[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25180-25181]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CONCLUSION OF THE 108TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer my thoughts on the 
108th Congress and the challenges that we face in the upcoming 109th 
Congress.
  The 108th Congress has been dominated by concerns about security. Our 
constituents are worried about their personal security, and that is not 
surprising given the war on terror, but they are also concerned about 
economic security. They are worried about jobs. They are worried about 
health care, and they are worried about their families, about making 
this world a better place to live for their children and their 
grandchildren. They are also worried about the high costs of energy and 
especially gas and natural gas. This House has tried to address those 
concerns.
  First and foremost, we supported our President as he led us in the 
fight against terrorism. We passed a war supplemental this spring that 
provided our troops with the critical equipment, the weapons, the 
ammunition and the training, to get the job done in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.
  We have had notable success in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last year. 
In June, Hamid Karzai, the President of the new Afghanistan addressed a 
joint session of the Congress; and in September, President Allawi, the 
President of the new Iraq, also addressed the Congress.
  Think about it. Instead of a Taliban regime that abused women and 
trained terrorists to attack America, we have a democratically elected 
pro-American President in Kabul. Instead of a brutal dictator who 
terrorized his own citizens, who intended to develop weapons of mass 
destruction and who actively supported and funded terrorist 
organizations in Baghdad, there is a new President of Iraq who is 
trying to build a democracy.
  This is still a tough fight. The terrorists have flocked to Iraq 
because they know that if they are successful there we will have turned 
a corner in the war on terror, but we must not turn away now. We must 
see this to the end.
  This is a two-pronged war on terror. As we win the war overseas, we 
must strengthen our defenses at home.

                              {time}  1630

  The 9/11 Commission gave us an important roadmap to strengthening our 
homeland defenses by improving our intelligence agencies, bolstering 
our border security and strengthening our anti-terror laws.
  The Congress has reacted quickly to this report. Our committees 
canceled their August break to hold hearings on the recommendations, 
and we came back in September to start the hard work of the 
legislation. It is easy to make recommendations, but it is a lot harder 
to make law.
  And since the Commission made its recommendations, the Congress has 
worked around the clock to make a good law that will make this country 
safer. We hope to find consensus and to pass the bill before the end of 
this year.
  I am proud of our efforts. Reforming the intelligence agencies is 
difficult. Our former colleague, Porter Goss, who is now the CIA 
Director, has found out how hard it is to get entrenched bureaucrats to 
change. He is doing an excellent job under very difficult 
circumstances.
  The Congress took effective action in the 107th Congress to create a 
Department of Homeland Security. In the 108th Congress, we made this 
historic change in our committees to oversee that new department. We 
created a Select Committee on Homeland Security. We also created a 
Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations, 
dedicated to funding our Homeland Security needs. I intend to make the 
Select Committee permanent in the next Congress. I hope my colleagues 
will join me in that effort.
  As we did our part in the war on terror, we also fought hard to make 
America more secure on the domestic front. Job security was at the 
forefront of our efforts. We had an active agenda to spur job growth 
here in America. This fall, we passed the American Job Creation Act, 
and this bill cuts taxes for domestic manufacturers so that they can 
create jobs here.
  We also passed the Working Families Tax Relief Act, aimed at helping 
families keep more of what they earn so they can spend more on their 
needs. These tax cut measures helped spur steady economic growth and 
job creation. More than 1.5 million jobs have been created over the 
last 12 months, thanks in no small part to our efforts here.
  This Congress also grappled with health care security. I am proud of 
the Medicare Reform Act, which for the first time added prescription 
drug benefits to the Medicare program. Health Savings Accounts were 
included in that legislation, and now millions of Americans have a 
chance to use HSAs to get better health care for their own families. I 
like Health Savings Accounts because they put consumers in the driver's 
seat when it comes to controlling costs, not government bureaucrats.
  Education remains an important part of our domestic agenda. In the 
107th Congress, we reacted to the No Child Left Behind law, which 
greatly increased accountability and increased standards for our 
Nation's schools. Yesterday, we completed work on a reauthorization of 
a special education bill that will help free up resources for local 
schools. We have a responsibility to help all children in our society, 
and this bill does exactly that.
  We also leave this Congress with some unfinished business. I am very 
disappointed we did not finish the highway bill. A first-class economy 
needs a first-class transportation system. And while we made great 
progress by passing the highway bill out of both Chambers, we could not 
finish the conference report. We will get this done early next year.

[[Page 25181]]

  I was also disappointed we did not finish the energy conference 
report. Energy prices are too high, and we are too dependent on foreign 
sources. The energy conference report that passed the House would have 
given incentives to American companies to produce energy in America for 
Americans. Trial lawyers held this bill up. We must overcome their 
opposition and pass this common-sense approach to energy independence 
in the next Congress.
  We need to pass medical liability reform. Trial lawyers, again, are 
driving OB/GYNs out of business, making it hard for women in many 
States to get the health care that they need. We passed it, but it was 
stopped in the other body. We will finish that job next year, also.
  Other liability reform efforts are also important. Class action 
lawsuits are out of control. Asbestos legislation is killing jobs. And 
in this country we need to make some real changes so that we can create 
jobs and not force them overseas. Every time a court claim goes against 
an American manufacturer, nine times out of ten those jobs go overseas. 
Each consumer pays a tort tax that puts our products at a competitive 
disadvantage. We need to reform our tort laws if we are serious about 
reforming our economy next year.
  Next year, we also have other big issues that we need to tackle. 
Social Security reform is on the agenda. The President campaigned on 
it. Many of our Members have talked about it. And if we do nothing, the 
system will go bankrupt. We can do this without raising taxes or 
cutting benefits for senior citizens. We can do it by giving younger 
Americans ownership of their retirement to help them get a better 
return on their investments.
  We need to take a serious look at tax reform. Our Tax Code is too 
complex and too anti-competitive. It costs our citizens $250 billion 
every year just to prepare their taxes. This is ridiculous. If we want 
to keep jobs here in America, we need to simplify our tax system. There 
are a lot of ideas out there, and I hope that we can have a national 
debate on how best to do that.
  We have a fiscal crisis that we must deal with. Our national debt is 
too high, and our budget deficit is too big. We need to cut spending 
first. We need to look closely at entitlement programs and spending. We 
need to reform the government. We need to make this government smaller 
and smarter. We can make it more efficient. We can weed out waste, 
fraud, and abuse, and we can get to balanced budgets again as soon as 
possible.
  But as we look at reform in government and cutting the deficit, we 
should also resist the calls to raise taxes. Growing the economy is the 
best way to close a deficit. We lost $350 billion of revenue when the 
Internet bubble burst. Strong, sustained economic growth will bring 
back those revenues. But we will not get the growth if we raise taxes.
  Looking back over this last session of Congress, I am concerned about 
the bitter partisanship that has engulfed this House. I am especially 
concerned that some might want to use the Committee on Standards of 
Official Conduct for partisan politics. Congressional ethics is 
important. We all have a duty to represent our constituents with the 
highest ethical standards, but an ethics committee is only as good as 
the will of its Members.
  We should remember why we have this committee in the first place. The 
ethics process protects the reputations of all of us by investigating 
abuses by some of us. But when some seek to subvert that process for 
political gain, we all suffer. It is wrong to file frivolous and overly 
partisan ethics complaints.
  The House is an interesting institution because it has rules that 
protect the rights of the minority and it guarantees that the will of 
the majority be carried out. Unlike in the other body, where the rules 
tend to encourage bipartisanship, our rules tend to encourage 
partisanship. In my opinion, we should do a better job of resisting 
that temptation towards partisanship and work for more bipartisanship.
  All too often, both the majority and the minority in the House have 
retreated to their separate camps, drawing lines in the sand, refusing 
to negotiate, and the result has been partisanship. That is bitter and 
counterproductive. We will have fundamental disagreements on many 
issues. That is the beauty of the two-party system. But we ought to 
seek a way to bridge those disagreements whenever we can.
  I pledge to work with my colleagues in the minority party who want to 
work with the majority to get good things done. I have great respect 
for Members like the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey), and many others. And I have a high regard for the minority 
leadership. I know that they want the best things for this country, 
even when I disagree with their approach. We all have a duty to our 
constituents to make this country as strong as possible. We work best 
when we work together.
  I want to thank all the Members for their patience and for their 
perseverance. Public service in the Congress of the United States is 
not an easy vocation and especially hard on families. I want to thank 
to all the Members for their service to this Nation.
  I would also like to thank the dedicated staff, especially the floor 
staff, legislative counsel, the clerks, and the pages who work long and 
hard to make this place work. Thank you for your fine service, and 
thank you from this Nation. God bless you.

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