Mike Pence

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Regular order.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I would inquire about the amount of time we have remaining.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time. I am deeply humbled by the level of support and utterances of respect even from those who disagree with the Pence amendment tonight, and I close tonight urging my colleagues to give due consideration to the Pence amendment. As the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) said so eloquently, it is the only solution that will work, that will balance the needs of the American taxpayers and the needs of a nation, nation of Iraq, and it does not trouble itself, Mr. Chairman, with the choice between should we make the reconstruction dollars a grant or should we make them a loan. The Pence amendment is the reasonable middle ground that says that we will speed the first 50 percent of resources urgently to the needs on the ground in Iraq, securing that nation for the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity, but in the balance we will recognize, as millions of Americans do, that this is an oil rich nation, producing 2 million barrels of oil a day, Mr. Chairman, and by the middle of next year their own foreign minister projects 3.5 million barrels a day with revenues in the tens of billions of dollars, a truly creditworthy nation and a nation with whom we should enter into a creditor and debtor relationship. A partnership is the very core of the Pence amendment between the American people and the people of Iraq, a partnership in their civil society and future. I urge its consideration. I urge its passage.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am honored to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), demonstrating the bipartisan support for this concept.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), a colleague and friend and stalwart conservative.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege for me to yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof). (Mr. HULSHOF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, with an abundance of riches of speakers for the Pence amendment today, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire about the time remaining?

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) as evidence that support for the Pence amendment is truly bipartisan, my colleague and friend.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would be the first in line to say that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) has a record unparalleled in the Congress of defending taxpayers' interests. And I am a great admirer of his for that reason. But the remarks of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) seem to suggest that those of us who support the Pence amendment would in some way refuse to rebuild and withhold funds. There is no withholding. The first 50 percent is a direct grant which secures the nation of Iraq; the balance is a loan to this nation which possesses nearly $7 trillion in oil beneath its sand, its surface. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), a distinguished member of the Committee on Appropriations, without whose conceptual leadership and outspoken advocacy of this concept early on, the Pence amendment would not have come into existence.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), a long-time advocate of taxpayers' interests on Capitol Hill.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, might I inquire about the time remaining?

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Iraq supplemental legislation before this Congress and commend the careful deliberation of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and all the members of the Committee on Appropriations for this outstanding legislative work in every respect, save one. On the issue of whether reconstruction costs in Iraq should take the form of a grant or a loan, I have considered the arguments of the administration and the opinions of my constituents with much deliberation and prayer. On this question, I have decided it is appropriate for me to stand firm in my belief that a portion of the reconstruction costs should eventually be repaid by the Iraqi people to the people of the United States. Accordingly, today I will offer the Pence amendment which provides, Mr. Chairman, a middle ground between the challenges of extending a loan to a nation, Iraq, and the desire of the American people to see this oil-rich nation bear the cost at some point in the future of building a civil society. It is not appropriate, as some will argue on this floor today and tonight, to make all of the reconstruction funding in the form of a loan. As the administration has argued, and as has the chairman, the possibility of extending a loan from the United States to a nation not yet formed is problematic. In recognition of this reality, the Pence amendment makes the first 50 percent of the funding available immediately as a grant, giving priority consideration emergency purposes of security, electricity, oil infrastructure, and the like. Once the administration informs the Congress that a democratically elected government in Iraq has been established, the balance of the funds would be made available under the Pence amendment in the form of loans from the United States Government under terms determined by the President. Having addressed the logistical concerns raised by the administration and others, I believe it is appropriate that the Congress defer to the consent of the governed, especially in matters of foreign aid. Many Americans, even in my conservative district, overwhelmingly support some repayment of reconstruction costs. Most Americans know that Iraq is an oil-rich nation, possessing the second largest oil reserves on the planet, and will eventually be able to bear the burden of repaying some of the costs of rebuilding its own infrastructure. At a time of mounting Federal deficits, making a portion of the reconstruction a loan also reassures the American people that there is a financial end-game strategy in Iraq. Finally, Congress today in adopting the Pence amendment would set an important precedent as we partner with the Iraqi people in establishing the elements of a free and just society. In the end, Mr. Chairman, I would state firmly that I will support the final version of the Iraq supplemental bill because I am anxious to support the leadership and the Congress and the President and, of course, our military and civilian personnel in Iraq. But nonetheless, I am offering the Pence amendment today with the first belief that the United States should provide for the liberty and security of Iraq, but improvements in civil society in Iraq should ultimately be borne by the Iraqi people.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise again now for the second time in this Chamber to address an issue that, while we passed significant legislation concerning partial-birth abortion recently, truthfully the Congress does very little to speak to what I believe is the defining issue of our time: namely, the questions and debates surrounding the sanctity of human life. So, Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I initiated on the floor of this Congress what I hope will become a series during my tenure here, a series of conversations between myself and other Members of Congress who care deeply about this debate and where we might explore the historical and intellectual and moral foundations of the right to life. It seems altogether fitting that we do it here, in this Congress and in this place. Because this is not only the House of the people, but it is the place throughout the history of this Nation where not only have we come together to debate the urgent needs of the country but also we have come to this place and in this building for over 200 years to discuss those things which are, while not urgent to some, they are important to the fabric of the Nation. In my humble opinion, Mr. Speaker, restoring a fundamental understanding about the sanctity of human life and its central position in the development of notions of justice in western civilization is without a doubt the most significant issue of our day. I was inspired by none other than a former member of this body, John Quincy Adams, who, prior to being a 20-year Member of Congress was, of course, President of the United States of America. But as he served in the Chamber just adjacent to this one, where the Congress met for much of the 19th century, John Quincy Adams was known to be a man about one cause, and that was abolition. In fact, former President and then Congressman John Quincy Adams was a man who came to be known by his detractors as the hell hound of Abolition, because Congressman and former President John Quincy Adams would come into this place, history records, and week after week through his 20- year career in Congress he made the case against slavery. As someone who believes in my heart that the decision that the United States Supreme Court rendered in 1973, a decision which has resulted in the legal abortion of nearly a million and a half children every year since, requires that we employ the same device of debate and discussion that John Quincy Adams employed, it is my hope, Mr. Speaker, to do as he did, to prick the conscience of the Nation, or even our own colleagues, to think deeply in their hearts and in their minds about this notion of the sanctity of life. To do that, I have called upon a variety of sources, some of which I will cite tonight. I begin tonight, as I hope to reflect on that historical debate that John Quincy Adams so notably brought to this floor, with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter from the Birmingham jail. Some may think, well, why is a lawmaker, why is the Chamber where laws are made, worried about something that is a moral issue? In fact, I received just a few days ago a letter from a constituent who voiced that often-repeated phrase that they did not want me to impose my moral views on them, believing that they were referring to my views on the right to life. Well, on that very issue the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, ``A just law is man-made code that squares with the moral law of God. Unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law of God.'' In fact, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who was martyred for resisting Adolf Hitler, gave what may be the clearest expression of this principle when he said, ``If government persistently and arbitrarily violates its assigned task, then the divine mandate lapses.'' In the case of Pastor Bonhoeffer and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the principle is the same: It is the notion that there is a law higher than what we can conceive of here; and, dare I say it, Mr. Speaker, there is even a law higher than the contemporary decisions of the United States Supreme Court, that there is a law that rises unerringly out of history, and it is that moral law of which the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote from that Birmingham jail. A Rabbi pastor said famously in my presence once, ``No one ever breaks God's law, they just break themselves against it.'' And what is true of individuals can undoubtedly be true of nations. Nations that set themselves against the moral law and moral truth fail to break that law so much as they break themselves. Certainly that was the case in 19th century America, was it not, Mr. Speaker? For in 19th century America, while the Congressman and former President John Quincy Adams came to this floor week after week and argued the moral approbation of slavery, argued for the abolition of slavery, America slept, believing that it could break that moral law and still survive. And as we learned, following the elections of 1860 and the secession of southern States and 600,000 battle deaths later, the truth is, Mr. Speaker, America did not succeed in breaking the moral law, but America broke itself against that simple notion of human dignity, that one man ought not to be able, in a just society, to enslave another man, and to put him, as Abraham Lincoln would say in his second inaugural address, under the pain of the whip. It was in that second inaugural address that he spoke of the Civil War. He spoke of the Civil War as a time when we were paying the debt that justice demanded of a nation. It is altogether fitting, I think, that tonight in this part of the case for life that we reflect on some of the similarities, eerie similarities between that debate over the personhood of men and women of African descent enslaved as they were in the Nation and the contemporary debate over abortion today because there are, as the author Gary Henry wrote in Focus magazine in June 1997, ``There are, most assuredly, parallels between the debate over abortion today and the intellectual and moral debate and arguments made against slavery.'' It is almost eerie at times how the parallels between the arguments of those 150 years ago advocating slavery rights match with the arguments of personal choice that support abortion today. Most notably of course was we had a Supreme Court case out of step with the truth. It was a case decided in 1857 known as the Dred Scott decision. In that case the Supreme Court ruled, and many will forget, that slaves, even freed slaves, and all their descendants had no rights protected by the Constitution and that States had no right to abolish slavery. The reasoning in Dred Scott is historically and intellectually almost identical to the reasoning that would be employed in 1973 in a decision known as Roe v. Wade. It was a reasoning that was centered on the definition of a person. In the Dred Scott case, the Court stripped away all rights from a class of human beings and reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. We can compare the arguments that the Court used to justify slavery and abortion very clearly. In the Court's eyes, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and its predecessor cases and progeny, unborn children are now the same as, quote, ``the beings of inferior order'' that the justices wrote of in the Dred Scott decision in 1857. There are other similarities. An African American was considered a nonperson under the Constitution as the case of an unborn child was considered a nonperson. In fact, an African American in slavery and any of their progeny were considered the property of the owner, and in Roe v. Wade the unborn child is simply considered the property of the mother in a legal sense. It is truly astonishing even to recall that the Dred Scott case was decided by a 7-2 decision in the Supreme Court, the exact same number of justices that voted for and against the right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade. It is extraordinary to think that the words ``citizens'' or ``persons'' used in the Constitution, according to the Dred Scott decision, were never intended to include African Americans; and according to Roe v. Wade, the term ``citizens'' and ``persons'' as used in the Constitution were never intended to include unborn children. Listen to these cryptic words from the Dred Scott case of 1857. The Supreme Court wrote: ``A Negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, were not intended to be included under the word `citizen' in the Constitution, and can, therefore, claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.'' Here are the words now from the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The Supreme Court wrote: ``The word `person,' as used in the 14th amendment, does not include the unborn. The unborn have never been recognized in the law,'' Justice Blackmun wrote for the majority ``as persons in the whole sense.'' So while there may be some looking in on our debate tonight who may think I cannot believe that conservative from Indiana is stretching to somehow connect the debate over slavery in 1857 before the Supreme Court in Dred Scott and the debate over a woman's right to choose an abortion which took place before the Supreme Court in 1973, the person might surmise there is no connection, but the truth is I learned in my very first class in law school on this topic, not only are they analogous, they are almost one to one parallels. Listen to those words again. In the Dred Scott in 1857 the Supreme Court said: ``A Negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, were not intended to be included under the word `citizen' in the Constitution, and can, therefore, claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.'' And in Roe v. Wade, they wrote the word ``person'' does not include the unborn. The unborn have never been recognized in the law; it is persons in the whole sense. There are other parallels between the decision in the Dred Scott case. The Dred Scott case of 1857 essentially said a slave is the property of the master and the Constitution has provided ``the protection of private property against the encroachments of government.'' Literally the Supreme Court in 1857 brought out the idea of private property rights. In a very real sense the idea of privacy and the right to privacy that ostensibly emerges, as Justice Blackmun would write, the Bill of Rights was the very foundation of the Dred Scott decision. In the Roe v. Wade case in 1973, the Supreme Court said of that right: ``The right of privacy is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.'' It is truly astonishing to think of the parallels, and it seems to me to be altogether fitting that we would amplify those. As we think about coming upon the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, I am someone who believes in my heart that the steady advance of civil rights in this country to every American is the glory of this Nation, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single greatest legislative accomplishment of the 20th century, and we as Americans ought to take enormous pride in the fact that our forebearers were willing to confront and reject the ethos of their time of some Americans, and even a 7-2 decision by the Supreme Court, that certified that Negroes were never to be counted among the citizens protected in the Constitution. It is because of their courage, their willingness to confront both the awesome power of the Supreme Court and their own countrymen that we arrive in a Nation today of increasing justice for all. In fact, one cannot help but wonder, as I have since the first days I studied American history at a small college on the Ohio River Valley, one cannot help but wonder if the 600,000 lives that were lost in the Civil War, the families that were sundered in the Civil War, the wounds that in some respects 150 years later we find ourselves as a Nation still recovering from might have been altogether avoided if America had done as England had done some 25 years earlier and recognized that a practice in their midst certified by the highest courts in the land, and through traditions of decades, was simply and flatly morally wrong. But we did not. Different than the United Kingdom that not only denounced slavery because of the leadership and 40-year campaign of a member of Parliament named William Wilberforce, not only did England denounce slavery and make it illegal, but they also declared war on slavery on the seven seas. And the holocaust of the Civil War that struck our country never came to England. And anyone that has ever visited or spent time in England knows that the division between the races is fundamentally better and less defined than in this Nation because England, before they were forced into the cataclysm that we met as a Nation in 1861 in the Civil War, shuffled off that conflict between their law and what was legal and the moral law and moral truth. In fact, it was John Quincy Adams who I opened with tonight who would go to the floor of Congress and argue against the fundamental immorality of slavery, literally using his last breath, collapsing on the floor of Congress to argue against slavery in America. He was carried out and expired in the year 1848. He died in this very building. Some might look at John Quincy Adams, as some looking in tonight might look at me, and say speaking empty words, not making any change. John Quincy Adams died almost a decade before the Dred Scott decision. Some of his contemporaries might have said, what did he think he accomplished. But I submit very humbly that John Quincy Adams, on Earth and in heaven, accomplished a great deal because history does record that in 1848, the last year of his life, was the first year of a freshman Congressman from Illinois, a gangly, and by his own definition, a homely man, named Abe Lincoln. Born in Kentucky, moved at the age of 2 to the State of Indiana where he grew up until he was 19 on a little farm on which I have walked in southwestern Indiana. He came to the United States Congress in 1848 and history would record that Abraham Lincoln, sitting in the back row as a freshman Member of Congress, listening to the great man John Quincy Adams speak would be deeply moved by one who was then known as the ``hell hound of abolition.'' One can only imagine the sallow cheeks of a young and beardless Abe Lincoln sitting in the back row wondering, what is the grand old man making all the fuss about, slavery being so deeply ensconced in the industrial and legal tradition of America at the time. But he listened and he heard, and it would be just 10 years later after leaving Congress that same Abe Lincoln, who our children in grade school know as President Abraham Lincoln, would run again for public office; but this time he was in a very real sense a changed man. He would enter a race in Illinois against Stephen Douglas for the Senate, a race that he would lose, but it would capture the imagination of America because of a series of debates known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates. And in those debates, more than any other political exercise of the age, Abraham Lincoln defined the moral dimensions of the wrongness of slavery in America. The irony is among those who say you have to soften our position on abortion in contemporary debate because you could lose elections, well, that same advice could have been given to Abraham Lincoln because he certainly lost that campaign for the Senate, being as focused as he was on that issue. But it was precisely his courage and his unapologetic moral case for the wrongness and the injustice of denying personhood, denying the fundamental constitutional rights to an entire class of human beings that would propel him to his party's nomination for President of the United States. And he would be elected, and upon his election the Nation would divide and be torn by war. As we look at those Lincoln and Douglas debates, the arguments that candidate Abraham Lincoln made are extraordinary. He makes the case about the fundamental immorality of slavery; and for all the world, and I intend to do it during the course of these conversations about life, Mr. Speaker, we can take entire tracks of Abraham Lincoln's remarks in the Lincoln and Douglas debates and we can pull out the word ``slavery'' and put in the word ``abortion'' and the sentence makes perfect sense as he speaks about the denial of the fundamental right to life and liberty to a class of human beings in America. He spoke about it not in the context of established law, but as we know from history, as did the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his letter from the Birmingham jail, he spoke about it in the context of the moral law of God. I close this installment, Mr. Speaker, of the case for life as I began it with those extraordinary reflections of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But I close it with a recognition that it is not just high principle and history that calls us in this place to an account to restore the fundamental notion that life is sacred but rather there are lives, I offer humbly, not gratuitously, by the millions that cry out from someplace that they are and that we someday will be, and they call upon us as a Nation to right what has gone so wrong. The latest statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates 43,358,592 total abortions since 1973. King David, when he lost his son, experiencing the justice of God, washed his face after a period of grief and said that his mourning was over. When his friends and colleagues asked him how he could move on, he said of his son, ``I will go to him but he will not again come to me.'' I believe in all my heart that those 43 plus million souls have gone to a place where by God's grace I hope someday to go, but I believe that they cry out to America and to their own generation, not a word of condemnation because I expect that when we are done here, when we know ourselves even as we are known, our natural tendency to judge others will fade significantly. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in that same spirit, that it is my fondest hope that, as I have the privilege of serving in this body, I from time to time come to this floor even with other colleagues and make the case for life in a way that is truly brokenhearted, in a way that is brokenhearted not just about the 43 million who are not here but about the 43 million who were led into making that choice and the broken hearts in their lives that they feel, because I truly do believe, Mr. Speaker, that whether it is individuals or nations that we do not break God's law, we break ourselves against it. As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said in the letter from the Birmingham jail, and we should heed this as we consider someday the ideal of restoring the sanctity of human life, ``A just law is man-made code that squares with the moral law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.'' Martin Luther King was right. Abortion is wrong, and it is my deepest and fondest hope that through peaceful means, as Dr. King led America through debate, through engagement, through compassion, that we will lead our Nation back to where the man-made code will again square with the moral law of God and we will someday restore the sanctity of human life.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for a vigorous, embracing debate, Mr. Speaker. Apart from some of the class warfare rhetoric, I want to concede a particular point, that the introduction, as the Flake motion suggests, into the prescription drug benefit of income related standards of means testing is precisely about destroying the creation of a new entitlement. It is precisely that, Mr. Speaker. Because despite the fact that we are hearing our friends on the other side of the aisle speak with great generosity about the middle class and even the upper class today, it will not be any of us in this room, judging from the relative age as I look around this Chamber, who will pay for this entitlement, but it will be people like my 10-year-old daughter, Charlotte. Sometimes God has a sense of humor, Mr. Speaker. The very day I was called upon to vote to create the largest new entitlement since 1965 was my daughter Charlotte's 10th birthday. I started the morning stuffing a pinata at 6 a.m. for her little-girl birthday party. It was a great day. And it really was that experience that emboldened me to take the stand that I took in voting against this measure and to take the stand that I take today with Mr. Flake in saying that we must, almost regardless of the politics and the demagogic rhetoric that will be foisted on us from many quarters, we must do right by Charlotte. Because it will be Charlotte in 20 years, hopefully married to a good and Godly man, raising my grandchildren, who will be paying two and three times the payroll taxes that we pay today to pay for the benefits that we are on the verge of creating, Mr. Speaker. It is that plain and that simple. And to do that by taxing young Charlotte's family to support benefits to people who could and should provide for themselves, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, is unconscionable. So, Mr. Speaker, I support the Flake motion.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his courageous motion. It is late in the workweek, Mr. Speaker, for us on Capitol Hill, and things tend to get a little blurry for Members of Congress when we put in a full, 3-day week. So I am going to try to unpack this a little bit, as I strongly endorse the motion by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) which simply structurally affirms the idea of using income thresholds or means testing as a way of controlling costs in the Medicare prescription drug legislation that is currently being considered by a conference committee in the House and Senate. This is not a radical and new idea, Mr. Speaker. In fact, according to our information, not only was means testing included in the catastrophic elements of the bill that passed the House, but also when the U.S. Senate signaled its support for means testing in June, there was an amendment that was drafted and sponsored by Senators Nickles and Feinstein. It prevailed on a test vote. Some 59 Senators indicated preliminary support for means testing as a way of controlling the extraordinary cost that we will place on working Americans in the future. Remember, entitlements are paid for by payroll taxes by working Americans. But because Senator Ted Kennedy, in effect, we are told in media outlets, raised the possibility of a filibuster, the amendment was not considered and was withdrawn. So the idea that the Flake motion considers, Mr. Speaker, and that is brought so respectfully before all the Members of this body, but most especially the hard-working Members of our leadership team, is an idea that had broad support in this Chamber and arguably, by media accounts, in the Senate. And I must tell my colleagues, I have great respect for the gentleman from Ohio. His passion and his eloquence on this floor is always memorable. But rather than reflecting on the remarks he just made, I would rather reflect on the motion that was debated in the hour prior to this one, which, as I sat on the back row of the Chamber, Mr. Speaker, was all about how the Medicare prescription drug benefit was too small, it did not spend enough, the Democrat motion to instruct conferees argued, in sum. And I submit to my colleagues that the debate we heard last hour is a preview of the debate that will follow on the floor of this Congress every year if we create a universal drug benefit, a new entitlement in Medicare, a one- size-fits-all prescription drug benefit. It will, as we hear in every other entitlement, Mr. Speaker, it will simply be one other subject that our friends on the other side of the aisle will come into this Chamber and argue is insufficiently funded, and it will grow and it will grow and it will grow. I believe in my own mind that the opposition by some to means testing here is because they know that if we create a prescription drug benefit that is based on the income of Americans, that it is, therefore, by definition not an entitlement. If we say that the person who owns the limousine and the person who drives the limousine are entitled to the same amount from the Federal Government in free prescription drugs every year, we have created an entitlement. If we create a difference there, we simply create a manageable government benefit. The Flake motion contemplates that, and I endorse it strongly; and the marketplace in need here also endorses it strongly. I have to tell my colleagues, I do about 50 town hall meetings a year in my district; and I have become persuaded, Mr. Speaker, that there are seniors who struggle, in some cases, in heart-wrenching manners with the cost of prescription drugs. Statistics show us that nearly 24 percent of seniors have no access to drug coverage, and approximately 5 percent of seniors have out-of-pocket prescription costs of more than $4,000 per year. I would, as conservative as I am, and I would dare say even many of my colleagues would, be prepared to support the kind of program that President Bush called for to begin with: a program, we will call it Plan B, which would focus resources at the point of the need and leave the prescription drug coverage that 76 percent of Americans already enjoy untouched. The reasons for this include the fiscal realities that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) cited: the initial 10-year cost projected at $400 billion a year, from 214 to 223, though the numbers go up to a projected $772 billion, adding $2.6 trillion indebtedness to Medicare, a number almost the size of the national debt today. And why is that? It is because, Mr. Speaker, that there are 37 million people today entitled to benefits under Medicare; and by the time my baby boomer generation gets done retiring in the 2020s, there will be over 70 million Americans eligible for benefits in Medicare. Means testing and income-related testing is the only way of defeating the creation of a massive new Federal entitlement. I rise today to endorse it as a principle, as a concept, and as an idea whose time has come. Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Clinton's Medicare administrator, issued inadvertently a warning about the work that we do here, saying that what Congress had contemplated would be ``the biggest expansion of government health benefits since the Great Society.'' And so it would, unless we bring Republican principles of limited government and fairness to bear on the challenges facing many seniors; unless we create a program built on that principle expressed by Abraham Lincoln when he said that government should ``never do for a man what he could and should do for himself.'' That is simply a principle of limited government, and it is also a principle of fiscal responsibility, and it is the principle underpinning the motion to instruct conferees brought today by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake). I would submit to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, that compassionate conservatism is about focusing solutions at the point of the need. Let us help our seniors near the poverty level with urgent and sufficient prescription coverage. Let us bring about reforms in Medicare so it is there for the future, without placing an undue burden on our children and grandchildren; and let us otherwise do no harm to the private sector foundation of the greatest health care system in the world. For this reason, I strongly support the Flake motion to instruct conferees. I strongly support controlling costs through income thresholds on coverage, means testing, as it has come to be known; and I strongly support that principle for which our party was rewarded the ability to lead this institution, the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility that I believe would be advanced by maintaining the means testing that was in the House bill; and if I can also offer, Mr. Speaker, expanding that means testing throughout the course of this benefit, so that we can truly focus the resources on those who need it most.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me; and more importantly, I thank the gentleman for hosting this critical Special Order on the eve of some extraordinarily good news for the right to life in America. As the gentleman from Minnesota just suggested, it is astonishing to think how long it has taken this Congress to address this issue, literally first coming to the floor of the 104th Congress on November 1, 1995. That was the day that Congress first considered the Partial- Birth Abortion Ban Act. And here we stand in October of 2003, 8 years almost to the day since; and we are on the eve of this legislation actually becoming law, passing a conference report that will go to a President who, unlike the past administration, will not veto this ban of this barbaric procedure, but will sign it with the humility and the gratitude of the American people in his heart. Mr. Speaker, partial-birth abortion is truly an antiseptic word to describe a barbaric procedure, and I believe it is important as we begin this conversation today to reflect however briefly on the barbarism of this procedure, aided as we are by some less-than-graphic images, but nonetheless effective. What is described in these images, hopefully tastefully, for families that may be watching across the country, happens several thousand times a year. Healthy mothers carrying healthy babies in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy undergo a procedure which has come to be known as partial-birth abortion. As is depicted in these images, a doctor inserting the forceps forcibly causes the unborn child into a breech position in the birth canal, feet first for lay people like me. After that with the assistance of the forceps, the child is then forcibly pulled out, delivered breech through the birth canal out of the mother by his or her leg, and once the child is removed from the birth canal, at least until the base of the head is available, the procedure is quite horrible in and of itself, but it becomes fitting to refer to it as barbaric from there, for here, as I emphasize, Mr. Speaker, children who in most cases would be able to live outside the womb, literally inches from birth, are then held in the birth canal, stabbed at the base of the back of their skull and the contents of their brains forcefully removed by a suction vacuum device. Once the head is collapsed, the remains of the unborn child are removed. It is no small wonder that that liberal lion, the late great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, referred to this procedure as ``near infanticide.'' Tonight, I know we will hear from many of our colleagues, and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) who chairs this Special Order, we will hear arguments about constitutionality and about why this law which will come to this Chamber tomorrow and go to the President's desk within days is superior to laws which have been challenged successfully at the State level at our own Supreme Court. But I would like to begin our Special Order tonight with none of those arguments, none of the discussion about constitutionality or endorsements, or even that the American Medical Association said that ``this procedure is never the only appropriate procedure, never medically necessary.'' I would rather begin tonight by suggesting that what is not arguable to the overwhelming majority of the American public is that this practice is inherently, morally wrong. What is not arguable is the practice of delivering an unborn child feet first and holding it in the birth canal while the back of its head is stabbed with a suction device is evil. That is not arguable. What we will render unlawful tomorrow and then with the President's signature is what virtually every American knows in their heart is evil and morally wrong, and so the polls attest to that moral conscience of the American people. As I yield back to the gentleman, I am mindful of that Bible verse that whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me, the Lord tells us. And I submit what we will do in this Congress tomorrow, banning this barbaric procedure known as partial-birth abortion, is the least we can do for the least of these. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this critical issue on the eve of such an important legislative accomplishment.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been a historic success, a military victory of astonishing proportions in its decisiveness as well as its compassion on the civilian population. In the next 2 weeks, the President of the United States has come to Congress to ask for some $87 billion to continue the work, and well we should. Extending every dollar to make sure our troops have the resources they need to get the job done and come home safe should be Congress' top priority. But with regard to the investment in civil society, the reconstruction dollars, some $20.3 billion, I rise respectfully, Mr. Speaker, to say that we should ask the people of Iraq and their future generations to partner with us, to structure reconstruction dollars as a loan, and give the Iraqi people the opportunity to invest along with us in their own peace and stability and democracy as full partners in their future.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, in the sixth Congressional District of Indiana there are so many warm-hearted people doing good things. These exceptional individuals who have a passion for doing good deeds are Hoosier heroes. Hoosier heroes because they reiterate that one person can make a difference through dedicating their lives to helping others. Murray Wilson of Albany, Indiana is a Hoosier hero. Murray has dedicated the past twelve years of his life to raising support for local charities in the district. It is not often that someone, such as Murray takes time out of their day to work tirelessly helping others. Murray spends countless hours writing letters, rounding up pledges, participating in walks, and raising support for his drives. Many well- honored charities have benefited from Murray's dedication, such as the March of Dimes, American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the list goes on. Thus far this year Murray is one of the top fundraisers in the state of Indiana for the March of Dimes. This summer he was able to meet Maggie Peterson from the television show Andy Griffith who was touched by Murray's generosity and sponsored him $100 for the March of Dimes drive. Murray Wilson's giving spirit continues to make a difference through his actions. Soon, Hoosiers all across the state of Indiana will be able to read Murray's story, which is to be released this month by author Ray Rice, ``Indiana's Own, Stories From the Heart,'' describing 50 inspirational stories from Indiana's own award-winning television segment. Mr. Speaker, Murray Wilson continues to strive to help others by reaching out and lending a helping hand. And for that reason Murray Wilson of Albany, Indiana, is a Hoosier hero.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise at the end of a week of activity here on Capitol Hill to do nothing less than to begin a process and an effort that I hope will be a part of the fabric of my career for however long I have the privilege of serving in the United States House of Representatives. I rise very simply, Mr. Speaker, to make the case for life; to make the arguments, philosophical, intellectual, moral and historical, on this blue and gold carpet, on a regular basis, for the sanctity of human life. My inspiration, oddly enough, Mr. Speaker, for this series, was just mentioned by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) in his remarks immediately preceding mine. It is almost uncanny to me to have heard it. For my inspiration in rising today on the House floor is none other than a former Member of this body who served as a Member of Congress from 1827 until his death in 1848. Prior to being a Member of the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was President of the United States, and his father President before him. But, remarkably, after one term in Congress, John Quincy Adams felt compelled, Mr. Speaker, to be elected to Congress from the State of Massachusetts and to come to this place. And more than any other purpose, it is clear as one studies his speeches and pronouncements on this floor, that he was a man deeply committed to the abolition of slavery in America. Just as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) reflected, it is reported that oftentimes on a weekly basis or more throughout the nearly 20 years that John Quincy Adams served as a Member of this Congress, in a Chamber, as you know, Mr. Speaker, just down the hall, the great, grand old man and former President would come, history records, and bring his papers with him and make the moral and the intellectual and the historical and even the Biblical case against slavery in America. We are even told that some of his colleagues at the time during the course of those two decades actually tried to change the procedural rules of the House, because they thought it rather impolitic to have old Mr. Adams coming down and bringing up that difficult issue again. But he did it, and he did it well, and he did it without apology. And as I rise today to begin what I hope for however many years I serve in Congress to be a series on the case for life, I am inspired and magnetized by John Quincy Adams. Now, many may say that John Quincy Adams, who perished, we are told, in the midst of a session of Congress, fell over backwards in his Chair, was carried into a waiting room where he died the next day, some may say that his death in 1848, long before slavery would vanish from this continent, proved that he had failed in his endeavor. But God works in mysterious ways, Mr. Speaker, and I cannot help but feel to this day that at some time from heaven John Quincy Adams smiled down when he realized that on the back row of the Congress in which he gave those lectures arrived in the year 1847 a tall, lanky man from the State of Illinois who served for one term in Congress, and Abraham Lincoln would later reflect that the speeches on the abolition of slavery that he heard from the great man John Quincy Adams deeply impacted his thinking and his life. And when Abraham Lincoln would then run for the Senate in Illinois and lose, and then be propelled on that same issue to the Presidency, he, no doubt, as is all of our posterity, was in debt to the rantings of that old man. And here is hoping that my rantings may cast seeds, somewhere, Mr. Speaker, whether in this Chamber or through the means whereby people observe what we do here, that some might reflect on the principles that we share over the course of this series on the case for life and be inspired by it, because it matters. Despite the fact that ever since Roe v. Wade became law in 1973 America has looked across the street to the U.S. Supreme Court to define this business of the rightness and the legality of abortion, and despite the fact that, frankly, even in this Congress we pay scant attention to the issue, it, nevertheless, is a colossal issue about which our Nation must attend, for one reason and one reason only: 1.6 million abortions are performed in the United States each year. Ninety- one percent are performed during the first trimester, twelve or fewer weeks gestation. Nine percent are performed in the second trimester. Approximately 1.5 million U.S. women with unwanted pregnancies choose abortion every year, and most are under the age of 25 years and unmarried. And as psychologists across America now reflect, post- abortion stress syndrome, which seems to viciously take hold of women at or around the age of menopause, where in many cases women are led into therapy because of a deep sense of remorse about decisions they made decades before, it is a decision that those 1.5 million women make not just for that day, but for many, Mr. Speaker, a decision that colors much of the rest of their life. Approximately 6 million women in the United States become pregnant every year. About half of those pregnancies are unintended, and 1.5 million elect to terminate them with legal abortion. Each year, more than 1 million U.S. teenagers become pregnant, and the teen pregnancy rate has moved in the last 30 years to truly startling statistics. Eighty percent of women having abortions are single, 60 percent are white, 35 percent are black, 82 percent of women having abortions are unmarried or separated, and almost half, this is almost incomprehensible to me, but statistics from Planned Parenthood's National Center for Health Statistics suggest that almost half of American women, 43 percent, will have an abortion sometime in their life. Yet, we rarely talk about it here. A procedure of deep physical and emotional and moral and perhaps even spiritual consequences reflected on through the millennia is scarcely talked about in the center of the most powerful government on Earth. Today I would like to speak, if I may, about a few of the historical aspects of the case for life. Oftentimes, when I am standing before groups of young people, I will say, rather obliquely, that for roughly 3,000 years in Western Civilization, until 1973, it was the unanimous position of medical ethicists throughout Western Civilization that abortion was immoral and unethical. And I am always amazed at the startled look on children's faces. Because, of course, every student that I see in a classroom was born in the post Roe v. Wade America where abortion is a settled fact. It is a settled legal reality. But to begin with the realization that for 3 millennia through, if I can use the word, through the gestation of Western Civilization, there was, as Mother Teresa often reflected, that core principle that human life is sacred. Often rejected, even by nations and peoples in the midst of our civilization, nevertheless, the sanctity of human life rises out of the march of our civilization, almost like no other. We all are familiar with the founding documents of this Nation that speak of certain unalienable rights endowed by our Creator, and among them are life. It is an astounding thing to consider. But what did our Founders think of when they thought of life? They were men who reflected on the ancients; they reflected on history. The Founders of this Nation, some of whom are remembered on the walls and carved in stone throughout this building, were truly learned men. So it is important when we think about a reference to the unalienable right to life, what did our Founders think about when they said life? What did they think of as human life? In the context of our common law and in the context of the history of the ancients or the Middle Ages, or even the early church fathers who so deeply influenced the Founders of this country, it is a consistent, one after another element of the law in history that argues beyond a doubt that abortion was considered a deep moral offense. In the Lex Cornelia 81 B.C., the Jurist Iulius Paulus applied a text of this law that applied to poisoners and those who dispensed drugs specifically intended to cause abortion, saying that whoever dispenses an abortion pill, regardless of its intention, the law read, set a bad example and was condemned to work in the mines in 81 B.C. One thinks of that story of a young girl who may have had medical complications just last week from having taken the pill RU486 and died. And one thinks of the wisdom of Lex Cornelia from 81 B.C., the dispensing of a pill and a poison that causes an abortion and its harm. Cicero actually placed it beyond doubt that the offense of abortion was a capital offense punishable even by death. In the Persian Empire, criminal abortions were severely punished. And so it goes. In fact, the Ephesian, Soranos, often described as the greatest ancient gynecologist from whom we obtain the word and the practice of gynecology were, as history records, deeply opposed to Rome's prevailing free abortion practice. Soranos found it necessary to think first of the life of the mother and resorted to an abortion when he thought the life of the mother was in danger, but it was otherwise unacceptable. At the time of Soranos, Greek and Roman law afforded little protection to the unborn until Christianity took root in the Roman Empire, and then it changed. And from that point forward, after the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire, infanticide and abortion were treated as equally criminal acts, alongside murder. Throughout the Middle Ages, the severe penalty for abortion remained in force in all countries of Europe well into the Middle Ages, and it was reflected in many of the writings. I think of John Calvin, one of the early church fathers and someone who deeply influenced the development of common law and Christian theological thinking. He said, John Calvin now, ``The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of his mother, is already a human being, and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light,'' John Calvin wrote in the commentary in the Book of Exodus. Truly astonishing words, but not at the time that he wrote them. To think of that time and to think of that context, what John Calvin wrote about, what the ancients embraced was what was common accepted law, and, of course, our own common law was given birth by those historical moorings. As James S. Cole wrote in an essay entitled ``Abortion at Common Law,'' long before the settlement of the English colonies on this continent, the common law of England, that is, the law recognized as common to all Englishmen, defined abortion as a crime. In accord with the limits of biological knowledge of the day, it was believed that there was no life until what was known as ``quickening,'' when the movements of the baby could be discerned. Abortion was therefore declared by the earliest authorities a lesser crime than criminal homicide until quickening, and then it was a felony after quickening. Much later, in the 1600s, there was some hesitation to prosecute abortions in which a child died in the womb as opposed to those in which the baby was expelled before dying, because of the problems of proving that the act of beating the mother's abdomen or giving her a poison had caused the death of the child. However, there was no doubt that abortion of a woman who was either ``quick or great with child'' was unlawful. In colonial America, abortions were prosecuted under the common law. After the Revolution, the new American States adopted the common law of England as the basis of their own law, including common law crimes. Within a generation, the independent States began to outgrow the English common law, and State legislatures increasingly defined crimes in their States. However, common law crimes survived until superseded by legislative enactment. Although common law prohibitions on abortion were largely replaced over time with legislative enactments through the 19th century, there was never a gap in which the common law had anything other than a prohibition of abortion. Abortion was a crime during the hundreds of years before the founding of this Nation, and it remained a crime in every State at the beginning of our Nation and throughout the 19th century. Until the advent of Roe v. Wade that, it is worth noting, struck down simultaneously those laws promulgated from the common law in all 50 States, abortion was considered a crime, a deep moral offense, and anathema to medical ethicists. It is altogether appropriate to point out as well as we consider the ancients today, Mr. Speaker, that the Hippocratic Oath itself carved, depending on who you believe of the historians, and doctors will argue the point, but somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, the Hippocratic Oath authored by the great physician Hippocrates begins in many versions with the phrase, ``First, do no harm,'' and in its most classic versions will make reference to abortion; that it was altogether and always inappropriate for the healer ever to end human life, either born human life or unborn human life. It is contained in the Hippocratic Oath. It was what it meant to be a doctor, that you heal; your charge was to heal human beings. And so the bright line, to put it in modern terminology, Mr. Speaker, the eight-lane superhighway in Hippocrates' mind, it seemed to me, was that the doctor does not kill human beings. Doctors do not end human life. And for 4,000 years, the advance of medical ethics, and every doctor in my State of Indiana and every doctor who takes an oath throughout the Western world raises their hand, in many cases, and takes the Hippocratic Oath. Now, the edited version oftentimes does not include reference to abortion, but it still includes that line, ``first, do no harm.'' And it is why today so many doctors in America refuse as a professional decision to perform abortions. They simply choose not to be a part of it. In fact, there seems to be some evidence in the medical community of a diminishing availability of abortion in America, because men and women that wear the white smocks and the green smocks of physicians are less and less interested in that fundamental compromise of their mission and their ministry as a healer, according to the Hippocratic Oath. I spoke of the English common law, which specifically forbade abortion. It did, in some cases, as I mentioned, treat it as a felony and, in other cases, treated it as a misdemeanor; but in all cases it was immoral, wrong, and illegal. Blackstone, who wrote, as I learned in law school, the famous Blackstone Commentaries at the founding of the country; it can be accurately observed that a practicing lawyer could literally consider themselves as having an entire legal library if they possessed one book, not counting the Bible, but Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law. It is taught even to this day in the most secular of law schools, and people understand that Blackstone was, for people practicing the law in the colonies and in the States and in the territories, it was the ultimate resource. And Blackstone was clear on abortion, writing in one of his commentaries, ``If a woman is quick with child and by poison or otherwise killeth it in her womb, or if anyone beat her whereby the child dieth in her body and she is delivered of a dead child, this, though not murder was, by the ancient law, homicide or manslaughter.'' So whatever may have been the exact view taken by common law of any specific offense, in and around 1803, there was no question that abortion was a crime. And yet, in America today, by a judicial decision and by judicial fiat, that has fundamentally changed. So why does all this matter? As I talked to some colleagues today, they said to me, now, why are you doing that? Is there some legislation coming to the floor that is going to change things in abortion? And I granted the point that ever since Roe v. Wade, we, in the people's House, in the Congress, and in the State legislatures of all 50 States have very little to say about this issue. It comes down to nine men and women in black robes and the Presidents who appoint them. But it seems to me to be altogether fitting that something that so deeply troubles the heart of half of the American people ought to be something that resonates in the heart of our national government. That is how I see this Chamber, Mr. Speaker. I said it shortly after 9/11 in a speech that I gave on this same floor, that I viewed the House of Representatives as the heart of the American government and that it ought to resonate with the hearts of the American people. When the hearts of the American people are troubled about an issue at home or abroad, this should be a troubled room. When the hearts of the American people are quiet and at rest, this should be a quiet and amicable place. It may be over-literalizing it, trying to turn the government into some homotropic version of man, but I think it has merit. And the truth is that while there are millions of Americans who embrace the right to choose an abortion, who take to the street to defend it, who take to the polls to support it, there are, by any measure, a growing number of nearly half of this country who are deeply troubled to live in an America where innocent human life is so callously discarded. It was as Meghan Cox Gurdon called it in an article in the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago, it is, in my judgment, the mother of all rights. Meghan Cox Gurdon, and I borrow from her essay now, wrote, ``The Roe versus Wade anniversaries make me think of the last scene in Schindler's List, the film about Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved a small number of Jews during World War II. The final scene,'' for those who have seen it, ``features actual Schindler survivors with their children and grandchildren line up to place stones on his grave in Israel. What makes the scene so powerful is not just the surprising number of progeny already produced by the Holocaust escapees, but the staggering number of men, women and children who are not there, who never had a chance of life because the Nazis gassed those who would have been their parents and grandparents.'' Meghan Gurdon goes on to write compellingly, ``When Roe comes up, it has a Schindler-like reverberation in my own family. The fact is, my husband and I, our four children, his three siblings and their combined eight children all owe our lives to the fact that the famous Supreme Court decision did not come until 1973 (and its British equivalent until 1967). For all 17 of us, all descended from two unwanted pregnancies--two pregnancies that produced hasty marriages, some unhappiness, rather more sadness, and even actually two divorces. And I have to say, boy, am I glad that those pregnancies, dismaying and unexpected as they were, entailing the compromises that they did for those involved, were not tidied up in a clinic so that the young mothers in question could `get on with their lives.' You, gentle reader, would have been deprived of nothing more than my editorial voice. I and 16 kinsfolk would have been robbed of everything.'' It is in every sense, as Meghan Gurdon writes, ``the mother of all rights.'' I think it is why our founders listed life first, that they knew from the spilled blood that had happened on our shores and would happen at the hands of a despotic king. They knew that if a man does not have an unalienable right to life, he has nothing. That if a man or a woman cannot anticipate that government cannot deprive them of their life without due process of law and cannot deprive any human person of their right to life without due process of law, then they are, in the words of John Calvin, like that man in his own home, most grievously offended to have been attacked in what is to be his safest place. Alexander Hamilton cautioned us against forgetting the ancient parchments, the teachings of ancients, and cautioned those who believed that we could create a society that separated law from moral truth saying, ``The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the Divinity and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.'' It is a truth, Mr. Speaker, I have tried humbly to advance today for your and my colleagues' ears and for anyone else who is listening and in the weeks and months and, if the Lord wills it, years ahead. I hope from time to time to come to this floor and do likewise. To begin to take a break from the arguments of the day at home and abroad and to take a longer-view perspective on this Nation and on the vitality of its legal and moral traditions. For it seems to me that abortion is the issue of our time. I used to say to people when I was younger that I thought abortion was the most important moral issue of our time, and I have since abandoned the adjective because I really do believe that as the late Mother Teresa would say often, that it is the defining issue of our age, and on some days, I believe in a hopeful view of the future, that our posterity will look back and say there was a time when America lost her way, but largely because of a broken heart, she came back. She came back to the truth of the ancient, not because she returned to a puritanical society that judged people in their hour of need, but because America again became a broken hearted society that said, we want to be a place where there are no unwanted children. We want to be a society where crisis pregnant centers come to replace entirely centers where innocent life is destroyed; where women know that there are better choices, not only for their unborn child, but for them than ever the choice of ending that life. That is my hope and that is my dream that they will look back on this time and they will say, Mr. Speaker, America got off the path, but she reflected on the truths of the ancients. She reflected on the unalienable rights that she had alienated for a while, of life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And by God's grace, she found her way back, to be a compassionate society and a caring society, but a society that once again embraced the unalienable right to life.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a deep sense of gratitude as an American in the wake of the courageous and determined address that the President of the United States made before the United Nations yesterday. The temptation for the President, Mr. Speaker, was clear. It was to respond to weeks and months of withering criticisms about our historic allies and to go into the chamber of the United Nations with a tone of apology, a tone of conciliation. But that is precisely not what President George W. Bush did. Yesterday, the President of the United States strode into that chamber and with our allies and even some of our antagonists represented in the audience, even including in the war on Iraq, the leaders of nations that opposed our coalition, President Gerhard Schroeder of Germany and President Chirac of France were in the audience and listening, but the President did not mumble; he did not apologize. He came and explained the challenges that we face in Iraq. He embraced the nations, some 32 in number, who joined together in a coalition for nothing less than the advancement of freedom for the people of Iraq. It was, in sum total, Mr. Speaker, one of the finest addresses I believe that the President has made since taking office in January of 2001. And I was here on the floor of the Congress when the President came in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and spoke those courageous words. But yesterday speaking to the world, the President of the United States struck the right tone. It was that we are not here in any way to gloat, but neither are we here to apologize for doing the necessary work of freedom in the world, for taking the 16 separate pronouncements of the United Nations seriously, and leading a coalition to enforce them against a tyrannical dictatorship in Baghdad. The United States had nothing to apologize for, and the President was right, in words and in tone, not to apologize. But let me also say that the President was right to go to the United Nations and challenge that body and its membership to come alongside those of us that advance freedom and human rights in Iraq, saying that for the members of the United Nations there was, ``a role to play in humanitarian assistance, in the establishment of a transition to a free and democratic government.'' I also commend the President for identifying that proper role for the United Nations to play. And so it seems to me all together, Mr. Speaker, that President George W. Bush, struck exactly the right balance. He spoke glowingly of our role in advancing freedom for the people of Iraq, in standing up for the rule of law and human rights in the world as Americans have done for other peoples throughout our history. The President also said there is a role for allies now, to let bygones be bygones, to come alongside and to be a positive force as an international community for change for the people of Iraq that will be stable, that will be permanent, and that could literally change the landscape of that torn region of the world for generations to come. Mr. Speaker, I thank the President of the United States for being a man of principle, a man of freedom, and a true leader on the world stage.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, in Indiana, high school basketball is a passion. My home state has produced thousands of first-rate players and coaches since the 1940s. And one such hero passed away on Tuesday at the age of 79. Coach Bill Stearman's basketball acumen earned him legendary status throughout Indiana. His Columbus High and then Columbus North teams won 714 games, included among them two semistate titles, 12 regional championships and 27 sectional crowns. amassed an impressive resume including two undefeated regular season teams before being inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983. But, Mr. Speaker, while all of Indiana will mourn the passing of an outstanding basketball coach, Bill Stearman's hometown of Columbus, Indiana will mourn the passing of a great man and Christian role model to generations of Columbus High School students, myself included. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the City of Columbus, I extend heartfelt sympathies to Bill Stearman's family, specifically his son Bill, his grandson Sloan and his sister Katherine. Coach Stearman embodied both the Hoosier Hysteria of Indiana high school basketball and the Hoosier Hospitality of Indiana's caring communities. He will be deeply missed.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, the Bible tells us if you owe debts, pay debts; if honor, then honor; if respect, then respect. I rise humbly today to begin to pay a debt of honor and respect to an American hero, Staff Sergeant Frederick L. Miller, Jr., of Hagerstown, Indiana. Staff Sergeant Miller was killed Saturday outside Ramadi in Iraq when a bomb exploded near his Humvee, according to the Department of Defense's information made public yesterday. Staff Sergeant Miller leaves behind a pregnant wife expecting his first son, two beautiful daughters, grieving parents and a grieving community. Miller commanded a Bradley Fighting Vehicle assigned to Troop K in the 3rd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment based in Fort Carson, Colorado. He joined the Army after graduating from high school, and would have celebrated his 8th year in the service next month. Miller was discharged after his first tour of duty, but he reenlisted after 9/11. His mother said, ``It was his purpose to save our country, and he had a job to do.'' And so he did it, Mr. Speaker. Staff Sergeant Frederick L. Miller, Jr., is a hero, and he died as heroes do, saving his country. I extend on behalf of the people of eastern Indiana my deepest sympathies and fervent prayers to Staff Sergeant Miller's wife and family as they grieve the death of this heroic American.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I support free trade in principle, but I am troubled about its practice in America today. The State of Indiana has lost more manufacturing jobs than any other State in the Union. Virtually every major manufacturer in my eastern Indiana District has shed jobs since this recession began in the latter months of 2000, with one exception, and this week that company announced the elimination of 600 jobs in an entire foundry in central Indiana. I just came from a meeting with the Secretary of Commerce, Don Evans. I commend the Secretary and the President for the appointment of a new Assistant Secretary of Manufacturing for establishing an unfair trade practices team. It is time for this administration to focus on enforcement of our trade agreements, with special emphasis on China and Mexico. Make them be as good as their word, Mr. Speaker, and it is also time to explain to American industry that shifting jobs overseas for short-term profits serves neither them, their shareholders nor their Nation in the long term.