David Thomas

You are not allowed to speak ill of the Senate. You can trash us and impugn our motives all you want to. Apparently those are the rules of the House. Let us take a look at what the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) just said. We…

The Alternative Minimum Tax elimination requested by the President is not retroactive. It is a 1 percent stimulus for the economy: $100 billion over the first 12 months, 1 percent, and it costs $160 billion over 10. Even former Secretary…

I appreciate the admonition by my ranking member from New York, because I do want to give specific citation to the two particular areas that I was concerned about, both in the Democratic substitute and in the underlying bill. The gentleman…

I reject categorically the claims that no Democrat ideas are included in this bill. This is a bipartisan compilation of ideas.

I tell the gentleman that he is desperately hanging on to an offhand comment by one member of the administration who has since said a number of different things, and apparently he chooses to ignore the statement by the President that they…

Mr. Speaker, in her exuberance, the gentlewoman from Florida indicated that World War II was fought without deficit spending. I believe if she will check the record, there was significant deficit spending, because our job was to win the…

The fact is, we have a reason for not moving. We need a commitment to move more quickly. In spite of all the excuses and all the reasons, we haven't moved quickly. We are very much behind. We have a good many vacancies that need to be…

on the issue we have before us, obviously, we have many things to do. We have met this morning and we have been working on an economic stimulus package, which is very necessary and important. We also need to do the ordinary work that is…

one of the items, of course, that is being considered and has, in fact, been considered and passed in the House is the economic stimulus--doing some things now that will encourage and get more activity in our economy. We, of course…

I want to talk this morning a bit, as we have for some time, about energy. Energy, of course, is something we have talked about for some time--a good long time, as a matter of fact. Our experiences last summer in California emphasized the…

I hope so as well. One other observation: We have these items now that are of such high priority that have to do with security, and I think we need to be very watchful that we do not find ourselves using security as a vehicle for doing…

I understand that. I agree with the Senator that we need to move forward. Another point. When there are bills with a special purpose, such as airport security, and provisions are added that have nothing to do with it, when you are in the…

The idea that we in the minority ought to be involved is something we learned from you when you were in the minority. So it is not a brand new idea. When the majority brings bills forward, they need to work with everyone here so we can…

The idea of being able to object is not a brand new idea. It was exercised by you when you were in the minority; isn't that true?

I will talk about where we are with regard to aviation security. I appreciate very much the comments of the Senator from New York and her information about railroad security. I certainly agree with her that we have to look at all our…

I want to discuss for a little bit the airline issue. I thank my friend from Arizona for the work he has done on this issue. Certainly, security in flying is an issue on which all of us want to move forward. So this is not a failure to…

I agree with the good Senator from Michigan and want to point out that FPI has been fighting such changes for more than 5 years. Furthermore, FPI's reluctance to increase the micropurchase threshold points to FPI's unwillingness to…

I do agree and in fact, I think the American public would be shocked to learn that under a depression-era statute the DOD is required to purchase national security products from Federal prisoners. In addition, FPI's entry into services…

Absolutely. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to end FPI's mandatory preference on DOD contracts, and we have not and would not agree to any amendment that would undermine that action. As Senator Levin stated, last week's vote sent a clear…

I agree. The only reason for dropping this language from the bill is that it is redundant.

I rise in support of tabling this amendment. I have listened to my esteemed friend from Texas. I am not going back to Plato. I will start closer to the current situation. I am surprised, when we talk about giving the private sector an…

I find it ironic that less than 24 hours after the President of the United States came here in a joint session and said this was a battle of freedom versus fear, that what I just heard from a number of Members on the other side in arguing…

I am asking the House that it insist on its constitutional prerogative as the sole originator of revenue measures, notwithstanding the meritorious aspects of any particular desired piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman that this legislation is meant to be inclusive and not exclusive, and the initial response is to take those provisions already in the Tax Code applying to combat situations and terrorist attacks…

as we continue to mourn the victims and as the rescue operation turns to recovery, one of the things that I think the American people perceived fairly early, and that its elected leaders are beginning to come to consensus on, is that this…