[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 24 (Thursday, March 7, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H777-H778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      MIKE PARKER FORCED TO RESIGN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, when I was a kid, and when a 
guy named Mike Parker was a kid, it was fairly common for 
schoolteachers to talk about a story. We do not know if it is true or 
not, but they certainly told kids about a young man who, as a child, 
had a hatchet, and he took that hatchet to his father's favorite cherry 
tree and chopped it down. And when his father confronted him very 
angrily over whether or not he had done that, he said, Sir, I cannot 
tell a lie, I chopped down that cherry tree.
  We do not know whether or not that is true, but it certainly is an 
important lesson. The important lesson is that the person who is said 
to have told the truth went on to become the father of our country, and 
this town is named after him. I regret to say that that sort of reward 
seems missing in this town right now.
  I know of another person who in this town just last week told the 
truth and for that he was asked to resign. That person is my fellow 
Mississippian, Mike Parker, a former member of this body who served in 
both the Democrat and Republican Parties.
  Mike appeared before the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development 
of the Committee on Appropriations last week. As the head of the United 
States Army Corps of Engineers, the Under Secretary of the Army for 
that job, Mike told the Members of that committee that he did not feel 
that the budget was enough. He went on to say that he felt like the 
Office of Management and Budget had intentionally underestimated the 
amount of money that would be needed to run the Corps of Engineers.

[[Page H778]]

  That is the agency that builds the levees that keeps low-lying 
communities from flooding; that dredges channels so that inland 
commerce can take place; that dredges the channels for oceangoing 
ships; that agency that helps people with their sewage problems, with 
their drainage problems. He said that the administration's budget did 
not have enough money in it for him to do his job.
  He went on to say that he felt like the Office of Management and 
Budget intentionally low-balled that to try to make the President's 
budget look a little closer to being balanced than it really was, and 
knowing that Congress would put the money back in the budget. He even 
went so far as to say that the Constitution of the United States under 
article I gives Congress the power to decide where the money goes, not 
the administration. The administration is certainly correct to request 
a budget, but it is Congress' job to pass a budget.
  For telling the truth, my friend Mike Parker was fired. He was 
actually asked to resign. And what is really interesting about this 
town of half truths is that it was just 3 years ago on this very floor 
that a majority of my colleagues and I voted to impeach a sitting 
President because we felt like he had lied under oath. But when someone 
just last week tells the truth, he is asked to resign.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that is a shame, and I think it is a horrible 
reflection on our Nation. I think it is a horrible reflection on this 
administration. Mike Parker did the right thing. This town is awash in 
debt because we are awash in half truths. Finally, somebody came 
forward and said this is the way to do it. You gave me a job to do. I 
have left my farm in Mississippi, I have left my business in 
Mississippi, my wife has left a successful accounting firm to come here 
all so we could serve our country. I have told you the truth, and my 
reward for telling the truth is to fire me.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. Speaker, it is a shame. So for Mike Parker and all of the folks 
out there who tell the truth, I want to say I am grateful, the people 
in Mississippi. I deeply regret that the President of the United States 
did the wrong thing; but Mike, I know you did the right thing.
  Just recently there was a book published called ``The Dereliction of 
Duty.'' I am told it was written by a historian at West Point who 
researched the early stages of the Vietnam War, and makes a very 
compelling case that the Joint Chiefs of Staff at that time knew that 
President Johnson had no intention of winning that war. And what he 
cites as a dereliction of duty is those generals and those admirals at 
the time, knowing that the President had no clear plan for victory, 
were not willing to risk their careers and step forward and say ``This 
is wrong. I am not going to let the kids in my command die,'' in what 
they knew to be a failed effort.
  Mike Parker had the guts to say this is wrong and point out the way 
that it should be and tell the truth. So, Mike, they may have had a 
dereliction of duty, but you did not. For the sake of myself and again 
speaking on behalf of the people of Mississippi, we are proud of you, 
Mike. God bless you.

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