Rob Andrews

I don't understand a philosophy that says that you have to offset and pay for help to a person who cleans office buildings, but by no means do you have to offset a tax break for a person who owns the building.

Mr. Speaker, there's been discussion on the floor of the long term. For the long-term unemployed in this country, the long term happened yesterday, or today, actually, the first of the month when the rent comes due and you can't pay it or…

Mr. Speaker, a lot of Americans seem to have been misled that they are not going to be able to see their doctors under Medicare anymore because of some legislation that came out of here. This bill today makes it emphatically clear that…

Mr. Speaker, you know, the risk that we are working against today is not simply a missile striking innocent people halfway around the world. It would be a nuclear IED striking people around the corner. Make no mistake about it. One of the…

If a small business person has 50 or fewer full-time employees, there is no mandate on that business to do anything. Businesses which choose to provide health insurance to their employees will have the same abilities that huge companies…

This amendment, this motion is a guaranteed increase in middle class health insurance premiums for all Americans. If that's what you want, you should vote for it. But you know, when a person goes to the emergency room and is uninsured…

Mr. Speaker, it is axiomatic in American politics and on this floor that Members come to the floor and praise small business to the heights. People frequently cite statistics which state that small businesses create most of the new…

Reclaiming my time, the gentleman's statement is wrong. A small minority of the jobs created in the last 2 months have been census jobs. The gentleman is wrong.

So here's one of the issues before the House today. Say you have an American company that owners live here and they decide that they can make more money by sending their jobs to Asia or south of the border, out of the country, and they do…

I know that it was a longstanding tradition under the prior administration and the erstwhile majority to let people outsource American jobs and not pay their fair share of taxes. Those days are ending, and the days of jobs hemorrhaging…

I would say to my friend, the gentlewoman from North Carolina, that maybe, instead of a dictionary, we should have a math book or a history book brought out, because there is some historical context, recent historical context, to this…

It is very important that we take assessment of the excellent ideas in this bill that both parties support. Much of the debate this afternoon and this evening has obviously been consumed by points of controversy, but there are some major…

I'd like to, on behalf of the committee, thank the gentlelady for crafting this amendment. I think it's an invaluable tool for our investigators and, if necessary, prosecutors, to track down fraud, protect our servicemembers, and protect…

The committee supports this amendment because we support Mr. Sarbanes' approach of merit-driven decision-making. The OMB will oversee this process. We believe it will improve quality and protect the taxpayers. We support the amendment.

I think many Americans don't really place whether gays and lesbians can serve in the military as the number one thing they worry about in national security. I think they're probably more worried about something like a nuclear IED going off…

I think that the process that my friend from California lays out is a correct one, that there should be wide solicitation of views from those who wear the uniform, and there will be. And the amendment that Mr. Murphy will be offering later…

Mr. Speaker, if you love your country, you ought to be able to serve your country. That's the change that Congress is talking about today. The minority is opposing an amendment that doesn't exist. We've heard voices on the minority side…

I also wanted to make reference to the excellent work that's been done in this bill in the area of our missile defense program. Now, there are obviously disagreements over what the structure of that program ought to be; but when one looks…

I will just conclude by pointing out that we've heard some disagreements here about the nature of ballistic missile defense. But to my core point, there is much in this bill that has been embraced by both sides of the aisle because both…

The question has been not ``if'' we are going to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell but when and how. The Murphy amendment says that the policy will not be repealed. It will stay in effect until such time as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of…

The best way to defend this country is to have every person who is willing to serve her have the opportunity to do so and who is able to do so. That's the intention of the Murphy amendment which, frankly, there have been a series of…

Last year I was in Afghanistan. Some paratroopers were transporting me outside the city of Kandahar, and one of them stopped and turned to me and said, Are you a Congressman? I said yes. He said, Can you help us? We haven't had a pay raise…

Members should ask themselves these questions in deciding this issue: When it comes to saving money, would you rather have two people competing or one for your business? When it comes to protecting the fleet, the ability to fly, would you…

McGovern-Jones-Welch is a straightforward, bipartisan amendment. It requires the President to certify that the Afghanistan Independent Election Commission and the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission have the professional capacity, legal…

The gentleman from Indiana's point about the servicemembers being listened to is absolutely right, which is why Mr. Murphy's amendment says--I will comment since he did--if after hearing the comments of the servicemembers the Secretary of…