[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17132-17136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         JOB CREATION AND WHY IS OUR CONGRESS SO DYSFUNCTIONAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Herrera Beutler). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Rigell) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. RIGELL. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to address two matters that 
are of great concern to the good folks of the Second Congressional 
District of Virginia and, I believe, to every American across this 
great land. Those two issues are job creation and why our Congress is 
so dysfunctional. As a businessperson with a lifetime of experience in 
creating jobs and fixing things, I really want to emphasize the 
practical solutions that I think we can bring to bear on these two 
important issues.
  I don't think, Madam Speaker, that there is a family in America that 
has not been affected in some way or another by this painful economy. 
Unemployment continues to hover around 9 percent. My wife, Teri, and I 
have two dear families in our lives who have lost their business 
because of the economy and how difficult things are. They are small 
businesses. We watched them and walked with them through as they had to 
file bankruptcy and let go of their employees. And, Madam Speaker, the 
problem is particularly acute in our black community. For black men, 
the unemployment rate is over 19 percent. This should concern every 
American and command our full attention.
  Madam Speaker, this is my first elected office--I have been up here 
about 10\1/2\ months or so--but I've had 30 years of experience in job 
creation. The first business that my wife and I started when I was 22 
years old was a cleaning business, and we started it because we had 
more money going out

[[Page 17133]]

than we had coming in. I had a couple of options, and it seemed like 
the best one was to start a small business, and we did--a cleaning 
business. We hired two people: Teri hired me and I hired her.

                              {time}  1920

  That is how we got started. I know, and I fully understand what an 
entrepreneur, a small businessowner or a potential small businessowner, 
experiences when they're trying to put capital at risk to get what I 
refer to as an entrepreneurial return. I know that healthy fear that 
really inspires you to work long hours. We would call it key-to-key, 
open your business and close your business at night. I know the great 
joy of being able to say to someone these wonderful words, ``you're 
hired.'' I also know what it's like to sit down with a banker, a good 
friend, a person who stood by us in difficult times, but yet they've 
come to the end, and they say, Scott, I can't help you, meaning they 
can't approve a critical loan. I understand what that's like.
  It all revolves around, whether you own a big business or a small 
business, there's something in common, and that is every business has a 
financial statement, an income statement. And if we look at the income 
statement, that document that is being looked at by entrepreneurs 
across America and if we start at the top and you just go down line by 
line and if you see the intersection of what we're doing here in 
Congress in our Federal Government, you see the intersection of the 
actions that we're taking with each line on a financial statement.
  I'd submit, Madam Speaker, that the evidence is clear that the steps 
that we're taking in this Congress--well, at least on our side I 
believe the Republicans are taking the right steps, but the cumulative 
effect of what's taking place in this Chamber, in the Senate, and in 
the White House has made it ever more difficult for the American 
entrepreneur to make it, to give them a reasonable expectation that 
they could achieve what we refer to as an entrepreneurial profit.
  Listen, if a person is okay with a 2 percent return or a 1 percent 
return, they'll just leave their money where it is. It takes a lot of 
courage, I think, for a person to put a second mortgage on their home, 
to call a family member to borrow money or save up over years and maybe 
put $15,000 at risk. They have to be able to earn a better return than 
that. And in doing so, they'll start to hire people.
  Let's just take a look at a basic job creator's financial statement. 
Now, it may look slightly different from one industry or one business 
to another, but it always starts out at the top with this category 
right here: sales. Nothing happens until you sell something. It could 
be anything. It could be cupcakes like some wonderful entrepreneurs in 
our district. It could be automobiles, it could be homes, and it could 
be energy and those companies that supply and help us become more 
independent.
  Let's look at this critical area. We have over $500 billion a year 
that is flowing out of our country, capital that should be circulating 
within America. Is it here? No. It's going outside of this country to 
folks like Hugo Chavez. They do not share our values, and we are 
funding them because of our failure--Republicans and Democrats--year 
after year after year in failing to move this great country toward 
energy independence. It is hurting us, Madam Speaker.
  Recently, I stood and clapped for our President as he walked in this 
Chamber, and I listened intently on September 8. He drew us together as 
Congress and said, I have a bold message for you. I desperately wanted 
to hear our President address energy independence. I waited 
expectantly, sitting right back over there. I didn't even get a chair. 
I think I was behind everybody and had to stand up. That's all right. 
The Chamber was full.
  There were some things I agreed with, and I said, yes, Mr. President, 
I can sign up for that. And I looked forward to improving or voting for 
the veterans bill and the reversal of that 3 percent withholding that 
would hurt so many contractors within the Second District of Virginia 
and also across this great country. And it also has a wonderful tax 
credit in it to help those who are helping and hiring our veterans. I 
look forward to supporting that and enthusiastically want to vote for 
it, and I support what the President is doing.
  But absent in his remarks, a 4,134-word address to Congress, was the 
word ``energy.'' Certainly absent was the phrase ``energy 
independence.'' This is a tragic mistake. It hurts America. It hurts 
employment in the Second Congressional District of Virginia and across 
this great land.
  We have so much opportunity to put folks at work with great-paying 
jobs. I'm talking about $70,000, $80,000-a-year jobs, and some of them 
will pay even more--good-paying jobs. We have great potential. And if 
there were any question about where the President stands on this issue, 
he made it abundantly clear last week. He said nothing, nothing off the 
coast of Virginia. The energy resources that are there will be locked 
up while residents of the Second District are hurting because they 
don't have employment opportunities.
  Madam Speaker, I would submit that our pain in America is largely 
self-inflicted. We are regulating ourselves out of our prosperity at 
every opportunity. It's wrong. We can and we should take a different 
direction.
  Let's look at the expenses faced by our small business owners. I just 
hit one area of sales. I could have gone a lot longer on that. Let's 
just go down to some of these expenses that we see here. Interest, 
well, interest rates are extraordinarily low right now. I'd say that is 
a positive thing. It's only because there's a near collapse of 
confidence in the European economy. That's why folks are still rushing 
over here to America, driving down interest rates. Do not be fooled. 
That will not sustain itself. There is a risk, and I would say it's 
backed by the evidence that folks ought to be mindful that interest 
rates can go up, and I think they likely will.
  When I talk to the bankers in our area, I'm not talking about the big 
shots in New York. I'm talking about homegrown banks--our neighbors, 
our friends--small banks, the ones that sponsor the Little League. They 
say, Scott, listen, we're not hiring account executives to go out and 
meet with your business and other small- and medium-sized businesses. 
We're hiring regulatory analysts just to deal with what's coming at us 
from Dodd-Frank. I had the president of a local bank tell me the other 
day, he said, Scott, listen, we're getting out of this line and this 
line of business because we just can't handle the regulatory burden.
  Now, I am not a no-regulation person. I hate to disappoint my 
libertarian friends, but I'm not a libertarian. I have a libertarian 
streak in me, but I'm not a libertarian. There is a proper role for 
government and, indeed, an essential role for government. I am for 
wiser, smarter, lighter regulations that will free up the greatest job-
producing engine the world has ever known--the American entrepreneur.
  Let's look right here. We've covered interest and even the 
availability of capital. We're paying banks a small interest rate, a 
small return on their money, the government is; but we're not requiring 
them to loan it out. It's really a bizarre situation and one that's 
hurting our ability to grow our economy.

                              {time}  1930

  Look at health care. The Affordable Health Care Act, if anything, has 
exploded the degree of uncertainty. I do not know a fellow entrepreneur 
in my district who can tell me where their costs are going other than 
they're going up. The Affordable Health Care Act, which still is an 
evolving document as it becomes kind of flushed out by the regulators, 
those who are writing all these regulations, is a moving target; people 
just don't know where it's going. So we've got uncertainty there on 
health care.
  Look at legal fees. We are the only country in the world that runs 
about 10 percent of our gross domestic product in legal fees. We are a 
litigious society, and our laws encourage that. It's wrong, and it puts 
an unnecessary burden on the American entrepreneur.

[[Page 17134]]

  And let's pause for just a moment and kind of define the American 
entrepreneur just for a moment. I'm not talking about highly 
sophisticated folks and MBAs and all that. I'm talking about the moms 
and the dads and the young people who are starting businesses out of 
their homes and relying on maybe some borrowed money from family or 
friends or a small second mortgage on their homes if they own a home. 
These are the burdens that we're putting in their way that makes it 
more difficult to, again, get a return, an entrepreneurial return on 
their investment.
  Accounting, accounting services. I love the CPAs out there in our 
communities, but they are having to deal with things, for example, our 
Tax Code, that is incredibly complex and unnecessarily so. I have found 
in my 10\1/2\ months here that the halls are filled with lobbyists. 
Now, some I think can provide us with good information; but some have 
only one mission, and that's just to find a strategic advantage for 
their industry or sector, and that is expressed in our Tax Code. And I, 
along with my colleagues--and I certainly can speak for my Republican 
colleagues and, I trust, for my friends who are Democrats--we can, we 
must, we will simplify our Tax Code.
  When I would sit down with our accountant every year as a small-, 
medium-sized business owner, my good friend David would say, Well, 
here's a tax return, Scott. And I would go through it, and with even 
25, 30 years of business experience, I would say, David, I just don't 
understand this. I'm doing my very best to keep up with you. I just 
don't understand this.
  It is not right when an American wants to pay his or her fair share, 
whatever is expected and the law requires to pay, and there's not a 
person out there, including within the IRS, that can even confirm that 
you're paying it correctly. If you call the IRS and ask for guidance, 
that is no defense if you do it incorrectly. It's not right.
  EPA compliance at every turn. Look, we have a moral obligation to 
leave our children with clean air and clean water and clean soil. I'm a 
recreational fisherman. I don't have much time to do that now. That's 
okay. But I used to go out to the second and third island on the 
Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel--and those in the Second District know 
where I'm talking about--and when the stripers are there and they're 
running, well, it's a fun evening. I never want to catch a striper that 
has a lesion. I have a great passion to make sure that we meet the deep 
obligation that we have to the next generation of Americans to be 
proper stewards of the environment. What I so often disagree with, with 
my friends who would profess to love the environment more than I do--
which is something, frankly, I don't concede--is this: We are headed so 
often to the same place. Sometimes it's a matter of timing. Are we 
going to get there over 3 years or can we stretch it out over 10 to 15 
so that we can give industry a reasonable time to adjust?
  As I've listened carefully to the administration and to my colleagues 
here on this proverbial other side, I think it, in some ways, can be 
boiled down to this: that there is this general debate taking place--
and I frame it this way--that the administration believes there is a 
role for the American entrepreneur to play in job creation, but its 
reliance is principally on government; its belief is principally in 
stimulus spending--that is, borrowing money to buy things through the 
government. I think the evidence of this is clear. The administration 
has doubled down in the jobs bill on a stimulus-driven mindset.
  Now, in sharp contrast, we, as Republicans, believe there is a role 
for government, a proper role for government, but our reliance is upon 
the American entrepreneur, the small business owner. When we wake up in 
the morning and when we go to sleep at night, we know that the key to 
getting through this, to unleashing the great potential of America, is 
the American entrepreneur, America's small business owner.
  Look, I applaud the President for putting forth a jobs bill, but let 
me share with you this: We've passed a lot of jobs bills. It's right 
here. And I want to take a moment--this may seem tedious, but we need 
to slow down and get our facts right. I'd like to cover, briefly, a 
summary of the 22 jobs bills that we have passed in this body with 
bipartisan support that are now stalled in the United States Senate.
  Now, as a new Member here, I have just found it incredibly 
frustrating that we have passed good bills, bills that I know would 
move our country forward in job creation, and they're met with this 
response from the Senate Majority Leader: Dead on arrival.
  Really? Dead on arrival? I think I learned in about eighth or ninth 
grade in a civics class that here is what's supposed to happen: The 
Senate passes its own bill or amends ours, and then we go to 
conference. That doesn't happen very often; very seldom.
  Here is a summary of the bills that we have passed in this body.
  I am very proud of my party in this respect. And when there are 
issues with our party, I'm quick to say that, too. And we'll cover 
those in just a few minutes when we answer the second question: What's 
wrong with this body?
  Let me read just a few of them here, Madam Speaker. H.R. 872, 
Reducing the Regulatory Burden Act.
  If you think through this, we are addressing individual lines on a 
financial statement, each one of which would give breath and life and 
hope to the American entrepreneur, saying, You know what? I really 
think I can do this. I'm going to go ahead and take that second 
mortgage out.
  H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011; H.R. 37, 
disapproving the rules submitted by the Federal Communications 
Commission; H.R. 1230, Restarting America Offshore Leasing Now Act; 
H.R. 1229, Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act; and H.R. 1231, 
which would have reversed the Offshore Moratorium Act.
  It goes on and on, Madam Speaker, on and on. These are good bills. I 
encourage Americans across this great land to take a look at what we 
are doing as Republicans in leading the way toward true job creation.
  I know we can get our country back to work. There are clear steps 
that we can take so that, when you get to the very bottom, this profit 
after tax equals a return on investment that is attractive, that makes 
folks want to put capital at risk.
  I want to cover one more thing before I go to that critical question 
of why our Congress is dysfunctional--taxation. I will just give you 
one example of how this is having a detrimental impact on our country.
  We have a wonderful manufacturer in Virginia Beach, part of the 
Second District, called Stihl. You may know them from their chain saws, 
a high-quality product. It's a beautiful, well-run, efficient plant 
that they have in Virginia Beach. And they shared with me, they said, 
Scott, look, we are competitive with our sister unit in Asia. We are 
competitive with our sister unit in South America that produces 
essentially the same parts and the same products. We are competitive on 
a cost-per-piece basis, but here's where we're not competitive. We are 
not competitive on an after-tax basis.
  Now, whether we like it or not, we are in a global economy. We are 
competing with countries around the world, not just with our neighbors 
here in North and Central and South America. We are competing with 
countries all across the world.

                              {time}  1940

  So our tax rate, our tax structure has to move America in the 
direction of making America the best place to start a business and, 
particularly, manufacturing.
  Madam Speaker, this is the manufacturing base. The fact that we are 
producing less here in America, I believe that is the principal reason 
there's a shrinking of the middle class. And so we need to come 
together as Democrats and Republicans and independents and improve our 
manufacturing base. The 22 bills that I mentioned address that directly 
and head-on, and they should be passed by our Senate and then sent to 
our President for signature.
  Let's tackle that second question, Madam Speaker. Why is our Congress 
so dysfunctional? I believe there are

[[Page 17135]]

three principal reasons. The first is the harshness of our tone. Both 
parties are guilty of this--both parties.
  Let me give you an example on the Republican side of the ledger. I 
don't use the term ObamaCare because I believe it's pejorative. Right 
out of the get-go, it personalizes the debate. My objection to the 
Affordable Health Care Act has nothing to do with the President, 
himself. It has to do with what's in the bill. But when we use a term 
like ObamaCare, it is unnecessarily interjecting into the conversation 
an angle which so many in our country find divisive.
  I've spent a lot of time with our black pastors and bishops in the 
Second District of Virginia. What a joy it is to go across our great 
district and worship in different houses of worship and when I sit down 
with my good friends, our bishops and pastors principally in the black 
community, and we start talking about these matters, and they say, 
Scott, where are you on the Affordable Health Care Act?
  I say, well, pastor, I don't support it. Here's why. But you know I 
don't use the term ObamaCare. And they said, yeah. Often times they'll 
say, Scott, they see it as a racist term. And I don't speak for every 
black pastor in my district certainly. But I'll tell you, I've talked 
to enough to know that some do see it that way.
  Why would we use a term that unnecessarily alienates us from our 
friends and moves us apart as the American people?
  And I'd submit to you, Madam Speaker, that what's taking place in 
this body is hurting every American family. And if wasn't, quite 
frankly, I wouldn't be here. But it is. It's putting our country at 
material and serious risk. There's a harshness of tone. And I think the 
way to respond to that and head in a different direction is to think, 
well, what would your mom say? I know how my mother taught me to speak 
to others: with respect.
  And, Madam Speaker, I would say this: We should not mistake civility 
with weakness. We can and should be firm on principle. Civility is not 
an indication that one does not hold core values.
  Now, the second aspect of what's, I think, hurting this body and 
hurting every American family is this: the misuse and oftentimes the 
complete dismissal or deliberate failure to reference facts.
  I'm a businessperson. I don't know any other way to make a decision 
other than to first gather the facts. If I start making decisions off 
of how I feel or where I think the decision ought to go, I would not 
only not prosper; I would go into bankruptcy. And I think, in some 
ways, that's where we're headed as a country, because we're not relying 
on the facts.
  Let's take a couple here that just jump out at us. Now, I would say 
to my friends who are Democrats, let's consider this. Historically, 
we've been around 19 percent of expenses as a percent of our gross 
domestic product. Right now we're over 24.5 percent. This is putting 
America on a perilous course, and I believe it threatens our country in 
a fundamental way.
  Now, to my Republican colleagues, let's look at the other side. 
Historically, we've been around 18 percent, plus or minus revenue as a 
percent of gross domestic product. And right now we're less than 15 
percent. That too is a problem. Any Republican who will not admit to 
this or confront it and discuss it head-on is not dealing with reality. 
These are the numbers. It's not how you feel; it's where the numbers 
lead us.
  We need to be a leadership team here, a body that respects, seeks out 
and is guided by the facts.
  My colleague, who I respect very much, Representative Schweikert, he 
was down here one afternoon. I was watching him on C-SPAN. I was in my 
office and watching him, and he had a wonderful presentation. And what 
he did was he put into perspective--it was sometime ago, probably 6 
weeks or so, maybe 8--this debate that was taking place where there 
were some charges coming from our friends on the other side, and they 
were basically saying, you know, you're trying to crush Medicare on the 
backs of the poor, giving oil breaks to oil companies. And he did this. 
He kind of broke it down.
  He said, okay, we're borrowing about $4.7 billion a day. Let's look 
at all tax cuts for all Americans. If you eliminated every single one 
of them, it would be about 28 minutes out of that 24-hour day if every 
tax break was removed. And I'm certainly--you know, we'll walk through 
which ones we can support; 28 minutes of a 24-hour day could be 
addressed by these tax cuts.
  Tax incentives provided to oil companies amount to about 2.2 minutes 
under his calculation, and I'm quite confident in his math. So about 
2.2 minutes out of a 24-hour day could be addressed by eliminating the 
tax cuts to oil companies.
  And the tax treatment for corporate jets, if you remember that 
discussion, is about 15 seconds of a 24-hour day. Yet, in this body, 
right here it was presented as either fix Medicare or eliminate these 
tax breaks, or hold on to them, rather. It was a false argument.
  I mean, you could agree to every single reversal, and we'd still be 
faced with an enormous, an enormous fiscal challenge. As we head into 
the days ahead, it looks like a ski slope. Our expenses look like a ski 
slope. Yet our friends on the other side would present it as, well, all 
you have to do is basically eliminate these tax breaks and, you know, 
kind of a no-pain option.
  So I think--and both sides do this. You know, you look back--I 
targeted my own party on the first point of harshness. You know, I 
could give examples in each category of each party.
  Now, questioning of motives here. This has been a most interesting 
experience as a new Member of Congress. I've sat in this body right 
here and watched my colleagues--Democrat colleagues--stand up and with 
great bravado say, you don't care about the poor. You don't care about 
the elderly. You don't care about our minority communities.
  Madam Speaker, how can one judge another's heart? How can one judge 
another's intent?
  I would say to my Democrat colleagues, you may care as much about our 
environment, but you do not care more. You might care as much about the 
poor, but you do not care more. You might care as much about ensuring 
that our seniors have medical coverage, but you do not care more.
  Indeed, that is why I voted for the House Republican budget. That is 
why I voted to ensure that we take the steps now so that Medicare is 
solvent. The President and I agree on this matter, that without changes 
in 9 years, we're bankrupt in Medicare.

                              {time}  1950

  That's unacceptable. I think it took political courage for our party 
to put that on the House floor, and I think that's a good segue to this 
account that I have right here, this idea of questioning people's 
motives.
  I was on my way to a Veterans of Foreign Wars town hall with our fine 
veterans. I have the great privilege of representing, again, the Second 
Congressional District of Virginia. It has the highest concentration of 
veterans in the country. What an honor it is.
  So I'm on my way to a VFW breakfast meeting, and these good men and 
women get up early. I think it started at 7:30. I got a call from our 
district director. She said, Congressman, she said, MoveOn.org is here. 
I said, Okay. How many? She said, Oh, I think one or two. And I said, 
Shannon, there will be more, and don't worry about it.
  We pulled up there and the door to the entrance was quite far from 
where we were on the road. There was quite a distance in the parking 
lot. And there were a couple of protestors out there--I think by that 
time it was three or four--and I told my good friend Esmel Meeks who 
works with me every day, I said, Esmel, stop the car. He said, What are 
you going to do? I said, Esmel, it's okay. I just want to get out and 
talk and listen.
  I got out of the car, and I said, Good morning. I'm Scott Rigell. The 
gentleman said, I know who you are. I said, Look, I appreciate you 
being here this morning. I respect you for getting up early. You care 
about this topic of Medicare. You care enough to get out here and meet 
with me or at least send

[[Page 17136]]

me a message. I said, What's on your mind this morning? I think that 
caught him off guard a bit.
  But as we went through the conversation, he said, Well, you're giving 
all of these oil subsidies and crushing Medicare. I said, Well, we've 
got something in common here. Let's talk about this. I don't believe in 
oil subsidies. I said, I'm looking at this matter right now. It's 
taking me a little time. It's a complex matter. There are several 
different areas of tax treatment for oil companies.
  I called in one of the most progressive groups in America to give me 
their take on this: Tell me why these are tax subsidies. And as I met 
with these young folks in my office--they were first a bit surprised 
that they found themselves in my office, but I was delighted to have 
them there. I said, Help me to understand why these are tax subsidies.
  There are a number of them, and they started to go down the list, and 
I almost immediately noticed a problem. I'm a businessperson. I've been 
in business 30 years. I said, Wait a minute. Some of these are just 
regular tax deductions that any business would get whether they were a 
mom-and-pop operation or a large corporation.
  Now, these over here, they sure look like tax subsidies to me, and if 
I determine that they are, I'll vote to repeal them on the House floor. 
And I went back to those that were not true tax subsidies, and I said, 
Listen, don't use hyperbole to make your point. It actually diminishes 
your argument.
  We got through that, and I shared a little bit of that story with 
this good gentleman from MoveOn.org that met me outside the VFW town 
hall. And then after that I said, You've accused me, or I should say, 
You're certainly taking a shot at me here for not caring about the 
elderly. I said, No, this is why I voted for the House Republican 
budget. This is the best way to ensure that we protect Medicare.
  I said, Do you know how long it takes us to balance the Federal 
budget under this plan that you say is extreme? He had called it 
extreme. I said, Sir, do you know how long it's going to be under the 
Republican plan of borrowing money each and every year? He said, No. I 
said, I do. It's 25 years. Under the plan that's called extreme, it's 
25 years of continuous borrowing. And that's the boldest plan out there 
right now. At least it's gotten serious consideration. And of course 
that plan, too, sits in the United States Senate without action.
  In the Second Congressional District of Virginia, we are blessed with 
water. It's all around us. You can't go down a street for four or five 
miles before hitting beautiful water. And in those waters is one of the 
most precious and delicious little creatures known to man, the blue 
crab. And if you're lucky, you can put a couple of chicken necks in a 
crab pot, throw it in just about any part of the Chesapeake Bay or one 
of the estuaries in these little bodies of water and little creeks off 
of the Chesapeake Bay that we're blessed with in the Second 
Congressional District, come back in about 4 or 5 days, and if you're 
lucky, you'll have 10 or 12 blue crabs in there.
  If you pull the crab pot up on to the dock, as I've done many times, 
one thing is pretty striking about that. As you look at these crabs, 
they have no idea what their fate is. And they're just going at it. 
Claws are flying. Occasionally a claw will be severed and pinched off, 
but they just keep fighting. They are oblivious to their fate.
  If they had any hope, any hope at all, what they would say is, Hey, 
wait a minute. We're all in this together. This thing is not headed in 
a very good direction. And they'd say, Listen, our only hope is when 
this man opens up that little trap door, we all gotta rush him and 
maybe a few of us at least will make our way back into the water, maybe 
all of us. But our only hope is to do this together.
  Madam Speaker, I would submit to you that in more ways than we might 
imagine, we are like crabs in a crab pot. We're fighting each other; 
we're not making good decisions as a body, and it's putting us all at 
risk.
  I believe there is a deep resolve. Notwithstanding what I just 
shared, I believe there is a deep resolve among both parties. I trust 
and I pray that there is because the matters before us are so great 
that there is a deep resolve to do the right thing; to listen to each 
other; to treat each other with respect; to watch the harshness of our 
language and our tone; to bring back a civility in our public 
discourse; to let the facts guide us to good decisions; to not question 
the motives of others. This will bring us together.
  Yet we know that there will still be spirited debate. This is a good 
and natural thing. It has been a characteristic of this body since our 
very founding and even prior to the founding of this great country. 
There will continue to be spirited debate.
  How are jobs created? I have given you, Madam Speaker and others, my 
core belief on how jobs are created and how we'll unleash the greatest 
job-producing engine the world has ever known: the American 
entrepreneur. Some disagree with these priorities. I don't see how. I 
like my view. It's been tempered by 30 years of reality and experience.
  But if we come together under the terms and conditions and under the 
umbrella of civility that I just outlined, I really believe that we'll 
meet that deep obligation that we have to the next generation of 
Americans to pass on the blessings of liberty and freedom.
  I close with this, Madam Speaker:
  I shared with this body earlier that I had the great privilege of 
representing the Second District, which has the highest concentration 
of men and women in uniform in the entire country. My weekend was 
filled with wonderful events honoring our veterans. Young veterans and 
older veterans, like my father, Ike, at 88 years old, an Iwo Jima 
veteran--my favorite veteran, by the way. But as we walked through 
these events from parades and marathon races and just a host of 
different events, it was just evident to me that we have so much more 
in common that binds us together, the full fabric of our community.
  Every community, every minority community, every community, old, 
young, is represented in these wonderful events, our veterans, what 
they have fought for in this great country. And I believe the best way 
to honor our men and women in uniform surely is, of course, to stop on 
Veterans Day, to pause, to look them in the eye to thank them.
  But I would say even more importantly, and I think our veterans would 
agree, they'd say, You know, I appreciate that. But better yet, and 
indeed your duty, elected official and every American, is to take the 
legacy that was gifted and handed to you at a heavy price and ensure 
that we pass it on to the next generation.

                              {time}  2000

  So I implore, Madam Speaker, every American to get engaged in this 
noble fight for the future of our country, for our children, and for 
our grandchildren. My favorite modern-day President, President Reagan, 
said it this way: Freedom is never more than one generation away from 
extinction. We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It 
must be fought for and passed on for them to do the same; or one day, 
in our sunset years, we will tell our children and our children's 
children what it was once like in America where men were free.
  Indeed, we will meet our deep obligation to the next generation of 
Americans. And as we come through this Veterans Day, may God watch over 
our veterans, our troops who stand watch tonight, and may God forever 
bless the United States of America.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________