[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 864-868]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CONTRASTING VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Grothman). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Jolly) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. JOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the 
House and to address the country this afternoon and to do so with 
colleagues of mine from Alabama (Mr. Byrne) and from Illinois (Mr. 
Davis) to draw a contrast between the view of government represented by 
our side of the aisle and of that which we heard last night from our 
President, a President who seemingly ignored the will of the people as 
expressed by the ballot box in November and who, instead, doubled down 
on an agenda that we believe on our side of the aisle is the wrong view 
of government and the wrong direction for our Nation. So I rise with my 
colleagues today to talk about just a few of the very substantive 
points and to do so very constructively and to present why we have a 
different view of government and why we think that is important.
  I would start by suggesting this. If we think about what the 
President said last night, in his words, the President declared from 
the rostrum that no challenge poses a greater threat to future 
generations than climate change. Now, I understand the sympathetic 
position on climate change. I am from a coastal State, and, frankly, I 
am a member of the Republican Party who believes that, indeed, the 
climate is changing, but I do not believe that the greatest challenge 
facing our future generations is that of climate change.
  In fact, you can harken back to the words of Thomas Jefferson. He had 
a very different opinion than our President had last night. He said 
that public debt is the greatest of dangers for our Nation to fear. I 
would suggest that Jefferson was right, that the greatest threat to our 
future generations is actually economic security and domestic security. 
I would like to speak for just a couple of moments about that and allow 
my colleagues to talk about other portions of the President's remarks.
  Let's first talk about the long-term threat to our economic 
security--our national debt--a topic that was completely ignored in the 
President's address to the Nation last night.
  Understand the significance of where we sit historically when it 
comes to the national debt. When this President took office, our 
national debt was just over $10 trillion, meaning it had taken 220 
years for our Republic--220 years--to accumulate just over $10 trillion 
in debt, a number already far too high. In the 8 years of this 
administration, an additional $10 trillion will be added under this 
President's watch. When he leaves his office, our debt will be over $20 
trillion.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a threat to our national security. The greatest 
threat, perhaps, to our national security, arguably, could be 
unwatched, out-of-control spending and debt that ultimately collapses 
our economic system and ensures that we are no longer the world's 
greatest superpower. In fact, George Washington, himself, admonished 
that we have a moral obligation to pay off our debts during the life of 
the majority, during our lifetimes.
  Rather than hearing from a President who doubled down on a very 
progressive agenda and who suggested with the rare audacity, as he did, 
that our Nation is fine in that conflicts and

[[Page 865]]

wars are over, in that our economy has returned, in that we have faster 
job growth than European nations--and yet the President suggested last 
night that he wants to grow our government in the very same manner that 
these European nations have today--and rather than tell us how to grow 
a government we already can't afford, I would ask the President to 
present a plan to pay for the government we already have.
  The greatest threat to future generations is not climate change. It 
is our economic security, and it is also our homeland security. Many on 
this side of the aisle have grave reservations about the President's 
current plan to combat the war against ISIS, or ISIL--against radical 
extremists-terrorists who intend to bring harm to the United States. 
That is a threat. That is a real threat.
  The President called for something last night that I strongly agree 
with. I think this body should have a robust debate about an 
authorization to use military force. We owe it to the American people, 
who sent us here, to represent them on this very critical issue of what 
is our national policy to protect our homeland, to protect American 
lives.
  In fact, what is the current plan to arm Syrian rebels, and what is 
the likelihood that that will actually be successful when we have seen 
a lack of success in areas like Iraq?
  Despite the declarations of last night, I would challenge that we are 
not as safe as, perhaps, the President suggested. From the Middle East, 
to Africa, to Paris, to Yemen, to our very own border, what is that 
plan?
  House Republicans passed a border security bill that reflected the 
will of the people last July, yet we heard nothing last night--not a 
single comment--about how to secure our border. It is a sharp contrast. 
We heard about negotiating with Iran. We heard about releasing 
prisoners from GTMO. We heard nothing about securing our borders and 
securing our homeland, so we have taken this time today to present a 
constructive contrast between the President's view of government and 
our view of government and what we believe are the right priorities of 
our government.
  I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues today, and I would yield 
now to my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you to my good friend and 
colleague from Florida, and thank you to my good friend and colleague 
from Alabama for joining us, Mr. Byrne.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a great opportunity to talk about what we heard 
in this Chamber, just slightly less than 24 hours ago, from this 
President, who is from my home State of Illinois. We heard a lot of 
ideas and a lot of talk and a lot of promises, but if it is anything 
like the State of the Union Addresses that I have had an opportunity to 
sit on in this Chamber over the last 2 years, we are not going to see a 
lot of action.
  There was a lot of talk about the economy. The economy is getting 
better. Frankly, it can't have gotten much worse when you compare it to 
a few years ago. Of course, it is going to get better, but the reality 
is there are still 8.7 million Americans who are out of work, and 7 
million Americans are in part-time jobs but are looking for full-time 
jobs.

                              {time}  1700

  The President's solution to many of the issues that were brought up 
was to tax more American families--to tax American families who have 
been saving for their children's college education to pay for a 
grandiose idea he has yet to give us the details on.
  The President also talked about helping our heroes: our veterans. 
This one is personal to me because just a few weeks ago, the day we got 
sworn in for the 114th Congress, Mr. Speaker, we were able to 
unanimously pass a bill called the Hire More Heroes Act, which I 
sponsored. This wasn't an idea that came from Washington. It was an 
idea that came from Illinois. Brad Lavite, the superintendent of the 
Madison County, Illinois, Veterans Assistance Commission, came to me 
during the last Congress and said, Why is it that veterans who are 
getting their health care through TRICARE and through the Department of 
Defense count towards the ObamaCare 50-employee limit in the employer 
mandate?
  I came here, took his idea, and garnered hundreds of cosponsors to 
put this on the floor of the House. It passed in the last Congress, but 
it got held up in the Senate. It passed unanimously in this Congress on 
day one, and that bill should go through the Senate and get to the 
President's desk. If he wants to help veterans get jobs, I hope the 
President signs that immediately when it hits his desk, hopefully, in 
no more than a few weeks.
  These are the types of solutions that are bipartisan solutions that 
the President told us he wanted to put forth, but he talked to us in a 
manner that I didn't think was bipartisan at all. Most of his speech 
talked about what he was going to do. I would have rather heard the 
President talk about what we are going to do together because, frankly, 
that is what my constituents in Illinois want us to do. They want us to 
come here and govern together.
  That is why I am so glad to be here and be a part of this Special 
Order with my good friend, Mr. Jolly. Hopefully, we can begin a good 
banter about discussing what our thoughts are on where America needs to 
go to move forward and work with this President but do it in a way that 
is a lot less confrontational than what we heard last night.
  Mr. JOLLY. With that, I yield to a real leader in this institution, a 
colleague of ours from the great State of Alabama, Mr. Bradley Byrne.
  Mr. BYRNE. I thank the gentlemen from Florida and Illinois. Those 
were eloquent words spoken from the heart, because I know both of these 
gentleman mean everything they just said.
  Last night was an interesting moment for me. One of the President's 
big plays is this proposal regarding community colleges.
  Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I am the first person in 
my family to go to college. Both of my parents grew up during the 
Depression. There wasn't any money for college, but I was privileged to 
go to college. During the time that I went, my parents were not doing 
well financially. Like very many other people, I was a financial aid 
student.
  We didn't have Pell grants back then. You got Federal student loans 
and maybe a Federal student work-study job. Lots and lots of people in 
my generation did that. I don't ever complain about that because that 
is the best money I ever borrowed and the best work I ever did because 
it gave me the opportunity to do what I have done in life. But it also 
taught me how important it is to give people an opportunity for a real 
education so that they can move up in their lives.
  This May, the last of my four children will finish college. We have 
had somebody in college in my family since 2003. I have been writing 
those tuition checks, fees, et cetera. So I look at this also from the 
point of view of someone who has had to be there writing those checks, 
sending their young people to college. But I am also the former 
chancellor of post-secondary education for the State of Alabama. It was 
my job to be the CEO of Alabama's 2-year college system, the community 
colleges for the State of Alabama. And so I bring a certain level of 
experience and expertise to this issue that may be a little different 
from others in this body.
  When the President first proposed this, his office just gave us a 
heads up. It didn't check and say, Do you think this is a good idea? 
Given your background, do you think this is something we can do? He 
said, This is what we're going to do.
  Our first question we asked was, How much will it cost? The initial 
answer we got from the White House was, We don't know how much it's 
going to cost. Now that should cause us all to ask a question about how 
serious this proposal is when, in the very first instance that they 
decide that they are going to propose it, they can't even tell us how 
much it costs. Even after they decided how much they think it is going 
to cost--$60 billion--they

[[Page 866]]

couldn't tell us how they were going to pay for it.
  So it led me to ask this question: Is this a serious idea? Because, 
you see, over a third of our community college students in America are 
already on Federal Pell grants, which cover all--or virtually all--of 
their tuition and fee costs when they go to community college. And for 
the people that don't have the eligibility to get Pell grants, there 
are a combination of other things that they can get.
  My experience as somebody who ran a community college system was that 
covering tuition and fees was usually not the real problem most 
community college students face. Most of them face a more difficult 
problem, and that is they are not adequately academically prepared or 
they have other problems in their lives, whether it is from their homes 
or jobs or whatever. It is hard for them to stay in college and stay up 
with the work that they have got to do. And so they need a lot of extra 
help. And the President doesn't talk about that.
  Now here is the worst thing about this proposal. We heard a lot last 
night from the President of the United States that he was all about the 
middle class. Let me tell you one of the taxes that he is going to 
raise that is going to pay for these proposals. He is going to tax 529 
plans.
  For people that don't know what those are, 529 plans are savings 
accounts, essentially, that moms and dads and grandmoms and granddads 
put money in over time and they use that money that they saved over 
time to put their young people through college. And the good thing 
about that is while they pay taxes on the money that they make before 
they put it into the plans, if, when they take the money out of those 
plans, there has been some appreciation--it has gone from being this 
much money to that much money--they don't have to pay taxes on it.
  It is an incentive for them. It is a way for middle class people to 
save for college for their young people. It is the only way middle 
class people in this country have a real savings plan for the young 
people. And this President, who stood up right behind me last night and 
talked about being for the middle class, wants to tax those middle 
class savings plans and take them away from people. Twelve million 
people use those plans in this country, 12 million people like my 
parents, like my wife and me, and like many, many other people in 
America. They shouldn't have their plans taxed.
  So I say to my colleagues from Florida and Illinois, if you look at 
just that one part of what he proposed, it is hard to say he was 
serious. Because if he really cares about higher education in America, 
he would think about the other needs of these community college 
students. But most importantly, he would think about those 12 million 
parents that are saving for their young people, middle class people 
whom he is trying to take money away from with this proposed tax.
  I think that sort of gives you a flavor of my appreciation of that 
one part of what he said last night.
  Mr. JOLLY. You bring much education experience as a layperson but 
also somebody with very specific political convictions. The President 
talked about free community college. And as an example, he used two 
local areas that now provide it. Well, I think that is the point of 
departure for our view of government.
  If a local community decides that they want to provide education 
through whatever tax levy that the residents there might support, that 
is a great opportunity. But to suggest that somehow Washington, which 
so often fails in orchestrating through the heavy hand of government a 
new type of education economics, is going to work better than those two 
communities that he cited last night is exactly where the view of 
government between our side of the aisle and his begins to depart.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JOLLY. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. I would like to know how many community 
colleges the administration contacted to talk about whether or not this 
was a good idea. The example that I have heard since this idea was put 
forth was that Tennessee is going to do it. Well, great for Tennessee, 
because they are probably going to use their lottery funds, from what I 
have read, to pay for it.
  Let me give you an example in Illinois, where I live, the President's 
home State. Unless we are going to get a brand new crop of lotto 
players, if the lotto is going to fund it, then you know what? That 
money would be robbed from our K through 12 system to create what is 
tantamount to grades 13 and 14 in our community colleges, which may not 
have the faculty or may not have the facilities to handle the influx--
and then to top it off by taxing savings plans that many middle class 
Americans have been using to be able to send their children to college 
at a time when the cost to go to any college is rising exponentially 
much faster than the inflation rate.
  I don't know if this is a conflict of interest or not because this is 
just a proposal from the White House, but I have a 529 plan. We have 
been saving for my three kids to go to college. And to be taxed now, 
after investing since they were very young--my daughter is now 17--I 
can tell you from the standpoint as a dad that I can empathize with 
many families who aren't in the financial position that we are able to 
be in because we are blessed enough to serve our districts in this 
institution.
  It is flabbergasting to me to be able to hear the President talk 
about these great ideas. Frankly, I just don't know how many of us sat 
in this room last night and believed that it was going to get beyond 
the idea stage. And I don't know how much effort he is going to put in 
to try and pass this plan, but I would urge our colleagues to take a 
good, hard look at this and also never forget the possible impact it is 
going to have on our 4-year institutions, both private and public. I 
serve nine of those in my district in Illinois. What kind of impact is 
it going to have on those institutions when you take a good percentage 
of students that will now go, if his plan is implemented, to the 
community colleges, which provide a great education?
  I would love to hear more about what you think and the impact it 
might have on the community college systems that you are so familiar 
with, Mr. Byrne.
  Mr. BYRNE. That is an important point because when you look at 
education, there are different parts of it. Each part serves its own 
special need. The 4-year colleges are different from the 2-year 
colleges, and they are different from high schools, et cetera. So there 
is a role that each of them play, but sometimes we start fuzzing them 
together and we miss the importance of each one of them.
  I think there will be some negative effects on 4-year colleges. I 
already heard from some 4-year college people about that. They don't 
want to pick on the 2-year colleges because they don't want to be seen 
to do that, but they understand there could be some negative effects.
  But the point you and the gentleman from Florida were making that is 
even more important to this, these are mainly local and State 
decisions. The Federal Government is inserting itself in things that 
traditionally, under our Federal understanding of government, the 
Federal Government didn't get involved in.
  I talked to our colleagues in this House from the State of Tennessee, 
Democrat and Republican, and said, What do you think about us taking 
your Tennessee plan and nationalizing it? They said, We think it's a 
bad idea. We are proud of our Tennessee plan. We think it's a good 
plan. We're proud that our State is doing it.
  It is one thing to talk about it from a State level--I understand 
they have one in Chicago at the local level--but it is different when 
you blow it up to be a national thing.
  So the President wants to take this good idea from a single State or 
a single city and blow it up into a national thing, and we are not 
really stoked here to do that. We don't really understand how to do 
that.

[[Page 867]]

  Here is what happens now: we send the money out. And what happens 
after we send the money? Rules and regulations and mandates come 
flowing down after it, and Washington starts telling Tennessee and 
Illinois and Florida and Alabama how to run our colleges. And that, my 
friends, is a very bad idea. I don't think anybody in higher education 
wants the heavy hand of the Federal Government telling us how to run 
our institutions of higher education.
  Let me end on this one point. America is known as having the best 
institutions of higher education in the world. And the reason we do is 
because each one of our institutions is different from one another. 
They specialize in who they are and they focus on quality. And if we 
start robbing that from them by trying to stamp some one-size-fits-all 
concept of higher education, which the President is trying to do right 
now with this rating system he wants to put on higher education, then 
we may start losing in an area in which we are the preeminent leader in 
the world. And I don't think the people of Alabama sent me here to let 
the Federal Government do that to the fine institutions of higher 
education we have in the State of Alabama.
  Mr. JOLLY. In our remaining time, I would like to revisit another 
topic--it is one on which I think the solutions on our side of the 
aisle reflect the will of the people that we saw at the ballot box in 
November--and that is border security.

                              {time}  1715

  We need to reclaim this issue, as conservatives. We need to redefine 
this national conversation. The President likes to continually say that 
if Congress would just send him a bill, then all would be okay, and it 
is usually followed by suggesting that if we send a bill that we pass, 
he will veto it. What he means is we have to send him his bill.
  I just want to point out something because we do have solutions on 
this side of this aisle, and we have acted responsibly on behalf of 
that. In July, we passed a border security bill that put facilities 
closer to the border to keep those who enter illegally closer to the 
border.
  We changed the policy to ``last in, first out,'' so if you get in, 
you don't get to linger for years before you are returned if you don't 
have a humanitarian claim that merits staying.
  We also increased funding for judges, created tele-courtrooms so that 
we could more expeditiously process those who come here illegally--and 
rightfully so--and we should do so very responsibly. We are a loving 
nation made better for immigration, but we should show everybody the 
rule of law and how you responsibly immigrate here.
  Mind you, we also passed a bill that provided for the health care of 
those who come here and while they are detained here, but I want to 
point out something very specific. In the coming weeks, this Congress 
is going to offer another bill--because that one was never accepted by 
the Senate or went to the President--to require operational control of 
our border.
  That is a great urgency, to have operational control of our border, 
not to just address the traditional border security issue, but to 
address what we know is a growing concern about our domestic and 
homeland security.
  We have seen the threats around the globe. Most certainly, that has 
to be an area where we can reach agreement with the White House, and I 
hope we can take up the President on his offer to put a bill on his 
desk and ask him to sign it, just as he has pledged to do so.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JOLLY. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you to the gentleman for 
yielding, and you bring up a great point. This isn't just a border 
security issue because of an immigration issue. This is a border 
security issue because of a homeland security issue.
  We have to make our border secure. We are going to have what our 
vision for border security is in this institution pass now to the 
Senate, and the President will get his wish. We will put a bill on his 
desk. It may not be the bill he wants, but my message to the 
administration--to the White House--is: come work with us.
  In my first 2 years here, I just haven't seen that happen on a wide 
variety of issues. It seems like every idea that we come up with in 
this institution, even some that passed by huge bipartisan majorities, 
they threaten a veto. Well, that is okay, but that is not conducive to 
working together to find solutions, and that is what I think we are 
here for.
  I think we, on this side, there are many of us who are out here to 
find solutions to the Nation's problems, not to create more problems, 
and that is exactly the message I hope to send to the American people 
tonight, that we are willing to work with the President on border 
security, on education, on a wide variety of issues, but we also have 
to have some response back, and that is what I think we are lacking.
  Mr. BYRNE. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JOLLY. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.
  Mr. BYRNE. I am on the Armed Services Committee, and I look at border 
security as national security.
  Let me give you a story from a trip that several of us on the Armed 
Services Committee took to the Middle East back in August and 
September. We visited several countries over there. As you know, it is 
a very dangerous part of the world, clearly.
  One of the countries we went to is Morocco. Morocco, if you think 
about where it is, should have lots of problems, but you don't really 
hear much about Morocco having terrorist incidents. When we were over 
there, we asked a lot of questions. How is that so?
  It is because they take their border security very seriously. They 
use a lot of the military aid that America provides to Morocco for 
their border security, and they keep the bad guys out, and so you don't 
hear in this country that is in some of the most troubled parts of the 
world, you don't hear about the problems there because they control 
their borders. They understand that their internal and national 
security is dependent upon that.
  We had two brothers, the Tsarnaev brothers, who grew up in Boston. 
One of them was allowed to go back to where they were from and one of 
the satellite countries from Russia--obviously was trained by 
terrorists.
  We allowed him to come back into this country, after we were warned 
by the Russians where he had gone, and he and his brother tragically 
ignited those bombs at the Boston Marathon, seriously wounding a lot of 
people and killing some.
  Well, what sort of a security situation do we have that we allowed 
him back into this country? What sort of security situation do we have 
today?
  This is not just about the southern border; it is about the northern 
border. It is about our security of the entire Nation, and if we will 
start looking at border security as national security, which is the way 
we on this side of the aisle understand this issue, then we can protect 
the American people.
  It definitely does take us working with the President because he runs 
the Department of Homeland Security through his appointee to that 
Secretary's position, and it is his policies through that Department 
that determine whether or not we are going to be protected, and 
protecting our borders is a part of protecting Americans from 
international terrorism, including international Islamic terrorism.
  Mr. JOLLY. Mr. Davis, any more comments this evening?
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. If the gentleman would inquire how much 
time we have left.
  Mr. JOLLY. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida has 3 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JOLLY. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. I am just excited to be able to talk 
about what happened at the State of the Union last night, our 
perspective. In closing, it kind of frustrates me that

[[Page 868]]

we didn't see real solutions to the exploding cost of higher education.
  If the solution is what the President laid out, which is going to 
actually put more of a burden on middle class families by taxing their 
savings plans that they have been saving for--for sometimes decades--
that is a wrong approach to bringing down the cost of higher education 
to making Pell grants go further.
  The President also mentioned another point last night about equal 
pay. Well, it would have been nice to have the President and the White 
House actually do that in the White House, where women make an average 
of 18 percent less than men, so it is not just enough to talk about it 
here in this Chamber. Do it when you have control over the opportunity 
to make things happen.
  That is why I hope it is not just rhetoric on many issues, but I want 
to see action.
  Mr. JOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time. I hope what the 
American people have seen and our colleagues have seen is a Congress 
with solutions.
  We will be passing through this House border security solutions, a 
homeland security solution. Frankly, addressing the constitutional 
overreach we saw from the President, we will be passing energy 
independence solutions, education solutions, tax reform solutions. We 
are committed to doing that on behalf of the American people.
  I look forward to working with our colleagues, and frankly, we remain 
hopeful that we will have the opportunity to work with the President on 
this as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________