Donald Manzullo

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, it is a real honor to be able to honor my close friend Phil Crane, my neighbor, a person with whom I share one of our counties, and others are here to do the same thing. I will reserve my remarks for later. First I would like to recognize the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, the honor of being elected to Congress is distinct, singular, as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) so eloquently stated. But I never thought in my life I would have the opportunity to serve with Phil Crane. There are big shadows in the Illinois delegation, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), and Phil Crane. Mom was living when I was elected to Congress in 1992, and I think that one of reasons she was so excited when I was elected is the fact that she would have the opportunity to meet Phil Crane and talk to him on a regular basis. I first met Phil when I was given the distinction of being awarded the Freedom Foundation Award. The Freedom Foundation is out of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The note that came with that was I could have somebody present this to me. I said, oh, my goodness gracious. I called Phil, and I said, Would you do me the honor of giving me this award? It was as if I needed an excuse to get in to talk to him. I drove over to I believe it was Arlington Heights. I have got this picture. We were thinner, younger and had darker hair back then; and I keep that. It is on the refrigerator held by magnets that say ``Manzullo for Congress, 1992,'' in a place of great prominence. I came here in 1992, actually, January of 1993, and he would ask me a simple question, Now, can you tell me the constitutional basis for that bill? We do not talk about that anymore. We get tied up in so many issues. People do not talk about the underpinnings of liberty. Members do not get together and have discussions about what the Founders would do. The sense of history of this place often becomes chewed up by the exogenous of the issues. And yet to this man from the 8th district of Illinois who defied logic in getting elected to Congress, I guess I share that same with him, no one ever thought I would be here. He has always understood how important history is. It makes us who we are. I read when Phil's dad wrote those articles in the newspaper for years. I always read those articles, always heard of Phil Crane. I was the chairman of Young Americans for Freedom at American University here in Washington, D.C., and he was making noise then as a professor before he was elected to Congress. Then throughout law school and before I was elected to Congress and after, of course, he would always associate the sea change in America, the thinking of this country with getting back to roots of free enterprise to somebody called Phil Crane, eternally a professor, always the pedagogue, to me a personal mentor. The manufacturers in this country who struggle have Phil Crane to thank for setting the template that lowers the taxes of everybody who manufactures in this country so that we can keep jobs here and be more competitive. The other side of the coin that says free trade is fair trade, Phil always believed in that, too. In fact, he would say things such as, ``Corporations do not pay taxes. They collect them.'' It took me a while to understand what he was talking about, but what he was saying is it is the consumer that is going to pay the tax in the increased price of the product that the corporations would be collecting from them. No one has ever said that except Phil Crane, because he has always understood that the ultimate power in this republic is in the heart of the people who live here. It is the people who started the revolution in 1776. It is the people to whom government must be accountable, that every individual has worth, deep worth, self- worth, value. I recall another time when I was running in the primary in 1992, I went to see Phil at a town meeting in Nunda Township in McHenry County. He very adroitly had scheduled that just as the bingo game ended for the senior citizens at that township, and as Phil came in the door everybody stood up. I said, wow, do they respect this man. For about 20 minutes, without notes, he talked about the issues of the day, how they impacted the people he represented. The people would nod in agreement, and some of them got up and asked a question, and he would always be very responsive. If the person disagreed with what he had to say, Phil would smile and with this huge heart, embracing the fact that everybody is important and everybody has great worth, he would say, I welcome the fact that you disagree with me. Now, let me give you an explanation of why that is. Where do you find people like this? How many institutions are left in America? How many walking history books are left? How many authors on their feet, mentoring Members of Congress and ask questions such as, do you think government should be this big? Why have we gotten here? Is there really a constitutional basis for what you are trying to do? Sitting in the Crane role, the role of significance, he would ponder this place and his 35 years of distinct service and look around at all these young people and place himself in that position and have a sense of envy on his face that if he could exchange bodies and take with him that great mind, how magnificent he would be and even more respected by his colleagues. You do not find people like that. They are just not there any more. Who are the people that remember the greatness of America? Who are the people that take the time to share the basis of the Constitution? Who talks about liberty anymore? Who talks about freedom? Phil's legacy is that his insistence on constitutional government, on the principles of freedom, on the integrity of the individual, the wholesomeness of life, of the honesty of one's word, of a principled devotion to this Chamber. Where do you find people like Phil Crane? Phil will officially be gone when this Congress ends, but his shadow, his influence, his love for me as a person who overcame insurmountable odds to get elected to Congress, who is this guy from Egan, Illinois, population 42, who never held office before? He had never held office before and he could always relate to him because he had never held office before, and no one ever gave him a chance of being elected to Congress. He is my brother, he is my friend, he is my teacher, he is my mentor. His words will always ring in my ears, and though I will not see his face every day, his spirit is impressed upon this place, and I am a better man because of him. Thank you, Phil. God bless you and thank you for your service to America.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order today.

Mr. MANZULLO. I recognize the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the man of the hour, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I first had the opportunity to meet my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), when I became a Member of Congress in 1993. What impressed me is the fact that I could live only 100 miles from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) and he would have an accent and I do not. Some people call that a Chicago accent. You often wonder why would somebody who lives near Egan, Illinois, a population of 39, very small county, and who raises beef cattle, obviously lives on a farm, what would he have in common with somebody who lives in a big city like Chicago. I took a look at Bill Lipinski when I first came, knew his reputation as somebody very much interested in roads and highways and transportation. Bill and I had a lot of interesting talks, most of them about roads, the significance of highways. In the historical context, Bill would wax eloquent about the significance of commerce, why airports are necessary, why roads are necessary. In fact, we talked one time that when the convention was called in 1787, it was on adjournment from the Baltimore meeting a year earlier where delegates from the 13 States had met under the Articles of Confederation and in vain could not come up with some kind of a system whereby to standardize the width, length and depth of the locks of the navigable waters. When the delegates met the next year in Philadelphia, the original purpose of the new Constitution, because the Articles of Confederation simply were not strong enough, was to promote commerce by making sure that this Nation had this fluid system of transportation. Bill has always understood that. Roads do run from Egan, Illinois, to downtown Chicago. Bill always supported whatever road projects we had. I always supported his requests for buses in downtown Chicago because people go from Egan, Illinois, to Chicago. But most important was the fact that, in the whole area of air transportation, Bill worked with us to help put Rockford, Illinois, on the map with the Greater Rockford Airport, recognizing the fact that here is an airport that needed business and so why not, to the extent possible, use it for transportation to alleviate the congestion in Chicagoland. He chaired, back when his party was in the majority, several hearings, and I had an opportunity to testify before him. And when the majority changed and he was still on the same subcommittee, I still had an opportunity to testify before him. It really did not make any difference who was in the majority or the minority. Bill was still interested in the fact that roads connect people, they connect towns and, more importantly, they connect lives. I have never met a person as unusual as Bill Lipinski. A Chicago accent? You have to be from rural Illinois to recognize that there is such a thing as a Chicago accent. He in his bungalow in the big city and I in my farmhouse in outside of Egan in the suburbs know this: That the dedication of this man to the people not just in his district but in the entire State, his wisdom in placing emphasis upon infrastructure and transportation as a means to better everybody because of commerce, made him rise above political labels. It was never Bill Lipinski, the Democrat. It was always Bill Lipinski, my friend.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is a real joy to pay tribute to a person who has been a real role model, a mentor, and a teacher for the years that I have had the privilege of representing the people of the 16th Congressional District of Illinois. For a long period of time, I served with Doug on the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on the Committee on International Relations, of which Doug was the chairman. In 1999, he invited me to go with him to Hong Kong in December of that year on an oversight mission to take a look at the result of the turnover of Hong Kong to Mainland China in the summer of that year, and I had never been to China before and really did not want to go, but knowing that Doug Bereuter would be the chairman of that little group gave me so much of a sense of confidence that, in case we got in trouble, he could get us out of it. So we went over there and met with various people in China, including the Premier; and I recall when we were flying from Shanghai to Beijing, we encountered a diversion in the weather, and there was a huge dust storm that was blowing the dirt off the Gobi Desert. And so we just could not make it to Beijing. And the pilot came on, and he said, We are going to have to divert to Hohhot Inner Mongolia. And the only thing I knew about Inner Mongolia was that it is right next to Outer Mongolia; and as the plane landed, we were given these reboarding passes that said, ``When in Hohhot, stay at the Inner Mongolia Hotel,'' which was owned by the Chinese airline. And we looked at each other, and our small delegation got in this bus. I know it was very quiet. I had two coats, and they were both stored in the belly of the airplane, and we rode late at night to this mysterious hotel and were greeted there in the lobby by so much confusion going on. It was just absolutely chaos broke loose in the lobby, and a man who was a complete stranger to our U.S. delegation, probably about eight people including Members and staff, came over and he said, ``If you give me your passports, I will get you your room.'' We did not even know who this guy was, except he looked official. And I looked at Doug, we all looked at each other, took out our passports and gave them to this complete stranger, who then proceeded to get us our rooms and took care of that. The next 2 days we were trying to find out ways we could get to Beijing. We thought about planes, trains, and automobiles. There were several people on that airplane from Israel, and we heard that they got in a van and drove across the Gobi Desert at night to get to Beijing. We called the U.S. Consul, and they said no, we do not want a bunch of Congressmen and their staff riding in a van across the Gobi Desert. It is a pretty dangerous place. Eventually the weather cleared up, and we got on the airplane, landed in Beijing, and what a great opportunity to spend several days with a person who has such a deep sense of history, a real love of his country, and who took hours of his time to instruct me on his thoughts on the changing face of China. Now, I am the chairman of the American-Chinese Interparliamentary Exchange and have been there several times subsequent to the 1999 trip with the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). And a year ago in January, I had an opportunity to lead the largest delegation of Members of Congress to China. Were it not for the gentleman's insistence that I go with him to China in 1999, knowing that I had such a desire and interest in that country, I probably would not be the chairman of this Interparliamentary Exchange, probably would never have had an opportunity to open up markets over there and work on areas of human rights. I can only attribute this to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). He is one of the most decent people and kind individuals that I have met in my entire life. He has never raised his voice, always with a smile, and a sense of knowing that not only have the people of his congressional district been well served, brilliantly served by a truly dedicated public servant, but the people of America as a whole have been served by this outstanding individual. It is retirement from Congress but not from life, and that is the good news. We look forward to working with the gentleman. I am excited about the possibilities of being the chairman of the American-Chinese Interparliamentary Exchange and to have the opportunity in the future to work with the gentleman and to continue to be his student.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case). (Mr. CASE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the State of California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield half of my allotted 15 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez) and that she may control that time.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I thought I would recite the names of some of the organizations that are in favor of the Manzullo-Velazquez amendment. Sure, we have the American Bankers Association that is in favor of it, but just listen to the names of these groups that represent small businesses. The Asian American and Hotel Owners Association; Women Impacting Public Policy, that is over 2.5 million women-owned small businesses. The Air Conditioning Contractors of America, those are all small businesses. American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, those are small business people. American Society of Appraisers, those are small business people. America's Community Bankers, those are many small community banks in rural areas. Financial Services Roundtable, banks of all sizes, including large banks. Independent Community Bankers of America, those are mostly small banks, many in rural areas. International Franchise Association, thousands and thousands of small business owners across America. National Association of Government Guaranteed Leaders, NAGGL, that represents people that get small business loans. National Association for the Self-Employed, I think the average membership of their group is less than five employees. National Association of Women Business Owners, small business people. The National Bankers Association, National Black Chamber of Commerce, the National Small Business Association, the Small Business Legislative Council, the Appraisal Institute. The Tire Industry Association, these are guys that have tire shops across the country. The United Motorcoach Association, these are guys that buy buses for tourism, et cetera; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents the large and small businesses. The reason all these groups are behind the Manzullo-Velazquez amendment is that the core purpose of the Small Business Administration is to make capital available to small businesses, and why the SBA is fighting small businesses is beyond the recognition of the chairman of the Committee on Small Business. I cannot understand it, why the SBA is fighting this bill, which is the core program of the entire SBA. It does not make sense. $79 million in the huge $3 trillion budget that we have is not a lot of money. But what it does amount to is the doubling of the fee of the little guys that get loans of under $150,000. The little ones get hit, the very ones that are trying to make this Nation recover. In my district, we just dropped below 10 percent unemployment and the Fed raised the interest rate. I stand here in the gap as the chairman of the Committee on Small Business to say the Small Business Administration is wrong on this issue, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for fighting this Congress to defund the very program that has made the SBA the organization that it is. Sure, I could get very impassioned over little people. I come from a small business. My dad had a grocery store and then a restaurant, and the family restaurant continues today. And if my brother wants to get a loan from the SBA, why should his fees be doubled?

Mr. MANZULLO. If the gentleman will continue to yield, this does not take funds of the MEP.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me first address the issue of offsets. We take $33.251 million out of a program that the President did not even request, this Legal Activities Office Automation Program at the Department of Justice, $33 million out of a program they never even requested. I voted and continue to support the war on terrorism, but we reach a certain point when we have to ask ourselves, when do we take care of our own? When do we take care of the little people? This is not an outrageous request to ask that we have level funding this year that we had last year; $79 million is a lot of money, but compared to how far it goes to continue the program is something else. The problem here is this: we all want to get away from this subsidy. I am in favor of a zero subsidy rate and have continued to work towards that each year that I have been chairman of the Committee on Small Business. To do it all at once at a time when the Fed has just increased the interest rate, when the unemployment in the district that I represent has just fallen below 10 percent, and at a time when small entrepreneurs continue to scramble for capital is simply unwise. To have a complete recovery, we need to make sure that the resources, the loans, are there for the little people, the ones that get up early in the morning and work 18 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week, just for the opportunity to make a lot less money than they could working somewhere else, but who choose to do that because the spirit of entrepreneurship rings within their heart, because they know that eventually they will create more jobs and add to the economy. That is what this bill does. It restores the same amount that they would have had last year, and I ask my colleagues to vote in favor of the Manzullo-Velazquez amendment.

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, I commend the chairman for funding the MEP program, but out of Justice this comes out of the administration account. It has nothing to do with FBI agents or the DEA or people involved in those positions.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I first want to congratulate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary and Related Agencies Subcommittee; and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), ranking minority member, for crafting an excellent bill. Regardless of how this amendment turns out, I am going to vote for it and encourage the rest of the Members of Congress to vote for it. It is very difficult to balance all the conflicting interests, and I commend them for coming up with a good bill. With all due respect and honor to the gentlemen, I offer this amendment today to freeze funding for SBA 7(a) guaranteed lending program at last year's level. The 7(a) is the flagship lending program of the Small Business Administration. This amendment means small businesses will be able to get started and grow. The 7(a) program is on track to create and retain half a million jobs this year. It has a proven track record by providing approximately 30 percent of the long-term financing needs for all small businesses. Increasing fees on small business borrowers and lenders, particularly as interest rates are rising again, puts another barrier in access to capital and crimps our national economic recovery. No matter how anybody states it, if this amendment fails, small business borrowers and lenders will face a fee or tax increase based on the amount of loan starting October 1 by as much as 100 percent. Some may characterize this as only a few dollars up front. But as the truth in lending disclosure form shows, he or she will pay up front at the time of the signing of the loan documents, hundreds if not thousands of extra dollars. The fee for a typical $100,000 loan would increase from $850 to $1,700. On top of the up-front fee, lenders will once again see their annual fee on the outstanding balance of 7(a) loans made after October 1 increase, just after they shot up 30 percent this past April to keep the 7(a) program functional in fiscal year 2004. These fees cannot be passed on to the borrowers. Many lenders, particularly small community banks that serve rural areas, are seriously considering leaving the program. Fewer banks offering 7(a) loans will translate into decreased access to credit for small businesses, which will result in fewer jobs created. Mr. Chairman, my congressional district just dropped below 10 percent unemployment. Manufacturing jobs leveled off for 4 months. We lost another 11,000 this past month. We are not out of the woods yet. On top of it, the Fed decides to raise the interest rate. The last thing that we need is to have more of a crimp in capital access for the small businesses. The amendment does not increase business spending. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the amendment will reduce outlays by $7 million in fiscal year 2005 by offering cuts in other programs. The reductions are in other programs. The reductions will not be sensitive. They are in the Department of Justice General Administration Account. The Legal Activities Office Automation Program gets cut by $33 million for a program that they never asked for; the National Endowment For Democracy gets cut by a little over $10 million, which is still $1 million above the fiscal year 2004 level; and the salaries and expenses account at the SBA would make up the difference, to reach a $79,132,000 appropriations level for 7(a). That account would be cut by $8.46 million. So the purpose of this amendment in making the tough choices is to keep funding level, keep the 7(a) program where it is, and although I support the goal of eventually getting the 7(a) program to a zero subsidy rate, now at the time we are just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, just starting a recovery, this is not the time to impose additional fees and taxes, not only upon the people that borrow the money, but upon the lenders that make it all possible. Mr. Chairman, I again urge my colleagues to shift this $79 million from other accounts to the Small Business Account in order to help out the small businesses and keep the 7(a) program alive.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. I am in favor of a tax cut for all manufacturing entities, from large corporations through to the sole proprietorships. The reason I abandoned my own bill, Manzullo- Rangel-Crane, is the fact that it limited relief only to the large corporations. Only. Only to the large corporations. I cannot support that. What we need is a bill as in the other body that has a manufacturing benefit for everybody who manufactures, not just the large ones.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, after 1999 all businesses, from normally large chapter C corporations to nontraditional corporations such as sub S partnerships, limited liability corporations and sole proprietorships, have had a tax break for the items that they export. This is the extraterritorial income exclusion, or ETI. The WTO held this tax break illegal because it gives a preferential tax break to exported items, even though Europe does the very same thing through its VAT tax, which is rebated at the border. The present House bill replaces the ETI tax with a large tax cut for businesses that manufacture in the U.S., similar to what the other body did, except that in this House bill, only chapter C corporations get the tax cut because the House bill tax cut does not apply to other nonchapter C businesses, such as subchapter S, limited liability and sole proprietorships, normally the little guys. The present House bill has the same problem as my bill did from early last year. That is why I admitted my mistake and abandoned the original Crane-Rangel-Manzullo bill because it, too, limited relief only to chapter C corporations. My district's 2,000 manufacturing businesses are little guys, mostly sub S like the rest of the Nation. I worked with the other body last summer to include the manufacturing benefit to everybody, which is what that body did. The House bill hurts businesses which are presently exporting and which are nonchapter C corporations by causing a tax increase. SAS in North Carolina, 100 employees, manufactures software, exports a lot. Because it is a subchapter S business and not a chapter C corporation, SAS will have a massive tax increase. Excel Foundry and Machine in Pekin, Illinois, 100 employees, a third of its revenue coming from exports. They just added three engineers and put on an addition. Because they are a sub S and not a chapter C, their tax benefit will end, and they will have a tax increase. National Machinery of Tiffin, Ohio, the last U.S. manufacturer of cold forming machines, exports most of its product. Because they are an LLC and not a chapter C, they will have a massive tax increase. They make a machine that makes bullets. There are tax cuts for small businesses and depending on how you total them, somewhere between $2.75 billion and $18 billion; and I want to thank everybody for those tax cuts. We appreciate the sub S reform and expensing extension for 2 years. However, the bill totals about $143 billion in gross tax cuts, meaning the large and multinational corporations get a benefit of about 93 percent of the entire bill. The class warfare between large and small businesses was not asked for by the large companies. They want the smaller manufacturers to thrive because the little guys are the suppliers for the large companies. The supporters of the bill say the nonchapter C people got their tax break when personal income tax rates were reduced for everybody, but everybody knows it costs a lot more to run a small business. As chairman of the Committee on Small Business, I cannot discriminate against small businesses; and I hope the majority of the House will agree with that.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4478), to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 through July 23, 2004, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 775, the Security and Fairness Enhancement for America Act of 2003, or SAFE for America Act. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this important piece of legislation, which eliminates the visa lottery program from the Immigration and Nationality Act. Family connections play an overwhelming role in current immigration law. As a result of most immigrants coming from a few areas of the world, Congress established the visa lottery in the Immigration Act of 1990 to diversify the immigration pool. Approximately 50,000 foreign nationals per year are randomly selected and awarded visas to come and live permanently in the United States under this visa lottery program. Immigrant visas are typically issued to individuals who already have some existing connection with a family member lawfully residing in the United States or with a U.S. employer. Millions of people apply for these visas through the lottery program, and the program requirements do nothing to ensure that the applicants have the skills they will need to participate in our modern economy. The recipients of these visas are selected based on luck, not by merit or existing ties with the U.S. This visa program is also problematic because it is unfair to those immigrants who have patiently waited and complied with our immigration laws. Most family-sponsored immigrants currently wait years to obtain a visa, yet the visa lottery program allows 50,000 random immigrants to pass ahead of these family-sponsored immigrants each year with relatively no wait. Finally, and what is perhaps most troubling are the numerous cases reported by the State Department that show that lottery winners often file fraudulent visa information. Because the lottery accepts visa applications from a variety of individuals and only requires credentials after selection, there is often a rush to find false documents once the winners are notified. False documentation is bad enough when applicants lie about education or work experience. With the amount of terrorist threats against our country, these immigration loopholes can create devastating consequences. Mr. Speaker, in this atmosphere of ambiguity, it would be wise to closely examine the flow of legal immigration into the United States in order to implement more comprehensive screening and naturalization measures.