Sam Farr: “I stand in support of this, because as cochair of the Travel and Tourism Caucus, along with the gentleman from Florida…”

“I stand in support of this, because as cochair of the Travel and Tourism Caucus, along with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mark Foley), we stand in bipartisan fashion to support the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism's recommendation to this House that we ought to expand the visa waiver program. I hope it is expanded. Let me tell the Members why this is important to this country. Twenty-six countries now have the visa waiver program. This bill helps Main Street, U.S.A. Why? Because it brings people from other places, international visitors, to the United States. They spend $90 billion when they are here, money that is brought into this country to shop and visit places in America. They learn about our country. They learn about our culture. They visit this Capitol. They may be sitting upstairs right now. We have over 46 million international visitors each year in the United States. They spend more in this country than all of the Americans spend when we go abroad, so our balance of trade in the tourism issue is in the $26 billion surplus. We are winning with this program. It is good for Main Street, America.”