[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 93 (Monday, June 11, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6220-H6226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE SUBURBAN AGENDA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Berkley). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. KIRK. Madam Speaker, as we begin the work of this Congress, we
should follow several key principles. Our first principle, which should
be the main work of this House, should be focused on key major issues
before the country; the second principle is that we should be effective
and enact solutions for the American people; and the third is that we
should use this debate to build consensus to deploy bipartisan action
on behalf of our country.
One commentator looking at the record of the current Congress said
that we are packing two days of debate into a four-day workweek. When
you look at the record of this Congress so far, you can see that we
have taken action on 13 bills to name a Federal building or post office
or to build a road, we have enacted five bills to extend preexisting
laws that were already on the books or passed last year, and we have
passed eight bills cosponsored by a large number of Republicans or
passed entirely without opposition. It is not an impressive record of
work so far. And when you look at the actions of this Congress, you can
see many pieces of legislation on which there has been no action in
this Congress, despite a great need by the American people.
One of the key pieces of legislation that passed in the 109th
Congress was the Deleting Online Predators Act. This is a bill which
would protect children from online predators, especially those who use
social networking sites like MySpace.com, the number one website on the
planet, where the Center For National Missing and Exploited Children
reports that at any one time there are 50,000 sexual predators online
trying to get the attention of children.
This legislation, the Deleting Online Predators Act, passed the House
of Representatives last year by a vote of 410-15. It stalled in the
Senate, and as of yet in this Congress there has been no action
whatsoever.
In the last Congress, we also passed the Student and Teacher Safety
Act. The Student and Teacher Safety Act was endorsed by the National
Education Association and would say that for any registered full-time
teacher in America, that they have complete discretion to search a book
bag or a locker to make sure that the classroom was gun-free. As a
former teacher myself and as someone who has worked with many teachers,
I think it is appropriate for the Congress to use a teacher's full-time
professional judgment to make sure that their classroom, their
workplace, was a safe place to be, not just for teachers, but
especially for children.
When we have seen attacks in places like Winnetka, Illinois, or
Columbine, or even Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, we
can see that there is a need to fully empower teachers with the right
to search to make sure that their facilities are safe. The Student and
Teacher Safety Act passed the House unanimously in the last Congress,
was delayed in the United States Senate, and no action has been taken
this year.
The Congress in the last term also passed the Open Space and Farmland
Preservation Act. We have seen throughout America, especially in
suburban communities, rapidly disappearing green and open space. It is
very important for us to defend the National Park System. In fact, I
think the country should set a long-term goal of doubling the size of
the National Park System. But we also want to make sure that we
preserve green and open space close to where Americans live, in the
suburbs.
This act would establish new and local grant programs to help protect
suburban open space. Without action by the Congress, in 20 years time,
many of the areas where we currently see green and open space could be
an unending series of strip malls, removing an ambience, hurting our
environment and delaying our ability to take effective action on global
climate change. This legislation passed unanimously in the last
Congress, but this Congress has failed to take any action on it.
One of the critical issues before this Congress is whether to pay
Members of Congress who have been convicted of a felony and who have
lost all of their appeals and beyond the shadow of a doubt stand
condemned before the American people, and yet still collect a pension
for their service in the Congress.
We have seen Members of Congress, like Dan Rostenkowski or Bob Ney or
Duke Cunningham or James Traficant, all completely convicted by a jury
of their peers beyond the shadow of a doubt, Members of Congress who
lost or did not exercise any of their appeals, who are currently or
have served in jail, and yet today or in months past have collected
their congressional pensions from the jailhouse ATM.
In 1996, the Congress passed comprehensive reforms to kill the
pension for any Member of Congress convicted of any one of 21 separate
public integrity felonies. It was a bipartisan victory, with the full
support of Speaker Hastert and Speaker Pelosi. This legislation, once
again, was delayed and killed in the United States Senate.
Today we have seen Members like Congressman Jefferson from Louisiana,
indicted on 16 felony counts, and, but for this legislation, would have
a right as a nine term Member of Congress, if convicted and if losing
all of their appeals, to collect a $50,000 a year pension, even if
convicted for betraying the very taxpayers that pay that pension.
{time} 2100
The Congress in February passed very limited pension reform
legislation which wouldn't kill the pension for a Member of Congress on
conviction of 21 felonies, but instead would only kill that pension for
conviction of any one of four felonies. And basic felonies like wire
fraud and income tax invasion would still allow the payment of a
congressional pension.
Despite limited action by the Congress in January both in the House
and Senate, legislation to kill the pension of a Member of Congress
convicted of a felony has been completely stalled, completely stalled
in February, in March, in April, in May, and now in the first weeks of
June with no action and potential actions against other Members of
Congress convicted of a felony.
[[Page H6221]]
In my view, the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid each year to
Members of Congress convicted of a felony are a travesty and should be
stopped by the elected representatives of the American people to defend
the taxpayer.
All of this details the lack of a substantive agenda by this Congress
which should be put before the American people working on issues that
they care about, on key challenges before their families. As I have
outlined, beyond naming some Post Offices, designating some roads, and
passing legislation on which there is little to no debate, this
Congress has not done much yet and right now is falling beneath its
potential as a great deliberative body of one of the world's premier
democracies.
What I would like to do tonight is lay out a new agenda, an agenda
that would be meaningful to many Americans and taking on key problems
before them.
This action was proffered before in the enactment of the suburban
agenda last year which took action on a number of key items like the
School Safety Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act authored by the
gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter). That bill basically took up the
issue of Jessica Lunsford who was killed by someone employed by a
school who had never had a background check. Despite his clear and
demonstrable criminal record, this man was allowed to be in close
contact with children leading to a tragic result.
The School Safety Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act passed the
Congress and allowed every school in the country access to national
criminal databases in order to ensure that every activity was taken to
make sure that people who are put in close contact with children did
not represent a clear and present danger to their safety.
The Congress also took on the issue of open space by passing the
Charitable Donations For Open Space Act. This improved the treatment of
conservation easements and other open space donations critical to
preserving green and open space in the suburbs.
We also looked at the issue of helping families with expanding
college costs by expanding permanently the charter of so-called 529
college savings account.
In my home State of Illinois, these are called ``bright start
accounts.'' And by permanently extending these tax deferred savings
plans, we helped Americans with their college savings.
With those pieces of legislation, and the ones I talked about earlier
which passed the House in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion but were
killed in the Senate, we laid out a work plan for the Congress strongly
supported by the American people with overwhelming bipartisan support
on the Republican and Democratic side.
But as I detailed, key pieces of legislation remain to be enacted
like the Deleting Online Predators Act, like the Two Student and
Teacher Safety Act, like the Open Space and Farmland Preservation Act.
Persistence is a value strongly rewarded in the United States Congress,
and following on that value, we have laid out a new suburban agenda for
this year. The suburban agenda outlines a number of key pieces of
legislation that directly meets the needs of American people in
bipartisan ways to make sure that we are working on the key issues of
the day and move the ball effectively, building bipartisan consensus.
Key items on the suburban agenda include the Gang Elimination Act by
Representative Reichert, which looks at a key problem in the United
States which is of internationally connected drug gangs representing
major franchises in criminal activity, moving to the suburbs,
potentially overwhelming suburban law enforcement communities. While
large cities like New York or Chicago have large gang intelligence
units and years of experience in dealing with international drug gangs,
drug gangs that are now moving to the suburbs can quickly overwhelm a
small police force like the one in Waukegan, Illinois, that is facing a
criminal empire that comprises thousands of potential gang members, and
links to a number of countries.
The Gang Elimination Act calls for the Justice Department to identify
the top three national drug gangs and lay out a 4-year strategy for
taking those drug gangs down. This is something entirely appropriate,
to lay out a mandate for whoever is our next President of the United
States to make sure that we remove this threat to the American people.
If you added up all of the documented gang members who are in the
United States, it would total the size of the seventh largest army on
the planet. The average gang shooter in my State of Illinois is in the
7th grade, and this is a threat that the Federal Government in
Washington can help law enforcement deal with.
A second piece of the suburban agenda is the 401 Kids Family Savings
Account Act by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert). We look at
key figures like 70 percent of Americans fear it will be more difficult
for their children to remain in the middle class than it was for them.
You have to simply ask the question: How likely or how easy will it be
for your children to afford the very house that they are being raised
in?
Access to college in our view is a critical step to making sure that
your children have a chance to be full and successful members of the
middle class. When we have seen universities like George Washington
University now totaling $50,000 a year for tuition, we can see a
substantial roadblock in the way of the future success of one's son or
daughter.
The 401 Kids Family Savings Account, and previous legislation modeled
after it, would allow every American to build success upon success. One
of the best things that the Congress has done is to allow every
American working with the opportunity to establish a 401(k) retirement
program to build tax deferred savings for their families.
Tens of millions of Americans have now established those 401(k)
programs, and we would like every American to have a chance, an
opportunity, to establish a 401 kids account for their new son or
daughter, from the first day they are born, tax deferred savings for
college, for the first-time purchase of a home or for starting a new
business.
This would not only help boost the savings of the United States, but
it would be a dramatic way to upgrade the financial education of
American children because these 401 kids account statements would come
into parents and allow each one of them to sit down with their son or
daughter and see how a disciplined pattern of savings and investment
could build a lifetime of good habits for that child.
One of the other pieces of legislation is the Health Insurance For
Life Act by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent). The Health
Insurance For Life Act would basically look at a key problem in today's
America which is that the average American family, especially in the
suburbs, will have seven jobs over their lifetime, and we still have
thousands of Americans exercising their COBRA rights to continue their
health care coverage. Under Federal law if you have been covered by an
employer-provided health care plan, if you lose your job, you can still
continue health care and insurance for your family for at least 18
months at your own expense. But many Americans hit the end of that 18-
month limit and they will not be allowed to have a safe place to cover
their family without extension of these rights.
The Health Insurance Portability Act, otherwise known as the Health
Insurance For Life Act of 2007, would allow families at their own cost
to continue their health care insurance so there is always in a seven-
job career a safe place for their family to be covered. And there would
always be an option to maintain that coverage.
As I mentioned before, one of the key parts of our agenda is the
Deleting Online Predators Act because throughout America we have not
seen a reduction in people who would seek to use the new and powerful
tools of the web and the Internet, and especially social networking
sites, to reach out and attack children. It is already common knowledge
through the culture, and especially through shows like Dateline NBC,
that we have seen repeat offenders, even on the same network news show.
The suburban agenda also includes other key items. The one at the
bottom is very important for the mid-21st century, and that is the
Senior Safety For Dignity Act. The Senior Safety For Dignity Act
updates a set of bill of rights for Americans who need nursing home
care to ensure that they maintain their dignity. This is legislation
[[Page H6222]]
put forward by Mrs. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida.
The Senior Safety For Dignity Act is very important because in our
country the baby boom is aging. The first baby boomer collects a
retirement check in 2009. The number of retirees in America will go
from 35 million to almost 90 million, and the need for nursing home
care in our country will grow. We need to upgrade the bill of rights
for Americans in nursing homes because of the large expansion in
capability that we will need in our country and to make sure that the
quality of care is maintained.
One of the experts in this Congress is my colleague, a physician and
a Member from Georgia, Dr. Price, who can comment on a number of these
key issues.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. It really is a privilege for me to come to the
floor tonight and work with you, Mr. Kirk, for a few moments and to
explain to our colleagues here in the House and to the Speaker about
the suburban agenda, a very important area. I appreciate your
leadership in this area. You have been steadfast in making certain that
these issues, and they may not be top-tier issues, they may not be
headlines in all of our newspapers, but your district, like my
district, I have a suburban district outside of Atlanta, and folks
there are concerned about what folks all across this Nation are
concerned about.
Mr. KIRK. We have seen consistently that while events in Iran or
Iraq, while issues concerning global climate change, and of course the
immigration bill in the Senate are all front-burner issues, but for
American families, education, health care, protecting the environment
and saving for college are important issues.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. That really is true. When I talk with groups at
home, and once we get past the hot button, the headline issues of Iraq
and immigration and the like, people are concerned about education for
their kids and they are concerned about health care for themselves and
their parents. They are concerned about security and quality of life
issues in their community to make certain that there is going to be
green space and there are places where can take their kids.
I was sitting in my office and I had to come down and join you. These
are not Republican issues or Democrat issues, these are American
issues.
{time} 2115
They're issues that I think all of the House can rally around. And
you mentioned the health care issue, and as a physician, I understand
as well as anybody I suspect about the importance of being able to
provide health insurance for families.
We live in a world now where jobs aren't constant. It used to be that
your dad and my dad and other folks, they'd get a job and they'd be
with that same company 25, 30, 35 years, and they'd get a gold watch
and they'd move on and they'd take that health care with them. Now,
that's not the case. Our children will have 7, 8, 9, 10 different jobs,
10 different employers and oftentimes having themselves as being self-
employed.
Mr. KIRK. One solution would be to have the government take over
everyone's health care and to make sure we take action that breaks the
link between you and your physician and insert a large bureaucracy that
currently runs the post office and now put it in charge of your health
care.
Many of us think that that may not be the way to go. The way to go is
to make sure that for many Americans, they like the health insurance
plan that they're on, and then they would like to carry that through
the five to seven jobs that they will have in the 21st century.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Exactly. And that hits the nail right on the
head. People want to know that their health care is going to be
consistent and they have the ability, along with their physicians, to
make health care decisions, which is why the Health Insurance
Portability Act that Congressman Dent is reintroducing is so important.
It makes it so, as I understand, that if an individual changes jobs,
that they're able to provide that COBRA insurance for as long as
needed. So it makes it so they can continue that COBRA insurance for a
much longer period of time, to tide them over until they're with
another employer or they can be able to provide for individual
insurance on their own.
It's not the be-all-and-end-all, but it is a particularly important
piece of the puzzle that makes it so that people can maintain their own
health insurance, and I know that you agree with that.
Mr. KIRK. The need here is to remove the fear that somehow a loss of
a job or discovery of a preexisting condition will deny Americans and
their families health care insurance. What we want to make sure is you
already have a right under Federal law to extend your health care
insurance for 18 months. Now, we're not talking about extending it
indefinitely, because when an American reaches age 65, you're going to
be covered by Medicare, and if you fall below the poverty line, you're
going to be covered by Medicaid.
But for large numbers of people, especially looking at an unsure job
market, we want to have them assured by this piece of legislation that
there's always a safe place for their family to be covered.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Exactly, and that gets to the number of
uninsured that we have in this Nation. There are 45, 46, 47 million
individuals who at some point during this calendar year will be without
health insurance. Those aren't the folks that are on Medicaid. Those
aren't the folks that are on Medicare. Those are the folks that are
between jobs oftentimes, who are unable to continue the COBRA insurance
that they ought to be able to, and this is what this bill would do. It
would really, really solve one of the major problems that we have with
working Americans who do indeed want to provide health insurance for
families.
So I commend you for your leadership on this issue and so many
others.
The Senior Safety Indignity Act is extremely important. I served in
the State legislature, as I know many folks in this chamber did, and
every single year we would hear horror stories about problems of health
care workers in the nursing home or extended care facility arena.
And in Georgia what we tried to do was a similar kind of thing to
make certain that background checks were available, and this would
provide that kind of security and that kind of important information
for individuals in the senior centers so that we know that the folks
who were going to be assisting seniors and caring for seniors have the
appropriate skills and the appropriate background in order to do that.
Mr. KIRK. The gentleman is one of the most respected physicians here
in the Congress. The difficulty before this country is that the baby
boom began when the troops came home in 1945. So, for an American born
in that key year, you're going to be collecting a retirement check in
2009 when you hit your 65th birthday. There are so many Americans that
then enter the retirement cohort and that may need nursing home care.
That is the critical reason why this Congress may have to work on fewer
bills naming post offices and designating roads and more on making sure
that we maintain quality senior care as the baby boom generation
retires.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I appreciate that, and the point that you're
making is so vital for all of us in this chamber to appreciate, and
that is, that we've now been in session 5\1/2\ months, and we've passed
and sent to the President about 28 to 30 pieces of legislation. Almost
the majority of those are naming a building or naming a post office or
renaming a building or renaming a post office.
And these issues here, if you look down the list of those seven
issues, from the gang elimination to teacher and student safety, to
other education issues with 401 Kids Family Savings Act or the Health
Insurance Act that we talked about, the Deleting Online Predators Act,
open space, Senior Safety Act, these are the issues that are of vital
importance to the American people all across this Nation. These are
issues that, frankly, ought to get the vast majority of Members of this
chamber on both sides of the aisle's support so that we could move
forward with real legislation for real people.
Mr. KIRK. I take the gentleman's point. When you look at our
legislative work, in 5\1/2\ months, in such promise with the new
Congress, what we've done, these are all great Americans
[[Page H6223]]
who should be honored, but these actions should not be the sum total of
what the Congress has done.
We've named the Gale McGee Post Office; the Rush Hudson Limbaugh,
Sr., Post Office; Scipio Jones Post Office; the Lane Evans, one of my
colleagues from Illinois, Post Office. All good Americans that should
be honored, but this should not be the sum total of the work of the
Congress.
The country witnessed a tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia, with the
attack on Virginia Tech. A number of experienced educators saw some
warning signs, as we saw before at Columbine High School, as we saw
before in the Winnetka school system when Laurie Dann attacked it.
The Student and Teacher Safety Act is common-sense legislation that
this Congress should take up. It says to any full-time teacher, you
know the warning signs, you know your children that are in the
classrooms, and we want to make sure that you don't have to fear a
trial lawyer and you don't have to get a warrant. If you suspect that a
threat to your classroom, to your kids has come into a locker or in
through a bookbag, and now the classroom is a dangerous place, you have
complete authority to remove that danger.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. And you're right. The incident at Virginia Tech
was so astounding and so horrific for all of us to witness, and our
hearts and our prayers still go out to those families.
But I understand, as I know you do, that there were individuals who
were reticent to bring that out into the open before it happened, bring
that individual who apparently committed that awful, awful tragedy out
into the open for fear of potential liability.
That's no way for a Nation to live. That's no way for a responsible
people to have to operate, to have to think in the back of their mind,
well, can I do what's right or do I have to worry about an attorney, do
I have to worry about a lawsuit.
This is the kind of legislation that we, as a Congress, if we adopted
these seven items, I suspect that the American people would say this is
a Congress that has acted appropriately, and we would all be able to
stand proud and with that poster and present it to our constituents and
say this is a responsible agenda for the American people.
My concern right now over the next three weeks, as you well know,
we're entering appropriations time. It is very likely that none of
these things, none of them, will be even brought to the floor during
this period of time and that we'll get bound up in the process of
spending hard-earned taxpayer money, trying to be responsible in that
endeavor. But these issues that are supported by 60, 70, 80 percent of
the American people, we ought to be able to take those off the table
right away.
Mr. KIRK. I'm worried, too. The gentleman can talk about Atlanta. In
Chicago, in the Chicagoland area, we are now seeing a great expansion
of large national gang franchises like the Latin Kings, like the
Gangster Disciples, et cetera, moving into the suburbs. A suburban
police department has far fewer resources than a big city like Chicago
and Atlanta to fight these, and so that's where the Federal Government
can come in.
We're particularly concerned about a gang that some Americans have
heard about called Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, which seems to be
particularly violent and one in which there are tantalizing clues that
there may have been discussions with terrorist organizations with links
overseas because the leaders of MS-13 don't have obviously any
patriotic feeling toward the United States, and if they could link up
to a terrorist organization for money, they would.
In the city of Chicago, we have now seen these gangs moving into
places like Waukegan or Aurora or Joliet. I don't know about Atlanta,
but it seems like particularly appropriate when you see that the
average gang shooter for these international drug gangs is in the 7th
grade.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. We have similar experiences in the city of
Atlanta and then in the surrounding area. I don't represent any of the
city of Atlanta itself. My district abuts the city of Atlanta, but I
have small cities, some as small as 8- to 12,000 residents. I have some
as large as 80- to 100,000, and then some unincorporated county areas.
But the resources that they have with which to fight gangs aren't the
kind of resources that large metropolitan cities have, large urban
areas have, and this bill, introduced by Representative Dave Weichert
who himself is a hero in the law enforcement arena, having been the
sheriff out in Washington State.
Mr. KIRK. With the Green River killer.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Apprehended the Green River killer, and such a
hero he is, and we ought to as a House of Representatives and as a
Nation recognize that this Act, this would allow police departments and
law enforcement officials all across this Nation to know that there are
resources being brought to bear to identify, like MS-13, to identify
those gangs that are the greatest threat to our communities, the
greatest threat to our constituents all across this Nation, that there
is a unified strategy that is going to be brought to bear in order to
make it so that we prevail in this war.
Mr. KIRK. I'm particularly worried because in the recent failed
Senate immigration bill there was an amendment put forward to deny
documented members of international drug gangs the chance to enter the
pathway to citizenship that the legislation proposed. That amendment
failed.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. This immigration bill that was just in the
Senate last week, many of us had great concerns over, but are you
telling me that there was a portion of the bill that it would allow
gang members who had been convicted of a felony, that if they were
found to be illegal, that they couldn't be deported; is that what you
are saying?
Mr. KIRK. The proposed amendment would have denied any documented
member of an international drug gang from the chance to apply for the
pathway to citizenship that it proposed, and that amendment was
defeated 51-46.
When we came together and proposed the Gang Elimination Act, we at
least looked at the several hundred thousand documented gang members in
the United States and said how do we deal with this problem.
Sometimes I have to have the concern that this Congress may take
action in which that number would increase, making the problem even
worse by action of the Federal Government. That's why I think
refocusing our work for actions beyond naming of post offices to
looking at how small suburban communities are being overwhelmed by
large gangs with international links, some of whom may add to members
if the wrong legislation should pass the Congress, that is an issue
that should be squarely put before this Congress.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I couldn't agree more, and there was such great
promise for this new Congress, this new majority, not of which we're a
part of, but this new majority that was swept in and began in January
and all sorts of wonderful promises about great legislation and being
responsive to the concerns of Americans all across the Nation. And what
we've had is a legislative agenda that hasn't done that.
And so you and I stand here tonight inviting our colleagues on both
sides of the aisle to embrace this suburban agenda, embrace an agenda
that 70, 80 percent of the American people would support with common-
sense pieces of legislation that address security, that address health
care, that address education, that address caring for our seniors, that
address green space. It just astounds me that we can't get that kind of
support on both sides.
{time} 2130
Mr. KIRK. It's okay to criticize, if we find that in 5\1/2\ months we
haven't done as much as we had hoped. But Americans, I think, at our
core, look for solutions. This Congress has 18 months to go. So it's
not enough just to criticize. You then have to put forward a positive
agenda of not only saying we haven't done enough, and maybe we should
not just consider 13 bills to name Federal property and 5 bills to
extend preexisting law, but work at these problems. Then the question
is, what is your agenda?
To date, I haven't seen a comprehensive agenda for the other side. I
know that a vast majority of Republicans and Democrats will join on
this agenda. When we look, we have a critical problem with online
predators, at any
[[Page H6224]]
one time, 50,000 online predators contacting kids. There are hundreds
of contacts in each month, in my own congressional district.
Now, people like Julie Wachtheim, the President of Wheeling High
School, who, minutes after putting her class photo on a new MySpace
page was contacted by a sexual predator using an advanced search engine
that obviously showed us that he was contacting not just her, but
hundreds of other young girls, in an attempt to find someone. I am not
sure if that is the case in the Atlanta suburbs as well, but I think
this is beginning to be a real threat to Americans. This was not part
of our growing up.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. No, absolutely.
Mr. KIRK. The Internet was largely invented in 1996 after you and I
had both completed college. But this is part of our children's growing
up. I think this calls for congressional action.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I appreciate that. It's not that the Internet
is bad, it's just that this is a different world, and the Internet is
now like Main Street of 20 or 30 years ago, where you would have to be
wary of strangers, and our parents told us about strangers on Main
Street and how to deal with them. It's much more difficult when those
strangers are able to come literally into your own home and entice
young people who may not have their guard up as much.
We have story after story, time after time you will hear law
enforcement officers talk about the challenges that they have in even
getting young people to admit that, in fact, they have been susceptible
or been approached by this kind of behavior. But it is rampant out
there. It's absolutely rampant. There is not any reason that we ought
not to be able to pass some commonsense legislation like the Deleting
Online Predators Act like you have introduced in this House of
Representatives, which is something that ought to be supported by 70,
80, 90 percent of our colleagues here, something that ought to go,
frankly, in front of the appropriations battles we are about to wage
over the next 3 to 6 weeks as we work as diligently as we can to
responsibly spend hard-earned taxpayer money. But this is something
that we ought to be able to coalesce behind.
Mr. KIRK. I don't know of a single community in my district that
hasn't been touched by this tragedy yet.
What we are talking about is laying out a new set of rules of the
road in the 21st century to protect children, like advising parents
through the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade
Commission, that growing up in America today means having the computer
in the living room rather than the child's bedroom, with a casual look
and walk-bys by the parent so you can see who is trying to contact your
kids.
Like one Pennsylvania mother said, in the 21st century I have a
complete right to all of my children's passwords to make sure that I
know who is trying to contact my young, minor child, and then to make
sure that there are protections at school and in libraries. In my
district, we have found some predators who are using library computers,
school staff that were using library computers to contact kids, to make
sure that our schools do not enable virtual hunting grounds to find
kids. All of this is exactly what the Congress should work on, a new
technology, which has an unintended effect of creating a new danger,
and then Congress stepping in to make sure that danger is removed. We
are not working on that right now.
With the eight bills cosponsored by Republicans or passed without
opposition, five extending preexisting public law or order, and
thirteen to name Federal property or to build a road, that action has
not been taken. Action has not also been taken to kill the pension for
a Member of Congress convicted of a felony.
We have just seen one of our colleagues indicted for 16 felonies. We
have seen some of our colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, convicted,
and yet they are paid their pension by the very taxpayers they have
betrayed.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. That's the kind of perpetuation of business as
usual here in Washington, that the folks at home just say what on earth
are you doing when an individual can be convicted of a felony, and
continue to get their pension, they just shake their head. They throw
their hands up in the air, and they say, what are you doing? Why can't
you do something responsible, which is why this positive agenda,
suburban agenda, which is all things again that the vast majority of
Members of this House ought to be supporting, which is why we ought to
be pushing that forward.
I, for the life of me, I can't answer why we ought not to be able to
deal with these things before we launch into the battles over the
appropriations bills.
Do you have any sense as to why the majority party won't allow these
kinds of bills to come to the floor?
Mr. KIRK. I just worry. Right now, the Congress took very limited
action to kill the pensions for Members of Congress back on January 23,
but then see stalled action. We have taken no action on ethics reform,
killing pensions for Members of Congress convicted of felonies in
February, no action in March, no action in April, no action in May, no
action now for the first few weeks of June.
You worry because senior Members of Congress have the largest
pensions, and they are in charge of this place. Why is it that we are
delaying action on this critical reform?
I always thought that the most important thing about such a reform is
to prevent crime. You know, if you kill the pension for a Member of
Congress convicted of a felony, you almost turn their family members,
their spouses, into adjuncts of the Ethics Committee, because they are
worried about their future retirement income. That's as it should be,
keeping everyone on the straight and narrow.
The State of Illinois is not seen as the cleanest State in the Union.
Yet even under our State law, we kill the pension for public officials
convicted of a felony, like even Governor Ryan, who just lost his
appeal to do that.
I worry, though, that we haven't taken any of these actions. We have
stalled actions on all of these items, with an overwhelming number of
Republicans, Democrats and independents, wanting action on health care
and making sure that we can afford college, and so far this Congress
has fallen short of its potential.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Not only fallen short, but I would suggest to
my good friend from Illinois that the majority party has seemed to
raise hiding and decreasing transparency and accountability in a very
important area to a huge degree, and that is the area of earmarks, the
area of special projects, pork projects, special projects for Members.
What we have just learned in the past week or so is that the
Appropriations chair has said well, we won't be debating any of these
earmarks, these special projects on the floor of the House. We won't be
debating them. What we will do is parachute them in, air drop them in a
conference committee so that there can be no light, no sunshine on
these earmarks.
That's the kind of priority that concerns me about this majority
party, that they have a priority for decreasing transparency and
decreasing accountability for spending, but they also, by the same
token, will not address the concerns of the vast majority of Americans
all across our Nation.
In the area of security, in the area of education, in the area of
health care, in the area of senior security, in the area of green space
in our communities, a wonderful, positive agenda that we have put
before this Congress and, in fact, it's getting no visibility here on
floor of the House.
Mr. KIRK. I am just worried, too, because we have now talked about
how George Washington University is talking about $50,000 for 1-year of
tuition, the first university in the country to break that mark. So you
look at a 4-year bachelor's degree at $200,000, post tax, far beyond
the ability of a middle-class family to reach that level.
So what should the Congress do? Should we have the government take
over all college education? Should the government control prices?
Should we have more controls from the House of Representatives so that
those who run every other government bureaucracies now run every
education institution in the country? I would say no. I would say that
we have had too many shortages and too much waste if a bureaucracy can
take control of a college.
[[Page H6225]]
On the other hand, could we all join together to increase savings and
investment for each American family to build success upon success, the
401(k) program, by authorizing each American family the day that your
son or daughter is born to establish a 401 kids tax-deferred savings
account.
When we look at how this Congress can sometimes change culture, we
have seen that 401(k), an obscure section of the IRS code, has now
become part of the lexicon off our country because of how successful it
is.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Exactly.
Mr. KIRK. We had a time, probably, when there was a good cigar
salesman out there that made it de rigeur that every young father would
buy cigars for everyone when they had a new child. That is probably
part of the 20th century and not part of the 21st century.
So what is it that we can do that becomes part of the cultural
experience of every American when their son or daughter is born? One of
the things we can do is pass this bill so that every dad on their way
home, or mom, if she is so inclined, can stop by some sort of financial
institution or a savings and loan or a credit union, and establish a
401Kids account for their son or daughter.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Wouldn't that be wonderful. What a grand
legacy. The bill you are referring to is H.R. 87, primary sponsorship
by Judy Biggert. It's something that's near and dear to our hearts in
Georgia. As you may recall, Senator Paul Coverdale, the late Paul
Coverdale, served in the United States Senate. One of his goals was to
make certain that there was an ability by all families to be able to
afford a college education for their children. He fought as hard as he
could during his tenure in the United States Senate to make certain
that happened.
This is an extension of that. This is a wonderful, would provide a
wonderful opportunity for families to put aside a little money in a
tax-free mechanism to be able to cover college education for their
children.
Mr. KIRK. In the State of Illinois, under section 529, which is a
charter that allows States to set up college savings program, we call
them Bright Start accounts. What does Georgia call its college saving
program?
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. We have the HOPE Scholarship savings plan in
Georgia, which is remarkably successful. But there is no reason we
ought not extend it because what we provide in Georgia is you can't use
that money out of state.
Mr. KIRK. Right. So the problem we have now is that we have not fully
taken advantage of the successes that we have already put in place,
that Congress lets each State establish a college charter savings plan
like HOPE Scholarship in Georgia or Bright Start in Illinois. But
these, each State program, has restrictions and the inability to
transfer freely throughout the country.
One of the great things about the 401(k) program is that it allows,
not only, for Americans to transfer their accounts between employers,
but no difficulty to transfer between States. Should not we give that
opportunity to each young son or daughter in America so that we can
save and invest for college?
We know, already, with $70 billion invested in HOPE scholarships or
in Bright Start accounts throughout the country, that this has been a
great success. How much more of a success will we have if we simply
gave the full national charter to 401Kids accounts. I come out of a
military background, if you are transferred, or you are part of a large
organization, you may live in several States and have the ability to
fully transfer these amounts in a national program, bottom line, to
make sure that there is much more money available for your son or
daughter to be in college.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Absolutely. What a great template to use. What
a wonderful model with the 401(k) program, which is familiar to
millions, tens of millions, if not over 100 million Americans, who have
some type of 401(k) program. They understand how simple it is, how easy
it is, how almost painless it is to be able to plan for the future to
put that money aside, and to have a vehicle that models itself off of
that, after that, as the 401Kids program would do, to allow moms and
dads all across this Nation to be able to put a little money aside on a
regular basis. When Junior grows up, they will recognize at the age of
15 or 16 that he or she indeed will be able to have the ability to go
to the college of his or her choice and realize their his or her
potential and their dreams.
Mr. KIRK. We have now seen also with the 401(k) program a change in
how Americans look at the economy for the future. There was a time in
which most Americans owned no stock and saw the New York Stock Exchange
or the other exchanges as something far away, not part of their lives,
and maybe for rich people only.
The 401(k) program changed all of that.
{time} 2145
And so now we have tens of millions of Americans who are investors,
and changing that one cultural attribute that we maybe shouldn't have,
which is looking too much for the short term, and helping the whole
country change into a new investor mentality, to invest for the long
haul, to look at high technology and other investments to see that
savings can be built up in a far more substantial way, beyond just a
savings account at a bank if they can be put into long term stocks and
bonds.
These are habits that have been built for adults, but have not been
inculcated in children; that if we start 401 kids accounts with your
son or daughter's name on that account, that as your child gets to be
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, it gives an education opportunity to
say to your daughter, look at what we've done in just the last year and
how much this has gone up, hoping that this will set an example for the
rest of her life, making sure that she has successful habits to save
and invest for the future.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. What a wonderful vision and what a wonderful
dream. We've all heard the stories of the entrepreneur individual with
a significant amount of resources who went into a community and said to
a high school or a middle school class that normally wouldn't
necessarily have the resources to go to college, any of you that
complete your high school education in a way that would allow you to
enter a college, I'll fund that college education. This would transfer
that, and those kids then do extremely well, so much better than their
peers in other classes who haven't been given that assurance.
This is the kind of program that would give that assurance to every
young child all across this Nation, to allow their parents to be able
to put aside a little bit of money, a little resources over the
lifetime of their child so that they can then afford the college
education and open the dreams for each and every child.
Mr. KIRK. Just to sum up the key principles that I think we should
follow, this Congress, this House should work on the major issues
before the American people and especially their families, Number 1.
Number 2, we should take effective action that enacts solutions to
problems that American families face.
And Number 3, that we should work to build consensus to sustain
bipartisan action. We should not operate this House in a way that, as
one person said, packs 2 days of debate into a 4-day work week; that
this House can do much more than name Post Offices or designate roads;
that we are here not just criticizing, we're laying out an agenda that,
based on the last Congress, we know an overwhelming number of Democrats
and Republicans will join, like the Deleting On-Line Predators Act that
passed 410-15; like the Student and Teacher Safety Act endorsed by the
National Education Association that passed unanimously; like the Open
Space and Farm Land Preservation Act that also passed unanimously.
If we can join together on these items, key pieces of legislation,
already bipartisan cosponsors laid out, I think we would help this
Congress reach more of the potential than currently in 5 months of work
it's failed to do.
But to conclude, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I know that our time is short, but I just want
to commend you once again for your you leadership in this area. These
are issues that concern all Americans, issues of education, issues of
safety,
[[Page H6226]]
issues of security, issues of health care, and they are issues that the
vast majority of us ought to support.
So I challenge our friends on both sides of the aisle to step forward
and support a positive agenda for the American people. It's outlined
right here.
I want to commend you for your leadership, and I appreciate the
opportunity to join you tonight.
Mr. KIRK. I thank you. And I commend everyone, that if you'd like to
learn more about the suburban agenda, you can go on to our website,
www.house.gov/Kirk for an outline of the suburban agenda. This is not
just an us-only agenda. This is an agenda that we hope will be matched
from the other side. But refocusing our work on health care, on
education, on environmental protection and on economic growth, so that
this Congress can realize it's full potential far better than in the
first 5 months of our activity.
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