The Accountability Congress: The 110th Congress

Floor Speech

THE ACCOUNTABILITY CONGRESS: THE 110TH CONGRESS

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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you very much, Congressman Ellison.

It is a pleasure to be here once again with my freshman colleagues as we try to do this every Thursday evening and get together and speak about what's going on in the last couple of weeks and tell the American people and share with them some of the good things that we've been working on.

We ran in elections this past November. And coming into the freshman class, we heard loud and clear from the American public that it was very, very important that we get this budget under control. One of the first things that we did, and I am very proud of it and Republicans joined with us on this so it was a bipartisan effort, is we passed the PAYGO principle. PAYGO is about as simple as you can imagine; it's pay-as-you-go. It's no different than the way I run my personal family budget with my kids and my wife; it's no different than most people run their small businesses or large businesses. It is the simple point of money comes in, and you can't spend more than is coming in. It is expenses versus revenues, or cash flow.

I was very proud of that moment as one of the very first things that we did was to pass the PAYGO principle, and that was something that was, in the past, the Congress always followed that principle, but most recently, in the last number of years, it was thrown out. As a result of that, tax cuts, higher spending, and tax cuts are wonderful, we all want less taxes as long as there are corresponding spending cuts. Everything has to balance. I just want to reference that because to me that was a great start.

I am very proud of the fact that everything we have passed since then, every bill that we have taken up has a component in it which says we cannot add new expenses, we cannot build more programs unless the money is in the budget. I think that is a principle that needs to be there forever, for that matter; and I think that is the first step in beginning this process of getting our fiscal house in order.

So I am just going to highlight that for a minute and turn it back over to Congressman Ellison.

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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Sure. I listened to Congressman Murphy, and I listened to veterans in my home district of Broward and Palm Beach Counties, and whether it was World War II, the Korean War or the most recent conflicts we are involved in, these are brave men and women that put their lives on the line, and they deserve to be supported, both on the ground and when they come home.

I thank you for your service, and I certainly thank your colleagues over in Iraq and the men and women that are fighting and protecting our freedoms all over the world.

You know, when I think about September 11, which was a dark day for our country, and what happened in our country with the failures that allowed these terrorists to attack us, and the deaths, the needless deaths that occurred in our major cities, it was an awakening for this country. But it was also a time when we had an opportunity to really take stock of where our shortcomings were. Where were the intelligence failures? Where were the communication failures? Where were the vulnerabilities in our airports and our seaports and all these other places where people came in from other countries to harm us and kill our people in this country?

And there was a man named Osama bin Laden who is still out there. Hard to believe today. When you think about what our number one strategy should have been was to find the perpetrator and the perpetrators of this terrible, terrible tragedy, and he is still out there today. That needs to be rectified.

But beyond that, I think we all recognize things that came together after that; and there was this 9/11 Commission report, which was probably one of the most prestigious, important, qualified incredible groups that came together, Democrats, Republicans, professionals which said, let's figure this out. This isn't a Democrat/Republican issue; it is an American issue, and protecting our territory, our homes, our streets. And they came up with this 9/11 report. Which, if you haven't had a chance to take a look at it, it is not just reading you read before you go to bed and it will put you to sleep. This is gripping. This is really a very thorough analysis of what we need to do.

Unfortunately, it was a number of years that passed. Some things were adopted from that plan, but many were not. And I don't think it was anybody questioning the fact that this was a priority, but it wasn't passed. Many of the items weren't passed.

So one of the things that we said in our campaigns and we took up right away, and we are still obviously waiting for the process in Washington to be finished, but the House quickly took up the rest of the 9/11 Commission report and passed it. And I just want to highlight a few key elements.

We know that there were problems with aviation security. Those elements, those recommendations have been adopted. We know that there were port problems and port security issues. Most containers that come in, substantially most of the containers that come into our ports are not inspected. I come from southeast Florida. We have Port of Palm Beach and Port Everglades. Port Everglades is a main oil terminal among cargo and container in great bulk. Tremendous risk if you happen to be anywhere near those areas and something, God forbid, comes in in the form of nuclear materials or biohazardous materials or anything else that comes into those ports. And this is all over the United States. Ownership of the ports. We all know about the Dubai Port issue. That has been straightened out through our legislation.

Certainly the idea of preventing terrorists from even getting into this country, visa changes, rules changes, all these things are so important. And not to mention the people that are on the ground fighting for us every day, our firefighters, our emergency responders, our police officers. Every one of us feels very strongly about them. And as we grew up and you wanted to be a fireman or you wanted to be a policeman, not everybody chose that profession, but, boy, on September 11 did we as Americans have a newfound respect for what they did for us.

But what we needed to do that wasn't done was to give them the tools, the communications tools like they needed in New York and other places so they can make sure that they can communicate with each other, and that local and State and National Federal intelligence agencies can properly share that information. These things have now been passed by the House of Representatives, and it was one of the first things we did. And that is the right thing to do. And whatever it costs, that should be at the top of our budget. People say, well, it is expensive. You know something? You prioritize. You say, what is first? Homeland security, protecting our troops, making sure they are properly funded. And I know that Congressman Yarmuth is going to talk about the incredible great work we have done for our veterans.

These are the things that are our Nation's priorities. These are American values and America's priorities. And I am very proud that we as the freshman class participated with the rest of the Congress, and mostly Democrats, and Republicans, came together that said, yes, we are going to take care of the American people first. So I just wanted to share those elements with you.

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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Well, that is an interesting question, and I think we should look back the last few years.

The President in his State of the Union address about a year ago correctly said we are addicted to oil. I think everybody understood what he meant by that, and yet Congress, a number of months later, passed an energy bill which gave billions of dollars to energy companies and subsidized more oil drilling.

Now, oil will always be a part of the energy policy of the United States, but this notion that oil is our way out, to me, is just ridiculous. This is interesting because when I have been speaking at schools back home, and I am sure you have been doing the same thing, and I want to talk to our young population, our students, as well as our adults.

The calling of this generation is to move toward making this country energy independent. It goes right directly to what Representative Hodes was talking about, defend our country. The number one thing that we should do to ensure that we are defending our country is making sure that we are not continually dependent on importing oil from countries that are not reliable partners, and whether that is Middle East countries or Venezuela or any other country if you have been following around the world where we are daily bringing in 60 percent of our oil in the form of imports, that is a dangerous prospect and a dangerous policy.

So what we can do about it? We can focus, just like in the past, the attention of the American people, our scientists, our public sector, our private entrepreneurs, our people that have great vision and say, what can we do to make ourselves energy independent? Is it solar, is it wind, is it wave, is it thermal, is it any combination of science that can go along with this?

We put a man on the moon when said John F. Kennedy said, we are going to fight against the Sputnik, that little can that went up into space. We created the Manhattan project, that we knew it was a matter of our national security to make sure that we developed a nuclear weapon, it was an atomic weapon at that time, to make sure that we would end World War II successfully. That was a commitment that Americans, with our ingenuity and our science, put that all together.

Well, I do not think there is anybody who is listening tonight does not believe that Americans, if they put their nose to the grindstone and we make our commitments as consumers, as scientists, as public and private people, that we cannot accomplish that same goal. It is a matter of national security. It is a matter of our environment. You already mentioned this, global warming, and the science, the carbon dioxide and all those things, and it is also a matter of a new economy.

We think about jobs for the next generation, the science, that we can lead the world and export our technology and be successful.

A new energy policy is the calling of our generation, and I hope and I believe, based on the freshman class, by the way, the freshman class of Democrats and Republicans coming in and listening very closely to the public, I think there is a great opportunity for us to all work together and change it from just an energy policy that is dependent on oil to one that will really improve our environment, create new jobs and really protect us in this next century.

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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for being here tonight. It has been a pleasure to be with this freshman class, I look forward to continuing to work on all these items and more, and look forward to working with our people back home and making sure we are listening to their ideas, as we have been, and just continuing to move our country forward.

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