mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
in one of the few times since 1995 when we arrived in the house together , i am going to disagree with the gentleman from illinois and will vote against this resolution today . 
i want to talk a little bit about the cleveland experience and then the process and how we moved forward , which has been addressed by the gentleman from ohio ( mr. kucinich ) xz4002270 and the gentlewoman from ohio ( mrs. jones ) xz4002081 . 
i understand why the gentleman from illinois has brought this resolution here today because i remember the shudder that can go through a community when 1 , 200 jobs are being discussed , in some cases more , some cases less . 
in cleveland 's case , they were jobs that pay an average of $ 54 , 000 a year . 
you are not just talking about the loss of the tax base . 
you are also talking about individuals who have made lives , whether it be in cleveland , indiana , colorado , missouri or other parts of the country . 
i had one grandmother who came up to me in lake county , ohio , after the decision was made to keep the facility open in cleveland , and she said i want to thank you because it means my grandchildren will not be going to some faraway place . 
i can understand the shudder , and as the gentleman from colorado said , maybe we should reexamine how we engage in this . 
but i want to talk about the process . 
the process , although it was nerve-racking , was also healthy . 
it was healthy because it gave me the opportunity to work together with the gentlewoman from ohio ( mrs. jones ) xz4002081 and the gentleman from ohio ( mr. kucinich ) xz4002270 . 
i am republican and they are democrats , and we all put our shoulders to the same wheel to get the same result . 
it was good to see the labor community and the business community in cleveland all come together , because sometimes they have disagreements . 
it was encouraging to see the leadership of the city of cleveland come together , with mayor campbell and others all working towards achieving this result . 
from bad news , good news took place . 
but as the gentleman from new york ( mr. boehlert ) xz4000350 said , it was not because the gentlewoman from ohio ( mrs. jones ) xz4002081 and the gentleman from ohio ( mr. kucinich ) xz4002270 and i are so powerful . 
this was a process done on facts . 
anthony principi and the brac commissioners and the professional staff , and hats off to marilyn wasleski in particular , they took the time to look at the numbers and figure out that when the pentagon came up with its original proposal , they had the numbers wrong . 
just one small example : they overvalued the square footage that was being paid to the general services administration so cleveland did not score as well . 
it would have been easy to say we are not going to pay attention to that , but the brac commissioners paid attention . 
they paid attention to the arguments and observations ; and at the end of the day , cleveland did not win because cleveland had more political muscle , cleveland won on the facts and on objective standards . 
another thing that impressed me , the brac commission not only looked at the numbers , they looked at the human cost . 
they considered the value of the 1 , 100 people that work in that building , the celebrezze federal building in the city of cleveland , and they said to those federal employees , you have value , you have worth . 
they recognized what they have accomplished in becoming centers of excellence , and they were rewarded for that . 
that is exactly what we would want to encourage . 
the last thing i want to say , we have some force protection issues , antiterrorism protection for federal properties are coming up in 2009 . 
i understand that when it comes to the men and women who are serving in the active military , but the cleveland facility is made up primarily of accountants . 
and i want to protect our men and women in uniform , but the folks in the cleveland building are accountants , by and large . 
and i try to read all of the chatter from al qaeda and everywhere else , and i do not hear a lot of chatter about taking out the accountants . 
i would argue that our civilian department of defense employees are valuable , but they are no more valuable than the people who work for the social security administration or the u.s. marshal 's office . 
before we make sure that we fortify and penetrate all of these buildings for dod civilian employees ' work , we should look at force protection for everybody who works for the federal government . 
