contended it was unable to assist the contractor in the the the forward because the contractor did not convey critical information to the mission promptly enough to be useful. they say the nation any a.i.d., and ted had it known all the problems contract was experiencing, it could have intervened sooner to help solve the problems? >> so we have sigar on this. we had a.i.d. ig on this come and we're finally a.i.d. itself when it the view i rating as i previously said on business relations from a kabul power plant. the contractor failed to maintain proper business relations with usaid, for instance, the contractor has not notified usaid of construction delays and other critical issues in a timely manner so that corrective action could be taken to expedite performance.

do you acknowledge that this same critique of you has been put forth that delay critique because you didn't want to be the bearer of bad news for usaid, by the a.i.d. a.i.d., sigar and a.i.d. itself speak was what i would call your attention to, commissioner tiefer, and the subsequent work we've done, you have comments from this latest evaluation of us, we changed what we did. we stepped up what we did. we got power to couple earlier than anyone thought in the northeast, and we finished the plan. i think that speaks for itself. speemac looking down the road, there's one piece at one time had been considered for the kandahar power initiative, but was automated, no fault of anybody. that was to have a transmission line built in that period of time, the media period of time between the kajaki dam and

helmand. the user community which is around the city of kandahar. and my understanding is that a.i.d. would have liked to have had such transmission in areas as security is so poor in area you want to put on anybody to try to build a transmission line at this time. so that means they're going to have to compete it out in the future, rather they will have to award it out in the future. i'm, this is a practical matter. rtu positions since you're going to be doing the work at the helmand and other transmission line and you're going to be doing the work at the kandahar and of the line, haven't you positioned yourself so that you basically have a lock when if i come to award the transition? >> commissioner tiefer, i think that's a position for usaid but i would say they have competition on the street right now for energy and water. i think they plan to award at

least five specified. so i suspect there will be competition speemac thank you mr. guerre. doctors implant has a question speemac -- doctors that -- that's fundamentally different if you are doing something very, very different from what you were doing in kandahar, correct? you were advising the government. you weren't building -- >> what we had to do was use knowledge of how already built systems work. that's sometimes more difficult to our engineers had to be very creative internet how to use all of these facilities that have been built by a bunch of different donors that were not to the standards that you talk about where they're all the same standard. and our creative engineers did figure out how to do that. frankly, it's easier to design and all yourself and don't have to figure how do you do something that's already in place. >> did you help draft the

agreements based on that knowledge? >> would talk about two different things. getting the power down -- >> i'm not asking about -- >> we advise them on how? we were consultants on the power purchase agreements. we told people how to integrate the transmission lines on moving the power down. as i told you, that's a more difficult project than just designing and building it yourself. >> thanks. >> mr. henke. >> mr. van dyke, your statement mentions very clearly april 2010 your guesthouse in kandahar was described by an explosive device. and deny to be exactly injured and all other expatriates from the area. so expats had to bug out and leave. >> yes. >> can you tell us about the incident? >> what happened is been laden with explosives made it past the

personal line of defense and the security that was there. they made it to the gate of the quarters, and at that point they succeeded in detonating the van. and i haven't shown you the pictures. >> can you show us the picture for the record, please? >> brian, do you have the picture? i don't think you can see from there but that gives you some idea of the explosion. so there were five people in the house at the time, three were injured. to were not. one of them was severely injured and will probably never return to work. so we evacuated them first to the base, the military base, and then by helicopter to kandahar -- stephen, the kabul and then finally for the injured parties out to dubai. >> who was providing security? >> i believe blue hackle. that was not our security by the way. it was a shared compound and i would have to check it was providing it at the time speak

of shared by yourself and -- >> other subcontractors. and it was their security contractor, not ours. i would have to double check but i will if you like. >> mr. mckelvy communicate clear pecking order. use the ex-pat private streak of us have proven to be much more reliable than afghan own private security companies. is that correct? >> yes, that's correct. >> in the picking order where would you put afghan security forces, meaning afghan police and afghan soldiers? where would you put afghan government security? >> i'm not sure that i could categorize them specifically. we just don't know that much about afghan security forces. so internally we are able to see demonstrated results in a private security firms, ex-pat privacy breeder's cup and we have seen a demonstrated track record. >> mr. mouzannar, any use on afghan security forces?

>> we believe that obviously at some point it would be a good idea to turn over the security to the afghans, but at the moment i repeat that they are not ready yet. >> so your view is they are current capability, they are not viable? >> and also come and no recourse is for us to vet afghan elements. >> you can vet your subs but you cannot the afghan government? >> that's correct. >> mr. van dyke? >> we're working through how we will provide security. i can't tell you all the answers right now. >> how do you afghan city forces? >> i think everybody agrees that the minister does not have the level of people to do it right now so the question is how do we get there. >> so three companies here have private security, mr. mccarron, you're different in that you have high choice, by deliberate choice for a reason i would like you to explain, you

use afghan security forces and you say we have found that, the a n. s. f. can be effective. why did you choose afghan security, not private security? >> that is correct. we've had success with using minister of interior, especially over the years. we found of course it's not always easy. we have to maintain liaison with the ministry. and with the particular forces we call it -- they are dedicated to us. so we can establish a report with that team to travel with all of our missions. it has been effective. but i would like to add i think compared to my colleagues here at the table, we are probably in order of magnitude smaller than the projects they are administering. >> but why do you choose, why is it consistent in your view to choose government security

oversight? >> i think it is certainly meets with the cited objectives of the afghan government to be responsible for their own security. it's been developed over the years, and with the relationship with the afghan government and that most of the work we do is through the ministry of finance or the relevant line ministries looking out for public works or whatever. and so we have a reason to change that. -- we have no reason to change that. we don't sit back and let it happen. it does require a lot of work. we have to have our own in house specialty people, and also rely on our close coordination with the united nations department of safety and security in afghanistan and their context to make sure what we've got is an effective resource. >> are you any different threat environment? is what you are working on is a low threat and that makes it different? >> i don't believe so.

we are operating throughout afghanistan. we are building roads in kandahar. >> all of your activities with afghan national security force, you found them to be suitable. if you're they're building a school or building a road to get the afghan government more capability, you find at least logically consistent that you want to use afghan security forces after curtis david capability? >> we to. >> let me make an observation. it seems to me that we're asking companies, organizations to go outside the wire, step outside of our, outside the fence and go into a war zone. we call it a counterinsurgency. we call it a contingency. the bottom line is it's a war zone. so we are asking noncombatants like yourselves and your employees and your subcontractors, step outside and go into this war zone and build something in an environment where someone else wants to blow it up or give you.

i think that's about as simply as i can conceive of it. in that environment we are bringing to bear an element of national power in afghanistan, private industry, private expertise to bring things about that we want to have. in that environment where we are having, i'll be euphemistic to say we having challenges with private security and having challenges with afghan security, would you prefer security to be provided by u.s. or coalition troops? they been referred to before this commission as the gold standard for security. all else being equal wouldn't you rather, would you prefer doing your work guarded by u.s. troops, mr. mckelvy? >> by and large that is the case on many of our projects where the project is on site and we are totally encircled by u.s. forces inside the wire. >> tell me about outside the wire spee-2 if it could be provided with the resources that

be preferable speak out okay. >> depending again on the type of projects, sometimes our way of engaging are doing business is to keep a low profile. obvious in some cases our business model is we use 95% afghan workers. we don't want to get to the point where we change that. but yet at the same time he should have a reliable security system there that we could vet. >> would you prefer u.s. troops? >> not necessarily. we need to keep a low profile. >> mr. van dyke? >> it's a complex and went to work with people in kandahar to generate power. we have to work with the utility to build the things are going to build we have to interact with them. there's some thought that having the u.s. military presence makes things a higher profile for attack. so what we need to think through come and we're working through it today, we do not have the answer is how we go about doing that. you know, sometimes in all this

discussion we lose sight of the human element in all these things. and i mentioned we have a lot of dedicated people working on this. i have one person who told me, i came to thank her for helping get that power down from the north and she looked straight at me and she said you don't need to thank me. i came to this company to make a difference and that projects makes a difference speak up would you provide -- rather have u.s. security? >> that's a weird thinking through now. >> it is a very complex situation. sometimes the insurgent motivation is not just necessary there to kill people or blow things up. so you'll have to analyze each on a case-by-case basis. as i mentioned in my statement about the need for social inclusion, the engagement of the local community and the whole effort, it has been a deterioration in afghan society and a lot of the criminal taliban, are not respecting the

elders and things, that's seen a drop in security as well. effective engagement with the team unity is the key. it's not always good to have a guy with a shiny is a gun standing there. >> uscg might not support that? >> exactly. >> when i'm done with my questions we're going to give you each time to just make some closing comments and then we will adjourn. security is a huge issue. it's one of the reasons why evidently you want a cost-plus when you're outside rather than inside. a major factor. is a lack of the letter afghans an issue that presents a unique challenge? it said that 15% are the direct. there are estimates of smaller into its fifth grade level, really not that high.

so does little see play into part of the challenge of doing your work? mr. mckelvy? >> its early challenge when you get into craft labor on construction projects, when you have workers that cannot speak or communicate -- >> so the answer is yes? >> yes. >> mr. mouzannar? >> yes. >> it is an issue and it can be overcome. >> by what, teaching and to reach? >> trade people at tarakhil, we use english and graphics. >> but it presents a challenge of? >> it is a challenge but it can be overcome. >> i was a education is of the key areas, otherwise it's too easy to face with $60 a month and they carry an ak-47 for the taliban. >> isn't one of the challenges of getting subs that you end up hiring an outfit that has some later see to it, and there are very few of them. and the challenge that we saw in afghanistan was that you had 85%

of the population that thinks that 15% get some real special advantages because they have passionate they are literate. is that an issue as well? in other words, that you in a just focusing on the few rather than the vast majority of afghans. who would like to answer that question? >> if i can mention, i think the biggest thing here, and it's in my written statement, is obviously the afghan first policy is an important one. and i think companies like ourselves in essence what we're doing out there is to try to bring the level of expertise and technology into the country. what comes in the way is there are a lot of almost one size fits all type of an approach procurement when you have very tight schedule, very competitive environment. there are no specific projects that are designed solely for the purpose of training the afghan

workforce. give us some projects where maybe the schedule is a bit more relaxed. >> part of the cost incorporates helping to educate. >> exactly. that's the workforce that later on they will come forward. >> mr. dyke on i'm understanding that's what you're trying to do in your area. the advantage of fixed-price is we know what it's going to cost. the advantage of a variable price is that you don't know what it's going to cost so we basically have to go with it. but the dissident with a fixed cost is if you don't know your cost, is it likely you're just going to have to bid higher just to leave a margin because you can't be as resized so you'll bid in favor of making sure you can cover yourself if the costs go higher? the question is, if you have to bid on a fixed price for something that you're not certain about, isn't likely that

it is going to cost the government more money? i will start with you, transpo transport. >> if it is uncertain which would drive you as you say to jack the lump sum or the fixed-price up to cover their inconsistencies, then in the competitive bid process you're probably not get the project anyway. for us when the circumstances -- >> is that a yes? is your answer yes, it will be higher cost? >> if it is uncertain, yes. >> and i'm assuming all of you would agree with that. i'm wrestling with how you have a variable price contract with fixed subs. what is the incentive for the sub to come in low enough for you to take a low fixed price, mr. van dyke? >> we are focused on can the sub perform the work. >> that's not what i asked. >> i'm sorry. >> let me ask someone else. mr. mccarroll? >> yes. >> if you are a variable price

and you are getting fixed-price, what is the incentive and how can the government be certain that you will get, pick a low fixed price? why wouldn't you just accept pretty much whatever you can't? >> the incentive for us is the next project. that's as basic as it comes. when the government selects on the next type of a project, especially on the best value, this is what it takes into consideration what we have -- >> you're saying though it's not that project but the next one. and that seems reasonable, but what is the markup that you get come each of you, you get from a sub? in other words, what do you charge when he said comes in with a fixed-price, what do you add to it, mr. mckelvy? >> i can't give you a specific number. anywhere from five to 10%, 12%, 15%. it depends on the scope of the work. >> do you get as high as 20? >> no. >> this range seems to be in line with the industry.

>> 15%? closer to 15 than five? >> not really but again this is on a case-by-case basis speak of this is not a difficult question. hold on. i'm going to give myself more time if i need, because i need a good answer here. when you come in, what do you add to the sub when you give it to the government? is at five, 10, 15%? we're going to go back to the government. you're all under oath. this is not again. i know you know that. i want a better answer speaker we typically conduct a very total risk management causes. we price the different uncertainties on each, the technical security, et cetera. five to 15% would be the range. >> five to 10% which includes costs. >> mr. mccarron? >> 7% plus direct costs on project valued.

but that 7% can go up and down according to the risk profile as well. >> mr. mccarron, i view you as usaid and the human. in other words, to me, and this is not a criticism, maybe -- i'm passing judgment that what you do. but basically you're giving money from the u.s. government. it's final, i don't mean in a negative way but it is passed to usaid, but a messenger doing just what you just what usaid is, and i'm making the assumption that they are using you because they'll have the resources to do it themselves and so they're turning to you, is that an accurate way to think of you? >> that would be one scenario. we have at various times had even larger projects than the current relationship with usaid, and kabul for instance. what we focus on implementation. as i said before in a statement, we implement, provide the professional services to assure

the project's biggest you provide professional services that usaid does not have. mr. mccarron, i realize you don't want to criticize usaid. me on this panel recognize that we basically for usaid -- tore usaid apart so they have become pretty much a contracting organization without the expertise. so i just want to know from the testimony, you have people within your staff that can do a lot of the critique and oversight of projects, is that your common cause? >> yes. we are architects, engineers, a whole suite of professionals needed to implement. >> any class question? gentlemen, again, for the umpteenth time, -- i'm sorry. okay. again, for the umpteenth time we

thank you are coming back so graciously, and we do appreciate it. and now we do want to leave you the opportunity to make any final statement if you would like to say. >> i would like to thank the commission for this opportunity for us to speak this morning and to interact on the important projects in afghanistan. we would like to thank you for the privilege, the u.s. government, for the privilege of supporting the u.s. department of defense. these are the most important projects for. >> translator: . we've been evolving over 60 projects since 2004 and look to continue to do this. i believe that would be continuing challenges in the continued environment between cost, quad and schedule with respect to firm fixed price contract inclination with the afghan first initiative. and so perhaps through consistent quality standards and design standards and construction standards from inception through operations and maintenance, we will seek improvement that we will see.

>> thank you. >> thank you very much for the opportunity to appear in front of the commission. this is an in porton exercise for us because the only way we can share lessons learned is through these types of conversations, and we're hopeful with your work a lot of these obstacles that we face on a day-to-day basis, will go away. one last thing i would like to mention is the fact that it's very easy to look at bat projects, and then you see them on a daily basis almost in the media, and other venues. i just wanted to point out that work doesn't happen by accident, and there are literally thousands of very good engineers and construction specials and support staff that work almost around the clock to make projects like that happen in a very challenging environment. so i like to urge you to also look at the success stories and be able to bring these out into

the open. and thank you very much. >> thank you. >> chairman shays and commissioners, we greatly appreciate the chance to sit here before this commission and set some of the facts straight on our projects. a couple of things in my mind, wind, doubling, more than doubling the power brought into afghanistan either through local generation or from outside in four years is a tremendous accomplishment. i think it's important to think of it in human terms. one of our female engineers asked a mother in afghanistan while she was there was important to you about electricity. and her answer was it enables me to keep scorpions away from my baby at night. one of our workers on the four to five to work with a smile on his face when they. someone asked him why he was looking so happy and he said because we had powers last night for four hours. we could pump water, bathe and wash our clothes. doubling the power into the country means a lot of keeping scorpions away in clean clothes

and clean bodies. and i think it's important that we remember that. as i told you, the biggest single challenge we face is security. our company is very committed to going forward with the projects we have, subject to keeping our people say. we thank you very much for the opportunity to appear. >> thank you. >> chairman shays, members of the commission on also like to thank you for the opportunity to appear today and i would also like to show you that if at anytime you require any further information, i would be very pleased to assist. thank you. >> thank you all very much. we are going close this hearing. thank you. thank you, guys. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conver of $23 billio

>> we interrupt this. the rules committee is coming together, and we are bringing you live coverage here on c-span3. >> well, we need the chairman of the committee who, i guess, was in the other room. >> david? >> climb aboard. why don't you sit right there.

the rules committee will come to order. we are -- i guess first are we adopting the oversight plan? okay. so first we are here for consideration of adoption of the oversight plan of the committee for the 112th congress, and we have a motion from the gentlewoman from grandfather community. the gentlewoman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i move that the committee adopt the oversight plan for the 112th congress and authorize its transmission to the committee on oversight and government reform and the committee on house administration in accordance with the rules of the house.

>> you've heard the gentlewoman's motion. let me just say clause 2d-1 of the rules require each standing committee not later than february 15th, the first session, to adopt an oversight plan and since this is valentine's day, february 14th, i guess we're just getting in there. the committee staff has circulated the text to all members last wednesday, which more than meets the 24-hour required period, and i'd like to see if there's any discussion or amendment. >> yes, thank you, mr. chairman. i have written these myself in recent years and i understand -- [ inaudible ]. but we do have some disagreements about statements and characterizations and so we would like to submit our own -- >> oh, absolutely. we'll certainly welcome that. without objection the minority views will be included in the

record. so the vote occurs on the motion of the gentlewoman. all those in favor say aye. the ayes have it. the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. so thank you all very much for that. now, we will proceed with consideration of hr-1, the full-year continuing appropriations act of 2011. we're very happy to welcome as witnesses the distinguished new chair of the committee on appropriations, my good friend and classmate, mr. rogers, and, of course, my also very good friend, he's been here a little longer than mr. rogers and i have, but my fellow westerner, the gentleman from washington, mr. dix. let me say that without objection, if you have any prepared remarks, they will appear in their entirety in the record and we welcome your comments. mr. rogers. >> good afternoon, mr. chairman, and ranking member slaughter, members of the committee.

and my colleague, mr. dix. i'm pleased to appear to present hr-1, the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution. let me just cut to the chase. i'm here seeking an open rule, an open rule so that all members, republicans and democrats alike, have the opportunity to try to put forward their ideas to cut spending or move money around in thec r. while open rules have not been common for appropriations bills over the last four years, i believe and i'm sure mr. dix would agree, it's time we return to the practice of bringing appropriations bills to the floor under regular order. he and i have talked about that and have agreed that's what we both will strive to do. this legislation represents the largest reduction in nonsecurity discretionary spending in the history of the country and is a

massive down payment on the new republican majority's commitment to drastically decrease discretionary funding in order to help our economy thrive and spur job creation. this will be the first of many appropriations bills this year that will significantly reduce spending beginning a pattern of cuts that will help put our nation's budgets back into balance and stop the dangerous spiral of unsustainable deficits and debt. this bold legislation reverses the trend of massive discretionary spending increases over the last two years. in total the legislation will save american taxpayers more than $100 billion compared to the president's fiscal year request for '11. of this amount, $81 billion has been cut from nonsecurity programs and security related

programs have been reduced by $19 billion. these cuts are not ambiguous across the board reductions. they're hard-nosed, tough, line by line reductions in specific programs. these cuts were determined through careful and fair analysis of all discretionary agencies and programs without regard to political sacred cows. and they affect nearly every facet of the federal government. the cr also includes a provision to eliminate any unobligated stimulus funding approved in the american recovery and reinvestment act saving the taxpayers as much as $5 billion. in addition, this cr provides critical funding for our national defense giving our troops and commanders the resources they need to the maintain the security of our nation and advance our missions abroad.

in total the legislation will increase funding for the department of defense by 2% over current year's level giving military leaders the budgetary certainty they need to continue successful operations for the remainder of this fiscal year. the cr includes no earmarked funding. it eliminates all previous earmarked funding from fiscal year 2010 saving the taxpayers approximately $8.5 billion. in addition, the bill includes language specifically negating any and all earmarks as defined by house rules. in closing, mr. chairman, this bill makes the tough but necessary choices to begin getting our fiscal house in order and fulfill our pledge to the american people to cut spending now. >> thank you very much, mr.

rogers. mr. dix. >> chairman and ranking member slaughter, members of the committee, this bill, hr-1 is very unusual. it's a general appropriations bill but it's also a continuing resolution. we will be considering it under house rules that are entirely new. the text has only been available since friday night. the tight time frame, the new restrictions on appropriations amendments, and the unusual form of the bill will, unfortunately, frustrate members as they try to draft amounts. if a committee considers a preprinting requirement for amendments, i would hope that the rule takes into account the short time frame in which members have to draft amendments. so if the committee does decide on a preprinting requirement, we request that the members be given the authority to make technical changes to their amendments after they've been submitted. i strongly support the defense chapter of this bill. chairman bill young and i drafted this bill last year with

bipartisan support from the entire defense subcommittee and we believe it is a cost-effective response to our national security needs. let me speak about the bill more broadly. it is clear that a debt crisis is looming. there is no denying that we need a comprehensive plan to reduce the debt over the long term. what the majority offers instead in this bill is a one-dimensional focus on the smallest segment of spending in the federal government budget. we believe that at this time we should be putting everything on the table, all spending, discretionary, entitlements, taxes, and without a more comprehensive approach to the debt crisis, we cannot effectively change the trajectory and begin to bring our public debt downward. without a more comprehensive budgetary approach, what we would be offering to the american people would be what senator allen simpson has called a sparrow's belch in the midst of a typhoon. as we address the debt crisis,

it's fundamental that we should first do no harm to the fragile economic recovery. i am just echoing what many others have said. as the bipartisan fiscal commission put it, in order to avoid shocking the fragile economy, the commission recommends waiting until 2012 to begin enacting programatic spending cuts and waiting until fiscal year '13 before making large nominal cuts. mr. bernanke in his testimony last week to the house budget committee said to the extent you can change programs, that will have long-term effects on spending and revenue, that will be a more effective and credible program than one that focuses only on the current fiscal year. the right way to do this doesn't put too much pressure on the ongoing recovery. my concern with this bill is its unintended consequences. i know my friends on the other side want to reduce the deficit, but if you jam on the fiscal brakes so abruptly, it will be

counterproductive. you will slow economic growth, increase unemployment, and thereby increase the deficit. we believe the president's approach is a better course to follow. it is a five-year freeze that will accomplish real savings. more than $400 billion in five years. but it will do so gradually making deeper cuts only as the economy grows stronger. it will bring nonsecurity spending down to the lowest share of gdp since the eisenhower administration. so that is our recommendation, and we would have preferred one of the fiscal options for the remainder of the fisal year 2011 that was offered to the house was a freeze. not only was that option not available to us, but after the appropriations committee met in open session debating the allocation levels and ultimately approving them, the house leadership -- the house republican leadership convened its members and unilaterally chose to cut $26 billion more from the current year's spending levels. with only about half the year

remaining. the resulting cuts to programs that allow our government to function properly and respond to the needs of the citizens across america are by any analysis excessive. an $88 million cut to the food safety and inspection service. a $1 billion reduction in the wic program, women and infant children which provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers and young kids. the bill eliminates the cops hiring program and reduces funding for all state and local law enforcement by 35%. another $578 million is cut from the irs enforcement budget making it harder to bring in the revenue by going after the people that are not paying their taxes that help reduce the taxes. head start is cut below 2008 levels. meaning more than 200,000 children across the country will be eliminated from the program. pell grants are reduced by more than $800 per student making it harder for traditional and older

returning students to afford college. one of the most egregious examples is the termination of the housing voucher program for homeless veterans. the hud voucher program according to secretary donovan, there are still more than 30,000 veterans, many from the iraq and afghanistan wars, who need these vouchers. so my point is this -- we must be extremely careful at this time as we move forward with this appropriation bill for the remainder of this fiscal year. the economy is showing clear signs of recovery. there's some private sector job growth, an increased confidence among the business community that could lead to more hiring. but unemployment is still 9%. with many long-term and discouraged workers across the nation. state and local budgets are hurting. the safety net is stretched beyond its capacity. while we agree that it's prudent to restrain federal spending, we believe it must be done more thoughtfully than would be accomplished by approve this legislation.

we had urge a more strategic approach to reducing reductions rather than the approach drafted in this -- by the republican conference with little input from the minority. now, i will say that i completely agree with the chairman that we want to go back to regular order this year, and we want to bring out -- go through the subcommittee, full committee process. we are prepared to work to see that that is done and we are going to cooperate and try to be reasonable on the number of amendments when we're on the floor. we think this is in the best interests of the house. we've gotten away from that. it's a big mistake. the chairman and i are trying to work together to get this thing moving in the right direction. >> thank you very much, mr. dicks, and i greatly appreciate the spirit in which you have just made the statement about the desire to work together. it's obvious that everyone shares this goal of trying to reduce the size and scope and

reach of government and spending and we all want to do it without inflicting pain, but the fact is there is -- we're now dealing with budgets where we've seen a double or a tripling over the past few years. as we all know the last two years we have seen 84% increase in nondefense discretionary spending. congratulations on your great work on that. now, i know that there will be an attempt made to characterize those of us who are making tough decisions as being inhumane and all. we've heard all those arguments, and i think that if you look at the issue of veterans spending, it's my understanding from the consultations that chairman rogers and i have had through this is that there is actually -- there are areas where we are going to be focusing attention, including veterans, and i don't know if you'd like to comment on that. >> the chairman is right. there's only two items in this cr where there's actually

increased spending. one is dod for defense. and the other is for veterans health care. everything else is minus. look, just this morning it was announced that the deficit this year is going to be 1$1.6 billion. we've got a problem. we're spending -- every dollar we spend we're borrowing 42 cents of it, and we can't go on like this. so we've determined to try to begin the process of bringing the deficit back under control, and it's going to require shared sacrifice. it's going to require sacrifice. but it's got to be shared. it's got to touch everybody and i think this bill does just that. >> well, thank you for that. let me just say in response to some of the comments that you made, norm, i know this will be

an interesting debate that takes place on the floor, and as you know it is virtually unprecedented for us to continue a continuing resolution under anything other than a closed rule. every single member of this house, republican or democrat, will have the opportunity to file on the record an amendment that meets the germaneness and other rules of the house. members will be able to file those amendments, and that's what we is we want a free flowing and rigorous debate. to your point on the issue of reducing spending as it relates to getting the economy growing again, it's interesting, mr. rogers and i were in a meeting earlier with the chairman of the joint economic committee, kevin brady, and he was talking about a lot of empirical evidence coming before them showing that

throughout history nations that have focused to debt redukts have more rapidly gotten to economic growth and job creation than those that have not. i don't mean to have the debate but since you just brought it up, i thought it interesting to put forward. this will be a debate that will clearly take place on the house floor as to whether or not it's wise for us to proceed with this. i will say that the american people last november made a conscious decision, and it was -- it's been three-quarters of a century since we've seen my party have the kinds of gains that we did, and i believe that it came about in large part due to the fact that we said that we were going to bring about reductions in spending, and this proposal that chairman rogers has come forward with is far beyond what was promised, and the proposal is one that i think is a very positive one in our quest to do exactly what we all

want to do, create jobs, get the economy going, and move towards a greater degree of fiscal responsibility. so i thank you again for your cooperation in proceeding with this, and i believe that, again, with this virtually unprecedented procedure for consideration of a measure like this on the house floor, that we will have an opportunity for a great exchange. having said that you know that the idea of engaging in by ament kind of thing really undermines our ability to get what we want too do as we look toward the march 4th date that is looming. >> last year we suffered under that problem. >> right. >> with a lot of amendments coming over and over again, and i hope both sides can be reasonable. i mean, that's how this process has to work. i mean, we have to have a number of amendments. one of the things we used to do around here is we used to once

the bill got on the floor and you went through maybe a dozen amendments the chairman and the ranking member would get together and work out a list. and then by unanimous consent get an agreement so we could finish in a reasonable way so we could move through these bills. >> right. that's exactly -- that's very much what we're hoping to do. i will say that last year there was 20 minutes to debate before it was shut down, and every bill then was shut down beyond that. and it was a grand total of 20 minutes. we're trying very much to avoid that and we do want to get back to, again, regular orders. >> time committed to. >> yes. >> one point on history. >> sure. >> i was here in the '80s. i think you were. >> yes, i was. >> and of course we had kind of the tip o'neil/robert dole group that got together and worked on all aspects of the budget including social security. now, to be honest about this, as we all know, we have to -- this has to get to the entitlements.

this has to get to taxes. or at least tax reform. >> right. >> and in order to really get this deficit under control, we can't do it all on the back of one-third of the budget, which is discretionary spending. >> you're absolutely right. >> but i will also say, as former chairman on the defense subcommittee, defense has to play a role here and gates has laid out a plan where we're going to cut at least 78 billion over the next five years. you shouldn't waste money anywhere. i'm pleased to hear voices on your side saying defense should be analyzed. >> i think everyone concurs with that. i like the way chairman rogers put it when he said there are no sacred cows, in fact, they died of gluttony, a perfect way to put it. only someone from kentucky could come up with something like that. ms. fox. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the chairman and

the ranking member both. i think that your comments were very thoughtful, mr. dicks, i appreciate your talking about the fact that we have to do this. it's good to show that our callings on the other side of the aisle recognize that. i do have a concern, though, when you talk about our slamming on the brakes on spending and recommending that we go with what the president has recommended. i was here six years ago, by the way, when republicans were in charge and we had the open amendment process, and the chairman and the ranking member did get together. and i saw that. then the last four years i've seen the process that has gone on, which has denied the minority the ability not only to offer amendments but as the chairman said even to debate the bill. and that hasn't been very good. but i find it really interesting

that you talk about going with the president's proposal. we've had two years -- well, we've had four years of expanded spending. we know, as the chairman has said, 84% increase in nondiscretionary spending in the last two years, and where did it get us? our unemployment rate has gone up, up, and up. and it seems to me that that would be a message to you all that continuing the way of the last four years is not the way to go. you all want to stop spending, you say, and it seems to me that our approach should be we do need to put the brakes on this. >> let me just give you my perspective. i'm not going to speak for anybody but myself on this. we lost 7.5 million jobs between 2007 and 2009. i believe that what we did with

t.a.r.p., which was done on a bipartisan basis, and the stimulus package had a great deal to do with stopping the job loss and starting to lower unemployment. there are a lot of economists that say, had we not done the stimulus -- and if i was doing stimulus i would have put more of it into infrastructure -- unemployment today would be at 12%, not 9%. the most important thing to remember here is the way to get the deficit down is to get people back to work and to lower the unemployment rate. that's what it has to be about. and what i'm worried about and i only took about two or three economics courses, but what i worry about is if we cut the spending too deeply that it will slow the recovery and we won't achieve our objective, which is to lower the deficit and get

people back to work. i mean, this is -- you're rolling the dice here because there was a pledge made in the campaign that you were going to do certain things, but if that isn't -- every respected economist that i have talk to, including bernanke and members of the commission, they all say take this a little slower until you get unemployment moving down more rapidly and then we have to really come to grips with this and do the entire budget, not just the discretionary domestic spending. >> i think mr. rogers wants to say something. before that, mr. rogers, i'd like for you to speak, but i'd like to say, mr. dicks, have you read the book "the forgotten man". >> no. >> i would highly recommend it to you because i read it a couple of years ago. it's about all of the -- not all the mistakes but a lot of the mistakes that were made by both

president hoover and president roosevelt in the depression. and the mistakes that they made then are the same mistakes that the democrats have been making since they've been in control. and it is -- i don't know about your respected economists, but we have lots of economists -- i think 150 of them signed a letter yesterday that went to the president -- saying if we want to get this economy to recover, we have to slow down government spending, reduce the deficit, and reduce the debt. again -- >> and nobody disagrees with that. how you do it, a plan that you have to do it, and how you execute it is going to make the difference whether it works or not. you want it to work. we all want it to work. that's why we're worried if we're too precipitous we're going to slow down economic growth. we're going to increase unemployment. and the deficit will go up, not down. and so -- then we've harmed all

these programs needlessly. >> i think just -- >> mr. rogers. >> -- the opposite, that the employers out there are waiting for a signal from washington that we're going to get control of this deficit, because they see nothing but problems in the future if we continue down this course. and i think if they see we're deadly serious about cutting spending and getting the deficit under control they're going to invest their money, which they're holding back now, to hire people and build this economy back and create jobs. so i think just the opposite. the fact that we are taking precipitous, hard, tough choices to cut spending here i think will give great confidence to the employers to hire people and get back in business. >> and i want to say, mr. rogers, i agree with you because, as i said, we've tried the four years worth of other policies. where lots and lots of money has been spent. and it's taken us in the wrong direction. mr. dicks, i'd like to say i

think we have a 17% real unemployment rate in this country, not a 9%. >> i agree with that. >> because you guys are playing fast and loose i think with the numbers. it appears as though unemployment went from 9.4% to 9% when i think it really went up to probably 17.7% because so many people have been discouraged. but i think we tried it y'all's way for -- >> or underemployed. and minorities are twice as hard hit. >> right. >> so we better have this right. >> speaking of economists and people who know what they're talking about, chairman of the federal reserve, chairman bernanke, he says that we have dire problems ums we get the deficit under control. same thingor from the chairman of the joint chiefs. we've got the chairman of the federal reserve and chairman of the joint chiefs saying, get your spending under control.

>> if i could just have one rebuttal second. here's a direct quote from bernanke -- to a stint you can change programs that will have a long-term effects on spending and revenue -- i think he's talking about the entitlements -- that will be more credible and effective than one that focuses on the current fiscal year. the right way doesn't put too much pressure on the ongoing recovery. i guess that's the issue that divides us today. and let's hope that whatever we do is going to work and help the people in the country who are unemployed. >> mr. dicks, then i think that you and your colleagues should make a presentation on how we're going to get the funding for medicare and social security under control. we're dealing with what we have on our plate right now, the continuing resolution runs out march 4th. we're dealing with that.

that's what we're doing. that's what we've done since we became majority, dealing with each issue as it comes up. and i cannot wait until we see a recommendation from you and your colleagues on the appropriations committee as to how we're going to really get this deficit under control by dealing with -- i won't even use the word because i think it's a four-letter word, that most people call it -- medicare, medicaid and social security. >> but you know this. going back to the example of tip o'neil and bob dole, until both parties are willing to go in the room together and shut the door and work out a plan, that both parties are willing to support, this isn't going to happen. it's going to take that kind of cooperation. you've got a group of senators that are doing the same thing over in the senate, that the

commission was doing. we have to get the same effort under way in the house. >> well, this is an open amendment process, and you all have that opportunity. we were not allowed in the last four years to even offer our ideas on the floor to be voted on. and i think that we've really come a lodng way. you're going to have a chance to do that. again, i'd love to see the recommendation that's are going to come from your side on how to solve this problem. and when you say you'd better get it right -- >> we better get it right. >> that's right. that's right. >> together. >> that's exactly right. because you're throwing the gauntlet down to us in that respect, and that's not being very bipartisan. i hope we do -- >> that's why i'm here in a very respectful way pointing out my concerns and i do it because i, too, care about this country. we all do. and we want to make sure that whatever we do is going to work. >> well, i care very much about the country, too, and --

>> i know that. >> historically, your methods has failed. >> disagree with that. >> this has not failed. >> president roosevelt did the same thing and that's why the economy never recovered until world war ii. he was under the same pressure, hold down spend, hold down spending. didn't work. didn't work for the japanese. they had a decade. >> ten years of a recession in japan because of it. >> ms. slaughter. >> thank you. >> i too pray for bipartisan and hope to live to see it. how much input did you have on this cr? >> had a lot to do with the defense part of it, but the rest of it was done by the new majority. they put together the cr. i had some -- i was consulted and talked to. i offered some ideas. they did this. this wasn't done in the

committee of the appropriations. it was done by the majority members. >> we haven't had anything that came through committees up here yet. but we knew there with were going to be cuts. it's absolutely true. the people all voted for that in november. the majority is right to do it. but it did strike me, the fact they were going to cut 32 billion, and then suddenly it becomes 100 billion and so what we were hoping they were doing judiciously became meat cleaver, just cut it out. >> let me correct that. >> let me finish, mr. rogers. i've waited a long time to get here. >> but i need to correct something you said that isn't correct. >> that was somewhat troubling to me. but you know you said there aren't any sacred cows here. there sure is one. neither one of you will like this. if we really want to cut this deficit in half, what we're serious, what we never talk about is spending $8 billion a month in afghanistan. $2 billion a week in afghanistan for what?

we've been there for ten years we've got, what, 36,000 troops up in korea on the dmz. we need to look at those things at ways we can save some money. but i would really love to str somebody really talk to me quite honestly about, what is the end product of afghanistan other than making all of those people extraordinarily rich? but if we really wanted to cut the deficit in half -- and i hope everyone understands we can do that in six months simply by getting out of afghanistan. i know we won't do it, but i hope this works out. buff i must tell you, and i'm seriously hoping this works out because my district is hurting as much as everybody else's district. but what i'm afraid of is we're going to have a precipitous unemployment rise that we're not going to be able to do anything about. there are no jobs available in my district now. talking to a father this morg morning, his kids are lucky if they can get a job at the burger

joint. >> the state and local government are having the problems. >> new york state is about ready to cut thousands ost state payroll. then this comes along and i don't know where these people are going to work at all. i sure don't think we're going to have much luck trying to extend any unemployment insurance. i think we are moving too precipitously on this without nearly enough thought, and certainly what struck me -- one thing i've got a comment that really trouble me here. the oil business. they've got $5 billion worth of -- that's still in here. the oil companies, they're unnecessary, the former ceo of shell oil said, and i quote, the fear of low oil prices drives some companies to say it should be sustained. ex-shell ceo john hofmeister said, and i quote, my point of view is that with high oil

prices these subsidies are not necessary. so i guess my question would be, why are the oil company subsidies still in this cr? >> well, first -- >> when head start -- >> first let me correct what you said. we did not increase the cuts from 35 billion to 100 billion. >> 32. >> 32. we did not do that. >> well, that was all the talk. i know none of us were there, but that's what i read almost every day. >> what i'm trying to tell you is the truth. we're talking about two different things here, oranges to oranges here. the $100 billion cut is from the president's budget request of '11. we're cutting that much off his budget request. that amounts to about $61 billion off of current spending. we first started out with a $35 billion cut to spending from current -- that's now at 61

billion. but from the president's request, it went from 78 -- 74 to 100. >> didn't you start by saying this was going to be a $100 billion savings? >> yes. and it is. >> from the president's 2011 budget. >> from his request. >> and by the way we did cut defense $15 billion. >> what about this oil company subsidy? why are they getting 5 billion l? >> you'll have to ask the authorizing committee. that's the law of the land. we follow the law of the land. if you want to change it, go right ahead. >> if we all want to talk about taking away police and teachers and cutting headstart and college kids, why in the world would we give money to the oil companies? they're swimming in it. you know, i just -- i just don't see any reality here. it's sort of like "alice in

wonderland" and i believed in impossible things before breakfast. afraid not. >> this appropriations committee inherited a fiscal year where your party had not passed a single appropriations bill. >> and i agree with you it was a mistake. >> and the cr that you passed, until march 4th back in december, included those oil subsidies. >> right. >> your party included those oil subsidies in the cr. >> well, now -- >> we're left with a cr that we've got to finish out as quickly as we can, and we can't -- >> did the democrats make you do it? >> you gave us a cr that included it. >> it's in here? >> we'll take a look at this. >> i certainly -- wouldn't that be nice to cut 5 billion right off the top for people who don't need it? >> we'll look at it. we'll offer amendments on the floor. >> i'm not so sure there are

going to be so many amendments. i think the democrats have about two. it's technically very difficult to amend this bill. well, it's not an open rule. i haven't seen the rule, but i expect there will be a time cap. it's modified to a great degree. >> ms. slaughter, i recommend to you, if that offends you, offer an amendment to cut it out. >> no money shalling spent -- >> we can't. >> sure you can. you draft it. come over and see me. >> dicks will get you a hearing. >> we'd be working on this all day long. it's almost impossible. all right. >> no money shall be spent. limitation. >> bring it up. >> if you could take it out, i'd really be happy about that. >> the congress -- if you want to do it, offer an amendment. >> i'd love to. no other questions. thank you very much. >> mr. bishop. >> mr. mcgovern. >> i thank you both for being here. and i want to associate myself

with some of the remarks of ranking member ms. slaughter on a couple offiissues. she mentioned the war in afghanistan. i'm a critic of that war as well as the war in iraq. but i have on a number of occasions tried to get members of congress of both part yits to pay for it. rather than have it be part of some emergency supplemental bill that is not paid for. last year alone -- in fy 2010 we spent $450 billion in afghanistan alone. 450 billion. i think it was a mistake, but if you think it's the best thing that we should do, then you ought to pay for it. because the way we're doing it now is we're just putting it on the backs of our kids. that's borrowed money, and to not even talk about that as an

issue and then come in here and to cut programs like headstart and pell grants and infrastructure, things that i think have a real impact on people here in this country, you know, i fiernd it a little disconcerting. if you don't want a war tax, then find more offsets in spending. but if you're going to go to war, you should pay for it. the only people that are sacrificing in this war are the soldiers and their families. the rest of us have been asked to do nothing. nothing. we're not paying for it. it's going on our credit card. i have an amendment that will not -- i'm sure it will be ruled out of order simply says we should pay for the war. i think that's the right thing to do. and i'm a critic. but i don't want my kids to pay for it. ms. slaughter talk eed about th oil companies. i'll be interested to see if there's a way to get after the subsidies the way the bill is currently written without getting into this issue of

legislating on an appropriations bill. to put something in perspective, you know, the oil companies have enjoyed a lot of special, wonderful tax deals, under both parties. the president of the united states in his state of the union talked about ending those su subsi subsidies. these tax loopholes have helped bp, chevron, convioco and shello make near loy $1 trillion over the past decade. we're asking taxpayers to subsidize them and we're cutting headstart and pell grants and infrastructure grants and we're cutting the small business administration. it just doesn't make any sebs to me. it shows that our priorities are a little bit twisted here. in education, our estimates are that more than 200,000 children will be kicked out of headstart if, in fact, this bill were to

go forward as is. and thousands of teach hers wou lose their jobs. mr. dicks is absolutely right, the way to reduce this deficit is to create jobs and put more people back to work. you know, we're going to take an action here that's going to put more people out of work. we estimated an $800 reduction per student in the maximum pell grant award. you know, sometimes you have to invest to make money. and the reality here is that by not investing in education we are putting ourselves at risk of not being able to compete in this 21st century economy in countries like china. investing in education and making sure that everybody who wants to get additional education can get it and that they're not somehow denied it because they can't afford it i think is something that we should actually in a bipartisan way want to come together on. cuts in nia, national institutes

of health, you want to know how you can help keep medicaid solvent? help find a cure to alwazheimer disease. i mean, the cuts in nih the national institutes of health in this bill, as wliritten, represt a significant setback for cancer research and other disease research. on the floor talking about the bill that we passed to instruct committees to find savings in their budgets and the chairman of the rules committee said, we're not talking about cutting nih or cops or foyer firefighters. but we are in this bill. co-ops are going to be cut. firefighters are going to be cut. and important research in the kwlas of cancer, alwazheimer'sa hiv/aids -- we used to come together in a bipartisan way to support medical research it's not just about finding cures, it'ses an incredible job creator

all over this country. this bill would rescind $2.5 billion for high-speed rail projects that have already been awarded. a loss of over 25,000 new construction jobs and the cancellation of 76 projects in 40 states. $234 million in cuts to improve our nation's air traffic control system. you know, cuts in the cops hiring program, consuluts in th safer grants which help fund our firefighters. i mean, when we talk about making cuts in those areas, we're not doing anything to help the economy. we're actually making reoveras mr. dicks pointed out more difficult, but we're also putting a lot of jobs at risk. and i want to just talk about another area that never gets talked about and it's probably -- it's an easy place to cut because not a lot of people raise their voices on it. but that is our food assistance

programs all around the world. you talked about national security, mr. rogers. i will tell you i think helping to combat extreme poverty and hunger around the world, which we have been doing, actually enhances our security. probably more than a lot of the programs that we have that send all kind of military assistance overseas to governments that don't respect democracy but somehow we consider them our allies. but under this bill, development assistance for programs like feed the future would be cut 40.5%. global health and child survival programs cut 12%. the food for peace program cut over 40%. the mcgovern/dole international food for education program which feeds hungry kids in school settings is cut by 52.3%. and let me tell you what happens when you cut these programs. one of two things happen.

either china is going to step up to the plate and start providing food assistance to try to enhance their standing in that part of the world or nothing will happen and people will literally go without food. literally go without food. you know, when we talk about national security, i think these programs, to me, are more important than a lot of the things that get approved around here. mr. rogers, you talk about shared sacrifice. it seems the only people sacrificing in this are middle income families and poor families. couple months ago we passed a bill that extended tax cuts for millionaires. donald trump gets to keep his tax cut. but we end up cutting pell grants and we cut headstart here. we talk about shared sacrifice, ms. slaughter talked about the oil companies, their subsidies are still in place. i think the way the bill is written it may make it impossible for us to go after these under the rules we're abiding by. programs like some of these farm

subsidy programs, we have a debate on whether we should be funding corn ethanol. i think it's one of the biggest boondoggles in the world. we can't get at it the way the bill is written. you know, i think this makes it more -- i think if in fact this were to become law it would make the recovery that much more difficult, it would cost us a lot of jobs at a time we should be protecting and trying to create more jobs. and i think it nwould not enhane our security by decrease it. and i would just say, finally, you know, i hope -- i mean, i don't think i'll get the opportunity here. but i hope at some point in a bipartisan way that we will agree that if we're going to go fight wars we're going to pay for them. when george bush first went to war against saddam hussein, when they invaded kuwait, he went

around and got other countries to pitch in. paid for the war. we paid for world war -- we had a war tax during world war ii. we're asked to do nothing. you know, i say this as a critic of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. i don't like them. i want them to end. but if you're going to do them, you ought to pay for them. and i think that's a better way to control our deficit and start paying down other debt. thank you. >> thank you. mr. woodall. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i appreciate you gentlemen being here today and i appreciate the hard work you've been doing, mr. chairman, to take all the orders that you've been taking and try to do things as fair as you could. i did notice that as mr. mcgovern went through his list of things that he thought might have been cut too much there were only three things on his list that he didn't think got cut enough and he didn't think he could have gotten to this bill anyway.

you didn't leave anything on the table and i'm grateful to you for that. that's the marching orders we got. >> we went into this with the idea that there should be shared sacrifice. we knew if we were to solve the problem of the deficit and the enormous dhaet we're incurring on our children and grandchildr grandchildren, if we were to tackle that we had to cut spending. and we had to cut it fairly. and we had to have no sacred cows. and there are no sacred cows. we've touched everybody except defense -- well, we actually cut on defense. and veterans health care. we held that as a sacred cow. >> mr. dicks, i wanted to ask you -- i appreciated your offer to the ranking member to work with her to find a way to get at those subsidies. and i would -- she stepped out, but i'd like to commit my vote to her if you all can find a way to get to those subsidies, you'll absolutely have my vote on the floor of the house when that ailment comendment comes. i hope you can do that.

now, it could be that some of those tinges -- i know some of the items mr. mcgovern mentioned were tax items. i'm new. do we ever have an opportunity to go after the tax side of the ledger in an appropriations bill like this? >> usually you do it in a tax reform bill. 1986 was the last time we had a major tax reform bill where we went through the entire code. i think it's long overdue that we have -- that the ways and means committee, finance committee have another opportunity to do -- and present to the congress a tax reform bill that hopefully will close some of the loopholes and help bring revenue in. every time we have the big tax cuts, you know, that costs money, too. >> right. >> because we don't get the revenue. >> i appreciate that. i happen to have a tax reform bill hr-25, the fair tax that would abolish every corporate subsidy that exists today, every

loophole, every exemption, every lobbyist engendered preference that has accumulated since 1986 and even before. and i would welcome anyone's support in working on that because i believe that you can't compete on your own merits then you don't deserve to compete. but i appreciate you saying that, mr. dicks. i see how hard chairman rogers has been working. i couldn't believe he would have left something on the table if it would have been available to him. >> that's one-third of the budget. i mean, if we're serious, we've got to look at entitlements, social security, medicare, medicaid. we've got to be concerned about this debt because of the interest payment. it's huge. and we've got to look at taxes. we've got to look at these loopholes that have been there. if we do all of that, we have a chance of turning the corner. we have to do it in a bipartisan way so both parties will feel secure as they did in the '80s last time we did it. >> you say bipartisan. as i see you and mr. rogers do

things together, i think nonpartisan. it's about love of the country and folks in your neighborhood and responsibility to your constituents and partisan doesn't come into it at all. now, i share some of your frustration. i want to get into medicare and medicaid because i know that's where the dollars are. i want to get into social security because i know that's where the unfunded promises are. i want to get into the tax code because i think there's some real economically destructive things going on there. but you're saying that it would never have been your expectation that an appropriations bill like this the rules would have allowed for that? >> no. that is ways and means and senate finance. they're the ones that work on that part of it. sometimes people put certain things in our bills as riders. sometimes the committees agree it's an emergency. but we try to avoid legislation in appropriations. >> well, i want to associate myself, mr. chairman, with mr. dicks' desire to get into not just discretionary spending but entitlement reform and tax

reform. but give" that the only thing it appears we're able to work on today is discretionary spending, i want to say thank you for both coming -- >> and we did defense as well as dmes stick. i think that was important and we couldn't have done it without mr. rogers and mr. young. agreeing to do that. >> to see you all work so hard to have an open process here, that was one of the things that i heard over and over again, how in the world can my congressman represent me if they don't have a voice on the floor of the house? to see the two of you working together, i know we have time constraints and all sorts of other challenges on the floor, but to make that commitment, make that work, i sure would like to serve in a house where we can do that over the next two years. i appreciate your support of that. >> thank you very much, mr. woodall. we do appreciate that and hope this can be a step toward entitlement -- >> on a bipartisan basis. >> absolutely. mr. hastings. >> thank you very much,

mr. chairman. i thank chairman rogers and ranking member dicks for their work. all the years that i'm here in congress, both of them have been appropriated in different capacities and i recognize, as i'm sure all of us do, the difficulties that exist at this time in our country. every day that i'm here and every day that i have been here, i've thought about what we do from the standpoint of trying to protect the least of us in our society. chairman, when you speak of shared sacrifice, let me share with you -- i apologize to my colleagues for being late getting here.

i spent 30 minutes with congresswoman captor with the foreign minister of ukraine who is here in a joint program with the united states and ukraine dealing with security matters. he was put a question by our ways and means colleague sandy levin about what he's -- what is his had government going to do in ukraine to equalize the circumstances of the citizen. a part of his response covers a part of what you and i, i believe, and the rest of us believe, and that is that in his country he says they come from 20 years now of having been away

from the yoke of their 0oppressr and that the people paid no taxes. corruption was rife throughout their society, and the establishment of democracy is and has been difficult there. but what he said struck me, and it comes to mind here. and that is, in the establishment of taxes and teaching people that they are going to now need to look at it differently than they did when everything 0 steostensibly was care of by government, he said there needs to be equality of shared sacrifice. and i borrow from him in that regard now. it is easy to demagogue the best off in our society. and to talk about what they can and i believe should do.

but how can we, honestly, say that we, through this particular cr and the budgetary process as it goes through here and the senate and the negotiations with the executive branch, are now asking for the nation to have shared sacrifice and then have continuing resolution reductions that address, in large measure, the middle class and the poor? now, i have to echo what my colleague mr. mcgovern said. it hasn't been just too long ago that we gave rich people who had already received every kind of benefit for all the 18 years that i'm here some more benefit.

and then we come to without enumerating a gain of the various programs, how do we call that shared sacrifice, mr. chairman? >> well, let me just say to you. if you look at the 12 appropriation subcommittees who will be presenting later in the year, their individual bills for '12 funding, in this cr, for example, the agriculture rural development fda part of the budget will have been cut 22%. the commerce justice science part of the government, none of whom deal with the poor, if you will, will be cut by 13%. the energy and water development, corps of engineers, and all of that will have been cut by 15%. financial services would be cut

by 19%. interior department and the environment will be cut by 14%. labor hhs and education cut 14%, like the others. legislative branch, we cut ourselves, 13%. you and i are sharing in that sacrifice. state and foreign operations, cut 21%. transportation and hud cut 24%. so the cuts are almost consistent to a t across the board. >> i understand what you're saying. >> and it applies to everybody. that's why i say in solving this national crisis that we're in all of us have got to sacrifice and help pay for it. >> mr. chairman, most respectfully, i'll disagree with "all of us are sacrificing." when you get granular and go inside the cuts that you just

enumera enumerated, you will find programs that add up to those percentages that impact middle class people and the poor more than they do everyone else. now, let me ask you another question. did the committee -- i'm not into process here. you had the right to exercise, the prerogative, the continuing resolution is needed to be done. those dynamics a s i readily understand. but was there any analysis in the continuing resolution reductions as to just what the projections would be in loss of jobs if in a perfect world this continuing resolution were to become law? >> yes, absolutely. we took the words of chairman

bernanke, federal reserve, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff that, in essence, said that the -- that we were facing a real problem as a nation. and that has precipitated i think the voters last november saying, cut spending, we're broke, we've got to do something about it. that's why we wanted to try to be fair in these cuts and i think by and large we have. there are going to be instances i'm sure where one item or another may need to be explained, but bear in mind there are literally thousands of accounts in the government that we're trying to deal with here. thousands of peopthem. >> i understand that. >> it's not a perfect world. >> the two people that you cited i've only met the joint chief of

staff. i don't know him personally and i don't know mr. bernanke and i don't serve on either of the committees of jurisdiction nor have i or that caused me to come in contact with them. but just in reading, they would be two of the last people that i would rely upon for overall judgment. now, i don't have the same confidence that everybody else does and all of these marvelous economists. i think that they are in some respects just like lawyers. you put two of us in a room and we'll give you 2,000 opinions in two minutes. so i'm not one of those that buys into the notion. as a matter of fact, i think they've been a part of the problem. not the joint chiefs of staff but the federal reserve and those associated with them. i sincerely think that they are a part of the problem. and i might add, every treasurer

in the 18 years that i've been here i think has been a part of the problem. so i don't want to get caught down that road. i didn't serve on ways and means. i don't want to occupy much more time. you've answered my question. you all did an analysis, but you're not coming down to the point that, if in a perfect world all of this were to take place, thousands of americans would lose their jobs. and when they lose their jobs, the residual is a multiple that it doesn't take me, a liberal or conservative economist, to clearly understand. i'll return to the notion in just this one point. you and mr. dicks had a very brief discussion on mr. dicks asserted that if you were to cut the homeless program for veterans, that it would have an

impact. your response to that was that veterans health care is going to be plussed up. well, in my state last week my governor offered closing the homelessness office of the governor. florida is one of those states, because of its weather, that attracts a significant number of people not only veterans but others to live outdoors. i began by talking about the least of us. i don't want to participate in no program that's going to hurt the least of us when the best off of us in society have gone about our business ordinarily. and something is wrong with this picture, not your responsibilities in offering a budget, but i just don't see how you're going to take police officers ost streets and expect

crime to go down. how you're going to eliminate the most successful -- not eliminate but cut the most successful program empirically documented, the headstart program, that dmon stratively show that those who complete it do better in life, in high school and in college, and don't -- 88% of them that completed that program in the last 34 years did not go to jail. be damned if we ought not be plussing up headstart and try to have some of these people that we rely upon that are pretty well off themselves, i might add, mr. bernanke and the joint chiefs of staff. i been on planes where generals had generals serving generals and that sounds all wrong to me. i thank you, mr. chairman. i know it's a difficult job. thank you.

>> thank you. >> just a very brief comment p t about the issue of shared sacrifice. it seems to me that, if i recall right, mr. rogers or even mr. dicks might be able to help me, i believe we have about 40% of the people in this country who pay no taxes whatsoever. and so when you talk about shared sacrifices, those are people who are being given lots of things by the rest of us, but they certainly are not sacrificing in the sense that other people are who work and pay taxes. >> are you talking about -- >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman rogers, appreciate all the time and effort your committee put into this, mr. dicks, certainly appreciate your input. you know, when we're elected on november 2nd, it was a clear mandate in regards to they want

government to operate differently, the american people. but the bigger problem is, we're out of money. and every one of these on this list i will tell you that i can sit down and go through them and there's a number that are near and dear to my heart that i wish we didn't have to touch. i think that's the case i'm sure with you, mr. dicks, and with the chairman. >> i represent the second poorest district in america, the poorest of my republican. my people are going to be asked to sacrifice more than anybody else except one other district. but they're willing to do it. i've talked to them. they're willing to sacrifice to help this country survive. >> i agree. >> that's what i was trying to say. every one of these programs when you look at each individual program, each of them have merit. each of these programs touch

someone, and we all have our pets or we all have those that we think are more important to our constituents. but it is about shared cost and also shared payment. if there was an easy way around this, i'm sure that your committee would have been dancing in the street and saying, we have a silver bullet, here's how we solve our problems in one quick and easy swoop. but that's not the case. we didn't get here with a single vote. we got here with multiple votes over a lot of years. you know, my experience doesn't compare to this, but as a sheriff when we had a downturn in our budget, in our appropriating authority that gave us the money to spend, we had to sit down and look at our core mission as to what we're supposed to do in government and look at our core mission and that's how we funded it. we had to cut programs that i

started that were the last things on the face of the earth that i wanted to cut. but when i looked at our core mission, that had to win out and trump everything else. i think that when we talk about entitlements, we all know that the small portion of the budget we looked at doesn't get us to where we need to go. we all recognize the fact that you can't spend more than you make. the federal government has been doing that, though, where the american people haven't been able to. so at some point in time, we've kicked this can for a long period of time, we're going to have to face stark realities to where we want to go, what kind of future we want to leave to our kids and our grandkids. now, i hear mr. mcgovern talk about the war in afghanistan and iraq. trust me, i know what that's

about. i've had a son that's served 15 months in afghanistan and two of them heading to iraq in the next four months. so some of us do understand that sacrifice. but as appropriators, that is one of the core missions of this government, to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic. i think that's one of the -- >> we've done that in this bill. >> and i appreciate that. from a person or father who has three sons serving in the military, obviously that's a huge thing for me. but for my constituents back in my district in florida, fifth district in florida, we have the largest number -- i think we vacillate between having the largest number of veterans of any district in this country. 116,000. so we recognize their sacrifice and we certainly understand the need to provide health care for our veterans. that's something that we made a

promise and a pledge to do. but as we move along here, this is actually, of all the discussions we're going to have i think over the next couple of months, probably -- i don't want to mine miez it, but this is probably one of the easier discussions we're going to have. when we goet to the actual budgt of 2012, to the point of the debt ceiling, those are all issue that's are -- this is going to pale in comparison once we get through this. but we have to have a starting point. and mr. hastings, when he brought up about attorneys, i have to laugh because, god bless him, that was never one of my favorite folks as a cop. but with we do need to talk about tax reform. we do need to talk about all of those issues that you brought up. mr. woodall brought up the fair tax, which is a perfect scexamp of the way to level the playing field across the board.

when you start talk being about the number of people who don't pay tax at all, i think that's an issue for us in the future. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. nugent. let me say that there a vote on the floor and i'm told there's about five minutes left. and i think there are -- how many votes? three votes. so about three minutes left. if you want to proceed, mr mr. polis. we do have other witnesses so i'd ask you gentlemen to come back if you could. we're kind of winding down, but i don't know that we'll be able to complete that by the time we have to vote. so, mr. polis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think the discussion here has clarified what we are discussing, what we aren't discussing today. essentially we're looking at cuts to the important area of domestic discretionary expenditures. i think we've all talked about that that alone is not nearly enough to make any meaningful impact on the deficit. he need to look at entitlements, revenues. part of what i think we're

trying to do here is create a creative process where members have ideas to kucut spending. there's a few problems i think with the orchestration of that. one is simply the timing. i think most members, myself included, simply don't have enough time to get thoughtful amendments to cut spending on the floor. our staff has been really each person on my staff focused on cutting spending today. we think we have a couple of amendments, we hope. i just worry at what cost we're rushing this through, you know, tomorrow. i think, given 24, 48, 72 more hours members of congress and their staffs might be able to come up with buildings or tens of billions more in savings that will pass muster on the floor of the house. you know, given the need to do this, of course, but also the ability of this body to take surely another day or two to do that -- again, my staff has been scrambling all day -- i'd like to inquire as to why we are not giving, in my opinion, sufficient time for members to

come up with ideas for budget cuts that can pass house muster. >> well, because we're facing a march 4th deadline. we've got to act in time to pass a bill here, pass it to the senate. >> it's more a question of 48 -- another two days, talking about kind of going to wednesday or thursday instead of require -- from my understanding we have to have our amendments in basically within the next hour and we only saw the cr on friday. so we just had the weekend and today with of course a lot of our legislative services being closed over the weekend. i would hope that there would be more opportunity for members to advance cost-cutting ideas. i think we're missing out on billions of dollars of cost-kugt ideas simply because of lodgeistics. >> you'll have an opportunity to offer amendments with a little more time to think about the

consequences. >> one more suggestion in that vein. i think that the process would work even better to incentivize members to find creative cuts if there was some ability to reallocate some of the money that was found in the cuts. obviously they wouldn't be cuts if they could reallocate all of it to prevent cuts in other areas. if they were able to reallocate half of the additional savings to offset cuts elsewhere, it's quite likely that would result in more net savings. because what gets a lot of members going when they see these cuts -- there are cuts that we're all worried about. i was wondering if that's something you would consider asking for, the next time around, giving members the ability to allocate some of the money that they save to encourage them to find more savings. >> the amendments now, you can do that. if you want to add something back, you have to have a corresponding cut. so, you know -- >> it's my understanding that wasn't possible. >> you can't take from defense

and put in health care. >> you can't go across subkmeelt committees. >> mr. chairman, can we recess to go vote and come back? >> i'll be -- i'll just hold the floor. would you like us to return, then, mr. chairman and continue? >> what i'd like to do is make decision real quickly. we are in the midst of your testimony, we would return with you. would both of our witnesses be allowed to come back after the final vote? we have two additional votes after this one. i don't know when this will close. we'll now be in recess until the end of the -- >> mr. chairman, i'm almost done but i know several other people are left to go. >> that's correct. we'll be in recess until the beginning of the last vote. thank you. now live to the

house rules committee that is setting the terms of the budget debate for tomorrow. >> the hearing on this, so, that the rules committee will reconvene. we are here for further consideration of hr-1, and i understand that mr. sessions was presiding. he had recognized mr. polipoelu >> well, again, the points i made earlier the produce the better outcome of members to come up with cuts, more time would be helpful number one, and two, the ability to reallocate in different areas, critically not all of the money saved, but some of the money saved. i want to give a specific example of the unintended consequences of the way that the

ut cans are being done. the major transportation artery in my district, highway 36 is facing under this $10 million cut, it had been awarded a tiger challenge grant, and $10 million tiger challenge grant, and of that $1.9 milg ylion of that is under the status of unobligated and that is because the highway of colorado was to leverage more. if they had taken the grant, it would have been a small part of something and they would have had it, but what they were encouraged to do, and they are doing is that they have leveraged it into a $305 million project, including a loan and that is the intention of what they were to do with the $10 million grant is to leverage it with state and federal funding for the most important transportation artery in my district. now now, with this one broad stroke,

grants like this $10 million tiger grant are in fact rescindeded and not just the $10 million that falls apart, but the whole $305 million piece falls apart, because it was based on the tiger challenge grant. i was wondering, and it is a shame that mr. rogers is not here, but perhaps you have some ideas of how to the do it in a thoughtful way to recognizing the difference of something that is truly unobligated and something that has a reason that it hasn't been obligated yet, because it was being leveraged in a way that was consistent with the original intent of the allocation? >> well, i know that the tiger grants were taken out. something we were kenned abou n concerned about and the fast rail as well. you will have to ask the chairman about that when he comes back, but there was some effort to go after money that

had been previously appropriated like under stimulus that had not been obligated yet. and, you know, that was -- i had the problem in my own state, and if i called the secretary of transportation and said, you better obligate and work out this agreement as fast as you can, because they will probably take the money if you don't do that. so that happened in a number of areas and sends a perverse incentive to local jurisdictions to spend this money as quickly as they can even if it is less than optimum, because they need to get it out the door, than perhaps a more thoughtful way. so it sets a perverse incentive that they should have the money obligated as quickly as possible even if it serves as the less optimum in the outcome. with that i will yield back.

>> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman. we have heard about shared sacrifice and when we think about it, i think of the shared sacrifice from generation to generation. the intergenration of spending money that we don't have is not thought of the next generation who will have to subsidize the benefits ascribed to ourselves. i think it is hard to look at all of the programs being cut and say that simply none of them are important. many of them are important, and many of them need more money if we had an endless supply of dollars we should look at it differently, but we don't. this year the estimate of the deficit is $1.65 trillion. we have to be stop spending money that we do not have and ascribing to ourselves benefits that the next generation will have to pay for.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to say wrjust one thin. i heard the argument that we are slamming on the brakes, and that bothered me a little bit, because as mr. titus said, we are not really slamming on the brakes. we are not. there is a generation to think about, and that is a good point, however, if you look at the numbe numbers. we borrow between $4 and $5 billion every day. $5 billion in half of the month, and the other $4 billion. so half and half, because it is about $4.5 billion, so if you boiled it down to one thing, what are we doing with this? this bill is one step forward and it is this. we are putting the federal credit card up for one day every month, that is all. one day. one day we won't borrow $5 billion out of the whole month,

but other days we will borrow $4 to $5 billion every single day to keep going. just as mr. mcgovern said, this is borrowed money. that is an important note and important thing to talk about, but it is only one day. it is a right step, but it is not a slamming on the brakes. it is a small step forward in the right direction and that's all. it is hard to turn the rudder of government one degree. this may turn it a degree and that is about it, but it is at least a step in the right direction. >> thank you very much for being here, mr. dixon. and again, let me just express appreciation to you for your willingness to as we proceed with what is nearly unprecedented. you have never seen a continuing resolution come to the house floor under a structure that we are considering, that this committee is reporting out right now. i remember them all being closed rules, as you have, and we

decided 20 years ago an amendment or two had been made order so we will structure the rules, and so never before in history have we had a cr considered under a structure quite like this. so i want to express my appreciation to you, mr. dix for your willingness to be as cooperative as you have with what we are going to have a free-flowing and vigorous debate on the floor. mr. hastings, of course? >> when is the last time you will recall that we had modified open rule with caps? >> withp caps? >> caps on time limits? >> well, the definition of a modified open rule is twofold. number one a modified open rule has a preprinting requirement, and second, it does have potentially an outside tell. i don't know if this rule will have caps or -- i don't know. >> well, it does have preprinting requirements and if it has requirements, then i

would remind you. >> under the five-minute rule. >> yes, and five-minute rule. >> i have been here long enough where it took three weeks to do the defense authorization. >> maybe my friend from florida is offering a closed rule for this consideration of this? >> i don't care what kind of rule. >> you want an open rule. >> and i'm sure that the gentleman would be happy with an open amendment. >> well, what mr. hastings is trying to get is whether or not there is a total time limit on the debate. >> if i could reclaim my time i will say that the rules committee still has to work this out. we are hoping to have a modified open rule. we will be able to have this debate once we see the rule. mr. sdixdix is a very busy man, he has spent a lot of time with us -- >> and it is valentine's day. >> and we seem to be engaged in the mark-up on this, but there is no reason for us to do this.

mrs. slaughter? >> no, we have another witness from whom to hear. >> would we recess? >> well, i can't tell you, because we are in the midst of the hearing process right now and once we complete the hearing we will make a determination as to how quickly to proceed. thank you, again, mr. dix for being here, and appreciate it, and now we are happy to recognize the gentleman from iowa, mr. king. thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity to raise this issue before the rules committee and i think it is probably none of it is a surprise to any of us on the committee where we are with this. i will just tell you that i'm asking for a waiver. i concede that if i bring language to the floor under an open rule in appropriations that has the word notwithstanding in

it, it is an alarm bell that will cause a point of odder to be raised. i will concede that point of order is difficult to order and it is an order under the rule. we are at this point at the cr and this is maximum leverage we will see in the 112th congress. the amendment i am seeking a waiver for is the amendment that shuts off the funding for the automatically appropriated obamacare legislation. most in that congress were not aware that was written into the bill. we dug into it as recently as last week, and working with the crs, they did publish a report on friday that totals $105.5 billion in automatic approa appropriations that are written into the obamacare bill, and those appropriations spanned over 10 years and some of it is load in different ways, but one might think of $10 billion a

year, and because this house has voted to repeal obamacare, and we have voted as a majority of the house to remove all sections of the bill, my obamacare and the associated reconciliation package and my amendment goes in and uses the model that i pulled out from my memory of the vietnam war era actually where there is war there that was in a cr and they did it in several ways, but the primary one was the cr in 1974 that stated notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds appropriated or here to for appropriated for vietnam or the ajoining countries. i took that back and wrote that modelle into the amendment as essentially a standard and the rationale is this, that first, the automatic funding. with e saw the legislative

maneuvering that passed obamacare and that came up and we first passed the bill and then we found out what was in it. most of us on our side of the aisle campaigned to repeal, and de-fund obamacare. we have taken the first step, and now the next step is to de-fund. this would change the implementation of obamacare and two courts have ruled it inconstitutional in part or in full, and for u us not to do that, it is our burden to uphold the constitution of the united states, and there is a conundrum here, and gentleman, and gentlelady, i'm more sensitive to the burden of the rules committee than probably any time in my now starting the ninth year here.

however, i would make the case that we do take the oath to uphold the constitution and not the rule. i followed the process that one would ask a responsible member to do, in that i requested that my language be written into the bill. it was not. this is the next stop along the way, and it is the last stop before the floor. there's been much discussion about letting the house work its will, and about regular order. well, i submit that regular order on a appropriations bill would be before subcommittees and mark-ups before the subcommittees and the full committee and two or three stops, there is a place for a member to offer my amendment and it would have been in order and had it been passed, written into the base bill with or without the cooperation of the people whocisions on what is written into the bill. i have done my due diligence, and i believe that the amendment

passes the floor of the house if it is allowed to be debated and i have a degree of confidence in that, that is, that the dedication to the rules is something that you in this committee have to be more sensitive to than any other members of this congress, and yet, the dedication to the constitution is what all of our oath is to. and so, i'm of this position that i want the house to work its will. we didn't have regular order or my language would have been voted on by now someplace along the way. this is the last stop before the floor. i want a regular order, but i want the house to work its will. i'm asking this committee to grant a waiver for my amendment, so that there can be a debate on the floor and a vote on the floor. if we do this, we are consistent with the oath of office and also consistent with the fiscal responsibility, and it is not in a one-year cut that would be $105.5 billion, but over ten

years it would be, and it is the only tool i know that freezes in place the implementation of obamacare, and if we let it grow, it will grow the roots down in and it is going to be harder and harder to eradicate. i wish there was an easier way to take this cuff from all of you and if there is way, i am happy to do it. i have carried this ball for a year and i have fought for it for a year and af half and i'm not this a moral position to make the moral responsibility to repeal obamacare, but i am in position to lend an ear to the people in this committee and hear if there is a better one, and i yield my time back to the chairman. >> thank you, very much, mr. king. let me express ap prepreciation

extraordinary dedication to a cause that every member of this side of the aisle shares. we have all cast a vote to appeal this outrageous health care bill which undermines creation of job growth and dramatically expands the size and scope and reach of government. legislation that did unfortunately pass was signed last march is something that i believe is potentially very, very dangerous. i share that. i appreciate your recognition of the challenge that this committee faces on this issue. it is true that we are trying to have the most free-flowing open debate possible under a structure that has been a continuing resolution, it has not been done before. and the one thing that i can assure you is that we are going

to pursue every possible means that we can to make sure that we don't fund this program. throughout the process, throughout the last 18 month whence you have been working so diligently on this, i said all along that i felt that the natural step for us would be to take the mandate which hires up to 18,000 new irs agents to enforce the mandate and i have read and i was just talking to daniel webster who happens to be a good friend of roger vinson's, the judge who offered the brilliant 78-page decision and i read every word of it. in fact, he quotes some of my favorite framers federalist 34 which was authored by alexander hamilton and the two authored by james madison, 45 and 51 in which he points to the constitutional questions of this. so i will tell you that my lawyer and i actually went through it together.

every one of the 78 pages of the vinson decision. so i will say that i share the goal of getting exactly where you are. i know that i can't speak for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle here, but i know that i speak for all of my colleagues here when i tell you that we do, and i want to get there. we know that we are now five or six weeks into this congress, and i believe that personally, that we need to proceed with as open an amendment process as possible. i respect your desire and willingness to continue to work with us so that we can get to exactly where we want to be as we proceed. mr. sessions? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. king, welcome to the rules committee, again. as the facts you have been a regular visitor to rules committee and bring thoughtful

ideas not only to the committee, but with a thoughtful ak tir yi -- articulation of what is behind your ideas. as you know this committee has the awesome responsibility of looking after and shepherd through including proposals crafted by the rules committee from hearing from all sorts of members with great ideas and this is one of the things that which the chairman drier and i want to hear from the floor with this free-flowing process. with that said, sometimes we hear discussions that we may not have heard as thoughtfully as you presented, and i heard you talk about this 10-year $105 billion health care bill proposal, the funding of what might be known as obamacare. we are actually working under a

one-year, right now, cr, and do you know how much money you would be seeking for us, because we certainly wouldn't include the language probably for the 10-year necessarily, but this one-year piece? we would be looking at stopping the funding for this cycle right now, what might be 2011? >> mr. sessions, my language goes through all of that is automatically enacted for obamacare, so it is $105.5 billion, and it freezes it all. if we looked at it on an annual basis, i did not break that apart for the 10 years, because we are under pressure here, but i know that -- i will say that i believe that i read that there is a one single $5 billion component, and then if you average the balance of it, it is slightly more than $10 billion for this fiscal year. >> so about $10 billion? i mean, we could argue that if the we just did our mathematics

and divided it out. and the reason why i say that is because you are not at odds at all with this committee, and this committee as the chairman indicated, you are our favorite son and we welcome what you bring to us, and we are attempting to also make sure that what we do to get it done. and the $100 billion that i think that we have had an active conversation across the country and many americans recognize and i saw on national tv, this is a big week in washington, d.c. with $100 billion. i want you to know that i am very focussed on the amendments that you are bringing, the ideas that you bring, and i'm also very focused on getting $100 billion done as best as we can knowing that we have tried to sell this across the country, and want to put pressure on the senate and the president with actual spending this year.

and so i find your amendment intriguing, and i appreciate your doing this. i, as always, my friend, look forward to continuing working with you, and i appreciate your thoughtful ideas. i give the remained over the time back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. one thing i overlooked that i have in my hand is an e-mail from a previous speaker who lived through one of these periods of time in 1995, that makes a recommendation, and i'd ask consent to deliver that to the committee members for their review? is. >> yes. >> and it is from newt gingrich or the the record. in summary, it asks the same thing that i'm asking here as since he has perhaps as much experience with this type of issue of anybody on the planet, and that is how i raise the issue with him as a matter of fact. this is what he volunteered to respond back to and asked me to deliver this back to the rules

committee and i'm appreciative of speaker gingrich of stepping up in support of this and along with other national groups that are engaged. i continue to make my point that i believe this is good for the country or i would not be sitting here. and i yield back. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i wanted to respond to mr. sessions, well, a couple of things. i know that two judges have found it unconstitutional, but two have found it constitutional and 10 states have thrown it out, so it is not decided yet, but mr. sessions asked how much you would save with your amendment. i don't know that, but i do know that the nonpartisan congressional budget office said that 30, on ten years, this bill will cut the deficit by over $30 billion, and i certainly want to get that on the record. >> and if i could add into the

record, that for the fiscal year fy '11, it would reduce by $4.9 billion for the fiscal year, and the rest of that is going forward in nine years from that point forward. >> and so the question is to make sure that you destroy that and take health care away for an awful lot of people, and that is the problem? >> i don't know if that has anything to do with my calculation. >> well, nobody has mentioned this, but i want to ask this, and i'm asking a lot, $250 has already been paid to senior citizens who are in the doughnut hole, are you expecting them to pay that back? >> no. everything i have offered with the repeal or this amendment simply stops and freezing it in place, and it does not go back to un-do anything. >> doesn't un-do anything. >> no, it stops it as if you

shut the valve off. both money coming and going. that has been the analysis, and we have gone back for more professional opinions than mine and they have concurred in that. >> you do not agree with the cbo? >> there are times they don't agree with the cbo, but i don't always know the assumptions they use to come to the conclusions, abi saw fast-moving tallies on this bill as it moved toward passage so that by the time it passed, i did not have confidence that the cbo numbers were accurate. i would like to see the difference of overall spending and overall revenue and i know there are tax increases in obama care and significant spending and the chairman of the budget committee said that obamacare itself spends $2.66 trillion. so, that's a lot of money. >> well, i always have said this so many times before that you must get tired of hearing it. but we did don't that health care bill, because we wanted somebody to throw a brick

through my window or my life threatened. we did it because 17% of the gdp was spent on health care and rising all of the time and at such a clip that there is no way in the world to keep up with it. and the eventually, the way we are going is to simply paying social security and medicare and very little else and we did it really to try to get it under control health care spending in the united states and i would like to see it work. the same debate you are making now was made about social security and medicare and they would be the ruin nation of the world. >> i made a lot of debates on that myself, and of course, we have two different viewpoints on how to approach this, and we have heard the wvoice of the house, and 47 republicans in the senate and it is a strong position, and the public seems to be getting stronger in opposition over obamacare over the weeks and months and the more we are in session dealing with it, they are more lining up in the position i'm in, so i

think that we owe them an opportunity to have a vote so that they can verify where we are on shutting off the funding. i made the argument for ten months on the tactic to eliminate obamacare is to first pass the repeal, and then begin to shut off the funding and every appropriations bill. i have got writings on that that go back to the middle of last summer at least. and this is the first one and the biggest one and the most leverage and the one that cries out the most to be addressed by this congress of what we did with hr-2 and it is ironic that this is hr-1. and it is not ironic that hr-2 is to repeal hr-1, and if we miss this opportunity, somehow the perfect symmetry of hr 1 and 2 won't be fulfilled and kind of like a love lost i would say,

and something mised thsed that never be recaptured again. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. king, for coming. i want to echo the comments made by the chairman and mr. sessions in terms of our feeling like we are with you on this obviously, since every single one of us voted to repeal obamacare, but you pointed out something that needs to be mentioned. we voted to repeal -- well, i think that probably the reason that this is hr-1, because we knew we were going to be facing the continuing resolution. we knew that we were going to have to continue the funding for the federal government. and obamacare was number two and appropriate to vote on it immediately and i don't have a

problem with that at all, but we know what happened with the bill when it went over to the senate. at first, mr. reaid said no vot on it and then a dust-up in egypt and he had a good cover when people were paying attention to other things, and he simply brought it up for a vote, and of course, the the vote fail. now we have been accused over and over again of wanting to shut down the federal government, and we have said over and over again, that is not our intentions. we want to go forward with the continuing resolution. we are sorry that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle could not get their appropriations passed last year, but what do you think would happen if p your amendment is put on the continuing resolution when it gets to the senate? >> well, it's fitting into the same category as what might happen with the $100 billion in

cuts. it comes down to where are the votes and where's the leverage? i have made the point that there's not a dime that can be spent by the federal government unless the house at least concurs, and so that's something that can't be seen at this point. if we had not sent the repeal of obamacare over to the senate, then we would be accused of not picking up an issue that we believed in. and if we don't cut off the funding to the implementation of obamacare, the same accusations that we expected then would come on this. >> but we are cutting off the funding of the implementation of obamacare in this bill. we are cutting off the funding as we, as it is available to us to cut off in the continuing resolution. so, all of the funding that we can identify that fits twhn category is being cut off in the continuing resolution. >> and do you know what that total? >> no, i have not added it up,

but it is -- i don't know $300 -- almost $2 billion. >> and well, while that is going on, there is $4.9 billion in fiscal year automatically appropriate and then balance of roughly another $100 billionp appropriated to implement obamacare unless we find a vehicle to shut it off, obamacare is going to be implemented and it could happen on our watch while we are cutting a couple billion. >> but we have a lot of vehicles coming up to shut it off. we have the budget process and the appropriations process coming up, and so we have your assertion is that this is the only chance that we have, and i don't believe -- >> the best chance. >> that is not the case, because we will have lots of opportunities to cut off the funding for obamacare, and again, i expect us to pass appropriations bills and through the appropriations process we can cut the funding off in future years and that is an

option available to us. >> i would submit that the budget process is not a vehicle, but the appropriations will be, and each one of them will be significantly less in the leverage. so that if the leverage diminishes then the senate and the president's leverage diminishes appropriately. so this is the vehicle. >> but if we send it over on the resolution, and the senate rejects it, there is no leverage. and your argument is that there is leverage because it is on the continuing resolution, but the senate doesn't have to accept the continuing resolution as you just said. >> i would submit that if the house is not willing to insist, the president will get what he wants eventually. >> well, the house has insisted, and we will continue to insist that this not be funded. every single one of us have taken as strong a position as you have taken. i have railed against obamacare as much as anybody in this body.

i have spoken against it over and over again and i write letters against it over and over again and editorials against it -- i have is no positive thing to say about it. but, as you know, you are asking us to change the rules here in the rules committee, and what that does then is to open us up then to the same accusations that were made of our colleagues across the aisle over the last four years in terms of their not being fair to us. and i think that is putting us in a very tough position. >> mrs. fox, i never thought i would be sitting here asking for a modified open rule in order to shut off the funding to obamacare was the implication that i should have somehow made deference, and not made the ask.

this is too important not to ask and it is too important not to come before this committee and have it written into the bill. i would have liked it to have gone before the appropriations committee or open order, but now we have a rule that we can't have the vote or the debate unless there is a waiver provided by this committee. it is the only place i have this argument to make, and as i see it, maybe there is a disagreement tactically, and you may believe that the smaller appropriation bills offer a better opportunity to shut off this $10 5 billion, but i believe that the more money at stake, the more leverage you need. >> but mr. king, you have another opportunity to do this. you can offer the amendment on the floor, and any member can offer any amendment on the floor, and you know that. and so, we are not shutting you out from offering your amendment on the floor. >> i announced as i sat down here that there will be a point of order raised, and the point

of order is likely to be sustained and i have reservations about challenging the ruling of the chair if i think they have a parliamentary point. it is hard for me to make that argument when i have come before this committee to say, my amendment will not be in order. i understand it will not be in order and i knew that from the middle part of last summer. i marched down through all of the things that you can ask can a member to do. my franchise is as precious as anyone in the congress and we have the same passion to oppose this issue, but i have tried every other alternative and if this alternative does not succeed, the next thing i am facing is offer the amendment on the floor, and listen to somebody raise a point of order, and ki and i can reserve my right to act, but to challenge the ruling of the chair when i have told my committee that i don't believe that my amendment is in order, and that is why i am here asking for the waiver because it is more ally inconsistent for me t

do that, but it is morally inconsistent for this committee under the astute leadership of the chairman to go through the congress without a modifieded rule. i expect that to happenn't. and if i am not successful tonight, i hope we are not thinking that if we were going to write an unfunded modified rule, i hope we didn't do it to de-fund obamacare. >> i would like for you to offer your amendment on the floor to de-fund obamacare, and that would be the fairest way to do it. again, i join with my colleagues and i'm sure that every single one of us are going to say the same thing to you. we agree with you that this program should be de-funded. it is my opinion an abomination

to this country that this bill was passed and i find it curious that my colleagues on the other side have talked about how this process going so fast. they want to slow down everything that cuts fund, but always in a hurry when it comes to spending. this bill was pushed through. obamacare was pushed through. any time they want to spend money, they are in a big hurry to do it. when we want to slow down the spending of money or cut funding, all of the sudden, we are in too big of a hurry to do it, and we should slow down. but i appreciate your efforts. i have appreciated your efforts for the last year and af half, as i said, because you have been joined many, many times by all of us here except the new people who are here saying basically the same thing. i appreciate your efforts. >> thank you, mrs. fox.

>> i wanted to say that is one of the most fascinating discussions i have witnessed in the rules committee for a long time and i u think that you are being told in a polite way no, but as you know the rules committee can do whatever it wants to do and it can grant the waiver and if they want to make it an order, they can, but i want to point out for the record even though i strongly disagree with what you are doing, there are eight of them and four of us, and i can't help you even if i wanted to. thank you. >> well, thank you, mr. mcgovern and thank you for joining together for the state of the union address. >> that was a great time. we were seat mates. >> jim was my date that night. [ inaudible ].

>> i would be looking forward to having that dialogue stronas lo it can be constructively enabled. thank you. >> i just wanted to tell you how happy i am that wow were here, mr. king. i think that you are a real champion on issues like this, and i appreciate what you have done on the fair tax time and time again and i have put this in that category of things that somebody has to stand up and say it. there's no doubt that you have your colleague's attention and this committee's attention and the media's attention and with those kinds of talents combined with the bright minds that mr. bishop just talked about, i have no doubt that success is around the corner and success that we are all seeking. i thank you for having the courage to push this all of the

way to the end. >> thank you, mr. woodall. >> mr. king, great seeing you tonight. you know, you have really stood out amongst a lot of folks in regard to the push and the desire in regards to de-funding obamacare. i don't think that you have to convince at least mr. drier over this way about doing just that. i think that's a mission of ours, and to get this country straight again particularly in regards to how it relates to obamacare. we want to get together, and we need to work together. we need to come up, and i think that, we have heard of mr. bishop talk about the brightest minds, and i'm not the brightest mind, but i am certainly the one who loves to hear a good idea, and you have a good idea. and we need to be able to work cooperatively to get to the end-game. the end-game is to de-fund

obamacare, and that is where we all want to go, so with that said. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this has been an interesting conversation, one that i keep hearing in my mind. please, please, please don't do this. but at the end of the day, here is what i am thinking. we will find a way to accomplish the goal. i novi a bill that has been, hopefully co-sponsored by many members of the freshman class and the republican conference to do what you are doing which is to de-fund obamacare, period. the process by which we get there is important, and that we get there is more important. >> thank you, mr. scott, i appreciate your interest in this, and i am aware that you have been active to put language and initiative in to defeat obamacare and i appreciate that

and supportive of that, but my point is that in this environment with the other party in the majority of the senate, and the president of the signature bill at stake, we nood -- we need a way to have leverage to accomplish this, so each piece contributes to the cause, and you are and we are, thank you. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your courage. it takes courage to stand alone and you are standing alone, and i appreciate your doing it. you have a great idea. >> well, thank you very much, mr. webster. it looks like we have wrapped this down to a moment for me to conclude my statement. >> absolutely. >> and i could maybe reach back to some cassette in my mind and turn this thing up to the maximum amount of marketing, but instead, i would say this, i have had the ear of this committee, and on both sides. it has been a good and healthy discussion. i believe, and i would not be

here if i didn't believe i am right. i believe this is the best opportunity with the maximum amount of leverage, and the best timing that we could have, and i think that of those who don't believe that they should come up with a proposal that has a better prospect of success, and i'd be happy to have that kind of dialogue, and it would be maybe more constructive before this committee would make a final decision. however, whatever it is, my level of intensity is going to go in a direction that is designed to bring about the end of obamacare. that you can count on, mr. chairman. however this committee decides. i'm hopeful that the wise minds on this committee can come up with a better solution and ki know about that or participate in that discussion. >> thank you very much, mr. king, and i assure you as we proceed

dedication to the constitution and the institution, and we will, obviously be taking your ideas and thoughts into consideration as we proceed. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> the commeittee is going to stand in recess. i can assure my friends that we will ha will have a copy to them as quickly as we can. we will be in touch with you. okay, so i don't think it will be hours. but we'll, let you know as quickly as we can. so the committee stands in recess.