Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4567, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).
Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this rule for a very simple reason: my citizenship in the United States of America is not for sale.
In the State of Arkansas, when they began to call up the National Guard and Reserves to serve, they went willingly. They are still there. They are doing their job. In Arkansas, we have some really wonderful companies. One of those companies is Wal-Mart. What Wal-Mart did was this: they said the employees that we have that are in the National Guard and Reserves that are going to have to take a pay cut to serve, we are going to make up the difference. We are going to give them out of our pockets that money, and they did. And those men and women in uniform today who are on the battlefield are having to pay taxes on that generous contribution that Wal-Mart is making to them.
That is an honorable and proper thing to do.
But now, we have the Committee on Rules determined to make it possible for a company of questionable reputation at best, called Accenture, that chose to renounce their American citizenship and renounce any obligation that they might have to our men and women on the battlefield and say to the whole world, money is the most important thing to us. That is what we care about, money. We will give up our American citizenship. That is what they said, and that is what they did.
But this rule makes it possible for them to get by with it and get a $10 billion contract from the Department of Homeland Security. I cannot imagine why in the world the Department ever agreed to give them that contract in the first place. It is absolutely irresponsible. I do not understand why the leadership on the Republican side decided to take this out of the bill. I do not understand that. I know that people work hard to develop a good Department of Homeland Security bill, and the American people deserve better, and if we allow this company to thumb their nose at being an American and turn around and give them a $10 billion contract paid for by hard-working Americans that pay their taxes and do not complain about it, we have done the wrong thing.
I urge this House to reject this rule and have the Committee on Rules come back to us with a good rule.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source