macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-06-23
Speaker: CORRINE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of the Obey amendment and also the 81 percent of the American people who said the Republicancontrolled Congress is out of tune with their values and this is a perfect example. Once again. the Republicans are out of step with mainstream America. This fact is made evident in the recent CBS poll taken that showed that the Republican dominated Congress popularity is hovering around 30 percent. an outright embarrassing figure. Public broadcasting is extremely important. and should not be simply ignored by conservatives here in Congress. For millions of parents. public broadcasting represents a childrens television network of amazing excellence and value. At a cost of just over $1 per year per person. what parents and children get from free. overtheair public television and public radio is an incredible bargain. Now. I say to my colleagues. we are talking about a corporation (The Gorporation for Public Broadcasting or CPB) that is a taxpayerfunded agency that provides critical dollars to public broadcasting across the country. and is considered by many. if not most of America. to be a "highly reliable source of information." I rememberwhen I first came to Congress. and Speaker Newt Gingrich had a similar plan.. which was to "zero out" public broadcasting altogether. At that lime. just as they are doing now. the Republicans were claiming that. there was an extreme liberal bias in the programming. And then. as .now. they tried to. do away with the programming. but more practical voices prevailed and the funding was eventually restored. So here once again. led by Kenneth Tomlinson. the Republican who is now chairman of the corporation. the Republican Party wants to move PBS to the right wing of the political spectrum. and at the same time streamline their funding. I say to them that. along with Representative OBEY. I emphatically will fight to have this horrific cut in funding restored. and strongly support this amendment.
Date: 2005-06-23
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding and thank him for his work on the Committee on Appropriations to restore the HCAP funding. The subcommittee has worked wonders with the allocation you have been given. and I know you are supportive of the HCAP program and have seen the tremendous outcomes achieved in communities with HCAP funding. In Houston. we have utilized CAP funding to put together the necessary collaboratives to help solve our health care access problems. Unfortunately. this bill completely eliminates the CAP program at a time when the level of uninsured individuals in this country has reached 45 million and growing. We know all too well that now is not the time to limit access to primary and preventive health care services in our community. Without this health care access. our uninsured constituents tend to seek health care from our hospital emergency rooms where costs are skyrocketing and beds are scarce. In Harris County. 57 percent of diagnoses in our safety net hospital ERs could be treated in a primary care clinic. With HCAP funds. communities can shepherd folks to the appropriate health care home and put together the partnerships needed to develop additional community health centers for all of our uninsured. This is truly a case where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I appreciate the willingness of the chairman to work with us on this issue. and hopefully we can restore the funding on this worthy program in conference.
Date: 2005-06-23
Speaker: AL GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I too would like to associate myself with the comments from the Congressional Black Caucus. I would want to assure the chairman of the caucus that I think that.what we are doing now is most appropriate.
Date: 2005-06-23
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr.. Chairman. I rise against this bill. It has cut every program to help the poor and elderly in the entire government. It would be shameful to vote for it. I object to this bill. This bill cuts every program designated to assist poor children and the elderly. Its shameful that anyone will vote for it.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. Members of the House. I do not know what it is about the Republicans. but despite overwhelming opposition by the American people across the board against the privatization of Social Security. they bring out yet another plan to privatize Social Security. They bring out another plan to privatize Social Security. to raid the Social Security trust fund. and to undermine the solvency of Social Security. Three points to their plan. Undermine the solvency of Social Security. raid what is left of the Social Security trust fund. and to privatize Social Security. all of which the American public overwhelmingly disagrees with and has disagreed with whether it is presented by the President or by the Republicans in Congress. A Republican got up here a few minutes ago and said we want t9 do this because these people can spend their money better than the government. I would remind that young woman that she is the government. The Republicans control the White House. the House and the Senate. And since they have controlled those three bodies. they have taken $700 billion out of the Social Security trust fund. $700 billion they have raided to date. and now they want to close the deal and take the rest of the money out of the Social Security trust fund.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman. I join the gentlewoman from Illinois and the gentleman from New York to offer an amendment which will be the first time that will allow Congress. and perhaps the last time. to save the hardearned retirement benefits of 120.000 workers and retirees at United Airlines. - Unfortunately. United Airlines has become a poster child for what is wrong with the private pension in this country. United filed for bankruptcy over 2 years ago and forced one wage concession after another from its workers.. and then it unilaterally decidtd that it would stop making the legally required pension contributions to its plans. It dragged on the negotiations with its employees and then. in the middle of the night. got up from those negotiations and dumped those retirement plaiis into the PBGC. causing those employees to lose somewhere from 30 to 60 percent of their retirement nest egg. of their retirement assets. of their future standard of living. That is what these people lost because United decided it would no longer negotiate to try to find a solution to this problem. We see Delta Airlines that has frozen its pension plan. has asked to stretch out its payments so that it can protect the assets of its employees. United chose another idea: It would simply dump these liabilities onto the taxpayers of the United States of America. What United was not telling anybody was the truth. They were not telling them about their funding of their pension plans. about their liabilities of their pension plans. They simply decided they would terminate these plans in the PBGC. So this is our chance. This is our chance to try to save the retirement nest eggs of the flight attendants. of the ramp workers. of the pilots. of all of the people that have given so much to have this airline continue to fly. We held an Ehearing. Over 2.000 people participated and told us what the real impact of these cuts would be on their families. on their children. on spouses with illnesses. on their parents. People who had worked 30. 35. 40 years for this company now find out that they have been terminated with no chance to go back. This amendment says United Airlines has got to go back to the bargaining table and work out a provision to take care of this. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. Just 18 days before United dumped its pension plans into the PBGC. the PBGC wrote and said that it would be in the best interest of the participants and the pension plan insurance program would be best served by the continuance of the flight attendants pension plan. United got up in the middle of the night. unilaterally threw this in. What we are trying to tell United is go to the marketplace. go look for private solutions to this debt. get this debt covered. people do it all the time. Companies do it all the time. countries do it all the time. before they come to the taxpayer. The gentleman from Virginia is right. We may very well be looking at the opening night act of a new savings and loan scandal because we let these people come in. because they unilaterally decided termination was their first choice. going to the taxpayer was their first choice. It should be their last choice. This amendment simply says go back to the bargaining table and exhaust all of their remedies before they come to the taxpayer. Vote for the MillerSchakowskyCrowley amendment and take care of people who play by the rules.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I would just like to make the point this does not turn over any court decisions. United has yet to file a business plan with the creditors committee. The fact of the matter is this is the only opportunity we are going to have to have them go back and negotiate and try to use private systems to solve this problem before they come to the taxpayers. So this does not tamper with any court decisions or with the ability of United to go forward.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I believe. under the traditions of the House. the Chair is the Speaker of the Whole House. and the Chair has an obligation to call the vote in the manner in which the vote was arrived at under the voice vote. It is not a question of whether the ayes or the noes will prevail on a recorded vote. The question is what happened on the floor at that particular time. In this instance. the yeas prevailed. and the Chair said the noes prevailed. A number of years ago. we had very heated debates on this floor from the Republican side. from Mr. Walker. because they felt that they were insulted. especially when cameras came into this Chamber. that the Chair would call votes against their interests when they clearly prevailed on the voice. The Chair was admonished by the Speaker of the House. and we went back to what was the traditionally fair point of view. So I would ask the Chair in the future. and future Chairs. to recognize that the Chair is calling the event that takes place in front of the Chair on the floor. not what the Chair perceives to be. and may be correctly so. the outcome of the vote later on in the day when the recorded vote is taken. Mr- Chairman. I demand a recorded vote on the Chairs ruling.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: LINDA T. SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman. envision this: an undocumented immigrant suffers from severe chest pains and a nagging cough. Too frightened to seek out medical attention in the beginning. he lets this condition persist. He finds himself in the emergency room of the local hospital. The first order of business for the emergency physician or nurse is not to ask them where it hurts and do a physical exam to see if their life is in imminent danger. but to ask their immigration status and get a sworn statement to that effect. And if that patient cannot prove their legal status because they do not happen to have the documentation on them. that same doctor must make the choice not to provide care to this person or at least they must report them to immigration officials before providing lifesaving treatment. I ask you. in this universe. what kind of choice is that? There is no choice in asking a person to choose life or death. This amendment unfairly and Wrongly punishes health care professionals for doing what they are ethically and legally obligated to do. Our doctors and nurses do everything they can to help these individuals. regardless of their status. in order to save lives and to nurse them back to health Todays hospitals are already underfunded. understaffed. and under tremendous pressure to meet the new demands of homeland security preparedness. I think we can all agree that our Nations immigration system is broken. It does not meet our security needs. our economicneeds. nor does it reflect the American values of strong families and respect for work. However. we will never fix our countrys immigration ills by punishing our local hospitals for treating the ill. I urge my colleagues to vote "no" on the Tancredo amendment.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

which one of the tribes contracted out Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman to a private party to run their casino. for yielding me time. And first and That private party took advantage of foremost. we must understand that this the fact that the compact that the amendment that is being offered has no Governor set up with the tribe was deimpact on this process. These tribes fective. And under that defect. they will not know whether or not they are made quite clear to female employees violating the law or not violating the of the casino that it was their obligalaw. This amendment does nothing for tion. in blunt language. to either put that. out or get out. The law as is currently interpreted Now. we all know what that means. continues to go forward. What this And what the gentlemans amendment amendment does is suggest that some- means under those circumstances is how that those workers on a reserva- that when you remove the protection tion. working in a casino.who are not of the National Labor Relations Act. enrolled members of tha tribe have no you subject individuals with no power rights. have no rights. In California at all to that kind of treatment by shythey do. under a compromise that was sters and bums. worked out. Now. as far as I am concerned. I Last year we were working out a heard a whole lot about family values compromise for the first time ever. We from that side of the aisle. You think had labor and the union and tribes sit this amendment represents family valdown together. They left the room be- ues in that situation? Give me a break. cause this amendment was offered last It does not. year. and nobody has come back be- Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. cause this amendment continues to be Mr. Chairman. will the gentleman dangled as somehow it is the answer to yield? the concerns that they have. Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman This amendment does not answer a from California. single concern. It just kicks the can Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. down the road. and people are still in Mr. Chairman. the gentleman has ex.limbo if they are seeking to work out actly made the point. These casinos an arrangement for those tribal lands now hire thousands of workers wvho are and for labor relations on those tribal nonresidents of the reservation. who lands. That has not happened. are not enrolled members of the tribe. We were engaged in those historic If the tribe chooses not to grant them conversations when the gentleman of- any rights. then they have no rights. fered this amendment last year. And We lecture countries all over the nobody has come back to the table world that you cannot do this to worksince then. ers. that you have to have minimum
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. this amendment isdesigned to stop what is an ongoing scam in the college student loan program whereby a small handful of lenders are receiving a guaranteed 9.5 governmentpaid return on certain student loans. As a result 8f this 9.5 percent loan scheme. the Government Accountability Office has found that certain lenders are pocketing billions of dollars in taxpayer money that would otherwise go to students. The gentleman from Michigan . the gentleman from California
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. I thank my colleague. the chairman of the Committee Education and the Workforce. for those remarks. but the action the Congress took last year was too limited. First of all. it only lasted a year so we could come back this year to fix the problem. but the other part.of the problem was it left a big part of the loophole still in place. what is called "recycling." so that the lenders can continue to receive this windfall of 9.5 percent guarantee on those loans. This amendment is prospective only. It does not look back. it only looks to the future. Nobody who has been promised certain returns on their loans will lose the promises they have been made. But what it prevents from happening is future recycling. future abuse in this program. So I urge adoption of the amendment. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman. I have a very different view of this amendment and what it will do. obviously. than the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. In fact. what this will do is free up additional funds that can be used to make sure more students have the opportunity to go to college.- because what is happening right now through this recycling scheme is that the lenders. the makers of the loan. are getting a 9.5percent essentially guaranteed payment when we could in fact be using those monies instead to provide lowercost loans to more students and to provide Pell grants. This will give the Subcommittee on Education of the Committee on Education and the Workforce the opportunity to provide more funds to do what they have been saying all afternoon that they want to do. The fact of the matter is this applies prospectively. This is not going to have a negative impact on these nonprofit lenders. If you already have one of those loans out there. if you are already getting the sweetheart deal of 9.5 percent. you are still going to. get that return. But what this would prohibit you from doing is that when you get that income from the students and the government. all thoseadditional revenues. you cannot go out and do it again. You cannot keep this perpetualmotion machine going. According to some estimates. if we do not plug this hole. we will cost the taxpayers $13 billion. if we let it go on indefinitely. Monies that could be spent. again. could make sure that more students have the opportunity to go to college. I know that we will be dealing with it in the Committee on Education and the Workforce. but in the budget that passed this House. we did not deal with this issue. The budget does not envision closing the recycling loophole. The President 2 years ago submitted a budget that did envision closing the recycling loophole. but a bunch of lenders with interest in this. a lot of lenders who are making a ton of money obviously built up the pressure and it was heard. As a result. the budget does not close the loophole fully. Let us close the loophole fully. Let me say in closing. Mr. Chairman. the issue of the 9.5 percent loans is costing the American taxpayer and the American students billions of dollars a year. The General Accountability Office has looked into this issue. They have done an investigation. Thby have determined the Department of Education had the authority to shut this down. The Department of Education has not used that authority. Congress must use its authority. and it should do it now. I cannot think of any better place to deal with this issue than in the bill that provides funding for higher education. Because if we adopt this amendment. if the Congress adopts this amendment. it will immediately free up additional resources that we can spend as a Nation on providing students with more loans and providing more grants. So as a result of this amendment. more students will have the opportunity to go to college. I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 2005-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for offering this amendment. This is an outrageous practice that the government entered into in secret with WalMart so that those employees who were concerned and want to file a labor grievance or a child labor protection law grievance with WalMart who thought they were talking to the Department of Laboi now find that they are talking directly to the WalMart corporation. So where do they get the protection in filing these complaints? You. say. Well. they dont need it because WalMart is a good employer and WalMart is going to take care of them. WalMart is a repeat serial offender and has been found guilty of violating wageandhour laws. immigration laws. child labor laws. discrimination laws. payequity laws and workersafety laws. And this is the corporation that you give 15 days notice -to. that you give this kind of special privilege to? As the gentlewoman from Connecticut pointed out. the violations of child labor are ongoing. All WalMart does is get a headsup and finds out who is complaining against them who is employed by them. How are these employees supposed to register their complaints with this corporation under this agreement? It is an outrageous violation of these workers rights.
Date: 2005-06-27
Speaker: LINDA T. SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject matter of my Special Order.