This majority is working for America, and one of those ways is we have tremendously low unemployment. This economy has created millions of new jobs, and we are expecting growth this first quarter of somewhere higher than 4 percent.
— Marsha Blackburn
Government does not have a revenue problem; government has a spending problem. Government does not have a revenue problem; government has a priority problem. It is time that we begin to fine tune our focus and decide what the priority of government ought to be.
We do thank our men and women in uniform. And I thank them. I thank this House today that approved a bill that will allow for a pay raise for our military. We are grateful for that and for the actions of this body.
Yes, what has happened is we have moved from responding to these terrorist attacks as acts of civil disobedience to getting to the point after September 11 that we said, no, this is not just civil disobedience, this is an act of war.
Can any of us even imagine, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt suggesting we negotiate a resolution or that we could simply prosecute those involved? Of course it is unimaginable. We are right to be in the Middle East, and we are right to treat this as the war it is.
We all learned in kindergarten that the beginning is a very good place to start. As we have this debate on illegal immigration and illegal entry into this country, let's begin at the very beginning by sealing the borders to this great Nation.
Liberals in Congress have spent the past three decades pandering to environmental extremists. The policies they have put in place are in large part responsible for the energy crunch we are seeing today. We have not built a refinery in this country for 30 years.
We must be certain that we all realize that our enemy is not an enemy that is located in one single place. There are terrorist cells all around the globe.
Every town has become a border town and every State has become a border State.
Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart.
I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government program.
On energy, we should be exploring for domestic sources of energy.
This is now a global war on terror and, indeed, it is important, it is imperative that we win in the battles in Afghanistan and that we win in the battles in Iraq. And as the gentleman from Georgia has mentioned, this is not something that is going to be quick and easy.
Madam Speaker, it is time to halt illegal entry into this country. It is time to halt the flow of illegal drugs and weapons into this great Nation, and it is time to secure our borders.
Republicans rejected calls for amnesty and we've fought efforts to provide illegal aliens with taxpayer funded benefits. The American people are far closer to our Republican approach to border security than they are to Nancy Pelosi's approach.
