macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2004-06-16
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. House Resolution 675 is an open rule that provides for the consideration of H.R. 4567. the Fiscal Year 2005 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate. equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. I would like to take a moment to reiterate that we bring this rule forward under a fair and open rhle. Appropriations legislation has historically been brought forth with open rules. and we continue to do so in order to allow each and every Member the opportunity to submit their amendments for consideration. as long as they are germane under the rules of this House. Nearly one year ago. Mr. Speaker. I stood on this floor and proudly brought forward a rule for the very first Homeland Security Appropriations bill. We have accomplished so much in that one
Date: 2004-06-16
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I also believe that homeland security should not be a partisan issue. That is why I am so proud of the work that the leadership and that the Committee on Appropriations and especially the gentleman from Florida (Chairman YOUNG) and the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman ROGERS) have brought forth. they have expended and brought forth with regard to this critical issue. The legislation before us spends $33 billion. Mr. Speaker. on homeland security. $33 billion. Just in the area of first responders. Federal assistance for those first responders since September 11. 2001. almost $27 billion have been appropriated by this Congress. I am very proud of the way in which this Congress has responded to the threat. has acted to protect our homeland security. This is very important legislation that we have before us today. It is time that we get to the underlying legislation and that we pass it ot. So accordingly. Mr. Speaker. I urge a yes vote on the previous question. on the rule and on the underlying legislation. The material previously referred to by Ms. SLAUGHTER is as follows:
Date: 2004-06-16
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman. the interior appropriations bill contains a number of legislative provisions within the Committee on Government Reforms jurisdiction. I believe that in the past few days. we have established lines of communication and a good working relationship on these matters. I expect that as this bill moves forward to the other body in conference. we will continue this relationship and work together to make sure that these provisions are appropriate.
Date: 2004-06-16
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Reclaiming rmy time. I am particularly concerned with section 333 regarding the implementation of the EGovernment Act. I understand the departments frustration with the funding of this initiative. I would like to work with the gentleman from North Carolina to find a way to properly implement egovernment at the department rather than stopping this important program altogether.
Date: 2004-06-17
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I rise today in strong support of this international tax bill. We worked for the better paft of 3 years to get to this point. Everyone in here knows we need it. I want to congratulate Chairman THOMAS for leading us. The bill strikes the right tone in the repeal and replacement of FSC/ETI. This section of the bill was debated long and hard. and I am proud of the deal we have reached on this section. I am also glad to see long overdue international competitiveness reforms are still in this bill. In addition. I want to mention my strong support for the return of the State sales tax deduction. Since 1986. the residents of seven States. including Texas. that rely upon sales taxes rather than income taxes have been unfairly denied this deduction. From every corner of my congressional district. my constituents are thrilled at the prospect of being given this tax deduction. We like to say no taxes in Texas. I urge my colleagues to vote for this bil. Mr. Speaker. I rise today in strong support of this international tax bill. We have worked for the better part of -3 years to get to this point and I want to thank and congratulate Chairman THOMAS for leading us. The bill strikes the right tone in the repeal and replacement of the "FSCETI" benefit. This section of the bill was debated long and hard. and I am proud of the deal we have reached on this section. I am also glad to see longoverdue international competitiveness reforms are still in this bill. In addition. I want to mention my strong support for the return of the State sales tax deduction. Since 1986. the residents of seven States. including Texas. that rely upon sales taxes rather than income taxes. have been unfairly denied this deduction. From every comer of my congressional district. my constituents are thrilled at the prospect of being given this tax deduction. We like to say no taxes in Texas. I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I want to urge caution however on the revenue raisers that -are used to offset some of our tax cuts. I find the revenue raisers in the House bill to have many flaws--large and small. I have been shadring my reservations with the Chairman and other committee members who are likely to be conferees. My reservations about the House offsets. however. are magnified into grave -concems when I look at the Senate tax increases. In particular. I cannot accept retroactive tax increases and will not support a conference agreement that includes retroactive tax increases. I am firmly in the camp of those who believe that tax cuts do not need to be offset with tax increases. This is simply money the Federal Government is not collecting that belongs to individuals or companies that have earned the money. However. to the extent that we are forced to offset some off our tax cuts. I urge the Chairman and other conferees to pick through these offsets so that the "payfor" is not worse policy than the items we are trying to fix.
Date: 2004-06-17
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I rise today to thank the honorable gentleman from California for his hard and patient work in getting the American Jobs Creation Act out of committee and to the floor. It has been a difficult process I know. but with the passage of this bin we will add to the 1.1 million jobs this economy has created in the last 9 months. I want to say that again: We have added 1.1 million new jobs in the last 9 months. And still the Democrats are talking about the worst economy since the great Depression. I call their strategy Snipe and Gripe. Snipe at the heels of the leaders who are making progress and gripe about the economic recovery. Theirs is a deliberate effort to talk down this economic recovery and slow its growth. Our economy took a blow 21/2 years ago. but Americans are fighting back. Thanks to the policies of this President and this Republican Congress. businesses are putting people back to work and. our economy is growing at rates not seen in 20 years. I want to take a second to thank Chairman THOMAS for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to .32 percent permanently. With this and other tax changes in the bill. American companies will be more competitive. more able to compete internationally. and. to the dismay of the Demobrats. able to .add even still more jobs. As importantly. this bill recognizes the inequity taxpayers of states without income taxes face under current law. Finally. residents of Florida will be allowed to deduct their state sales tax from federal taxable income. By including the sales tax deductibility. even temporarily. this bill brings fairness and relief to the residents of Florida. It is only with dogged determination that we have been able to move this legislation and bring a greater measure of fairness to the tax code.
Date: 2004-06-17
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman. I think that the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman ROGERS) has struck a pretty darn good balance in this bill. I oppose the amendment. I am originally from New York. and one of the things that I learned is when New York City gets involved. the rest of the State at that time suffers. According to the chart by the gentleman from Kentucky . Florida would lose $18.7 million. We cannot afford to lose that because of all the ports that we have. because of the water supply. certainly because of our agricultural interests. Let me share with you that I represent a district that also has a nuclear power plant. If you do not think that those former New Yorkers who live near that power plant or who want their water supply protected do not deserve the same protection as New Yorkers. I am sorry. that is not what those of us who come from rural areas got elected to represent. I think that the gentleman from Kentucky has struck a great balance here. Obviously. this is something that will be conferenced. and I would urge a "no" vote against my good friend and current New Yorker from a former New Yorker. the gentleman from New York .
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I raise points of order against section 512. subsections (b) and (c). section 514 and section 525 on the grounds that these provisions change existing law in violation of clause 2(b) of House rule XXI and therefore are legislation included in a general appropriation bill.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I have discussed this with the gentleman from Tennessee. We are uncomfortable. as the gentleman knows. with the reporting requirements just through appropriations. We would want to include the committee which has jurisdiction over BuyAmerica. which is ours. We cannot rewrite this. but I pledge to work with the gentleman as we move forward on these issues.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I raise a point of order against section 526(b) of H.R. 4567 on the grounds that this provision changes existing law in violation of clause 2(b) of House rule XXI. and therefore is legislation included in a general appropriations bill.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. Let me just respond to my friend from Wisconsin who has raised this issue. I have struck for the second year in a row these socalled corporate inversion amendments. The appropriate time to take this up in my opinion would have been before the procurement moved forward. Several committees of this House held hearings on the USVISIT contract. I think if this had been part of the initial contract. then we would not have gone through this process. companies would not have spent millions of dollars. and we could have addressed this earlier in the process. The difficulty now is that we would delay this process up to 2 years further. and I think it is a needed program. We have kept the language in section (a) under this going forward for future contracts in the spirit of compromise with the gentleman. but I understand his concerns. I have other substantive concerns with what the gentleman has said. but I think in the spirit of compromise we have tried to get an appropriate balance and allow the contract to move forward.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. reclaiming my time. I understand the gentlemans concern. The issue has been addressed in other tax laws. but I understand the gentlemans concerns on this and I look forward to working with him.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to the amendment. The gentlewoman is entitled to her strong opinion but not her own facts. She notes that troops overseas need help. The reality is if her amendment passes. this will have to be recompeted and it will push back protecting our borders another 2 years. A lot of companies invested money in this. Homeland Security invested money in going through these. This will have to start again. The bids of the losers in this particular case will be made public. Everyone will have a starting place. This pushes the outcome to protect our homeland 2 years. So this does not do anything to protect the homeland. number one. Number two. Accenture. to my understanding. pays an effective tax rate for fiscal year 2004 of 34.8 percent. The two competitors in this pay. in their recent 10K filings. 31.3 percent and 28 percent respectively. I ask the gentlewoman where is the tax advantage if they are paying a higher percentage of their taxes? Does she know? There is no tax advantage.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. let me just say this is about the best technology to defend the borders. I have a letter from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States made up of American companies in opposition to this amendment. I have a letter from the Professional Services Council made up of American companies in opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona .
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. there are 330.000 American jobs in the contract that is currently being let to Accenture and its American corporate subsidiaries. But the other side would just delay those jobs at least 2 years and the creation of those jobs as they rebid this contract and recompete this contract and keep our borders less safe.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. let me correct a couple of statements made. First of all. this is not a company that ever left America. This is .a global partnership at one point that as they looked at the new business model. they looked at a place globally in the partnership that had worked across the world.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

I will yield on your time. Do you have the time. or are you just trying to interrupt me so I cannot get a stream of thought? You have ample opportunity to rebut me on the time allotted to you. So they were never an American company. and this is not a corporate inversion under the current law. and the gentleman knows that. and the author of this amendment knows that. Secondly. Bermuda is a British territory. Britain is a member of the World Trade Organization. To say they are not is fallacious. and I think we ought to at least keep this on a factual level. We have differing opinions. which I respect on this. but let us at least argue from the same basis of facts. Mr. Chairman. I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. although I am defending the committees position in this particular case. my understanding is I do not have the right to close because I am not a member of the committee.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman. I think this amendment is unfortunate. First of all. you are picking ononly one homeland security contract where there are literally dozens. more than that. that go to" companies that are foreign based. They have singled out one. Perhaps there is a bidder in their State that did not get it. But retaliation on Federal contracting is really not a good thing to be doing on the House floor. Secondly. we need to be aware that this will cost the government additional money in termination costs. and they are likely to go through this. and delay implementation of this procurement for up to 2 years which means that securing our border and getting the U.S. VISIT program up and running will be delayed. This is a homeland security bill. This is an antihomeland security amendment in that case. It is important. once again. to note that the winner of the contract is an American corporation. but their parent is a global company that has a headquarters in Bermuda. They were a global partnership prior to doing that. Although the majority of their stock. I understand. is Americanowned. certainly the bulk of their employees are here. But they are global in nature as are so many companies in a changing global economic world. a fact of the matter that some of my colleagues do not want to face up to.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Well. this throws the procurement basically up in the air and out the window and delays it. I think. at a minimum a couple of years. Worst of all. we know under this contract. Texas gets 35.000 jobs. Those jobs. if this amendment becomes law. are out the window. They may get some back. They may not get any back. We know. for example. in Massachusetts 13.000 jobs come under this. Those jobs are ott the windows if this is it. Maybe they will get it under some other bidding. but there is no assurance of that at all. We know for example in Florida. 14.000 jobs. California. 30.000 jobs. Illinois. 11.000. Arizona. 12.000. on and on. 330.000 jobs at a time when people profess to want job creation. Basically what they are saying is let us put these jobs off 2 years because we do not like the headquarters where the parent company that is putting this together of the winning company. which is an American company. lives. Even though all of the jobs will be performed in the United States. appropriate security clearances will be cleared by American citizens to perform this work. I would note once again. there are literally dozens. if not hundreds. of companies around the globe that are doing business with the Defense Department. Department of Homeland Security. that.are foreign based. If we cut this off. we are indeed. as one speaker noted. cutting off our nose to spite our face. Because. after all. this is a global economy. and after all. in this particular area we are running an $8 billion trade surplus. trade surplus. And what the proponents of this amendment would do is say. we do not care about a trade surplus in this particular area. We want to settle some other scores. We do not like the global economy. We want to use American dollars only to compete with American companies. only to use American companies even if it may be an inferior technology. even if it may cost taxpayers more. That is what they are saying. and it is very poor precedent. in my opinion. for protecting the homeland.
Date: 2004-06-18
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

It clearly has to be recompeted. and we will be wrought with protests. I urge that this amendment be soundly defeAted and we send the signal here that we want to protect the homelandfirst. This is a homeland security bill. It ought to stay that way.
Date: 2004-06-21
Speaker: JO ANN DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 3751. a bill to require the Office of Personnel Management to study and recommend options for enhancing the dental. vision and hearing benefits available to Federal employees. As the Federal Govemment strives to recruit top talent around the Nation. this issue plays a significant. strategic role in attracting and retaining the very best to serve our country. Currently. the dental. vision and hearing offerings available to those covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) can be described as inadequate at best. The Governments employees are often without proper dental care as part of their health insurance coverage. In fact. most plans in the FEHBP either do not offer dental and vision care. or cover only very minimal. basic procedures. While some plans do offer a supplemental dental package. they come at the cost of a very high premium. By contract. dental and vision benefits offered to many employees in the private sector are more generous. A 2002 study by the Society for Human Resource Management determined that 96 percent of private sector firms offered dental coverage benefits. Furthermore. the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that these private plans usually cover 100 percent of routine procedures and 5080 percent of more expensive procedures. According to the Office of Personal Managenent. Federal employees and retirees cite improved dental coverage as their most desired benefit enhancement. With these benefits so widely available in the private sector. the Federal Govemment cannot afford to ignore this issue. or it will lose the war for talent more often than it will win. The Government depends greatly on its competitive benefits packages to attract wellqualified candidates. and should explore the possibility of enhancing such benefits. Putting more money into the system is not necessarily the answer. and this bill does not call for that. It simply requires the Federal Governments personnel experts. OPM. to study how to resolve this. problem. Whatever it reveals. the goal of the report is to recommend options for improving the availability of dental. vision and hearing benefits to employees in a way that fits within the current budgetary constraints. I urge all members to support H.R. 3751.
Date: 2004-06-21
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. please include the attached exchange of letters between Chairman MICHAEL G. OXLEY of the Committee on Financial Services. Chairman JOHN A. BOEHNER of the Committee on. Education and the Workforce and myself in debate on H.R. 3797 under general leave. Washington. DC. March 9. 2004. Hon. TOM DAVIS. Chairman. Committee on Government Reform. Washington. DC. DEAR TOM: On February 26. 2004. the Committee on Government Reform ordered reported H.R. 3797. the 2004 District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act. As you know. the Committee on Financial Services was granted an additional referral upon the bills introduction pursuant to the Committees jurisdiction under Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives over banks and banking. Section 8 of the bill addresses the regulation of banks chartered by the District of Columbia by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Because of your willingness to consult with my committee regarding this rfiatter. I will waive consideration of the bill by the Financial Services Committee. By agreeing to waive its consideration of the bill. the Financial Services Committee does not waive its jurisdiction over H.R. 3797. In addition. the Committee on Financial Services reserves its authority to seek conferees on any provisions of the bill that are within the Financial Services Committees jurisdiction during any HouseSenate conference that may be convened on this legislation. I ask your commitment to support any request by the Committee on Financial Services for conferees on H.R. 3797 or related legislation. I request that you include this letter and your response as part of your committees report on the bill and the Congressional Record during consideration of the legislation on the House floor. Thank you for your attention to these matters. Sincerely.
Date: 2004-06-22
Speaker: GARY G. MILLER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 658) recognizing National Homeownership Month and the importance of homeownership in the United States.
Date: 2004-06-22
Speaker: GARY G. MILLER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on this resolution.