Madam Speaker, in the President's budget he asks for a few hundred million dollars over the next few years for the cost of privatizing Social Security. When he was here at the State of the Union address, he commented that Congress rejected his proposals to privatize Social Security. All the Democrats to his surprise got up and cheered, because we think it is a terrible idea to… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support S. Con. Res. 79, a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that no United States assistance should be provided directly to the Palestinian Authority so long as the Hamas-led government maintains a position calling for the destruction of Israel. In fact, I will go further and say that the United States should freeze all aid to the Palestinian… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, none of us here deny that some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act are very useful in fighting the war on terrorism. No one wants the PATRIOT Act to be eliminated, but the PATRIOT Act should be amended to safeguard civil liberties. Section 215 should be amended to provide meaningful protection from abuse by an overzealous government seeking sensitive and personal… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the Graham-Levin amendment language contained in this bill. This provision restricts the jurisdiction of the Federal courts to consider habeas corpus petitions from detainees at Guantanamo or complaints about their treatment. It also would require military tribunals to ``weigh the value of the… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution: in honor and support of our troops in Iraq, in opposition to our policy on the war in Iraq, and in urging the Republican leadership of the House to grant this an open and adequate debate on the entire question of our policy on Iraq on the floor of this House. Read more »

AMENDMENT NO. 11 OFFERED BY MR. NADLER Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Amendment No. 11 printed in House Report 109-350 offered by Mr. Nadler: Strike section 407. The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 621, the gentleman from New York… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, what an underhanded, sneaky rule and bill this is. The Social Security Act has a provision that prohibits, that prohibits the use of Social Security trust funds for changing the Social Security cards. This bill repeals that provision. CBO estimates the cost that could be incurred there by between 5 and $10 billion to be looted out of the Social Security and Medicare trust… Read more »

Madam Speaker, I want to make two points: One, the bad parts about section 215 and section 505 are not that, under certain circumstances, the FBI or other investigative agencies can get information from libraries. No one is proposing, as Mr. Sensenbrenner said, to say that libraries are totally sacrosanct. The bad part is that the FBI can get all this private personal information… Read more »

Madam Speaker, we are engaged in a serious war with terrorism. Unfortunately, we are going after the wrong targets. We are not protecting ourselves, but we are endangering our liberties. We are not doing anything or anything adequate about collecting the loose nuclear materials all over the former Soviet Union before they are smuggled to al Qaeda to make atomic bombs to attack us… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this horrible legislation. In all my years in Congress, this is easily one of the ugliest bills I have ever seen. I can't think of a more glaring example of pandering to the rich on the backs of the poor. It's no wonder the Republican leadership needed all the extra time to bring it to the floor. The cuts in this legislation will result… Read more »