiscal discipline. I am one of the people that has called for more fiscal discipline. We always have to do that. We have to continue to be the conscience here because everybody's project always seems reasonable to them. They probably are reasonable. But when you add them all in the aggregate, that is when we have to start slicing some of them out. We have been doing that more and more. But I think we should have tightened our belt more back in 2003 when we engage the enemy in Iraq. We should have said to the American people, you are going to have to sacrifice. You are going to have to tighten your belt. We are going to reduce our domestic spending, at least the increases, and we are going to give our military everything that they need, and we are willing to all of us pull together as a Nation, Mr. Speaker. But had it not been for September 11, this would not be a budget discussion going on here in this previous hour, because it would be in the black, and there would not be complaints. That is my belief, and I think we are getting there now anyway. I think it is closer than most people will predict. It depends a little bit then on how the elections turn out here in November. But we are here today, just a day after the 5-year anniversary of the horrible and tragic attack on September 11. On that day, each person that is alive in America today that was around then remembers where they were. They remember the shock. They remember the pictures as they came out on television. Most of us saw this unfold as it went online. Most of us got the news, found our way to a television, and stood there mesmerized as the smoke poured out of the towers and as the first one went down and then the second. Most of us watched and prayed for those who were in the towers, and for their families. Most of us believed that there would be significant survivors that would be treated in medical units, and most of us were sadly informed that there weren't going to be wounded arriving. Most of them either were killed outright or got away clean without injury. But on that day, as the casualties estimate went up, and the first numbers that I heard, as I recall, were about 10,000 was the prediction, and now we know that number is lower than that. But that 10,000 number of projected killed in those attacks went on up to 15,000, to 20,000, on up to 30,000 was the highest number that I heard. I can still recall what it felt like to think about the concept of 30,000 Americans, burned to ashes in the inferno of that attack by al Qaeda on our Twin Towers. I remember that feeling. I also remember the feeling of gradual relief as the real estimates came down from 30,000 now to 25,000 to 20,000 to 15,000 to 10,000 and finally settled down. Actually, the number that I have is 2,973, all tragic, all human beings, sacred lives with unique value, dashed to death that day, and all of them with family friends or loved ones, most with all of those. Those families have lived with the horror of that day. The prayers of this Nation and the prayers of the world have gone out to them, Mr. Speaker. But as that number went down from 30,000 to 20,000 to 10,000 and then down to 3,000 now, that equation of relief, in my mind, was palpable. Today I can still feel it. But on the other side of the ledger was also the realization that the lower the number went, the shorter would be our attention span, and the weaker would be our resolve. As the 30,000 number settled down to 3,000, our resolve also was strong that day, and it stayed strong for a long time afterwards, but it is diminishing now in proportion to the loss of those lives. We cannot allow ourselves to settle into complacency, Mr. Speaker. We cannot allow ourselves to tell ourselves that this will go away, that they will quit attacking us if we just leave them alone, that somehow we could apologize to the people who attacked us, and find a way to understand them better. Maybe if America would convert to Islam, we could find a way to find peace with these people. But it is not to be, not by this proud, free people, not by this proud, free Nation. This Nation will never capitulate to threats. I interviewed a World War II veteran, who had served just outside the battle of Bataan, and I think about a commander there, when he demanded that he surrender, and his answer was, nuts. That is our attitude here in America, nuts. We don't ever do that. We take it to you. You have attacked us. We are going to remain a proud, free Nation. Our streets will be free and they will be open, and this will be an open society, and we refuse to cower. We refuse to retreat from the rest of the world and curl up in a national fetal position. We will defend our schools and our hospitals and our ball games and our theaters. Essentially, the condition that Israel is in today, where they have to guard everything, that will not be America. Because we will take this a little to you, and it will be over, this war will be over when we change the habitat that breeds the kind of venom and terror that attacked us on September 11. But 5 years later, Mr. Speaker, no attacks on America on our soil, not one successful one, a significant number of attempts, but not one successful attack. That is a testimonial that supports the effort, the efforts of the PATRIOT Act, the efforts of other pieces of legislation that we have done, the efforts of our intelligence personnel, our emergency personnel, our law enforcement officers, a team of Americans, and a team of people around the world who have an eye out for suspicious behavior, help us with our leads, and maybe we have been a little bit lucky. But we have got to be right 100 percent of the time. So far, so good. But at this point, I see the gentleman from Georgia, my good friend, Mr. Gingrey, has arrived in the Chamber. I am quite interested in what he might have to deliver this evening. I would invite the gentleman from Georgia to address you, Mr. Speaker. I would yield so much time as the gentleman may consume.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia and appreciate the perspective that you brought to this debate. I reflect upon some of those changes that we have seen over the years with regard to our security. I recall when we brought our security down tighter on boarding our airplanes, it ended up you were very likely to get a fairly extensive spread-eagle search if you bought a one-way ticket. That was an indicator. We all take our shoes off now. Those things happen. There are lineups at the airport. We are paying a lot of TSA officials a lot of money to make sure we are safer, and our baggage is going through x-rays and being checked for bombs. The list goes on and on and on. I have two pair of nail clippers that they broke the tiny little file off the end for fear that would be a weapon. That has been relaxed somewhat. These are reminders, whenever I get the nail clippers out, that is why that is broken off. It is because of terrorists that attacked us in a cowardly way. So after the events that unfolded in Great Britain here in the early or middle part of last month with a plot to blow up perhaps 10 airliners across the Atlantic Ocean on their way over to the United States, in that short period after that, when the regulations changed and they said you can no longer have gel or liquids with you on the airplane, so that covered one set of materials for the ladies and another set of materials for the men, no shaving cream, no toothpaste for either one of us, no lipstick in some of those cases. My wife and I happened to have been stuck in a line that took an hour and a half to get through security. While she watched our luggage, I walked up and down the line and asked people what they thought. Everyone there was unanimous. They said, if I have to give up some liquid or gel or stand in line for an hour or longer, they are making me safe, and if it makes the airline safer, I am happy to stand here. I am proud of that kind of patience and that kind of tolerance, and yet I do the equation and I think now a lot more people are checking their luggage because they want to carry along some liquids. And the numbers of bags have gone up significantly since that period of time. And when you have to go check your baggage, it takes more time. Sometimes you can print your ticket and get on the plane if it is carry-on luggage. So perhaps it is 20 minutes more to get on, and then you have to wait for it to come off the carousel, and that might be another 20 minutes. Maybe 40 minutes of flight multiplied by the thousands of people who are in the air. And it has cost American productivity, Madam Speaker, but we are patient about it. I do caution the American people to always remember why you are standing in that security line, always remember why you are not going to be able to carry your toothpaste or your lotion or whatever it might be. It is because these terrorists are actively plotting to attack us, to kill us because of who we are and what we stand for. They want to kill us because of our freedom. They want to kill us because of our religion. They want to kill us because of our economic success, which is why they attacked the financial centers. So while we are giving up our liquids and while we are standing in line a little while longer, Madam Speaker, I would ask all the American people to remember why that is. Keep focussed on the real goal here. The goal is not to shed enough things out of our luggage that no one is going to be able to bring a bomb on a plane. The goal is to end the motivation of this enemy so all of our freedoms come back to us and so our children and grandchildren will live with the same sense of security and peace and safety that we have lived with all of these years. Remember the frustration. We should be a little frustrated. We should be patient. But we should understand why and who is to blame. And I would just put it into a simple metaphor. There are thousands of people in America that lock their keys in their car. Each day it happens, I imagine, thousands of times around this country. And I think it is pretty rare for anyone to think why that is a problem. Now, we are forgetful folks and we do things by habit. When we get out of our rhythm, we might lock our keys in the car. Then we go get the locksmith or we go find another set of keys. It costs time; it costs money. But how many people who lock their keys in their car think if it were not for the thieves, there would be no such thing as car keys? And how many people that are standing in line at the airport think if it were not for terrorists, there wouldn't be a line? There wouldn't be a TSA. There would simply be people walking, getting to the gate in time to jump on the plane before the door closes, and fly off into the wild blue yonder. That is the way it was before these cowardly acts came, Madam Speaker, and that is the way I pray it is again. But it will not happen until we change the habitat that breeds this kind of terror. And this subject comes back to me as I reflect on a conversation I had with Benazir Bhutto, who was the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. She came to Storm Lake, Iowa, Buena Vista University, to give a speech shortly after September 11, 2001. And after that speech, and it was really an impressive keynote address, I had the privilege to sit down and talk with her in a casual conversation, and it wasn't casual to me but it was casual to her, one on one in a private setting. And I asked her a series of questions, but the most central question was how do we win this war? How do you fight people that are interspersed throughout a population of perhaps 1.3 billion Muslims and in there are the al Qaeda members and the al Qaeda sympathizers? How many are there? Perhaps 130 million would be the answer that I received that night. And how do we defeat them? And former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's response was you have got to give them freedom. You have got to give them an opportunity at democracy. If you do that, they will change their focus from hatred and killing to growing prosperity for their families, their communities, their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries, and their mosques. Now, that is a very human thing to do is to grow that opportunity for the next generations. But you have to have some control of your destiny to be able to do that. And in order to have that control of destiny, you have to have freedom. And this country has never gone to war against another free people. It has always been tyrants and despots, never people who could control their own destiny and elect their own national leaders. And I believe free people can resolve their differences because free people have that control of their destiny and they want to continue to grow and prosper rather than live in hatred. So I was not actually that impressed with that proposal at the time until I did a series of readings in-depth into the Islamic mindset, particularly into the al Qaeda mindset. And after I got into that pretty deep, particularly Daniel Pipes, I came out of that, and I thought I believe Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was right, that we really do need to engage in promoting freedom. But I had simplified this down to change the habitat that breeds terror. Change that habitat. Well, it needs to be for the good. It cannot be for the worse. And that means freedom. That means opportunity. And when the President said that freedom is the right of every person and the hope and the future of every nation, I believe that. Whether it is in our time or whether it is in another time, that is the progress that we are making in that direction. And bold steps were taken by the President in the aftermath of September 11, when he said that they were going to hear us now, the terrorists were going to hear us around this globe. And many said it couldn't done. Many said that going into Afghanistan, no one had ever succeeded in that in history; that it was too dangerous, it was too mountainous, the terrain was too rugged, the local Taliban were too good of fighters, that we couldn't risk our military to go in there. And yet in cooperation and conjunction with the Northern Alliance, we went in there. In a matter of weeks, Afghanistan was liberated. And I recall talking to some Iowa National Guard troops who were on the ground protecting the voting booths and the access and the routes to them, about 750 Iowans deployed in Afghanistan. They were there to help ensure that Afghanis could go to the polls and vote their freedom for the first time ever in the history of the world on that place on this planet. The first time. And now who would argue that the Afghan people are free? Of course they are. And they are making progress and they are moving forward. And they have their troubles, but freedom has always been worth fighting for. And it is something that we see moving in that same direction in Iraq. Iraq has not been as easy. In fact, it has been more difficult. The liberation of Iraq took place very quickly, faster than anyone predicted, Madam Speaker, but in the aftermath there was a lull when there wasn't very much violence and it looked like Iraq was going to heal up the same way that Afghanistan did. But, you know, Iraq has different neighbors than Afghanistan has, and Iraq became the center that brought al Qaeda to Iraq to fight Americans, fight the coalition forces, fight the new Iraqi forces because they realized, as Zarqawi realized, there was no place to retreat to. If they were to lose in Iraq, where else could a terrorist lay his weary head? Where else could they hope to have a terrorist training ground and a terrorist center so that they could gather resources and do their training and deploy their terrorists around the world? Al Qaeda needs a safe haven. We took that safe haven away from that them in Afghanistan and in the mountains of Pakistan. We took that safe haven away from them in Iraq. Zarqawi wrote a letter a couple of years ago that said that there was no place for them to hide. There were no mountains. There were no forests. There was no place for them to hide in Iraq. They had to rely on Iraqis to take them into their homes to harbor them there. And he said in that letter the Iraqi people that were willing to harbor and provide a safe haven for al Qaeda were ``as rare as red sulfur.'' Now, I never really got an answer to how rare red sulfur is. I would just say this, Madam Speaker. I have never seen it and I have been around a little bit. So I think it would be in the category of rare as hens' teeth or frog whiskers, something like that. That is maybe a Middle Eastern phrase, ``rare as red sulfur.'' So they were very apprehensive then about being able to hang on to a toehold in Iraq. But Iraq has attracted al Qaeda terrorists from other places around the globe to come there to fight because they know that when Iraq is free, not only does that erase their place where they hope to be able to have a terrorist center, but it also shuts off their opportunities anywhere else in the world because what it does is it inspires the Iraqi people. When they stand up; when they become prosperous; when free enterprise starts to work; when the oil starts to pump out of the ground; when the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce, whom I gave a speech to here about a year ago and they were just so spontaneous in their response to me; when those good things happen in Iraq, when safety is established, commerce is established, and the oil comes out of the ground and the money flows into Iraq and they become a free, prosperous nation, an Islamic nation and an Arab nation, that inspiration that Iraq can and I believe, Madam Speaker, will become will be too much for al Qaeda, too much for the rest of the world of al Qaeda and the people within that religion who hate freedom, who hate Western civilization, who hate Christianity, who hate Americans, who hate free enterprise capitalism because the model of success would be what will defeat the rest of them. So Afghanistan and Iraq become the two lodestar nations, and those two together are the inspiration for the Muslim world. And as they move forward towards freedom and they want to share in that prosperity, I would just ask the world to consider what happened after November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall went down and the Iron Curtain came crashing down on that day and freedom echoed bloodlessly across Eastern Europe all the way to the Pacific ocean. Almost bloodlessly. Ceausescu, I think we have to exempt him from that category. And that is about the only place where the bullets flew. But in the end, the people of Eastern Europe and across Asia loved freedom. They reached out for freedom and were ready to fight for freedom. That kind of historical miracle that took place in about a 2\1/2\-year period of time can be that same kind of historical miracle for the Arab world. So, Madam Speaker, I want the American people to understand the Bush doctrine, this goal that we have, which is to change the habitat that breeds terror and promote freedom so people can choose their own destiny. And if they choose their destiny to be something less than the freedom that we have, there is not much we can do about that, but we can encourage them to be free and make their own decisions and take a look at models around the world. And the best model, Madam Speaker, is right here in the United States. There is no place with more freedom. There is no place with more prosperity. There is no place with a stronger economy than we have here in the United States. And it is one of the places that has the strongest families and the strongest tradition of faith and Biblical values, and you put that all together. We are descended from Western civilization. We are now the leaders in Western civilization. The thought process that was descended from the Greeks and through France in the Age of Enlightenment and over to the United States at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, that dynamic that came from Western civilization coupled with the Industrial Revolution and that dynamic of free enterprise capitalism that matched with the Industrial Revolution, was tempered by and given a moral authority from our Biblical values, those three pillars are what made this Nation the great Nation that we are. And we need to be anchored in those pillars. But I would take us back, Madam Speaker, to some situations that are just simply facts, facts that we forget about. Osama bin Laden officially declared war against the United States on August 23, 1996. He just flat came out and said, We are at war with the United States of America. He decided he wanted to take us on. That was after the World Trade Center was bombed, which was February of 1993. There were also the plotting terrorists there, and I believe that number was also five of them, that had we enforced our laws on our security, we would have plucked them off the streets and they wouldn't have been in the mix and perhaps we could have interceded in the first attack on the World Trade Center. But that was February, 1993, Madam Speaker. And then there was an attack on the Khobar Towers in June of 1996. After that, August 23, 1996, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States. And our response was, I guess we will have to serve a warrant on Osama bin Laden and make it a law enforcement approach rather than a war. And according to significant, credible accounts, we passed up several opportunities to take Osama bin Laden out. It would have saved 3,000 lives then and perhaps another 3,000 lives of our troops that have been in the field, not to mention the thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis and our coalition troops, who have all had casualties associated with this. But I would take us into a perspective that might lay it out a little differently, and that would be 5 years ago yesterday, I was on my way down the road to the Clay County Fair. My wife called me on the phone and said, Turn on the radio. A plane has been flown into the Twin Towers. I turned on the radio, a few minutes later the second plane hit the other tower. The gentleman with me said, and he is a World War II veteran, just said under his breath, ``Pearl Harbor.'' It didn't take him five seconds to analyze what had happened. There had been another cowardly attack on the United States of a similar magnitude. And in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, we went into an all-out global war and we fought on two fronts, in Europe and in the Pacific, and we fought the Nazis and the Japanese. And the loss of American lives in that 3\1/2\- year period of time was about 450,000 brave Americans, about the similar number of lives lost in Pearl Harbor as there was in the Twin Towers. Since that time of the attack on the Twin Towers, this Nation has suffered not quite 3,000 killed in action. But 450,000 in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. If you calculate that ratio or that equation, Madam Speaker, I think it indicates pretty strongly how successful this effort has been. And this is a different kind of war. It is a war that is going to go on for a long time, and it will not be over until we change the habitat of the people who get up every morning and decide they are going to come and kill us. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chairman, I am offering this amendment today that would allow a cultural exemption for Native Americans and people from cultures that consume equine meat. Specifically, my amendment would permit equine to be shipped, transported, moved, delivered, received, possessed, purchased, sold, all of the list that is in the bill, Madam Chairman, by Native Americans or people from cultures who eat equine meat. Horses have played, and continue to play, an important role in Native American culture. It is particularly true for the tribes of the Great Northern Plains, including the Great Sioux Nation. Many tribal members raise and sell horses. In addition, the Apache people and the Pueblo people from the Southwest have consumed horse meat. They were very skilled on horseback, but they valued and cherished the horse as food as well. The Native American cultures are not the only people to eat or raise horses for meat. The people from the cultures of Japan, Belgium, France, Austria, Quebec, Chile, Germany, Iceland, Kazakhstan, including also the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Italy, all eat horse meat today and all have recipes today. People in support of this bill have a romantic view of the horse because it helped build America, and in their mind it is not in our culture to eat the horse for that reason. But they fail to understand that the oxen, bovine, was also a great assistance to us and maybe even a greater assistance in building America; but we do not have an aversion to beef, Madam Chairman. So for these reasons, I would ask support for this cultural exemption amendment. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.