Nancy Pelosi

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Slaughter, our ranking member on the Rules Committee, for the time and also, more importantly, for her great leadership in so many ways. In so many ways, it has been about her advocacy for the priorities of the American people. So today we have on the floor of the House legislation that is a serious matter about suing the President of the United States instead of doing the people's business, which is what Ms. Slaughter and others have advocated for, whether it is bringing good-paying jobs home, creating jobs by building the infrastructure of America, reducing the cost of higher education for families, investing in our children, raising the minimum wage, passing legislation to have equal pay for equal work, everything that would increase the financial stability of America's families. Instead, we are wasting the taxpayers' time and money on the floor of the House on a matter that is serious but is a waste of time. There are those who have said that this initiative to sue the President of the United States is about a step toward impeachment. Others who say, no, it is instead of impeachment. I told the Speaker that I had a similar situation years ago--not similar in terms of the subject, because I think there is no basis for this and no standing in this House on the subject of suing the President, but similar in that there were calls by some to impeach President Bush when we took the majority and people were very unhappy about the Iraq war and the false claims made to draw the American people into support of that war effort, which proved to be untrue. It wasn't about people in your caucus clamoring for suing the President. It was about hundreds of thousands of people in the streets objecting to the war in Iraq and the false basis on which we went in. But when I became Speaker, and people clamored for the impeachment of the President, I said what I advised the Speaker to say right now: Impeachment is off the table. If this isn't about impeachment, that simple sentence will be a clear one: Impeachment is off the table. Why hasn't the Speaker said that? Why are there those in your caucus who won't deny that that is a possible end in sight for this ill-fated legislation that you bring to the floor? We are going to adjourn tomorrow for 5 weeks, leaving unfinished business here. We need to solve problems for the American people, to create opportunities for them, but that kind of legislation is nowhere in sight, whether it is job creation, reducing the cost of higher education, equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, some of which I already mentioned. We have precious few hours remaining to act on the priorities of the American people and finish the ``can't wait'' business before the Congress. So much needs to be done: the humanitarian situation at the border, which provides an opportunity for us to do the right thing; the highway trust fund, to deal with it appropriately and give it the proper amount of time instead of rushing it through. But once again, Republicans are putting the special interests and the howls of impeachment-hungry extremists before the needs of the Nation. The lawsuit is only the latest proof of House Republicans' contempt and disregard for the priorities of the American people. It is yet another Republican effort to pander to the most radical rightwing voters at taxpayers' expense: $2.3 million spent defending DOMA, a doomed case; more than $3 million on the select committee to exploit Benghazi--by the way, something that had been investigated again and again at the very admission of leaders on the Republican side. Why are we doing this? And then this, which we don't have a pricetag on that they will reveal to us. Again, why would you sue somebody unless you want to prove something? And why would you go down that path unless you wanted to do something about it? But the fact is, Republicans in Congress have no standing in this suit. Most constitutional scholars have admitted or do admit that. Even the Republicans' expert witnesses have in the past said you don't have standing on it. Middle class families don't have time for a Republican partisan grudge match with the President. They know that this is a funny thing because--well, funny in the one strange interpretation of the word ``funny.'' But a couple of weeks ago on the steps of the Capitol, House Democrats were there to launch our middle class jump-start about some of the issues I raised--job creation here in the U.S., affordability of college, early childhood education, all of those things, equal pay for equal work, raise the minimum wage. We were doing that on the steps of the Capitol. And in the Capitol buildings, the Republicans were launching their lawsuit against the President. What could be more different in terms of addressing the needs of the American people? We made the point that this was all happening on the same day. But the fact is, that difference of focusing on progress and job creation and process and do nothing is what we live through here every single day. And today is another one of those days on the floor of the House. So let us recognize what this is. Serious, serious, on a path to nowhere, or maybe, amongst some of your ranks, a path to impeachment. But if we just want to talk about the lawsuit, it behooves the Speaker of the House to say, Impeachment is off the table. I hope we can hear that soon, and then we will see what the merits of this case are. It has no standing. It has no merits. It has a political basis. And let the American people judge it for what it is. If you don't want to hear people use the word ``impeachment,'' as your people have done, then tell them, Impeachment is off the table. That is what I had to do. That is what this Speaker should do.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Good morning, everyone.

Ms. PELOSI. Hi, Connie. We see each other so often. We really do. Say hi to Tony. Good morning, everyone. My pleasure to welcome you once again to the Capitol, to take the occasion to thank you all very much for your service to our country, for the contributions that you have made over time. Many of you, as I look around this room, served at a time when it was a little more collegial atmosphere here. We hope to return to that. But so much of the work that we do is built on foundations that you all have laid. And we thank you for that. Your legacy will live into the future. I saw in the paper this morning that our former Chairman Roe passed away. The paper called him ``Mr. Jobs,'' and I thought, what a wonderful title. Wouldn't we all like to be having that as what people remember us by? But that's what our thrust is going to be. I just might add, Madam Chair and Madam President, that this morning on the steps of the Capitol Members will be going out there to talk about jobs, about how to keep America number one. And all that we have in there is stuff that we worked for in a bipartisan way, which is to recognize the productivity of the American worker, the most productive in the world, so to recognize that and have policies that help people, as Steny would say, make it in America. That is A, American-made. Build the infrastructure of our country and build small businesses. It is about building. It is about recognizing that that entrepreneurship and that innovation to keep America number one begins in the classroom. So our investments in education, especially making higher education affordable, is a critical part of our agenda and recognizing also that education begins at the earliest time. That is the childhood education. But what I am excited about is to say the central core of what we are about is, when women succeed, America succeeds. That is the title of our economic agenda for families and the middle class. But it is not just a title; it is a statement of fact. When women succeed, America succeeds. The best thing we can do to grow our economy is to unleash the power of women, increase the involvement of women, and that is with fair pay, with paid sick leave, with, again, getting back to the affordable child care, children learning, parents earning. So we are very excited about helping that in the debate and the coming elections--that it is not just about who wins, it is about how the debate centers on family, American workers, our productivity, their productivity, our economic success to keep America number one--anything that we all haven't worked together on in the past. So it's wonderful to see all of you. Congratulations. Did I hear Lee Hamilton was getting the award? How lovely. Congratulations to him and you, he bringing luster to your award, you bringing honor to him. But again, on behalf of all of our Members, I extend the warmest of welcomes back to you, and in friendship and in love of our great country. So good morning, good luck in your conversations and your deliberations. I look forward to seeing you in the Halls of Congress as you do your work here on this visit. It is always a very special treat to see. I am looking at each and every one of you and having very happy memories about it all. And thank you, Madam Chair, for your leadership; Connie, for yours. Thank you all very much.

Ms. PELOSI. All right.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a tireless champion for a quality education for all Americans, Dennis Van Roekel. When he retires as President of the National Education Association this month, he will be concluding decades of service as a teacher and advocate--a career dedicated to our children and the hard-working professionals who devote themselves to education. He leaves both NEA and our nation's schools and classrooms stronger for his leadership. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Van Roekel holds a Master's Degree in math education from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. For 23 years, he taught high school mathematics, building an intimate understanding of the challenges facing our children and our teachers. This experience would serve as the foundation of his work to improve student learning and enhance the professionalism of education employees. It deepened his faith in the importance of public education and the right of all children, regardless of race, background or location, to a world-class education. After holding key positions with NEA at all levels of the association, including two terms as Vice President and Secretary- Treasurer, Van Roekel was elected President in 2008. Shortly after taking office, he established the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, a national, independent panel whose findings formed the basis of NEA's ``Leading the Profession'' plan to strengthen and empower teachers and students across America. Van Roekel has also shouldered leadership positions in education associations from the local to the international, ranging from Paradise Valley Education Association President to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Executive Committee and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education Executive Board. No investment brings more revenue back to the Treasury than education. It is the greatest investment people can make in themselves, and that our nation can make in its future. For decades, we have been fortunate to have Dennis Van Roekel helping us make that case, and helping to improve the quality of public education available to all Americans. As he enters the next chapter of his life, I join with many others in thanking Dennis for the many years of energy and determination he has given NEA and our nation. Congratulations on many successes at NEA, and good luck in all your future endeavors.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, our country has lost a great visionary, civic leader, businessman and dedicated public servant, William Matson Roth. Mr. Roth passed away on May 29th in Petaluma, California at the age of 97, surrounded by his loving family Bill Roth was born into a prominent and respected family in San Francisco, grandson of Captain William Matson, founder of the Matson Navigation Company, and son of Luriline and William Philip Roth. He chose to use the opportunities afforded by his privileged family to make life better for his community, his state and his nation. He was widely known for the redevelopment, with his mother Luriline, of the popular Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, buying the property as a dilapidated factory and growing it into a world-renowned collection of shops and restaurants that has been one of our City's top attractions and has been imitated in cities across the country. It is now considered a forerunner of what urban planners call ``adaptive reuse,'' and is listed on the National Historic Register. Mr. Roth served the public throughout his long life, including as a Cabinet-level Trade Ambassador in ``the Kennedy round'' of negotiations under President Lyndon Johnson. Mr. Roth was appointed to the University of California's Board of Regents by Governor Edmund G. ``Pat'' Brown, where he served for 16 years. He helped found the Ploughshares Fund, an advocacy group working for the elimination of nuclear weapons. He was President of the Board of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and president of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR). He was a proud and progressive Democrat who ran for Governor of California in 1974. I hope that it is a comfort to his beloved wife Joan, his daughters Anna, Jessica and Maggie, and his grand and great-grandchildren that so many people throughout the world share their grief and mourn the loss of a generous, civic-minded and visionary leader.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the distinguished career of a steadfast champion for working men and women, Chuck Loveless. For decades, Chuck has stood as a guardian for working families in America--a tireless leader who has been at the center of some of the most important policy debates and struggles in the last 20 years. He leaves the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees with an enduring legacy of leadership and action, and a long record of battles fought and won for the middle class, the backbone of our democracy. A native of Pennsylvania, Chuck earned a Master's Degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. A man of faith and principle, he has poured his heart and soul into a career of advocating for working people. As Director of Federal Government Affairs for AFSCME, Chuck has always been a steadfast partner in our efforts to build a stronger, fairer, and more prosperous America for all people. He and AFSCME led the fight against President Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security. He was on the front lines in the budget wars to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from Republican cuts. And he was an invaluable force in passing the historic Affordable Care Act that is providing newfound health security, and the personal and economic freedom that comes with it to millions of hard-working Americans. Most recently, Chuck has devoted himself to the nationwide effort to raise the minimum wage, and renew emergency unemployment insurance for the millions of Americans who worked hard, played by the rules, and lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Yet perhaps most impressive is the personal commitment he has maintained throughout his positions of leadership--from his active involvement in his church to caring for those with AIDS as a volunteer at the Whitman-Walker Clinic. As he enters the next chapter of his life, I join with many others in thanking him for the many years of energy and determination he has given AFSCME and our nation. We know that his achievements will make a difference in the lives of Americans for generations to come. Congratulations on your long and illustrious tenure at AFSCME, and good luck in all your future endeavors.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the distinguished career of a great tribal leader, Chairman Buford Rolin. For more than three decades, Chairman Rolin has worked tirelessly to build stronger, healthier and more prosperous communities--for his fellow Poarch Band of Creek Indians and for native peoples across the country. He retires with a towering legacy of leadership and accomplishment, built through the vision, determination and energy that has long defined his many years of service. Rolin was born in Atmore, Alabama in 1940. He spent eight years in the Army, occasionally hitchhiking home from Fort Benning, Georgia to enjoy his weekend passes back in Poarch. His first job after the army was as a haberdasher in Pensacola, Florida. Eventually Rolin found a job with Dixie Asphalt and Paving. Over the years, his insight and expertise has fueled work in positions involving diverse groups including the National Committee on Indian Work, the Episcopal Church, the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Creek Indian Arts Council, Creek Indian Heritage Memorial Association, and the State of Alabama Public Health Board. His hands-on experience with Indian health issues led to his appointment as Tribal Co-Chair National Steering Committee (NSC) for Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA) in 1998. After his service as Tribal Co-Chair for the Tribal Leaders Diabetes Committee, President Bill Clinton appointed him to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. The National Congress of American Indians recognized his leadership by appointing him to the NCAI Tribal Leaders Health Information Technology Task Force in 2001. Diabetes prevention has long been a focus of Rolin's leadership, and just last year, he received the IHS Director's Special Recognition Award for his many years devoted to tackling this challenge. Chairman of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians since 2006, Rolin has been a tenacious and devoted advocate for tribal sovereignty, the duty of the trust responsibility, and the health and prosperity of his people. Today, the state-of-the-art Buford L. Rolin Health Center-- named in recognition of a lifetime improving health across Indian Country--carries forward his great work, caring for his home community with a host of primary care, nutrition, diabetes, diagnostic, and rehabilitative services. As he enters the next chapter of his life, I join with many others in thanking him for the many years of service and leadership he has given Indian Country and our Nation. For while Chairman Rolin is ending his career, we know that his achievements will make a difference in the lives of his community for generations to come. Congratulations on a well-earned retirement.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I welcome him to our group, and I appreciate his very important remarks as we observe the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. As always, I am absolutely honored and pleased to join my colleagues, the distinguished former chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and now chair of the subcommittee, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen. Mr. Wolf and Mr. Smith and I have been fighting this fight together for decades. I thank them for their courage. We both oppose our own Presidents--they are Republican, I a Democrat on a Democratic President--on this subject. This is a bond that we have had about respecting the dignity and worth of every person. When we saw what happened in Tiananmen Square, it was almost unbelievable to see the Government of China turning on its own people, having tanks run over their children in Tiananmen Square who were speaking out against corruption, who were speaking out for more openness, for speaking out to speak out. I have treasured this poster in my office over the years, for 25 years. It has been signed by every major dissident who has been able to leave China. Not many of them can go back. But it is the symbol that Mr. Chris Smith talked about of the man before the tank. It is one of the most iconic figures in the history of democratic freedoms in the world. However, if you were to go to China and ask young people about this poster--they know this picture--they know nothing about it. It has been censored. They don't tell people what that is. Some said: Maybe it is a commercial for something. I don't know what that is. So powerful is it that even any discussion of it in China for young people at the university, Peking University, which was a place where many of these young people came forth and said they would like to end corruption, expand freedom of expression. What form of government they will have, as Mr. Smith has said, remains to be seen and up to the Chinese people. The fact that they could not even talk about it without being run over by tanks, it was stunning. It was really remarkably stunning because we have really not seen anything quite like that. The spring of 1989, 25 years ago, a community of activists, dissident students, and Chinese citizens stood up for their rights in Tiananmen Square. People were inspired by a path of political reform advocated by some of China's leaders who were purged--Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. The people spoke out against the abuses of their government, a people who demanded respect, dignity, liberty, a voice. A people cried out for freedom, their souls yearning for a better future. They called for the elimination of corruption, an acceleration of economic and political reform, for freedom of expression and assembly. They called for a dialogue with China's leaders on how to make progress. People protested, demonstrated, marched. A military was turned against the people it was supposed to protect. The People's Liberation Army turned on the people of China. The young man, again, stood alone in the street bringing a line of tanks to a grinding halt. You don't see it here, but the tanks turned, they turned away from this lone man and did not run over him for all the world to see, an image seared into the memory of all who saw it, a photograph unforgettable to anyone committed to the promise of human rights, a moment that then and now challenges the conscience of the world. We cannot have any moral authority to talk about human rights in the world if we ignore the violations in human rights in a big country, a prosperous country, an economic engine. I remember--and my colleagues do too--that at the time the trade deficit with China, with the U.S., we had a deficit of $5 billion a year. That was an enormous trade deficit, and we thought it would give us leverage to free the students who were arrested in Tiananmen Square. We just wanted to free them, to respond to the moms, the parents, free those students. Others in the Chamber had said we could use that $5 billion at the same time to stop China from blocking U.S. exports into China, or stop them from transferring technology, missile technology and the rest, to Pakistan and beyond. But there were those also in the Congress and in the country--and actually on the Chinese payroll, because they were lobbyists, advocates, lawyers, and all the rest, they hired everybody--who said: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you can't use that $5 billion for leverage to free those prisoners, to stop those barriers to our trade, to stop their transfer of technology to countries that might then turn them over to rogue countries, you can't do that. But if you remain calm, there will be peaceful evolution and all this will be improved. In fact, our trade with China will grow, their freedom will increase. These people are still arrested, the trade deficit is no longer $5 billion a year, it is $7 billion, but not a year--from $5 billion a year to $7 billion a week--and not 1 cent of it used for any leverage to free prisoners or to challenge the Chinese in terms of the violations of human rights in China and in Tibet. It is stunning. They own the show. That is just the way it is--$5 billion a year to $7 billion a week. Oh, my God, progress has been made, but not by the American worker, but not by our economy--no, by the Chinese Government. It is really stunning, it is really one of, I think, the stories that has to be told by the U.S. to stand up for who we are and what we stand for. Twenty-five years ago, Tiananmen became synonymous with the battle for human rights in China--again, an iconic site for an iconic struggle for justice and democracy. Twenty-five years later, the spirit of Tiananmen endures in the hearts and minds of those continuing to struggle, both in China and around the world. What moral authority do we have to say to a small country, you cannot violate the human rights of your people, but we will take anything the Chinese have to dish out because we have a commercial interest there? The heroes--and we have to talk about them because the Chinese tell them nobody cares about you anymore--these heroes still display the unmatched courage required simply to speak up and speak out. I thank Congressman Chris Smith for bringing this resolution forward, and Speaker Boehner for tomorrow, this week, holding an official remembrance--again, it is tomorrow--to allow us to stand united with these heroes. Today, any mention of these events of June 4, 1989, is censored from the Chinese people. The victims and their families are imprisoned and persecuted by the Chinese Government, and the human rights situation in China and Tibet continues to deteriorate. Today, the Chinese people may not know the truth about Tiananmen. It was a long time ago. Many of the young people weren't even born yet. Corruption, though, they do know is rampant in the Chinese Government. The rule of law is not applied in a fair manner. They suffer injustices with no redress of grievances. Air and water pollution are making them unhealthy and destroying their environment. That may be something that gets the attention of the government. Mr. Wolf, thank you for your leadership, for your courage. When Mr. Smith talks about going to Chinese prison number 1, I know that you led the way there. Today, Ding Zilin and the Tiananmen Mothers bravely keep up their calls for dialogue, and their supporters worldwide join their demands that the Chinese Government provide an honest accounting of the crackdown, stop persecution of the families of the demonstrators, and allow the families to mourn publicly without interference. Today, Liu Xiaobo remains the world's only imprisoned Nobel Prize Peace Prize Laureate, as he and his wife, Xia, join so many others still languishing in prison for criticizing their government or trying to exercise and secure their basic human rights. We had the privilege of being asked by the family--some of us--to go to Norway when Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Prize. As some of you may recall, there was an empty chair because the Chinese Government would not allow him out of prison to go to receive the Nobel Prize. So we joined some Members that were selected to be part of the delegation. Was that one of the great honors of our lives? I think we all agree that it was. We are not here today just to acknowledge history. We are here to learn from the memory of a dark chapter of our past and to write a brighter chapter of freedom and justice in the future. We are here to support the Tiananmen movement. How many of those young people who got out of China, who came through here, told us their stories of courage. We cried together. They tried together to make sense of how they could make a difference for those people who were left behind. We are here to support the Tiananmen movement, which endures, inspires, and cannot be stopped. I am hopeful. I am hopeful because there are conversations that happened with the Chinese Government. I have had my own on the subject of climate change and environmental issues like clean air, et cetera, that are problematic in China. Maybe there can be some communication that can be constructive. I am hopeful that the visits that we have had to each other's countries to talk about one subject and another without getting anywhere near that taboo, in their view, of our talking about people or their freedom, that perhaps in the communication that exists in the world today that maybe we have reason to be hopeful. But with the passage of this resolution, Congress will say to the people of China and freedom-loving people everywhere: Your cause is our cause. We can never forget. We must never forget. We will never forget. Again, the Chinese Government likes to say the prisoners, nobody knows you are here, they don't remember who you are, they don't remember why you came here. Well, we want to give lie to that, because over the years we have always joined together in a strongly bipartisan way to come to the floor or to go to public events to say the names of people whom we have not heard of their fate but that their mothers want an accounting for. As we do this, we look forward to a day when the world's most populous country can be called a country where people can speak out, be respected, and when the Chinese Government respects its own people it will command much more respect then. Again, I thank you Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen so much for taking the lead to bring this to the floor; Congressman Castro for your very, very important remarks; to my pals Mr. Wolf and Mr. Smith, you have done so much, you have made such a difference. It is an honor to serve with you and to work on this important project together.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding; and I thank my colleague from California, Mr. Royce, the chairman of the committee; and Mr. Smith and others who have brought this resolution to the floor. I am especially proud of the work of Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, for her work on the resolution before the House to condemn the abduction of female students by armed militants. Thank you, Congresswoman Wilson. We have been fortunate to have the leadership of our Congressional Black Caucus, led by Congresswoman Fudge--who I see on the floor right now--Congressman Keith Ellison and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, among others who have come and gone in the course of the debate. We have called the Congressional Black Caucus the conscience of the Congress, helping to rally our Nation to the cause of these abducted girls and working to address the broader threat to women and girls in Africa and around the world. I associate myself with some of the remarks of my colleague, Mr. Smith, about the fact that so many bills today on the floor address human trafficking, the trafficking of children, that passed earlier, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was very much a part of that. I rise this evening, Mr. Speaker, in support of the resolution introduced by Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and to stand in solidarity with the young Nigerian girls who are still held in captivity by Boko Haram. Their kidnapping is outside the circle of civilized human behavior. It is a despicable and abhorrent crime that cries out for justice, nor is this the first time that Boko Haram has attacked young Nigerian students. They have murdered dozens of young boys, shooting and burning more than 50 of them to death in their boarding school. Their assault on communities is an affront to the human rights of men, women, and children everywhere. I think it is important to note, Mr. Speaker, that we have a moral responsibility to help, certainly to find and rescue these girls. We must not and will not rest until we bring them back; bring back our girls. But when we bring them back, we have to bring them back without the taboo, without the stigma that they have been kidnapped and assumptions made about their treatment. Whatever that has been, I know that their families want to welcome them back with open arms, and we have to be a party to that. The worst thing, the most cruel form of torture for someone who has been kidnapped, as Mr. Smith knows as a champion for human rights throughout the world, is to tell those who are kidnapped or abducted or imprisoned that nobody really cares about them anymore, that nobody knows that they are kidnapped and nobody cares about them anymore. In this case of these young girls, to also say because you have been kidnapped and certain assumptions have been made about your treatment, you will no longer be welcomed home, even if you are freed, that is vicious. That is vicious, and I know it is a view not shared by the families of these girls and should not be shared by anyone. As the resolution states, women and girls must be allowed to go to school without fear of violence and unjust treatment, so they can take their rightful place as equal citizens and contributors to society. It is an outrage that women and girls in any part of the world face this kind of intimidation simply for seeking an education. It is an outrage that human trafficking continues to threaten communities anywhere, and I thank all of my colleagues, again, for the participation and the long debate about trafficking that preceded this debate now. Today, we join together to say to those girls in captivity in Nigeria and around the world that we will not abandon you. We will stand up for you until justice is done. The thoughts and prayers of the world are with them, their families, and their communities. As I have said, the capture and captivity of these girls challenges the conscience of the world in a very specific and different way, and perhaps that difference will make a difference in how we deal with it. Again, I thank our colleagues for bringing this resolution to the floor. I commend Congresswoman Wilson for her leadership.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, today, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, hundreds of friends will join the family members to pay tribute to the life of a great entrepreneur, philanthropist, and gentleman, Frank Montgomery Woods, Jr. I rise on the floor of the House to join them in spirit, to share in the grief of Frank Woods' beautiful family, to celebrate his life and legacy. With his passing, we have lost not just a good man, but a remarkable innovator who leaves an indelible mark on California and San Francisco. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he spent his childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, and Nashville, Tennessee, before heading to Cornell University. After that, he served as a second lieutenant in the Army in Korea. And from Korea, it was on to Cincinnati, our Speaker's hometown, where he joined the advertising and marketing department of Proctor & Gamble. After that, he came to San Francisco to start his own successful business. In 1961, he met Kay Harrigan, of Alabama, in San Francisco. They married a year later in Mobile, and then had three beautiful children: Dorine, Montgomery, and Alexis. During the 1960s and 1970s, Frank was deeply involved in politics. Although a Republican, he was tapped to serve with Ronald Reagan's ``Democrats for Reagan'' gubernatorial campaign. He was tapped again by Ronald Reagan, in charge of 11 States at the convention, helping to secure delegates. Reagan lost to Nixon at that time, but Frank went on to work with Governor Reagan, and my statement for the Record will describe how. He went later on to cofound Clos du Bois winery in California, which was consumer friendly and elegant, a combination that was new. His leadership in the wine industry was recognized across the country. Over the years, he chaired the Wine Institute, and in the nineties he represented the U.S. in negotiations on NAFTA and GATT on the subject of wine. In San Francisco, he was a leader of the arts, serving on boards of the Fine Arts Museum, Young Audiences of San Francisco, and the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. Frank's life will be celebrated today for his accomplished legacy as an energetic and generous leader. My husband, Paul, and I and our entire family offer our deepest sympathy for the loss of our dear friend. We hope it is a comfort to Kay; their children; their grandchildren; his brother, Bill; his sister, Rhoda; and all of Frank's family that so many people across the country and across the world share in their grief and are praying for them at this sad time.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Thank you, Mr. Leader, for yielding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving the House this opportunity to speak this afternoon about this despicable crime. I thank the distinguished majority leader for his remarks, and I associate myself with his remarks in their entirety. That is how important all of this is. I want to commend Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for her resolution, H. Res. 573, condemning the abduction of female students by armed militants from the terrorist group known as Boko Haram in the northeastern provinces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that what happened in Nigeria is outside the circle of civilized human behavior. It is unconscionable, and these despicable acts must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The capture and captivity of these girls challenges the conscience of the world in a very specific and very different way, and perhaps that difference can make a difference. I wholeheartedly support the decision by President Obama, Secretary Kerry, and the administration to deploy aid, personnel, law enforcement, and military experts to Nigeria to partner with local authorities to find these girls and return them home. I commend the women Members of the House. In a bipartisan way, 100 percent of the women have signed a letter condemning these actions. I salute the First Lady for her #BringBackOurGirls tweet and hope that Members will also be doing that because the most horrible form of torture for someone who is held by terrorists is when their captors tells them: nobody knows you are here, who you are and is even worried about you. We want to remove all doubt every minute of every day. As we go into Mother's Day, think of those mothers, think of those fathers, think of the siblings of these girls. Our thoughts and prayers rest with the mothers and fathers and siblings of each girl kidnapped and separated from her family and all of the victims of human trafficking around the world. As horrible as it is, as unthinkable as it is, it is happening all the time, this trafficking issue, so maybe this horrible, heinous crime will give the attention that human trafficking needs in order for us to end it, and so let us all subscribe to #BringBackOurGirls. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you, again, for giving us this opportunity to focus on this despicable action, but to do so prayerfully, hopefully, and determined to bring back our girls.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, for nearly 15 years, Michael Kaiser has served excellently as President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in our nation's capital. Throughout his distinguished career, Michael's talents and devotion to the arts have helped establish the Kennedy Center as one of the nation's premiere performance venues, a destination for artistic talent and a bustling hub of creativity. This weekend, the Kennedy Center community will gather to pay tribute to Michael's outstanding leadership as he steps down from his post later this year. Since he took the helm in 2001, Michael Kaiser has enthusiastically and passionately embraced the mission of the Kennedy Center, always maintaining, as President Kennedy once said, that ``The life of the arts . . . is close to the center of a nation's purpose--and is a test to the quality of a nation's civilization.'' Under Michael's leadership, the Kennedy Center has featured voices and visions across the disciplines of the performing arts. He has produced wonderful theatrical works that received national acclaim-- some of which have garnered Tony Award nominations when they appeared on Broadway. He has presented multiple international festivals that showcased arts from around the world and established the Center as a model for cultural diplomacy. He has hosted every major national and international dance company. Most recently, he oversaw the Center's merger with the Washington National Opera, ensuring that our nation's capital will continue to experience the wonders of the opera. Michael has embarked on an extensive effort to train arts managers across the country and throughout the world. Acknowledging that great art demands great managers, he conceived a program to bring the next generation of arts leaders together to learn best practices for directing cultural institutions, small and large. He launched a program called ``Arts in Crisis'' to provide free consultation to arts managers across the country. As part of this effort, he traveled to all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to lead arts management symposia. Michael has a unique vision that advances both artistic expression and cultural diplomacy--the power of the arts to connect peoples, communities, and nations. He has dedicated himself to enriching artistic expression and disseminating it in a way that builds bridges across borders and fosters international good will. Michael's intellect, enthusiasm, and passion helped the Kennedy Center grow and thrive. We thank him for his years of leadership and wish him the best in the years to come.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I congratulate the Budget Committee for the hard work that you have done. I wish we had more than 10 minutes on each side to discuss the House Democratic budget, but so it is. Here we are, about to leave for the holy season of Easter and Passover. It reminds me of the Gospel of Matthew, in which Matthew says: ``For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'' This budget is a statement as to where our treasure is and where our hearts are for the American people. A budget, as our distinguished ranking member said, must be a statement of our national values. What is important to us as a nation should be reflected in our spending priorities, in our treasure. But you be the judge, I want to say to the American people, but the Speaker will not allow me to address the American people, so their representatives here. Is it a statement of your national values, of our country, to give a $200,000 tax break to people making over $1 million a year at the expense of increasing taxes $2,000 for the middle class? Is that a statement of our values? I didn't think so. Is it a statement of our values, in order to finance the special interest privilege that is in the Republican budget, is it a statement of your values to cut over 170,000 children from Head Start? Is that a statement of our values? Children learning, parents earning, opportunity, fairness. Is it a statement of your values to support a budget that says, 3.5 million children in our country, disadvantaged children in economically disadvantaged areas, will have cuts in the budget of Title I? Is that a statement of our values in order to give tax breaks to Big Oil? Is it a statement of our values to say to aspiring families, some the first in their families to be able to go to college, that we are going to cut over half a million, maybe over 600,000 kids from Head Start? Is that a statement of values to say to over half a million young people you will not have opportunity to have higher education? Instead, we are going to give that same amount of money to Big Oil for tax incentives for them to drill. Is that a statement of our values? I don't think so. I don't think so. So where is their treasure and where is their heart? The treasure in this Republican budget is just as what our ranking member said; it is with the special interests and the wealthiest people in our country. It is a trickle-down approach that has never worked. It has worked for the rich. It has worked for the special interests and their supporters, but it has not worked for the great middle class. Do we need any more evidence of it not working, that these same warmed-over policies that existed in the Bush era that took us to the Great Recession, a great recession where we met right before the election in September of 2008, where the Chairman of the Fed said to us, if we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by Monday? This was a Thursday night. That is where these policies took us at the end of the Bush years, and we are still digging out of that recession. Instead of having a budget that lifts us up to create jobs, to create growth, to invest in science and education, to keep America number one, they call their budget a path to prosperity. It is a road to recession and always has been, and that is what it is now. So at least we have a few minutes to discuss our value system, where our treasure is, with the richest and the special interests or with the great middle class and those who aspire to it, and, therefore, where our heart is in terms of budget priorities in this budget. This is an important budget. Some people want to dismiss it as a joke because it is so outrageous. It is deadly serious. It isn't funny at all because of the impact that it has in the lives of America's families, our children, our seniors, voucherizing Medicare, removing the guarantee of Medicare for our seniors. Is that a statement of our values, to say to our seniors: you are on your own, you are on your own? I don't think so. So if our heart is with the middle class, we will put our treasure there and make investments in education and job creation, investments in science. I will just close. Again, I started with the Bible. Scientific research gives us an almost biblical power to cure. Where there is scientific opportunity, we almost have a moral responsibility-- certainly a moral imperative to invest in it, to improve health, to improve the quality of health in our country, and to make sure that everybody has access to it. But don't worry about the access to it because our investments in basic scientific research are seriously impaired by this budget. It does violence to any concept of science that promotes innovation and keeps making America number one, advancing innovation with investments in science and technology. It undermines investments in how we protect our environment, so that our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water, about how we protect our America by investments in science and technology to do so, and the intelligence to avoid conflict and the investments in job creation that science will enable us to do. So if you believe in knowledge, if you would believe in fact, if you believe in the middle class, you must reject the Republican budget. You must reject the Republican budget. What the Republican leadership is asking Members to do is something that I don't know that they share that value. Certainly, Republicans across the country do not. Republicans across the country support education, investments in science, and the rest. Any poll will show you that. Just one other thing: if you really want to reduce the deficit, one of the fastest ways you can do it is to have a budget that does as ours does, to include comprehensive immigration reform, which reduces the deficit by $900 billion with a b, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So by reason of treasure, by reason of heart, by reason of value, by reason of ethic, by reason of honoring our responsibilities to the American people, vote a good, strong ``no'' on the Ryan Republican budget. It is a path to ruin. It is not a path to prosperity. Mr. Van Hollen's budget is a budget about growth, about investment, about keeping America number one, about strengthening the middle class, which is the backbone of our democracy. Vote ``no'' on the Ryan budget.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I also thank him for his leadership on issues that relate to the health and well-being of the American people. I also commend the leadership of the previous speaker, Mr Waxman, and our ranking member on the Ways and Means committee, Mr. Levin. They have been two champions on the subject of health care in America--and doing so in a fiscally sound way. While I appreciate and share the concerns here--and I will speak to that--I do think that we have to think carefully about the decision that we make. I know that they have. The leadership is bringing this bill to the floor on a short fuse, with an expiration date of March 31, without most people in this room having ever seen what is in the bill, which is a missed opportunity. We should be considering right now a bill that would permanently speak to the SGR. For those in the public, I know it is inside baseball talk, SGR. That is the rate that docs are compensated for treating Medicare patients. So don't think of SGR--think of the patients. That is what we are doing here. Think of the certainty that they need in terms of their health care, and that is our seniors. Think of the certainty that a permanent fix, paid for or not--but let's say paid for--would mean to remove the uncertainty from this debate. The American Medical Association is opposed to this bill that is on the floor today because it is a patch. How many times have you heard people talk about a Band-Aid? We are just putting a Band-Aid on it. We are not getting to the underlying challenge that we face. This is a Band-Aid, and that is why the docs oppose this patch. I did hear the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) say, If you don't like these pay-fors, suggest your own. Well, we have suggested our own. It is called OCO. It is the Overseas Contingency Operations. The Republicans said that is a gimmick, but it wasn't a gimmick when you put it in the Ryan budget. It is in the Ryan budget. So it works for you where it works for you, but you don't want to put it to work for America's seniors. So here is the thing. The Senate majority and the House majority came together to produce this patch--this Band-Aid. It is the wrong way to go. It does not address the underlying problem. We could have done that. We have been trying to do it for 10 years, and it is always, always, always something that the Republican majority has backed away from and limited and done on a short fuse. There are so many things that are wrong with this bill, but the simple fact is that the clock is ticking, and on March 31, it is bad news for seniors and for the doctors who treat them and the Medicare program. Our seniors depend on Medicare. They depend on Medicare, and this is a weakening of it. It is just the same old-same old let's see what we can do to find some pay-fors that really undermine the health and well- being of the American people. Those same pay-fors, done properly, could be part of a permanent fix, but instead, they are part of the Band-Aid. So this is all to say to my colleagues: you are going to have to make your decision as you weigh the equities. Is it better to just succumb to what we have, no matter how mediocre and how missed an opportunity it is? Or is it better to say: Let's hold out until our Republican colleagues agree to the full SGR, essentially, a fix forever, paid for by OCO? It is really important to note the following: the shorter the fix, the more expensive it is. We have been seeing that year in and year out. If we had dealt with this, say, 6, 7 years ago, it would have cost much less than it is to patch 1 year to the next, sometimes less than a year to the next. This is not about reducing the deficit. It is not about the good health of the American people. It is just an ideological reality that we have to deal with from the Republican side of the aisle. So when the docs--the AMA--says, We are opposed to this, vote it down, that is important to us. I say to them, Talk to your Republican friends, they have the power to do a permanent fix paid for by OCO; they refuse to do it. So we have something less good that we can do for the American people, and if this sounds a little confusing, it is because it is; and Members have to make the decision as to whether they will vote for this, just because we are forced into it, or whether they want to hold out for something much better. This would be a more appropriate debate a month ago, where the clock does not run out over the weekend, but this is a tactic. It is a technique used by the majority to force the hand without the proper weighing of equities in all of it. So, my colleagues, I just urge you to try to weigh those equities. I, myself, come down on the side of supporting the legislation because, frankly, I believe that any uncertainty in the minds of our seniors about their ability to see their doctors will certainly be--the Republicans will say this is because of the Affordable Care Act, and I just don't want to give them another opportunity to misrepresent what this is about. If the Affordable Care Act never existed, we would still be here debating SGR. They are two separate subjects; but as we know, any excuse will do to undermine the great legislation that the Affordable Care Act was about, life, a healthier life, the liberty of people to pursue their happiness because they had the freedom to do so--better quality, lower cost, more accessibility. So that is how I come to the conclusion of let's not give them another false claim. Let's just get this done, but let us not give up on the prospect, even before this expires, of having a long-term, permanent fix to SGR. It makes all the sense in the world. It has no partisanship about it. It is sensible, and it will cost less to do more for our seniors. The challenge is there. The solution is clear. The Republicans have rejected it, so we are at their mercy. My conclusion is to vote ``yes.'' Members will have to come to their own conclusions on it. I, frankly, wish that the Republicans, in their power, would have brought the bill to the floor under a rule, so we could have a proper debate on it, instead of requiring a 290-vote requirement to pass it. With the shortness of receiving this information, only this morning, Members are finding out what it is. It is really hard to predict who will vote pro, who will vote con, who will vote ``aye,'' who will vote ``no.'' This is really a silly decision to bring this to the floor in this form when we know the path that is much better. I am not going to give you another reason to go out there and make your claims about the Affordable Care Act, which have no basis in fact. With that, I urge my colleagues to pray over it, as I will.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his relentless and persistent leadership in helping America's seniors, today manifested in his support for the SGR and his opposition to this ill-designed approach by the Republicans. Mr. Speaker, today, House Republicans are proving that their obsession with tearing down the Affordable Care Act is blurring their vision and that it has no boundaries. For their 51st vote to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are turning their partisanship against the health and security of our Nation's seniors. The House Republican leadership's political games are threatening to derail months of bipartisan, bicameral--House and Senate--progress on a permanent Medicare doc fix, threatening our seniors' ability to see their doctors and get the health care they need. Earlier this week, the AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the National Council on Aging, and other key seniors' advocacy groups wrote to congressional leadership to make it clear that the Republicans' actions would ``inject partisan politics into bipartisan legislation,'' and that this ``undermines the months of hard work done by committees, their staffs, and concerned stakeholders.'' The Republicans' approach has been rejected not only by the senior advocacy groups but by providers, doctors, insurers, and seniors. Yet they persist with their reckless partisan antics even as time quickly runs down to address the sustainable growth rate formula before the end of the month. Twice this week, Republicans blocked the House from considering a fully paid-for measure that includes the reforms to the SGR supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate and on the committees. Why have Republicans chosen to proceed in this manner after months of bipartisan progress? Why didn't Republican leadership work with Democrats to find acceptable offsets? We need to get this done--and Republicans know that their badly partisan effort is a nonstarter. If passed, it would spike health insurance premiums by 10 to 20 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would cause 13 million fewer Americans to be insured, says the Congressional Budget Office. What does this mean to families? If you have a child in your family between the ages of 18 and 26, they would no longer be able to be on their parents' policy. Under the Affordable Care Act, being a woman is no longer a preexisting medical condition. The Republican actions here today would reverse that and take us back to a time where women paid more for policies simply because they were women. It would, again, reject, eliminate the very important provision of the Affordable Care Act about not being denied coverage because you have a preexisting medical condition. Tens of millions of families-- probably a hundred million people--are affected by not being denied coverage because of a preexisting medical condition. That is how many people it would affect. It would eliminate the requirement of the Affordable Care Act that there be no cap, either annual or lifetime limit, on the health insurance that you would receive. For these and other reasons, this is a really bad idea. We may only hope that, after this 51st vote, Republicans' fever will break, and they will return to work with Democrats to pass bipartisan, bicameral legislation as a permanent doc fix that seniors need before the end of the month. We are going out today, again, with work undone; 10 days before we come back the 24th of March. The SGR expires at the end of March. We shouldn't be wasting time on this foolishness and recklessness. We should be finding a solution. That is what the American people sent us here to do. The Republican fixation with destroying the health security of millions of Americans through their efforts to destroy the Affordable Care Act imperil the permanent ``doc fix,'' and that must stop. Congress is wasting time again, as I said, on these endless, wasteful votes. Time should be spent renewing emergency unemployment insurance, raising the minimum wage, rebuilding America by investing in education and building our infrastructure, creating jobs. The American people deserve better than this. They deserve a Congress that works to strengthen the middle class, tackle the opportunity gap, create jobs, and build an economy that works for everyone. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, and I hope that when we return after the recess week, yet another recess week, Republicans will be ready to get serious and be ready to get back to work for a permanent doc fix so that our seniors will be served.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership on this important issue to him. To Mr. Levin and members of the Ways and Means Committee, thank you for making clear what the stakes are in this vote on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, the 14th Amendment of our Constitution declares: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, shall not be questioned. That has always been the standard upheld and advocated by House Democrats. In each of my conversations with Speaker Boehner, I have conveyed the unwavering support of the House Democratic Caucus for a clean bill to lift the debt ceiling. That means no goodies for one side or the other. There is nothing you could add to it that would say, Okay, since it is something I like, then I don't mind if it isn't clean. I said to the Speaker, Even if you added something that I cared about a great deal, that our Caucus cared about a great deal, that does not make it right because the full faith and credit should be unquestioned, and it is not negotiable. I thank the Speaker for giving us this opportunity. This is really important to bring legislation to the floor that is consistent with the intent of the Constitution and with the best interests of the American people. Well, I tell you this, we have heard from all kinds of leaders of finance, from the boardroom to the kitchen table. The boardroom tells us, the conference table then writes to us and says, We urge you to again take the necessary steps to preserve our Nation's financial standing in the world and help ensure that the American recovery continues in its current path toward restored prosperity by the uncertainty as to whether or not we will incur an historic default in raising the debt ceiling. I wish to submit the full letter to the Record with the signatories who represent the captains of industry and finance in our country. More important than that, as important as that is, our global standing in the world, more important to each and every person in our country is what Mr. Neal spelled out: what this means to you. If you are a consumer with a credit card, if we did not take this action today, interest rates could skyrocket, making it harder for families to get loans, and for small businesses to invest, spend and hire. Again, on your kitchen table as you pay the bills each month, you would have higher interest rates for your mortgage, your car payments, your student loans, and your credit card bills. Higher interest rates once again on small business loans that are used to pay employees or expand business. Significant blows would come to 401(k)s as a result of the stock market reaction to our not lifting the debt ceiling. Credit markets could freeze. The value of the dollar would be negatively impacted. So there is a great deal at stake in this vote today. Again, at the time when we have to lift the debt ceiling, it is appropriate to have a discussion of spending priorities, of budgets that should be a statement of our values; but there should be no question that those debates would be something that would not just be a debate, but be a barrier to lifting the debt ceiling. That is why I am grateful to the Speaker and the Republican leadership for giving this House this opportunity to act in a way that is consistent with the Constitution. When this measure passes today, Congress will state unequivocally that the full faith and credit of the United States of America is not in doubt. I thank my Democratic colleagues for never wavering from this position and standing firm on behalf of all Americans. I thank once again the Speaker for giving us this opportunity to associate ourselves and support the Constitution and the American people. January 30, 2014. Dear Members of Congress, The undersigned associations representing a broad swath of the nation's business community and sectors serving tens of millions customers, businesses and investors, respectfully urge you to raise the federal debt limit without delay. While we firmly believe that the time is long overdue for the Administration and the Congress to come together and develop long-term solutions to our very real fiscal challenges, defaulting on the nation's debt obligations should not be an option for policymakers to consider. Should the President and Congress fail to work together and raise the debt limit in a timely fashion, the Treasury will be unable to meet government obligations coming due which would trigger a series of events that would inevitably lead to American taxpayers paying more to finance our debt. Even a short-term failure to fulfill our obligations would seriously impair market operations and could have significant consequences to our fragile economic recovery. When Congress last debated this matter in the fall of 2013, markets clearly signaled the potential negative affects through increased interest rates and weakened investor demand for U.S. assets. We urge you to again take the necessary steps to preserve our nation's financial standing in the world and help ensure that the American economy continues on its current path toward restored prosperity by eliminating the uncertainty as to whether or not we will incur an historic default and raising the debt ceiling. Thank you for considering our urgent request. We look forward to working with you to advance this and other critical legislation. Signed, American Bankers Association, American Insurance Association, U S Chamber of Commerce, Consumer Bankers Association, Financial Services Forum, Financial Services Roundtable, Independent Community Bankers of America, Investment Company Institute, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I commend her for her longstanding and strong support and respect for women, for their judgment, for the size and timing of their families, for when women succeed, America succeeds. And Congresswoman Ranking Member Slaughter has been a great proponent of that. Today, the President will stand at the rostrum of the House to report on the State of the Union. On a day when we should join him in laying out a vision of opportunity and optimism for our country, Republicans are voting to limit women's health care decisions. They are hiding the provisions of this legislation by what they have described as longstanding tradition and accepted policy that there will be no Federal funding for abortions and, indeed, there isn't. It is spelled out every time we have a bill that addresses this in appropriation, which they have stated very clearly and they have said that, in a bipartisan way, we have supported. So why are we wasting time coming to the floor today to take up something that, as they have conceded, is the accepted policy of the House and of the Congress of the United States? Why? We are doing it because they are using it as a front for legislation that is very harmful to reproductive health of women, very disrespectful of women's judgment and, again, a waste of time on the floor of the House, a waste of time when, instead of disrespecting women, we should be mindful and address the needs of 1.5 million and a growing number of Americans who have lost their unemployment insurance through no fault of their own, hardworking Americans who play by the rules and work hard. The work-hard ethic is alive and well in America; but in this economic time, some people have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Over time, we have always respected the system that we had, paid these benefits--but not now. So today, instead of going down this path to nowhere--they know this legislation is going nowhere, that is to say, the underlying damage that they are doing to women's health in their legislation, it is going nowhere. Instead, we should defeat this rule, vote against the previous question, follow the lead of distinguished Ranking Member Slaughter on the committee, our distinguished Ranking Member Van Hollen of the Budget Committee, vote this rule down, enable us to bring up a bill that will use the savings from the subsidy cuts in the farm bill in order to pay for unemployment insurance benefits. I, myself, do not think that they should be paid for because it is an emergency and, by and large, those emergencies have never had an offset. But if the Republicans want an offset, here is an offset, one that is going to be voted into law tomorrow in the House of Representatives. We can use it today to extend these benefits. Why don't we use the time that we have to meet the needs of the American people, to honor their priorities, to make their future better, instead of dragging us into the past? So I ask, again, our colleagues to vote against the bill so that we can take up a bill in support of extending unemployment insurance for 1.6 million Americans instead of this radical Republican assault on women's health care rights.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, more than two centuries ago, with the dawn of a new nation, our Founding Fathers declared to the world that we, as a people, would forever be united in service to one country and to one another. These United States stand together under a single banner: E pluribus unum. ``Out of many, one.'' For 225 years, that bedrock principle of our young Republic has served as an extraordinary mission of our nation's oldest Jesuit and Catholic University. Founded by Bishop John Carroll of Maryland, America's first Catholic bishop, Georgetown University challenges students from every faith, race, and region of the world to use their unique and individual gifts in service of the common good. As its motto states, Utraque Unum. ``Both into one.'' That creed and common purpose is why Georgetown students, who fought on both sides of the Civil War, elected the Union blue and Confederate grey to fly together as their university colors. It is why, in the capital of a once-divided nation, Father Patrick Healy, a man born to a slave, rose to lead Georgetown as the first African American president of a major American university. It is why in 1880, long before many of its peer institutions, Georgetown welcomed women students to study at its medical school. Today, the world's best and brightest young women make up a majority of the university's student body. Georgetown University's intellectual openness, pursuit of progress, and unwavering dedication to social justice has educated and shaped leaders for more than two centuries. Students have graduated to become leaders of countries, leaders in science, in business, in academia, in humanitarianism, and proudly to become a president of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton. For generations, U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense, Ambassadors, and Foreign Service Officers, and countless representatives of foreign countries, have honed their diplomatic craft under the guidance and tutelage of Georgetown faculty and experts. While Georgetown is fostering lifelong learners from every state, this remarkable university's reach goes well beyond our nation's borders. The Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (SFS) is world-renowned for providing a theoretical and practical approach to international relations that teaches students from 129 countries to act with imagination, sound judgment, values, and in service to others. And in the Capitol, from Congressman William Gaston in its first class in 1792 to the present, many Georgetown graduates have enriched Congress with their committed leadership. Congress has been blessed with the great Georgetown wisdom of the Dean of the House, John Dingell, Class of '49 and Law Class of '52. For 225 years, Georgetown University has been a national treasure that stands as an international beacon of a simple truth, and deep American faith: that out of many backgrounds and beliefs, through times of discord and peace, our common humanity binds us together; and our common hopes and dreams unite us as one. To President John DeGioia, to the students, faculty, and graduates of Georgetown University, congratulations on more than two centuries of leadership for America, for the greater glory of God, and well-being of humankind.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentlelady from New York for yielding, our ranking member on the Rules Committee, and thank her and our colleagues on that committee for trying so hard to have this rule contain an amendment that will allow us to vote on the extension of unemployment insurance for over 1.3 million Americans who will lose those benefits if we do not pass that extension. I would particularly salute Congressman Sandy Levin of Michigan, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, for his relentless championing of this issue of fairness to the American people. Mr. Speaker, we come here to talk about a bill that is to end the sequester, and end the sequester it does. I commend the conferees. I am very proud of the work of Congressman Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member on the Budget Committee on the Democratic side; Nita Lowey, the ranking member on Appropriations; and our assistant leader, Mr. Clyburn, representing the leadership in those negotiations. I thank them for taking this to a place, fighting it to a draw, so that we come to the floor to fight some and end sequestration. But the opportunity was so much greater. Apparently, the Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity when it comes to creating jobs. Mr. Van Hollen had in his bill just a few points in terms of priorities. One was to create jobs and economic growth for our country in the short term and in the long term. If we close a loophole, build the infrastructure of America; close a loophole, build a bridge; close a loophole, special interests, tax loopholes for special interests, invest in the human infrastructure of our country, early childhood education, long-term economic growth; close a loophole, pay for unemployment insurance. I don't think it has to be paid for because it is emergency spending; but, nonetheless, let's have an opportunity to vote to extend unemployment benefits. When we do ignore those investments in the future, we are not reducing the deficit; we are increasing the deficit. Nothing brings more money to the Treasury than creating jobs and the revenue that produces. Nothing brings more money to the Treasury than the education of the American people starting with early childhood education. As far as unemployment benefits are concerned, the economic impact is clear: every dollar spent on unemployment benefits grows the economy by $1.52, according to Moody's Analytics--a dollar and a half for every dollar we spent, and that is a conservative estimate. Failing to extend unemployment benefits will cost us 200,000 jobs over the next year. We can't do that. A recent report shows that extending UI instead would produce 300,000 jobs. So again, this money, if spent immediately, injects demand into the economy, creates jobs, grows the economy, as well as honoring our social compact that we have with the American people. People work hard, play by the rules, and lose their job through no fault of their own; insurance is what they have. We should honor that insurance. So it is disappointing, yes, because this package is so limited. But as I said, it was a fight to a draw, and I recommend that our colleagues vote to support it so we can take it off the table and make way for the discussion we should be having about comprehensive immigration reform. The votes are here. Give us a vote, Mr. Speaker. Passing a farm bill, that is very important to the economy of our country. Raise the minimum wage. Nearly two-thirds of the people making the minimum wage are women. Paycheck equity, have fairness in the workplace for women. The list goes on and on. ENDA, ending discrimination against the LGBT community, people in the workplace. There are so many items on the agenda that have the support of the American people in large numbers. Yesterday was the anniversary of Newtown. Pass the Brady background bill. All of these things are on an agenda we have neglected. Up until now we just haven't had time for it. I guess they haven't been priorities for this Congress, but they are priorities for the American people and for the Democrats in Congress. So again, one reason to vote for this package, even though you may think it is meager and you may not like all of its priorities, as the gentleman said, is to at least have an agreement on the budget that enables us to move forward for bigger fights that will improve policy and improve the lives of the American people and honor our responsibilities to them. I urge our colleagues to vote for the budget, but to vote against this rule because this rule says ``no.'' It says ``no'' to the Congress; we are not even going to allow you to speak or vote on unemployment insurance benefits extension. It says ``no'' to the American people that if you work hard and play by the rules and lose your job through no fault of your own, the safety net is not there. And that safety net is not there just for individuals; it is there for the system. Our beautiful free market system grows in cycles, and sometimes unemployment is higher than others and there are some outside forces at work that people lose their jobs because of. And so it is a safety net for our economic system as well as individuals. Why would they not allow us to bring this up and extend the extension? Is it the money? If it is the money, we will find it. Is it the price? Do you think the price is to high to give people dignity, to allow them to keep their homes and meet the needs of their children? Two million children would be affected by this. Tens of thousands of veterans will be affected by this. We care about veterans here. We care about children here, but apparently not enough to extend unemployment benefits. So why, my Republican colleagues, would you not allow us to have a vote on this? I know the support is there on the Republican side. I know that the Democrats would vote 100 percent for this. Do you not believe that these people are worthy of receiving unemployment insurance? I say ``insurance,'' that is something paid into, a benefit check. If so, let the American people know that. But this debate will not end today. While you may not give us a vote on the floor to extend these benefits so we see where everybody is on the subject and why, this fight will continue because this is about the morality of our country, the respect that we have for people, the value that we place on work, the pride we take in the great work ethic of the American people. But sometimes it just seems the harder they work, the forces are in a deck stacked against them, and this Congress is saying this deck is not going to include you as we deal out the cards. So I can't explain it to anybody except to say it is a values decision; and, apparently, there is not enough shared value on the subject of the respect we should have for our workers to even honor the subject with a vote on the floor of the House. It is an outrageous rule to come to the floor. I thank you, Madam Chair, for fighting it, and I urge a very strong ``no'' vote on the rule. Vote ``no'' on the previous question, which would allow us to bring the issue to the floor. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of the vote? Are you afraid of working people who are out of a job? What are you afraid of? Let us have a vote on the floor. With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and a ``yes'' on the bill.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Fattah, for taking this Special Order as part of the Congressional Black Caucus period of mourning for President Mandela. I was so proud that so many members from the CBC, Mr. McDermott, and others went to South Africa to be present at the celebration of the life and the memorial services for President Mandela. I wish that I could have gone. In fact, I thought I was. So did Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Clyburn. But the business of the budget kept us here. Our thoughts and prayers were with all of you as we were at the National Cathedral yesterday. What I came to the floor to say is I wish to associate myself with all the beautiful sentiments expressed by my colleagues about an icon in the world--a person that is so unique in history, not just in our lifetime, but in the history of the world. When I was asked today some thoughts about President Mandela, I said that what he did reminded me of King Solomon. When King Solomon was to inherit the throne from his father, King David, he prayed to God with a great spirit of humility. In humility, he said: God, please give me the wisdom to be the king of your people and to follow in the footsteps of King David. Please give me wisdom and understanding so that I can do the job. And God came back to him another night and said: Solomon, because you did not ask for longevity, vengeance upon your enemies, or great wealth, I will give you more wisdom and more understanding than any other person has ever had, and people will come from all around and your wisdom will be renowned in the world for ages to come. It reminds me so much of Nelson Mandela because in his greatness was that spirit of humility--that humility that was open to wisdom, to understanding, to being in somebody else's place--that led him not to wish for a long life, though God gave him that; not to give him great wealth, which he did not possess; and certainly not to give him vengeance upon his enemies, because that was the opposite of what he was. In the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, as our colleagues have discussed, and the great wisdom God gave him, as well as the long life, he was able to use that wisdom springing from that humility to understand other people's situations and then do great things, things that would make him renowned for ages to come for his wisdom and for his spirit. I had the privilege of seeing President Mandela when he came to address a joint session of Congress in 1994 as the President of South Africa. Afterward, Speaker Foley had a luncheon. He invited a large number of us to have lunch with President Mandela. President Mandela spoke again at that luncheon, and what was sad about it was that he spoke about the price he paid to be the father of his country--at the expense of his being a father to his family. He talked about how it was to be separated from his family for over 26 years. Imagine that, trying to meet the needs of his wife and children, and also has his need to be a father. He made quite a sacrifice. It was urgent that he do so. But, again, in different periods of his life he demonstrated great courage, great determination, great strength, great persistence in prison, and great sadness about not seeing his family. And all of that strengthened him to say he really had to exploit the investments that had been made by the people of South Africa in the name Mandela. And he came out to be an example to the world of forgiveness, reconciliation, and of a strength unlike most of us have ever seen. As a Californian, we take some ownership of the Mandela issue, whether it was stopping investments in South Africa and the rest. Ron Dellums was the champion of this. So we are proud of the role that we played in from the State of California. It really is, again, in that same humility that is a virtue that we should all possess that I come to this floor to even talk about such a great person who went from a village, to a leader of a movement, to prison, to the presidency of South Africa; from a name that we heard in America, to a person who would address a joint session of Congress. But on top of all of that, to go from his village, to be a world icon. Thank you, my colleague, for giving me the time.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, last week, our community lost a great civic leader, a true American success story and a pillar of the San Francisco Bay Area: Masud Mehran. He passed away on November 26th, at the age of 93, surrounded, as he always was throughout his long life, by his family, by those he loved, by those he cherished most. Masud Mehran lived the American Dream. He was an immigrant who came with his wife, Maryam, to the United States from Iran in search of opportunity. He got an education from some of our finest universities and traveled across our country. He made his way to the Bay Area, to the region that would be his home for more than 60 years, and started a business. And over the ensuing decades, he built Sunset Development Company into one of the largest, most successful real estate developers in California. For Masud, extraordinary success in business was not enough; his values, his heritage, and his conscience drove him to do more--for our community, for our young people, for our state and nation. Beyond his extensive leadership roles among associations of home builders and developers in San Francisco and statewide, Masud's generosity could be seen in his support for the health of our youth at Children's Hospital; the development of our children in the Boy Scouts of America; the education of our students at Golden Gate University, Dominican College, UC Berkeley, and elsewhere. His efforts were recognized with the Good Scout award for outstanding leadership in helping to build a better American community; the Democratic Heritage award from the Anti-Defamation League; and the Award of Excellence from the Urban Land Institute for Large-Scale Office Park Development. All who knew him will long be inspired by his leadership, his values, his strength, and his willingness to give back to those around him. His legacy can be found in the impact of his philanthropy and the example he set for so many others in the Bay Area and nationwide. Yet no legacy--in business or in community activism--could ever compare to the extraordinary pride he always took in his family. Devotion to his family was Masud's first priority. Dedication to his loved ones was his defining characteristic. Spending time with his wife, Farideh, his son, Alex, and his grandchildren was his greatest joy. He will certainly be missed by all who knew and loved him. May it be a comfort to the entire Mehran family that so many share in their grief and mourn along their side at this sad time. May Masud Mehran's life and memory forever be a blessing to us all.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, today, the President put forth some conversation about the Affordable Care Act that focuses especially on women's health. I am absolutely delighted to come to the floor to address that issue in that--and I hope every woman in America understands this--because of the Affordable Care Act, being a woman is no longer a preexisting medical condition. As the mother of five children--four daughters and one son--I am very excited about this. Over the break, I had the privilege of being at a meeting with some researchers on the subject of breast cancer in particular, and they spent a good deal of the time telling us what the possibilities were with research that should be funded--that is a budget issue, another subject, but one that is related here--and that we could remove this threat to women's health with proper research. They took time to say that one thing that was helping women with breast cancer more than anything was the Affordable Care Act--that they would have access to care without being discriminated against because of a preexisting medical condition, that no longer would they have annual or lifetime limits on the health insurance that they would receive. The relief of the stress from all of that is a very healthy thing for people who have a diagnosis. So whatever it is--whether it is mammograms as my colleague Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz so generously shared her story with us about her experience or, earlier, as Congresswoman DeLauro shared hers and as other Members shared the stories of their constituents--this is really very important. Moms are the hubs of families. Many of them fear this diagnosis. Many families in America have been affected by it. With our investments in research and with the Affordable Care Act, women have reason to be very, very hopeful that this can be prevented with early detection--and not only with early detection but with regular detection. Then, on top of that, if they have that feared diagnosis, they will receive the care that they deserve. There is one other point I want to make about it because we all worship at the altar of biomedical research and what it means for our country and the thought that we could be rid of breast cancer in a handful of years: we want to make sure every woman in America and every person in America benefits from that research. The vehicle for that is the Affordable Care Act. It stands right there with Social Security, with Medicare, with affordable--and that is the word, ``affordable''-- health care for all Americans as a pillar of health and economic security for the American people. Today, we focus on moms--we focus on women--and we say, Thank God. No longer will being a woman be a preexisting medical condition.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, understanding the rules of the House, nonetheless I would like to say how honored we all are that our special guests, led by Eliseo Medina, are here as part of the Fast for Families. I want to join the distinguished former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, and say that I, too, visited the Fast for Families. I fast for immigration and wear the button. I am so proud that our House of Representatives showed its respect to the strength of the message of our guests here today because immigration is about America. It is who we are by and large, a Nation of immigrants. It is the constant reinvigoration of our country. Every person who comes here with his or her hopes, dreams, and aspirations for a better future; optimism for the future, the courage to come, to work hard, to play by the rules--that invigorates America. The tradition of family and community and the rest, every immigrant who comes with those values and those goals makes America more American. I also rise, Mr. Speaker, to talk about a place where immigration and health come together, and I thank President Obama for lifting the travel ban on those infected with HIV. It had been my original intent to seek recognition to talk about World AIDS Day, which we observed yesterday, but I wanted to pay my respect to those who are fasting for immigration. Our work on HIV-AIDS has been a product of bipartisan cooperation in this Congress over a long period of time. In the White House, though, first with President Clinton, we increased the bilateral programs to fight AIDS and we helped create, authorize, and fund the Global Fund. Then under the leadership of President Bush, we established PEPFAR and provided the necessary funding to ramp up the emergency response to the crisis. President Obama has strengthened those efforts and boosted our investment by launching the National HIV-AIDS Strategy. In addition to that, President Obama announced that PEPFAR would not only reach its goal of providing treatment for 6 million people by 2013 but will exceed that target by providing 6.7 million people with lifesaving treatment. This is attributed to the leadership of President George W. Bush and to President Obama. True today, President Obama went further and signed the PEPFAR and Global Fund reauthorization bill into law, and I am proud that President Obama has announced a U.S. commitment of $1 for every $2 provided by other donors up to $5 billion through 2016. This marks a likely $1 billion increase over previous years. That means more lives saved and quality of life increased. Our work is far from finished. HIV and AIDS is a really resourceful disease, that virus, ever mutating. Just when you think we have it in our sights, it changes, and so we have to be resourceful to our approach to the HIV-AIDS virus because we will not allow HIV and AIDS to claim so many lives when we have within our means the science, the prevention, the care, the search for a cure to make a difference. One of the most exciting parts of it is that we will now be able to have an AIDS-free generation of transmittal from mother-to-child, which is quite remarkable, among other remarkable aspects of it. This is an important issue about our values as a country, our concern for people in our community and globally across the world, which takes us back to the beautiful reception that our fasters for immigration received when they were here earlier. As a mom and as a grandmother, I would encourage them not to fast very much longer, but I want them to know that we all recognize their sacrifice, understand the need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and hope that will happen soon.

Ms. PELOSI

Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for calling this Special Order. Congress has adjourned for the Thanksgiving holiday, but I thank you for staying so that we can acknowledge and observe the 50th anniversary of a great loss for our country. My colleague, Mr. Larson, spoke so beautifully about what happened on November 22, 50 years ago, and how your mother reacted. You could have been speaking for every family in America. Certainly, we took special ownership of President Kennedy, as the first Catholic President, but everyone who enjoys firsts understands that that pioneer action, that courage, that success that he had was not just about him being the first Catholic President, but embracing the people of our country more fully. Yes, Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago, tragedy struck the heart of a Nation in Dallas, Texas. Fifty years ago, President Kennedy was taken from us, suddenly and unexpectedly, and the entire Nation was shaken and mourned. As you said, we don't want to dwell on that sad day. We want to spring from it and talk about what went before and what has come from the legacy of President John F. Kennedy. Today, 50 years later, we rise on the floor of the House to pay tribute to him as a leader on the anniversary of a tragedy, with a focus on many victories. Here, in this Chamber, President Kennedy served. Can you imagine? I take great pride in the fact--all of us who serve here do--that President Kennedy began his Federal service in office in the House of Representatives. His grandfather, Honey Fitz, also served in the House. His grandnephews served in the House. So it has been a Kennedy family tradition to serve in the House of Representatives. He did so as a proud member of the Massachusetts delegation. I rise to honor the life, legacy, inspiration, and achievements. I rise to salute an extraordinary leader for our country and the world. I feel emotional about it, listening to Mr. Larson describe the events of the day and the weekend that followed. The beautiful family dignity that Mrs. Kennedy and the children demonstrated have made a mark on our hearts. We are so pleased that, as the President said last night, as we are here, Caroline is drawing crowds in Tokyo. As a student, I had the privilege of being there when President Kennedy was inaugurated. I had the privilege of meeting him as a student in high school in Baltimore, Maryland, when my father was mayor. I spent an evening with him because my mother couldn't attend a dinner. She said she couldn't attend, but it enabled me to attend in her place as the First Lady of Baltimore. So I had the privilege to be sitting with President Kennedy and to be dazzled by his presentation to the United Nations Association of Maryland Dinner honoring Jacob Blaustein, a leader in our community. My father was mayor, and I was very lucky. So on other occasions during the course of his campaign, I had the privilege of being in service to that campaign in terms of, one time, we had a show called ``Senator Kennedy Answers Your Questions.'' I was in college at the time, and I was one of the people answering the phone and hearing the questions. All of the questions were about seniors and health at the time. This was before Medicare, and it was an important issue for the President. In any event, on that happy day on January 20, 1961, I had the privilege of being there in the freezing cold to hear the President's inaugural address. His stirring address still echoes in the hearts of those who were there and in all others who heard his call to serve. He appealed to the energy, the faith and the devotion that will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. What inspiring words. Perhaps the most significant of all, he ushered in a new era with a simple, yet powerful, call to start anew, declaring, ``Let us begin.'' So we began to answer the call to carry forward the torch to ask what we could do for our country. We began to get America moving again, and we began an era that would recast America's future, that would set us on course to address so many of the challenges facing us 50 years ago and still confronting our Nation today. As I reference his ``ask not what you can do for your country,'' everybody knows that that was an important part of the President's call to action in that day: Citizens of America, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. It is memorized by students all over the world--when he delivered it, it was so stirring--but what I remember is the very next sentence. In the very next sentence, he says: To the citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for mankind. It was just so beautiful. No wonder one of his first actions would be to establish the Peace Corps, a renewed beginning in witnessing the creation of the Peace Corps--a group of Americans serving as ambassadors of goodwill worldwide. It was then started under the leadership of Sergeant Shriver's brother-in-law. To this day, each Peace Corps volunteer is a tribute to President Kennedy. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of being in Massachusetts under the auspices of the Kennedy Library, where we had observed the 50th anniversary of the President's signing of the Equal Pay Act into law-- legislation he called a first step to ending the unconscionable practice of unequal pay, this agenda the President had imagined of equal pay for equal work for women in the workplace. He also established a commission on the status of women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Its recommendations were: raise the minimum wage; equal pay for equal work; child care as an initiative, both public and with tax credits. So forward thinking. So much of it is still left to be done 50 years later, but it is part of the vision. Again, with great women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Esther Peterson and others, they were with him as he signed the bill. Today, as I mentioned, that battle continues. If President Kennedy were here, he would certainly beckon us to do more to take the next step, which we have done. When women succeed, America succeeds--with legislation to have respect for women's work in the workplace and to raise the minimum wage, as 62 percent of the people who get minimum wage are women. There is equal pay for equal work. There is paid sick leave and child care, which is an important part of President Obama's agenda. As for the fight for equality even in the workplace, President Kennedy became the first President to call civil rights, above all, a moral issue, Mr. Speaker, he said, to remind us it was long time past to keep the promise of freedom. So he put forward a civil rights bill to right the wrongs of history. In his name and in the wake of his death in the years that followed, under the leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Yet, still today, the march to civil rights is not finished completely; and in the time of the present, it remains our moral obligation to preserve, expand, and strengthen voting rights. That is our challenge now in the House--equality. So let us begin. There are so many other things that we witnessed. It is hard for people to imagine now how impossible it sounded when the President said: a new beginning and bold action and exploration and of the commitment and the promise to be the first to honor. He said, if we are to honor the vows of our Founders, we must be first, and therefore we intend to be first. It was a commitment and a promise to invest in science and innovation. When he said, in 10 years, we would send a man to the Moon and be back safely, it seemed impossible; but it happened even in a shorter period of time. He laid out his vision to do what was hard and unthinkable; but by the close of the 1960s, as we know, two American men walked on the Moon and returned safely home. So many other people were part of that success. Our beginning ignited the fires of all kinds of innovation that our country has benefited from. Even though he wasn't there to see all of the legislation through, he had his vision; and he was an inspiration for others to get the job done. So many times we all quote President Kennedy because he was so quotable and because he was so wise, and what he said resonates and is timeless. So, when I had the privilege of speaking at the groundbreaking of the Institute of Peace, I quoted what President Kennedy said at the American University in 1963. He said: The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already more than enough of war and hate and oppression. He went on to say: We shall be prepared if others wish it; we shall be alert to try to stop it; but we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. So remarkable. Again, it would take hours for us to truly mention all of the accomplishments--the Moon shot and all the things about the Test Ban Treaty. The list goes on and on. The fact is that a person came into the life of America from a family--and it is hard to imagine any other family in America that has had or who has made as great a contribution to the well-being of our country as the Kennedy Family, starting even with Rose Kennedy's father, Honey Fitz, but then coming through to even now the service in the Congress of Joe Kennedy, a grandnephew of the President. We also had the privilege here of serving with Patrick Kennedy. So I will end where I began, in taking pride in the fact of President Kennedy's association with this House of Representatives, of this people's House, and to say that I am so happy that I had the opportunity to see him so many times. I will just close with one thought. We were at the convention in Los Angeles. I was with my parents. We went to a restaurant after the President's speech at the stadium. It was the first time a President had accepted the nomination at a stadium. There were tens of thousands of people there. The speech was fabulous and great, and we went to this restaurant called Romanoff's because I said to my father and mother that I wanted to go to a Los Angeles-type restaurant. It turned out to be a Los Angeles-type in that it was very expensive. It was more expensive for shrimp cocktail than it would have been in Baltimore, Maryland, where we were from. So my father said, How did you find this place? This is the most expensive restaurant I have ever been in. I said, That is probably true, but it is an experience. It costs so much more for a shrimp cocktail here than in Baltimore, Maryland; and he goes on and on. In another few minutes, the doors of the restaurant open, and in comes President Kennedy from the speech. He came right over to the table. To my father, Thomas D'Alessandro, he asked, Tommy, how did you like my speech? Of course, my father told him, and then he asked me how I liked his speech. Imagine that. Then he went on with his entourage to have his celebratory dinner. After that, price was no object as to the cost of the restaurant. The prices kept coming down in my father's view. Again, I was lucky many different times to have the opportunity to have some conversation with the President. So, when that horrible thing happened that day for our country, everybody took it very personally. Perhaps part of his legacy is the sacrifice that he made for our country--the inspiration that was intensified by that sacrifice. May we always, always remember it; and may we always remember what he said, that the glow from that fire can truly light the world. May God bless the memory of President John F. Kennedy and his family. May we draw strength from his legacy and his vision. May God always bless the country he loved and led--the United States of America--and all who serve it. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Larson again for calling this Special Order. I am honored to be here with him and with our distinguished whip, Mr. Hoyer.