macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2004-03-31
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr.Speaker. let me assure the gentleman. and maybe I can talk him into supporting this resolution when I ask him to read it here. the language of the resolution itself makes it clear this is not across the board. It says: "Compensation for civilian employees and members of the uniform services must be sufficient to support our critical efforts to recruit. retain and reward quality people in government service. and to help achieve this objective. compensation for civilian employees should be adjusted at the same time and at the same proportion as our rates of compensation for members of the uniform services." Nothing in there mandates acrosstheboard. This language. in fact. was changed from previous years to accommodate some of OMBs concerns. But I have got to tell you. where I get the most concerned is that last year on this floor I put an amendment on this floor to add $500 million for a Human Capital Compensation Fund so we could give out bonuses and award people on the basis of merit. and the gentlemans subcommittee did not fund it.
Date: 2004-03-31
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. reclaiming my time. as the gentleman is aware. this authorization was authorized by the full House in an upordown vote. Unfortunately. we called on the appropriators to fund it. the money was there. as the gentleman noted. earlier on before the additional money was appropriated. and it still was not funded. So it is easy tq talk one way. but we have to look at consistency and action. All we are asking the House to do today is do what we did last year. the year before. the year before. what the Senate did in their budget resolution. This is 20 percent below what the Federal Salary Council has recommended this year. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2004-03-31
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 1 minute. and then allow the gentleman from Oklahoma to respond and close. and then I will make a very brief closure. I think it is important to note again that this resolution does not mandate across the board. We took any language here that mandates that out. In fact. we have agencies right now where pay for performance is the rule. They are working under it at DHS. DOD passed a performance review last year. The IRS and FAA already have those provisions of pay for performance in there. Before this last Congress. GAO came and asked for it. They have it. These are agencies that our committee and other comnmittees in the House. working together. are already working to pay for performance.. But if we do not pass this legislation. .there can be no pay for performance. There will be no pay for performance without pay comparability. Otherwise. they do not even get the 1.5 percent. Federal employees.- So this is a natural precursor to get what the gentleman from Oklahoma. what the administration. and what we all want. This has got to be there first. So I think maybe we have a chickenandtheegg situation. but we have to have the money. I say to my friend from Oklahoma. before we can do the other kinds of things. And we took the mandatory. acrosstheboard language out of this resolution exactly for that purpose: to give us all an opportunity to work together. to give Federal employees pay comparability. but to do it in an appropriate fashion. I Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2004-03-31
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself the remaining time. The world has changed. It might have been a decade ago where you looked at the Federal workforce being uninvolved and in a different light from our men and women in uniform somewhere else across the world. But. today. the battleground has shifted here to the Pentagon. to Oklahoma City. to Manhattan. to our embassies abroad. and it has seen in each instance Federal employees dying on the front lines. just performing their daytoday duties as targets of terrorists. We see that the first individual killed in the Afghan war was a Federal civil servant. Every Federal employee now. as they go to work. is a potential target of a terrorist. In addition to that. OMBs opposition to this is nothing new. We saw this under the previous administration. That is traditionally the line they take. That is why Congress passed and President Bush won. signed the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act in 1990. to try to have an independent body review what it would take to get pay comparability. Because the American taxpayer does not want an underfunded rocket scientist. a cancer researcher at NIH that we are not paying appropriately. We do not get top talent on the cheap. and that is not what they want. So the Federal Salary Council appointed by President Bush made the recommendation. They reuommended a 25 percent increase. and the administration said. no. we want 1.1 percent. All we are saying today is comparability says this ought to be at 3.5 percent. the same as military. and how we spend that money we can decide through the process as we move forward in the appropriations process. This resolution does not even mandate it across the board. In fact. in some agencies. those have gone by the wayside as we formed the pay schedules there. This is an important issue for this Congress. It is an important issue to our Federal workforce and our military workforce. of which we have shown support to some of those groups as well. I urge my colleagues to vote for this. Let us send a message to our Federal employees and our military personnel that we honor wh@t they do. we value what they do. and we are going to pay them appropriately. I ask for support of this resolution.
Date: 2004-04-01
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I rise today to set the record straight on -the Medicare prescription drug plan. Since the mid1980s. the number of employers offering prescription drug coverage to their retirees has been declining steadily. In 1988. 66 percent. of employers provided these benefits to retirees. In the year 2000. it was only 34 percent. To address this alarming trend. the Medicare prescription drug bill provides employers an incentive to keep their coverage. They are going to get 28 cents for every dollar that they spend on prescription drug benefits for their retirees. This applies to all employersponsored prescription drug coverage and those of corporations. unions. and government entities. Because of these incentives. AARP and the American Medical Association endorse the bill that we passed last "SE H1795 year. It is unfortunate that Democrats continue to twist the truth and distort the facts by scaring seniors into believing that this bill would cause them to lose benefits. That is.the furthest thing from the truth. What the Democrats do not tell seniors is that for the first time Congress has acted to slow this trend.
Date: 2004-04-01
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr.- these governmentunique restrictions? Chairman.. I claim the time in opposi- Our goal should be to ensure that we tion. have access to open world markets so
Date: 2004-04-01
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. serves nothing less. This again allows Chairman. I yield myself such time as us to spend more money from this I may consume. transportation bill on transportation Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to products. which means we can employ the LaTourette amendment. more people than these restrictions First. let me say to my friend from would otherwise give us. Ohio. the domestic steel industry has I cannot overstate the potential no stronger advocate in the Congress harm posed by such economic isolathan the gentleman from Ohio. He has tionist restrictions. harm to our critbeen a leader in thisarea. but on this-. ical transportation infrastructqre. beparticular amendment I. take- issue.. causeby payingmore we.end.up being with it and disagree: . . . -ifl. j. ! able to do less. harm to our Nations
Date: 2004-04-01
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say on this amendment. this may expand the Buy America for steel. but it shrinks Buy America in other areas. other manufactured areas. perhaps agriculture. perhaps information technology. because of this kind of action that basically invites retaliation from foreign countries. America is only 5 percent of the worlds consumers. If we want to succeed from a manufacturing standpoint and economically around the world. we need to expand those markets. This goes in the opposite way. We ought to be reducing the Buy America requirements. reducing the certification process that does nothing bu1t invite waivers which delays. transportation projects. and we ought to put our transportation dollars into getting as much road money. as much money to buy rail cars. to lay track and move America as we can. This raises the cost of doing that with this legislation. It is for that reason that I oppose this and urge opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 2004-04-02
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Chairman. under todays law. every State. every single State. is guaranteed 90.5 percent of 93 percent of the transportation budget. And the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure who. by the way. has been wonderful to work with. has said that he would like to work to improve that number. that he believes that the donor States should be a little bit improved. But the problem is that the bill that is in front of us today does not improve it. It makes it worse. It is no longer like current law that every State will get 93 percent of the transportation budget. No. Every State goes down to 90 percent of 84 percent of the entire budget. I am not the smartest guy in the world. but nobody can tell me that 90 percent of 93 is worse than 90 percent of 84. Not even in Washington can we make those numbers make sense. So this is a reality. If we believe that the donor States are paying too much. we should not hurt them worse. Let us be very clear about what the amendment does. The amendment does not do what all of us want it to do. make it better for the donor States. All the amendment does is keep it to current law so that every single State has exactly the same formula that we are living under today. Is that good enough? I do not think so. But. please. what makes no sense is to hurt every single donor State to provide projects that we keep hearing about of national significance that are not in the bill. It is a theory. It is not real. Those projects are not in the bill. So "we do not know what we are buying. but every single donor State knows what it is losing. That is not fair.
Date: 2004-04-21
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida from the Committee on Rules. submitted a privileged report (Rept. No. 108466) on the resolution (H. Res. 602) providing for consideration of the bill to require States to hold special elections to fill vacancies in the House of Representatives not later than 21 days after the vacancy is anNGRES9I0NAI RVCORd 8k1OItSE nbhinced by the Speaker of thb House* of Representatives in extraordinary. "cir. cumstances. and for other purposes.. which was referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.
Date: 2004-04-21
Speaker: KEN HUNTER (republican)
Chamber: S

Council of Better Business Bureaus. Wilson Blvd.. Arlington. VA. DEAR MR. HUNTER: I am writing to bring to your attention an advertisement that ran in the New York Times on March 26. 2004. A copy of this advertisement is attached to this letter. I wanted to highlight issues of concern to me in this advertisement. The New York Times is widely distributed throughout the country. This advertisement makes claims that due to President Bushs policies concerning environmental protection specifically concerning regulations on mercury emissions from public utilities. more toxic mercury will be emitted into the air. It pictures President Bush next to a picture of a power plant billowing with smoke. and specifically solicits contributions to the Natural Resources Defense Council. a IRS designated 501(c)(3) organization. to "help thwart President Bushs plan to weaken controls on toxic mercury." As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. this advertisement was of particular interest to me. One of the issues considered before the Congress is multiemissions legislation. On December 15. 2003. the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first controis on toxic mercury emissions from power plants. Currently there are no existing controls on mercury emissions from public utilities. I believe NRDCs claim that President Bush is trying to weaken controls on mercury pollution is completely false and simply an effort to raise contributions. It is irresponsible enough that NRDC runs false advertising. however. it is also attempting to solicit contributions . as a 501(c)(3) organization and selfdescribed charitable organization. I understand that the council for Better Business Bureaus rates charities by its Wise Giving Alliance standards requiring that solicitations be "accurate. truthful. and not misleading in whole and in part" and that charities be required to substantiate all claims. I request that the Council require the NRDC to substantiate its claims and consider this false advertisement in future ratings of this charity. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely.
Date: 2004-04-22
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. on this day in 1971. JOHN KERRY showed his true colors. and they are not red. white. and blue. Before the Senate. before America. and before the world. he blasted our Nation. chastised our. troops. and hurt our morale. He famously declared that soldiers tortured innocent Vietnamese and that America was the worse violator of the Geneva Conventions. not Vietnam. In 1971 when JOHN KERRY had the freedom to stand up to defy duty. honor. and country. I just emerged from 4 years of solitary confinement. where the Vietnamese did not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. What he did was nothing short of aiding and abetting the enemy. A person like JOHN KERRY does not belong in the White House. Is it any wonder my comrades from Vietnam and I have a nickname for him similar to "Hanoi Jane"? He is called "Hanoi John."
Date: 2004-04-28
Speaker: JO ANN DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I rise today to honor an incredible American statesman and native of Virginias First District. which I have the privilege of representing in this House. James Monroe was born this day in 1758 in Westmoreland County. Virginia. and spent much of his life in what is now Virginias First Congressional District. He attended the College of William and Mary and practiced law in Fredericksburg before becoming a U.S. Senator. Minister to France. negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and ultimately our Nations fifth President. James Monroe is perhaps best remembered for his December 2. 1823 message to Congress that is now known as the Monroe Doctrine. James Monroe forged an independent American foreign policy and signaled the end of Old World colonization of the Americas. James Monroe will forever be remembered in the hearts and minds of all Americans. but he will always have a special place for citizens of the -Commonwealth of Virginia.
Date: 2004-04-28
Speaker: JEFF MILLER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. today we will be voting on important legislation. legislation that willhelp roughly 21 million young Americans financially. I am speaking about marriage penalty relief. Thanks to the peculiarities of the tax code. when married couples earn roughly the same salaries. they tend to pay more in taxes than they would if both were single filers. Our previous action to extend this tax relief benefit has encouraged marriage and saved the average married couple $1.400 a year. allowing them to spend on items that support their families. This discrepancy financially penalizes couples for doing nothing more than choosing to get married. which creates a strong disincentive for people to build families. With a breakdown of the family and high divorce rates. we need to strengthen marriagenot weaken it. As every study shows. children fare best and have the most promising life prospects when they are raised in intact families. Promoting marriage has the potential to significantly decrease poverty and dependence. increase child wellbeing and adult happiness. and to provide the safest environment for women and children. Mr. Speaker. letting the tax penalty relief expire would cost families $1.400 a year. The federal government should not be picking pockets of people just because they are married. If we do not extend the marriage penalty tax relief today. Uncle Sam will not only once again be taking a gift at the wedding reception instead of giving one. but will also be contributing to the breakdown of our basic social institution. marriage.
Date: 2004-04-28
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I want to speak briefly this evening on the House budget and the House budget resolution. It is a responsible budget that has a proper balancing of national priorities. However. Congress cannot get a control on government spending and reduce the deficit unless we find a way to combat waste. We right now are spending $69.000 per second. The 2005 House budget seeks to weed out waste. fraud and abuse. and builds on our successes of 2004. Last year the Committee on the Budget. which I am very proud to serve on. began an effort to identify the most blatant examples of waste. fraud and abuse in- the Federal mandatory programs. One year later. we know with certainty that we- have not even scratched the surface. For example. the Inspector General of the Department of Education found that States are not complying with the Federal regulations for distributing IDEA funds to local agencies. In a review of six States. half were not complying. Many local education agencies were receiving an incorrect allocation. Some were underfunded by as much as $600.000 and some overfunded by more than $800.000. The budget that we passed also provides for the permanent extension of the Presidents tax cuts. the marriage penalty on which we voted earlier. the death tax. and also the child tax credit. Included in the House budget which we passed was language that I had suggested. suggesting the importance of regulatory inform. Let me briefly quote from the budget resolution: "It is the sense of the House that Congress should establish a mechanism for reviewing Federal agencies and their regulations with the express purpose of making recommendations to Congress when agencies prove to be ineffiient. duplicative. outdated. irrelevant. or fail to accomplish their intended purpose." Some would think that we could do away with half of the Federal bureaucracy with that description. To continue with the language that is in the budget: "It is an economic reality that unnecessary and ineffective regulations discourage investment and run counter to a holistic vision of growth. They increase prices for consumers. and they suppress job creation. Making agencies more accountable to Congress and the American taxpayer will lead to more efficient practices and less waste." Based on these findings. I have introduced legislation to reduce wasteful government bureaucracy. It is actually called the JAPC bill. or the Joint Administrative Procedures bill. and it is House Resolution 3356. I introduced it because during my term as a State Senator I had the privilege of serving on the Florida JAPC commission. It is a bipartisan commission made up of House and Senate members who were charged with the responsibility and the authority of reviewing agency rulemaking. Our State knew that excessive paperwork and burdensome regulations thwarted economic growth and global competitiveness. The accountability will lead to far more efficient practices and much less waste.
Date: 2004-05-04
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. it has been said that the cost of litigation drives up health care costs by 25 to 30 percent. It not only drives up physicians costs and hospital costs but also pharmaceutical company costs because so many times there are extremely expensive lawsuits that are out there. Whether the lawsuit goes completely to court or whether it is settled out of court. all of this drives up the cost of health care. A lot of times. constituents will say to me. well. that medicine was actually patented 5 years ago. Why are they continuing to increase the price? It is a lot of times because of litigation that is ongoing that drags on for absolutely years. When I was a State senator in Florida. I accomplished some tort reform in the area of nursing homes because we had nursing homes leaving the State. Accomplishing tort reform is a very difficult job. There is a very delicate balance there. You want to make sure that those who are harmed by an egregious act. that there is a method for compensation for them. But the number of frivolous lawsuits has gotten so out of hand. My constituents will come to me and say. isnt there some sort of law against filing frivolous lawsuits? In Florida we actually have a law. Does the gentleman know how many times judges have imposed fines on attorneys for filing frivolous lawsuits? There was one judge. It was an amount of money that he fined the lawyer that he could take it out of his wallet and hand it to the judge that day. Obviously. there is not enough of a financial disincentive there to thwart the number of lawsuits that are filed. Again. this drives up the cost of prescription drugs. But getting back to the prescription drug bill. passage of this bill is one way that we can help so many lowincome seniors. My motherinlaw was only on Social Security. The pharmacist came to us. gave me a call and said. you know. shes not refilling her prescriptions often enough. My husband and I took over and assisted with helping her with her prescription drug costs. But there are so many families out there who cannot or will not for some reason help their elderly parents or grandparents. The passage of this bill gives seniors dignity because they do not have to turn to their children. I think that is an important concept that we may have not promoted enough and that certainly the other side is missing. For somebody who only has Social Security. you cannot afford car payments and insurance payments and your rent and food and buy those prescription drugs. Believe me. my motherinlaw is not atypical. There are so many seniors who are in exactly that situation. older teachers who outlived their pension. just a lot of seniors who only have Social Security or very. very small pension amounts. They will fall into this category of a single person with $12.568 or a couple of $16.861. There are so many people who will benefit from this. I say shame on the Democrats in this House for not promoting this bill in their districts. for again engaging in the Mediscare tactics of the past.