As a father and grandfather, I have witnessed firsthand the joy of new life entering the world. I know the pain and apprehension that goes along with premature births and birth defects.

To honor our national promise to our veterans, we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.

Small businesses drive this economy and it is unacceptable that the President's budget proposal does not give them the tools they need to be successful.

Teachers are our greatest public servants; they spend their lives educating our young people and shaping our Nation for tomorrow.

Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.

I worked with the March of Dimes to enact legislation for a national birth defects prevention program to provide surveillance, research and preventive services aimed at reducing the rate of birth defects.

The Peace Corps is an outstanding organization that promotes peace through helping countless individuals who want to help build a better life for the community in which they serve.

Education is the silver bullet to improve this Nation's standing worldwide... and our teachers know that.

Education should be one of our top funding priorities; talking about it does not help the teachers and students who desperately need promises fulfilled.

When no other schools in the Southeastern Conference or the former Southwestern Conference would award them athletic scholarships, African Americans had been recruited by and playing for Texas Western since the 1950s.

I have fought to protect those benefits that ensure better salaries for teachers across the Nation such as grants to pay off student loans and funding for Teach for America. Still, we must all do more to show our continued appreciation for our Nation's leading role models.

It matters not what your individual position is on either war we are currently prosecuting - in Iraq or Afghanistan - certainly we can all agree protesting at military funerals is a cruel and unnecessary hardship on our military families during their most difficult hour.

This Congress has promised all manner of border security and port security to the tune of billions of dollars... yet we have - to date - funded our promises for port security at only $900 million. That's quite a distance between what we say and what we actually do.

In South Texas, we understand how vital port security is and we fear the day a weapon of mass destruction could be brought into a U.S. port in a container and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.

This nation's 23 million small businesses need a budget that reflects their value to the economy.

Education makes children less dependent upon others and opens doors to better jobs and career possibilities.

Over the last five years, the Administration and the majority in Congress have appropriated less than $900 million for port security grants - despite the Coast Guard's determination that $5.4 billion is needed over 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Peace Corps as it reached its 45th anniversary on March 1, 2006.

In addition to serving overseas, the Peace Corps' Crisis Corps Volunteers have helped their fellow Americans.

To date, nearly 100,000 Hispanics have died with AIDS. Since Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, our challenge is even greater.

As a father and grandfather, I have witnessed firsthand the joy of new life entering the world. I know the pain and apprehension that goes along with premature births and birth defects.

For my constituents, owning a home is the culmination of many years of hard work and the realization of the American Dream. At no time should a local entity take those years of hard work solely to increase their tax revenue.

From the bitter cold winter at Valley Forge, to the mountains of Afghanistan and the deserts of Iraq, our soldiers have courageously answered when called, gone where ordered, and defended our nation with honor.

Supporting the troops has got to mean more than bumper stickers on pickup trucks, my friends. We need to give them what they need.

In fact, in 2002, the Secretary of Defense authorized such support on a reimbursable basis to organizations formerly components of the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury and currently components of the Department of Homeland Security.

As a former veteran, I understand the needs of veterans, and have been clear - we will work together, stand together with the Administration, but we will also question their policies when they shortchange veterans and military retirees.

While I believe our Constitution allows for State and local governments to execute the power of eminent domain for those purposes that specifically serve the public good, condemning property solely to implement economic development plans is not serving the public good.

Education is the key to success in life and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.

When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he were destined to remain long on board ship!

My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter, her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father, her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

My father was a police officer before he retired. One of my brothers is also a police officer, and I think they kind of expected I would do something along those lines, like become a fireman or something.

The fame aspect of winning the Masters... besides being married and becoming a father, that's a strong third there.

I'd rather be David Ladd's father than Alan Ladd any day.

I hated Chris, my brother. I would pull his hair and kick him, until one day my father gave him permission to fight back. I'll be apologizing to him for the rest of my life.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.

My father was an agnostic.

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.

I want to be a soldier as my father was.

Theses officers were good friends, so it must have been a terrible argument, because the one who played chess with my father was so angry that he walked over to the dentist's house and got the dentist out of bed and shot him.

My father started me singing in church.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.