[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 19974-19975]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 NAMING POST OFFICES SHOULD NOT TAKE PRIORITY OVER BASIC CONGRESSIONAL 
                            RESPONSIBILITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague 
beforehand who spoke, and I am pleased to be here in the chamber when 
he did.
  Yesterday, on the subject of the marriage amendment and D.C. gun-
rights bill, the House majority leader said yesterday, ``It is our job 
to make the laws in this country, and as easy as life would be for us 
if the most controversial bill we had to vote on was to rename a post 
office, that's not what we were elected to do.''
  I find the majority leader's comments almost ironic. I have done some 
research.
  This Republican-led Congress, the 108th, the House and Senate, has 
been hard at work naming post offices. In fact, more post offices were 
named in this Congress than ever in the history of the Congress. In 
fact, under the Republican leadership, we have named an impressive 94 
post offices, just three last night. We have also named 22 Federal 
buildings, passed 34 resolutions honoring athletic teams, introduced 35 
resolutions creating commemorative postage stamps, recognized the 
Garden Club of America, recognized the importance of music education 
and authorized the use of the Capitol grounds for the soap box derby.
  This is in stark contrast to when the Republicans first took control 
of the House in the 104th Congress. They only managed to name 12 post 
offices, compared to 94 this Congress. The 106th only squeaked out a 
pitiful three resolutions honoring sports achievements.
  Without question, this Congress has proved that it is the most adept 
at naming post offices and Federal buildings, honoring sports 
achievements and conceiving of new postage stamps of any Congress in 
the history of the United States.
  It takes a lot of time and effort to name a post office. First, you 
have to decide which post office to name. This is not an easy task. 
Then you have to pick a name, build support for it back home among your 
constituents and among your colleagues. The final test is to get a vote 
on the name, which is no small feat when you consider only one out of 
every 100 bills ever sees a floor vote.
  However, in this Republican-led Congress, 80 percent of the post 
office naming bills introduced in the House have actually been passed. 
That is a record to be proud of.
  But while we have spent all this time naming post offices, we could 
have been dealing with the problems some of the American people are 
facing.
  While Congress worked on the backlog of nameless post offices, we 
have lost 1.7 million jobs here in America; median household incomes 
fell by more than $1,500; household bankruptcies have sky-rocketed by 
over a third in the last 2 years; and health care costs are rising at 
three times the rate of inflation; and 5 million more Americans

[[Page 19975]]

find themselves without health insurance, for a record 44 million 
Americans.
  More than 1,000 Americans have been killed in action in Iraq. 
Reconstruction has been pushed to the sidelines because of mounting 
violence, and we have not found any weapons of mass destruction or 
called oversight hearings in this Congress about why we went to war on 
that premise.
  President Kennedy once said, ``To govern is to choose.'' 
Unfortunately for us and unfortunately for the country, this Republican 
Congress has made some very tough choices.
  Time after time, the Republican leadership has been forced to choose 
between naming post offices and using its control of the House, the 
Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court to improve the lives of 
millions of Americans. More often than not, they chose to name post 
offices.
  Please do not misunderstand; I am not opposed to naming post offices. 
In fact, I have cosponsored a few pieces of resolutions naming post 
offices myself. Congress should do these things, but we should not do 
it at the expense of other activities and other responsibilities.
  We should not use it as an excuse not to deal with the health care 
crisis in America; not to deal with the higher education crisis in 
America; not to deal with the stagnant wages and income in America; not 
to deal with a war for which we do not have an effective policy and a 
President who does not know it is a burning morass, as three Republican 
Senators said just last week; nor should we use them as excuses for 
failing at our most basic responsibilities.
  It is now past 7 months before we passed a budget resolution, which 
is a responsibility of Congress. We have not done it. We have only 
passed one of the 13 appropriations bills we are required to pass. We 
have not passed a higher education reauthorization act required by law 
this year. We have failed to reauthorize a series of laws. We have not 
yet passed the highway and mass transit bill which employs billions of 
Americans in good paying jobs and guides this economy, and yet we have 
taken the responsibility with precious time that we are here to name 94 
new post offices.
  Our Nation and economy rely on the most basic functions of Congress. 
Yet, this Congress, the Republican Congress, has failed on both. We can 
do better. Congress can name post offices and keep our Nation moving 
forward.
  Mr. Speaker, election day is only weeks away. I hope, when Americans 
go to the polls, they will reflect on what kind of job this Congress 
has done. Republican leadership has made their priorities clear, and 
that is for new post offices and the naming of new post offices in 
America.

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