Download the report now.

Read more about my work on the economy here.

I wanted to make sure you saw this must-read article in today’s Wall Street Journal on why cybersecurity should be one of our prime strategic objectives:

How to Fight and Win the Cyberwar
By MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

Several years ago, during the presidency of George W. Bush, many banks and Wall Street firms were knocked offline. The financial industry, which had long been considered to have the best safeguards against cyberinfections in the private sector, discovered its computers had been penetrated by a worm, so-called because a virus grown on one computer can worm its way to millions of others. Mr. Bush asked then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to examine what it would take to protect our critical infrastructures. The upshot was that steps were taken to strengthen the security of the military networks, but little else was done.

The major shock about the mischievous WikiLeaks—even more than the individual headline items—is that it dramatizes how vulnerable we still are. Digitization has made it easier than ever to penetrate messages and download vast volumes of information. Our information systems have become the most aggressively targeted in the world. Each year, attacks increase in severity, frequency, and sophistication. On July 4, 2009, for instance there was an assault on U.S. government sites—including the White House—as well as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. There were similar attacks that month on websites in South Korea. In 2008, our classified networks, which we thought were inviolable, were penetrated. Three young hackers managed to steal 170 million credit-card numbers before the ringleader was arrested in 2008.

The Internet was originally intended for thousands of researchers, not billions of users who did not know and trust one another. The designers placed a higher priority on decentralization than on security. They never dreamed the Internet could be used for commercial purposes or that it would eventually control critical systems and undergird the world of finance. So it is not surprising that the Internet creators were comfortable with a network of networks rather than separate networks for government, finance and other sectors.

A symbol to many of the open communication of American culture, the Internet has thus evolved into a two-edged sword. Our extensive systems facilitate control of pipelines, airlines and railroads; they energize commerce and private banking. They give us rapid access to medical and criminal records. But they also offer a growing target for terrorists and thieves.

Most people who experience "malware" have been victims of so-called phishing, whereby criminals pretending to be bank employees, for example, trick the gullible into revealing account numbers and passwords. But cyberwarriors can do damage on a much larger scale, as former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke points out in his revealing book "CyberWar," published earlier this year. They can tap into these networks and move money, spill oil, vent gas, blow up generators, derail trains, crash airplanes, cause missiles to detonate, and wipe out reams of financial and supply-chain data. Havoc can be created at the blink of an eye from remote locations overseas. Criminal groups, nation-states, terrorists and military organizations are at work exfiltrating vast amounts of data from the U.S. public and private sectors.

Continue reading.

A report by Gallup has said Americans are most likely to choose deficit and debt reduction as the best approach for dealing with the economy over other alternatives like raising taxes and increasing stimulus spending.

I agree, which is why I have cosponsored a balanced budget amendment and introduced legislation to cut federal spending by 40% over five years.

Do you agree? If not these, what other economic strategies do you support?

“I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home.”  - Rosa Parks

55 years ago today, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, which was required by a Montgomery, Alabama law. Her actions sparked a yearlong bus boycott in the segregated city and set the course for a civil rights movement that changed the course of our nation’s history. Her courage ultimately helped the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination in public accommodations and helped set a precedent for our nation.

When Rosa Parks died in 2005, her body lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Over 50,000 people viewed the casket. She is the only nongovernmental American to receive this honor.

You can read more about this pivotal moment in our nation's history here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/dec01.html

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has placed the DREAM Act, S.3827, on the legislative calendar and is seeking a vote on the legislation during the remaining days of the lame duck session.  Not only will this bill put over 2.1 million illegal aliens on the path to citizenship, but it will also allow these same aliens to have in-state tuition benefit at our publicly funded state universities and will grant them access to federal student loans and work study programs. 

I am opposed to the DREAM Act.  At a time when many American families are making tough choices over whether or not they can afford the cost of higher education for their sons or daughters, we should not be using tax payer dollars to subsidize illegal immigrants in our schools.

Here are “Five Things” you also need to know about the DREAM Act:

1. The DREAM Act is NOT limited to children, and it will be funded on the backs of hard working, law-abiding Americans.
2. The DREAM Act provides safe harbor for any alien, including criminals, from being removed or deported if they simply submit an application.
3. Estimates suggest that at least 2.1 million illegal aliens will be eligible for the DREAM Act amnesty.  In reality, we have no idea how many illegal aliens will apply.
4. Illegal aliens will get in-state tuition benefits.
5. Current illegal aliens will get federal student loans, federal work study programs, and other forms of federal financial aid.

For these reasons, I will continue to oppose this legislation and will stand up and fight any form of amnesty for illegal aliens.

What are your thoughts on the DREAM Act?

This week CQ Weekly featured an article highlighting Beijing’s growing military brawn and apparent plans to apply it in the Pacific region.  China’s military budget has tripled in the past decade, growing much faster than the country’s red hot gross domestic product.

There are a lot of questions that this growth raises: What does this mean for China’s growing military ambitions?  How should this affect the size and structure of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific?  How should this affect defense spending more broadly?

As a nation, we need to be looking at these issues intently. As founder and chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, I am seeking to answer these very questions through hearings, briefings, and other events. The Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members of Congress who share a common interest in the emergence of China as a political, economic and military actor on both the regional and global stage. The Caucus regularly looks at a number of issues including military/shipbuilding, economy/trade, intellectual property, energy/resources and human rights/religious freedoms.

If you want to stay updated on China and the activities of the Congressional China Caucus, you can sign up for email updates – just check the “China” issue box.

This week, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in federal civilian court was found guilty on a single conspiracy charge but cleared on 284 other counts, including multiple murder and attempted-murder charges. The failure of the civilian court to convict him on the most serious terrorism charges is proof that the Administration is wrong when they say foreign terrorists can be adequately tried in civilian courts.

That's why I offered a motion that was passed during debate of the defense bill earlier this year that would have prevented the transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the United States, and why I introduced a bill to prevent the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Virginia prisons or military bases.

Guantanamo Bay detainees are enemies of war, not common criminals, and these enemy combatants have no place in civilian courts.

This verdict should serve as a lesson to the Administration that future trials for enemy combatants should not be held in civilian courts. The protection of American citizens and justice for the families who have lost loved ones as a result of 9/11 and terrorism abroad should be our number one priority as a nation.