Barrett on the passing of Ronald Reagan

For Immediate Release
June 2004
Contact: Colleen K. Mangone, Press Secretary
202-225-5301
Colleen.Mangone@mail.house.gov


Passing of President Ronald Reagan

Washington, DC – Mr. Speaker,

President Reagan changed our hearts with his optimistic outlook on life, the world, and our place in it. He came into office at a time in our history when we were a little bruised and battered and simply said he pulled us up by our boot straps and taught us how to get back on the horse that knocked us off.

“America is too great for small dreams” he once said, but to Ronald Reagan these were not merely words in a speech meant for a 30 second sound bite on the evening news, these words went to the core of the man.

He reminded us that even though we may have differences our common bond as Americans sets us apart from the rest of the world. He believed in all that is good in America because he believed there is good in every American.

Ronald Reagan was a hero to me and to an entire generation. He leaves a legacy of hope and prosperity that will last for generations to come. I know there is a special place in Heaven for Ronald Reagan and I know he heard the words ‘Well Done!’.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Bob Inglis on Education

Education

“No education in the second kick of a mule.”
--U. S. Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings

For a number of years now we have supposed that Washington can fix our education challenge. The most recent kick of that mule was No Child Left Behind, an ill-conceived piece of Republican legislation that guarantees duplicative federal regulations and leaves us hoping for some quick fix.

But there is no quick fix.

Solving our education challenge in South Carolina starts with parents. We must value education and convince our children that school is important. We must support the authority structure in our schools and expect teachers and administrators to seek the best for our children. We should involve ourselves in the education of our children and do all in our power to provide for them a stable home environment.

Deference to the school’s authority structure brings responsibility for administrators. Administrators who hide behind senseless rules and regulations, fearing the loss of their jobs if they make a single mistake, should be guaranteed a pink slip. Professionals who dare to take risks--certain that the will fail on occasion--should be rewarded with respect and acclaim. Administrators who think they have graduated beyond the level of parents should graduate to other occupations. Administrators who welcome parental involvement should be recognized for the success they will foster. Administrations that believe in utopias of heterogeneous grouping should spend some time in the real world where leaders emerge from homogenous groups, making crucial contributions in their spheres of influence.

Teachers should have a passion for teaching and get out if they don’t. Better to have empty classrooms than to have the uninspired leading the uninformed.

Society should be willing to pay for education because ignorance costs more. And we should be willing to celebrate the successes because there are many. Graduates of our public schools are doing well at the best universities in this country. Citizenship is being taught and kids are caring about their communities. Discipline is being achieved and sportsmanship is being spread. Differences are respected and a commitment to pluralism brings unity.

Challenges remain, but even the slightest introspection saves us from false accusation of unilateral failure by the public school system. “Give me an intact American family,” a leading high school principal once said to me, “and I’ve got some hope here. Without that, there’s really very little I can do.”

Restoring the American family is the key to educational progress. Educational progress is the key to innovation. Innovation is the key to making this century another American century.

Barrett Votes to Cut Deficit by Over $39 Billion

For Immediate Release
December 19, 2005
Contact: Colleen K. Mangone, Communications Director
202-225-5301



Barrett Votes to Cut Deficit by Over $39 Billion

Washington, DC – For the first time since 1997, the House has taken a major legislative step to reduce the deficit by passing the conference report on the Deficit Reduction Act. Congressman Barrett (SC, 3), a member of the House Budget Committee, voted in favor of the legislation, which reduces the deficit by over $39 billion.

“Today’s vote once again demonstrates our commitment to responsible fiscal policy,” said Barrett. “The Deficit Reduction Act contains important common sense reforms of key government programs and achieves real budget savings to keep our government on sound financial footing.”

Highlights of the Deficit Reduction Act:

Imposes penalties for middle and upper-income seniors who transfer or hide assets to appear impoverished and attempt to qualify for long-term care services under Medicaid. Lowering prescription drug costs;
Lowers the cost the government pays for prescription drug costs by setting more realistic reimbursement rates for medicines based on the average manufacturers’ price;
Strengthens and simplifies student loan programs by reducing lender subsidies;
Rebuilds community first responder capabilities by freeing up vital spectrum airwaves;
Protects workers’ pensions by placing the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) on a more solid financial foundation and protecting taxpayers from the cost of a massive bailout;
Increases heating assistance for low-income Americans by assuming a $1 billion (50% increase) in additional funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); and
Expands Welfare Reform by reauthorizing the successful welfare reform policies in TANF and providing an additional $1 billion for child care.


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Barrett Introduces Legislation to Slow growth in government,reduce the deficit

For Immediate Release
December 14, 2005
Contact: Colleen K. Mangone, Communications Director
202-225-5301



Barrett Introduces Legislation to
Slow the Growth in Government, Reduce the Deficit

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Gresham Barrett (SC, 3) introduced the Government Waste Reduction Act of 2005, which would slow the growth of government by five percent and reduce the deficit by an estimated $510 billion over five years.

“My constituents did not send me to Congress to create debt and pass it on to their children and grandchildren,” said Barrett, a member of the House Budget Committee. “There is no doubt that we are living through challenging times – we are a nation at war and we witnessed great devastation as a result of the worst hurricane season in our history this summer – but we have to get control over federal spending. It is common sense – set priorities, set the budget and fund programs accordingly.”

The Government Waste Reduction Act of 2005 would cap all discretionary spending for Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07) at $826.79 billion, which is a five percent reduction of the projected level for FY06. Any future growth in discretionary funding for FY08-11 would be limited to no more than the rate of inflation. Additionally, this bill would reduce the baseline for mandatory spending (excluding Social Security) by $44.5 billion for FY07. As with the Common Sense Spending Act of 2005, which Congressman Barrett introduced earlier this year, the Government Waste Reduction Act of 2005 would strengthen the definition of what constitutes ‘emergency spending’ as well as reauthorize PAYGO for mandatory spending programs.

“When it is time to tighten up the purse strings the federal government should be at the front of the line. If I can give back five percent of my office budget then I am certain the entire federal government can find five percent of wasteful spending that can be eliminated.”

Barrett Makes sense

The Common Sense Spending Act of 2005
"American families use common sense in their budgets everyday and it is time the government do the same. Earlier this year I introduced the Common Sense Spending Act of 2005.

This plan allows the federal government to fund discretionary spending at its current levels for the next year. But, after 2005, funding increases would be tied to the inflation rate. Mandatory spending would continue to grow by one percent, excluding Social Security. The Common Sense Spending Act also tightens the definition of “emergency” spending, and it reauthorizes Pay-As-You-Go requiring offsets for direct spending."

4. H.R.845 : To amend the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to simplify annual concurrent resolutions on the budget and to budget for emergencies.
Sponsor: Rep Barrett, J. Gresham [SC-3] (introduced 2/16/2005) Cosponsors (5)
Committees: House Budget; House Rules
Latest Major Action: 2/16/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on the Budget, and in addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Sanford not to blame for Legislature’s refusal to improve state

Sanford not to blame for Legislature’s refusal to improve state

I wish to address Time magazine’s assessment of Gov. Mark Sanford’s performance as governor. I am originally from Arizona. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (among the nation’s top state governors according to Mr. Padgett) is the worst governor the state of Arizona has ever had, and, believe me, they have had a few.

She has raised taxes and turned the other way while the illegal immigrant problem and crime get more and more out of control.

Gov. Sanford is a businessman. His attempts to secure growth industries that will enhance this state’s tax base while offering significant quality-of-life improvements to our citizens through better-paying jobs is far-sighted and crucial for our future. Many of his recommendations have been shot down by the good ol’ boys who want to retain their “big fish in the little pond” status and place personal importance above constituent good.

The state’s credit rating was in jeopardy before Mr. Sanford took office, and the Legislature was robbing Peter to pay Paul to balance the books. The primary reasons this state failed to secure several recent business ventures is not the governor and his philosophies, but this state’s general lack of work ethic, good public schools and yes, taxes.

Our vehicle and home property taxes seem to increase on an annual basis, while we observe little improvement in governmental services to warrant the increases. Doing away with automobile property taxes while raising sales tax on items (luxury commodities) other than food would better serve the general working public. A transportation license tax could provide support to roads and highways. I am not in favor of taking money from public schools but would rather see each school equally funded per child by the state as opposed to funding based on county revenue. This would ensure every county could offer consistent education opportunities.
Don’t blame Mark Sanford for trying to run this state as a business. At least he is attempting to advance this state into the 21st century. Blame the boys in the back room who don’t want to be shut out or reduced in stature.
SHARON SMITH
Sumter

Barrett bill aims to protect public prayer

BY TONY BAUGHMAN

U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett has filed legislation that he says will protect elected and appointed officials who want to pray in public.

"All we're doing is trying to clarify what the Constitution of the United States says," Barrett said Thursday afternoon. "What the Constitution says is 'freedom of religion,' not 'freedom from religion.'"

The bill, called the Public Prayer Protection Act of 2005, states that public prayer by government officials "does not violate the Establishment Clause" of the Constitution. It also would give Congress the authority to define the jurisdiction of the federal courts on the prayer issue.

"It takes the cases out of the federal court jurisdiction and puts it in the state courts," Barrett said. "The final authority would be with the state judges — and I know how our judges in South Carolina are selected. They are accountable to the people of the state, and I would rather decisions be made by those state judges rather than by activist federal judges."

In part, the bill reads that "the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari or otherwise, any matter that relates to the establishment of religion involving an entity of the Federal government or a State or local government." The legislation would place the same appellate restrictions on the federal District Courts.

Further, the bill would declare that any federal court decision made before or after the enactment of the law "is not binding precedent on the court of any State, the District of Columbia, or any commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States."

In filing the legislation, Barrett cited the case of self-proclaimed atheist Michael Newdow, who successfully argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of California that teacher-led recitation of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. That case was later dismissed by the Supreme Court in June 2004.

Barrett also targeted the assertion by the South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union that a 2004 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case, Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, translates into a complete ban on prayer by public officials, including federal, state, and local legislators.

Darla Wynne, a professed Wiccan, successfully sued Great Falls to remove the name of Jesus Christ from the town council's pre-meeting prayers. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the Town's appeal of a lower court decision that the prayers supported one faith over others.

"Just because I'm a public official doesn't mean I'm not a citizen of the United States and protected under the Constitution of the United States," Barrett said.

Mike Cubelo, president of the Piedmont chapter of the ACLU of South Carolina in Greenville, said he expects the legislation to be fiercely challenged and ultimately fail.

"It's comical actually," he said. "I haven't spoken to any national people, but I would say we would fight it because it's clearly unconstitutional. It disrespects people of other religions."

Cubelo said that citing the Great Falls case was off-base because the state courts also upheld that decision.

"We have the courts and the Constitution on our side," he said. "Apparently, Barrett and (S.C. Attorney General Henry) McMaster don't respect the Constitution if it doesn't agree with their beliefs. They would prefer Christianity to take precedent over the Constitution."

Barrett concedes that his bill faces a tough fight in Congress, even if it gets out of committee.

"We've got an uphill battle. No doubt about it," he said. "But it's the right thing to do. It's what the Constitution says. We're going to get back to what the Founding Fathers said.

Barrett bill aims to protect public prayer

Good Mood Conservatives

POLITICS: Republican rising stars Mike Pence and Mark Sanford are making all the right enemies by Russ Pulliam, Warren Smith

With moderates John McCain and Rudy Giuliani the talk of media towns, conservatives are on the lookout for new faces. Here are two: U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

Mr. Pence, a 46-year-old Republican, is getting attention as an advocate of a leaner federal government who also has good credentials as a cultural conservative. He has an instinctive grasp of the news cycle from years of talk-radio show hosting in his home state. He is gaining mention as a possible future speaker of the House, with Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) likely to step down in 2008.

Yet Mr. Pence's Christian faith and past struggles with political ambition make him uncomfortable about pursuing higher political aspirations at the expense of family (wife and three young children), or just to satisfy natural human desires for fame and adulation.

Lately he has pushed the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress to take some air out of the ballooning federal deficit. He and his conservative bloc in the House, the Republican Study Committee, forced the House leadership to reduce federal spending boosts for rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Pence appeals to both evangelicals and the business-oriented wing of the Republican Party: Business Week recently called him a "self-effacing Hoosier as comfortable quoting Scripture as the Contract with America."

His optimistic disposition also is fueling this rise to prominence after just five years in the House. "I'm a conservative, but I'm not in a bad mood about it," he likes to say: "There is a tendency among some conservatives to communicate as if they have been sucking on lemons."

Mr. Pence has a strong pro-life record and has displayed support for faith-based initiatives. When the Bush administration was trying to figure out how to get federal grants to faith-based groups, he joined with other members of Congress in suggesting the simpler approach of tax credits so that citizens could send money right to the charity of their choice. "When I give $1,000 to a rescue mission, I've probably given four times [more] than if I sent the money to the bureaucracy in Washington," he says. "It actually reaches the homeless man and pays for a meal for him."

With his mix of social and economic issues, he is showing the capability for uniting Republicans in a way that took Ronald Reagan to the presidency. While the Giulianis and McCains appeal to economic conservatives, the key to GOP leadership, as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have shown, is appealing to both wings of the party.

That combo attracts favorable comment from unlikely quarters, such as the New York Times editorial page. He proposed a federal shield law to protect news reporters from having to reveal their sources in criminal investigations. If that makes conservatives nervous, he notes that his position is essentially conservative, helping to keep some checks on government. "The role of the press is to create that accountability for people who wield public power," he says.

All this favorable attention might go to a congressman's head, but he was chastened a few years ago about the raw pursuit of political success and tries to remember the lesson. After his unsuccessful 1988 and 1990 campaigns for Congress, he wrote an essay, "Confessions of a Negative Campaigner." Then he became a popular talk-radio show host before his election to the House in 2000. "I developed a very healthy skepticism of my ambition 15 years ago," he said. "There is a tendency when you are in a public position to begin to think more highly of yourself than you ought to."

Bible reading, along with going home to his wife Karen and three children, 13, 12, and 11, helps keep him humble: "When I walk into the house, I'm no longer the congressman or the conservative leader. "I'm just Dad."


South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, 45, is one year younger than Mr. Pence and has four children. He excelled in athletics and academics as a young man, made a fortune as an investment banker, and was elected to Congress in the pivotal "Republican Revolution" year of 1994, a year made famous by the Contract with America, which promised a smaller, more accountable federal government.

Mr. Sanford showed his own fiscal restraint—and a shrewd understanding of the power of symbolic action—by sleeping in his Washington office and showering in the congressional members' locker room. But the most significant symbol of his tenure in Congress was that he kept a campaign promise to serve only three terms. He stunned everyone (except those who knew him) by leaving his "safe seat" after six years, and not just to run for something else, but to return home to his 3,000-acre farm near Beaufort and enjoy his growing family.

Then Mr. Sanford did something that doesn't get mentioned much in his official biographies: Already in his 40s, at a time when many career military personnel are retiring, he joined the Air Force Reserves. Asked, "What in the world were you thinking?" he laughed and said, "My wife asked me that, too." Then he answered seriously that as a member of the International Relations Committee, he often traveled with military escorts: "I would end up on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf or with troops in Germany. I just became profoundly impressed with the United States military."

Mr. Sanford also said he came to believe that we had "disconnected the rights that go with being an American from [the] responsibilities that go with being an American." He said he wanted his four boys to know they had a responsibility to serve, and he wanted to lead his boys with his example, not just his words.

Leading by example, and striking the right chord with words, image, and action—these are hallmarks of Mr. Sanford's record as a public servant. One of his first official acts as governor was to go to Orangeburg, S.C., and apologize to a mostly black audience for the infamous Orangeburg Massacre, a nasty incident of racial hatred that had long been a blight on the state's history. When he wanted to cut state spending, he exercised the line-item veto more than 100 times on the state budget, but the legislature overrode most of his vetoes, so he brought two pigs into the rotunda of the state capitol in Columbia to make the point that there was too much pork in the budget.

South Carolina House Speaker David Wilkins called the pig stunt "childish" and "insulting," and the state's liberal media delighted in Mr. Wilkins' outrage, saying it proved that the governor couldn't even get along with fellow Republicans. But Mr. Sanford had the last laugh, or squeal: He managed to keep spending growth to 1 percent, cut the state's budget deficit by more than 90 percent, and saw most of his revolutionary 16-point reform package passed.

What Time magazine called the governor's "conspicuous frugality" underlay its recent designation of him as one of the three worst governors in the country. But the American Conservative Union has honored him as the "most conservative" governor in America, while the Wilkins-led House of Representatives gained Citizens Against Government Waste's badge of shame as "Porker of the Month" for June 2004.

Mr. Sanford replied to the newsweekly's designation by saying, "I have read Time; I will still read Time. They may be left-leaning, but it's good to check in with what the left is thinking." He continues to push for using the tax code to effect social change, with his proposed "Put Parents in Charge Act" as a prime example: Under it, South Carolina residents could claim tax credits for private-school tuition, homeschooling expenses, or contributions to scholarship-granting organizations.

Good Mood Conservatives