Porter Goss

For years, millions of Americans have known what we are today finally acknowledging here on the floor of the House, that the IRS is inefficient, it is unaccountable, and it is often downright abusive for the very people who pay the…

When it comes to educating our kids, Washington does not know best. For too long we have had this top-down approach here that the Federal role in education is what it should be, and who is paying the price for the failure? Our kids are…

I oppose a long-term extension of that provision of the immigration law, known as section 245(I), which has been discussed already this morning, which allows aliens who are in this country illegally to pay a fee and then adjust to…

this is a tough subject, involving the need to balance protection of constitutionally guaranteed private property rights with other constitutional guarantees of public health, safety, and welfare as traditional, legitimate functions of…

Despite a decade of steady progress in combating drug use and drug abuse during the 1980's, the situation appears to have taken somewhat of a dramatic turn for the worse since the early 1990's, and that is why we are here. In my view, that…

This is something that will be of interest to all Americans. We have a situation in this country now where, believe it or not, among the many other facts that we see in our tax system and the way it is handled by the IRS, we see the…

I was honored to lead a bipartisan delegation of seven members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in traveling on oversight business to Asia. Our trip happened to include 3 days and 2 nights in North Korea... the…

I commend him for his very hard work to eliminate the punitive and the self-defeating taxation on capital gains, and I know he feels there is a great step forward here today and even more to do down the road. Two years ago a new…

I point out that less than 1 percent of the Federal budget we are talking about here, foreign aid spending, is not the problem when it comes to our budget ills. But it is clear that everything is on the table when we talk about the budget…

this week angry Haitian mobs protested the planned 4-month of extension of the U.N. mission to Haiti, an extension that received surprise Chinese sign-off for an as yet undisclosed price. Frustrated and victimized Haitians accused U.N…

I rise in support of what is very clearly a fair and open rule. This rule balances the interests of the authorizing committee as well as the appropriators in what is often a contentious area. For all those involved, I think it is a…

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, I am here rising in support of this rule. I have listened very closely to what the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin has to say. This rule provides ample debate on all amendments and major issues in the bill…

over the last 4 years an increasingly permissive attitude, even a tolerance in some circles, of illegal drug use has regrettably developed. The lack of institutional leadership from the President and from the media on this issue is…

I rise in support of this mainly open rule. Mr. Speaker, the Interior appropriations bill...provides important funding to protect our natural resources for future generations, including our children. The underlying bill is an excellent…

I am honored to be in the somewhat unique position of serving the House and my constituents as a member of the Committee on Rules and as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I certainly feel in very good…

I rise in support of what I think is a very fair rule for a very important subject that I think in some ways is a bellwether to be used again and again and again as a model in this controversy we have between private property rights and…

I would assure the gentlewoman from California that it is the intent of the committee that the legislative history of this provision as it was developed in the debate in 1995 is applicable to the exercise of this authority. Indeed, the…

Let me clearly tell the gentlewoman that I have tremendous respect for the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon], and I think Mr. Dixon has said exactly the right thing. The specific facts that the gentlewoman is basing her allegation on…

Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1998. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Intelligence, Analysis, and Counterintelligence, I am pleased to report that this year's…

I would respond, if the gentlewoman will yield, that it is very much my intention to make sure that where taxpayers' dollars are used there is an appropriate accounting; if there is anything classified that justifies classification, we…

As far as I am concerned, if the gentlewoman has some new information that is additional or supplemental or complementary to any of the previous work that has been done on this, that she would bring it to the committee's attention, that we…

I originally rose in opposition to the Waters amendment, but now I am rising in support of my substitute amendment. I think it is very important that we understand here that this is not a new subject and that there are unclassified…

The subject of this amendment is chemical weapons, chemical weapons in the Gulf?

I think this is, as the gentleman from Michigan has said, a debate we have had many times, and I tend to believe that not much has changed and the previous wisdom we have had that it is correct, that the matter should remain classified. I…

Mr. Chairman, I oppose the Conyers amendment, which is intended to force the disclosure of the aggregate total of the intelligence community's budget. I think primarily I oppose it for basic reasons of common sense, that it does not make…