plan. and whether or not it's been according to plan, the results don't look like they were designed to come out of the tarp funding or stimulus. and i'm proud of my colleagues voting no on that plan. it was one leg of a multilegged stool that we had to construct to get us out of that economic crisis. looks like a multilegged stool has got to be a four or more legged stool. i never seen a two-legged stool and i never talked to anybody that has seen a two-legged stool. this stimulus plan defies logic. this is at the cost of $2 trillion a leg, madam speaker. what do we get back for that? and these margins that were to come, we weren't going to see unemployment go past 8%, but now it's 9.4%. the stock market is down 204

points. the level of confidence that is there, it seems it's less volatile and more stable than it was, but we have a lot more debt than we had. and the chinese were happy to buy our debt. i was never happy to sell it to them. today they're not happy to buy it and i'm not happy to sell it to them. we have to tighten this belt down and slow down the spending and got to get back to balancing our budget. and i believe that every one of us here on this floor voted for a balanced budget this year in the face of all this economic crisis. those of us on the republican side of the aisle, many of us supported a balanced budget. it's hard to put one together in this tailspin that we're in. we voted for it. and that sends the right message and every year, we have to put a balanced budget out there. i yield back and i thank the gentleman from texas. .

mr. carter: as we sum this up here, mr. king mentioned something i think is important. he mentioned we need a denationalization czar or an exit strategy czar or maybe both in this world of proliferation of czars, maybe we need both. but the reality is, in seriousness when the president of the united states came into office he told us, there's a dropdead deadline, we're going to get out of iraq, this is it. there's a dropdead deadline, would err going to close guantanamo bay, this is it. so this time next year we won't even need the guantanamo closure czar because it will be closed. and very clearly we're going to draw down our soldiers in the war in iraq. the president's shown leadership, whether you agree or disagree with him is for other

times, but he's certainly become one who says there should be a dropdead date, an exit strategy. you i think it's important that this congress -- i think it's important that this congress, when you look at this massive increase in the executive department and we say to ourselves, they are not answerable to us except through the appropriations process, we can cut off the money, but other than that, they're answerable to the president. we had nothing to say about who got hired, we got nothing to say about what the duties were. this was the creation of the executive department and that would be the president of the united states and his staff. they owe this nation in some of these areas a time to get out. they say they don't want to us run the automobile industry. well, we need to be planning on getting out of the automobile industry. we can't stay in there. the country doesn't want a

government-made car. just ask them. they don't want one. so, we could get rid of the car czar, the executive pay czar, a lot of these other czars, if we would just say, this is their mission, here's when we expect that mission to be accomplished, as we did to our soldiers, and this is when we expect it to be accomplished and by that date you either accomplish it or you're getting out. you know, i personally think the way we look at this massive $1.5 trillion worth of authorized spending, authorized by this house, mainly that side of the aisle, the way we look at that right now is, we should be saying, stimulus means rapid infusion into the economy. everything that hasn't been rapidly infused this year we should halt. so if they haven't spent the

$787 billion or whatever that number is, like right now, at least some papers report only $25 billion of that money, other yous say $40 billion of that money has been used so far -- others say $40 billion of that money has been used so far. if you study those projects, many of those projects are giving money to people for things that will not have an affect on our economy for years, three, five, seven years down the road. that's not stimulus. if they haven't gotten the thing done this year that -- we ought to say, deauthorize it at that point in time. it hasn't worked. try something that works. that's where we ought to be. that's the way this congress needs to start thinking. because we are creating a power structure that is outside the normal power structure of the executive branch of the government. these are things for to us think about. madam speaker, i thank you for your courtesy tonight and i

yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes. mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. i appreciate the honor to be recognized here on the floor of the house of representatives and i appreciate the collaboration of my colleagues from texas, the two judges from texas, to address this subject matter of the czars in the last hour. a lot's been said about the czars. maybe just to transition from that into another subject matter, madam speaker, but, you know, the idea that we're going

to see the end of the gitmo closing czar is pretty interesting to me. we have an attorney general that seemed to have gotten that assignment. i remember the look in his eyes as he was trying to figure out what to do with that january 22, 2010, mandated closing date that was established by the president and his executive order -- in his executive order. i have also been down to gitmo and seen down there in the area where the gitmo inmates, the detainees, the enemy combatants, the terrorists, the worst of the worst, where they get in their communal area just off of with where their little soccer field is, an area where they sit in the shade and just off of where their big screen tv is where they get their refreshments and their education in english language and the cultural education that takes place, just off of there, madam speaker, not to set the scene to distinctly, there is a bulletin board that's

put up. it's a ply board. and on that ply board is the executive order. the president's executive order, dated january 22, 2009, the seven pages long, in the english version of it, and that's set on this ply board and then the arabic version is about the same number of pages and there's plexy glass over the top of it so these inmates, these worst of the worst, however many we have left down there, they can interrupt their soccer game or stop or if they're waiting their turn to play or whatever it might be, go over there and read and then reread the executive order which says, it's a promise to the worst of the worst, the gitmo detainees, that they are not going to be down there in gitmo one day past january 22, 2010. that's the pledge to them. when i looked at that i had been involved in a will the low of this discussion that had to do with the gitmo detainees and the

utter logic that says keep them there, don't close guantanamo bay, you couldn't have a better -- no nation has treated the people they picked up in warfare as well as we have treated the gitmo detainees. and so these individuals are down there and they live in air conditioning and they say their cultural temperature is between 75 and 80 degrees so they essentially are the ones who set the thermostat in their residences, which cells, private cells, they don't share a room, they have private cells with a nice little arrow on the floor which shows them where mecca is, and our operations down there stop five times a day for 20 minutes each time, that's 100 minutes a day, while our guards stand respectfully in wait while the five prayers a day go on. this 100 minutes isn't interrupted by their opportunity to fill out the menu, they do that at a different time. they get to choose from nine different items, five times a

day prayer, 100 minutes a day, nine different items on the menu every day they can choose from, check the box and decide which ones of these islamically-approved males -- islamically approved meals do they want to eat, all in the air conditioning that they live in, if the not their desire to go outside in the fresh caribbn air and play a little soccer. so there's a pledge on that bulletin board and that pledge is the executive order, with the plexiglas over the top of it, it's president obama's executive order that, the commitment from the president of the united states, that gitmo will be closed. now, when i saw that i came to the conclusion that no matter how much logic there is that supports sustaining guantanamo bay, no matter that it is the best place in the world for these gitmo detainees, no matter that it's air conditioned and

nine islamic meals to choose from and outside exercise and indoor climate control and arrows for prayers and the fansier prayer rugs, i don't know he anybody that has russian this fancy in their house -- rugs this fannie -- fancy in their house. no bibles by the way. one of them requested a bible. but it caused too much unrest among the rest of them. so bibles are not allowed. neither are american guards allowed to touch a koran, it comes in a special little bag carried in and everybody gets this koran. well, of all of these things going on down there at gitmo, they have a promise, no matter how logical it is to keep it open, no matter how logical it is to process these enemy combatants through the procedures that this congress has lawfully set up, gitmo will be closed, despite all logic, and it convinced me of that when i saw the bulletin board with the executive order on it. the president's not going to rescind any executive order that

they have posted in front of the gitmo detainees, the enemy combatants, the former terrorists. that's the strongest message think a picked up while i was there. i'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from texas. mr. carter: i thank the gentleman for yielding. as you were talking about guantanamo bay, it dawned on me that we talk about the -- the world talks about american treatment of political prisoners they're calling them, we call them enemy combatants, which i think, since we picked them up on the battlefield, we have a present decent argument, we don't hear anybody talking about our enemies' treatment of our combatants when captured on the battlefield. there's a reason, i think. fifrlt off -- first off, we do everything in our power to make sure that we don't lose any of our soldiers, sailors, airmen

and marines to the enemy. we don't even let them -- we even take our -- remove our dead, with he leave no soldiers on the battlefield. it's the pride of our military. but there's also an underlying principle their because if you will recall, less than three or four years ago they got their hands on some people and they dragged them behind cars and hung them from the bridge in baghdad. they got their hands on another guy and on television with everybody watching they cut his head off in front of anybody who wanted to watch it. so let's compare nine selected menu items, temperature-regulated -- temperature regulated to suit your lifestyle and your religion material of choice treated with great respect, which is our way of dealing with prisoners versus

decapitation, dragging, setting on fire and hanging from a bridge. and let's decide, where is the outcry? well, there certainly can't be any comparison of treatment because we're doing our damagest not to see that happen again. and i'm proud to say that our combatants, our guys, are doing a great job on that. they're protecting americans on the battlefield. it's because the enemy has no qual s with what they're going to do -- qual ams with what they're going -- qualms with what they're going to do. do you really think the enemy is providing bibles to who they cap san antonio spur do you think one of the choices would be mexican food? give me a break. everybody that's got any logic at all knows exactly what would happen to prisoners that were captured, american prisoners, that were captured. and that's why we fight so hard to keep them safe. i yield back.

mr. king: reclaiming and thanking the gentleman from texas, i think it's an especially important point and very illustrative. when he asked the question, do you think the enemy will provide bibles to any of our soldiers that they might one day capture as prisoners of wars, it sounds even ridiculous when you say it because it's so far out of the realm. and we are talking about renewing, one of the pieces that have to do with immigration, talking about renewing the religious workers visa and we'll have about 5,000 religious workers come into the united states each year and they should be and generally are required to and often it doesn't work out that way, be affiliated with existing religious organizations. now they might welcome from country like saudi arabia or other countries in the middle east, for example, those countries that aren't very tolerant of our missionaries going in there. and so it occurred to me that if we really want to have a religious workers visas here in the united states, we should

turn around and require reciprocity, just simply say to them, fine, send your i man ma'ams here to the united states -- your imams here to the united states but the condition is we're going to send you some baptist ministers and catholic priests. i yield to the gentleman. . mr. carter: i agree with you. that would be the kind of world we would create. that's what americans give to others. it's not the world of those we fight against. the war we fight against is an autocratic world which is their way or the highway. i get tired of hearing people say, we got to close gitmo because it is the target for creating more terrorists. so, let's see. what do you think is going to be the target if we take everybody out of gitmo and put them in

levenworth. the next year, guess what, it's going to be levenworth. and now we're going to close levenworth. and they could cause them to go to the terrorist side and send them to el paso. and then in a year, that will be the evil gitmo. and then they will end up in a county jail. until they are back home on the terrorist battlefield, they will recruit based upon that holding facility. it's a ridiculous argument saying you have to close guantanamo because it becomes a recruiting tool for leffion worth. mr. king: the reputation of gitmo is something created by the liberal news media and moveon.org people. chancesr that criticism is

untrue. people were waterboarded at gitmo, not true. but the public believes it did. if there is a rumor out there, if you want to call this an urban legend that exists about something, do we go and eradicate it because there is a rumor? i don't understand what the criticism was of gitmo was. they had to go somewhere. it's a humane thing to do. no, waterboarding didn't take place at guantanamo bay, but evil people reside down there. and they aren't innocent people that randomly were picked up. these are not goat hearders, but evil people whose path is to kill us, even order an attempt at suicide that took place a several years ago. before they succeeded, now we

have them all on suicide watch. no one goes without three minutes without eyes on. when you think about abusive treatment of prisoners, i see nothing but a culture of -- it bends over whack backwards. there is too much respect for these evil doers. on an average of 20 times a day, these inmates attack our guards. they are throwing feces in their face and other half of the time, they are physically attacking our guards and the worst thing we can do to punish them is reduce their outdoor exercise time to two hours a day. we ought to close gitmo because moveon.org is critical and liberal socialist europe is

critical and people on the other divide are critical. many of them have designs working against the united states and i don't include western europe. but i did have a conversation with the leadership of the germans and as they said, well, we think you ought to close gitmo. they have been pushing hard for that and we should disburse these 241 detainees around to other countries in the world. but the germans aren't going to take any of them as long as they might pose a threat to germany. and how do they measure this? well, if we're not going to bring them to the united states, then they must be dangerous for us to bring here, so why would they take them there? they put a condition on it saying they won't be accepting any, but just pressuring us to close guantanamo bay. my answer is, if you won't take any of these inmates, it looks like you don't have anything to

say about guantanamo bay, including your opinion, along with most of the criticism that flows out from the behavior. nations have got to be able to withstand criticism. we shouldn't apologize to every continent. it's not going to make people like us any better. i'm not interested in being liked, but being respected. and that's the thing that will bring about the right kind of results from the enemy that we have. when they see us knuckle under and go wobbly because of a little criticism and close guantanamo bay and thinking that the criticism is going to move along, who says and why? and if that's the recruiting tool, there are many things they could get on the internet to stimulate people. what do they say? remember guantanamo bay. is that like remember the alamo?

is that a recruiting tool? it doesn't hold water in my analysis. and i just believe this back peddling from international criticism doesn't get you anything other than more sit sism. mr. carter: i thank the judge. don't compare it to the alamo. today i was watching the news and i saw these four guys -- four detainees, who are now living in probably the most luxurious setting i have ever seen in bermuda. it's beautiful house overlooking the ocean with a swimming pool. it's like a three-part swimming pool. a lounging area, a kidee pool. and these guys, they are sitting

there -- like the guys said the other night, they were talking about putting people out on an island. if that is spending $200 million in palao, why don't we buy out the wall doffer astoria. it would be cheaper. i think the world is going to look and say, look at how the administration is reacting to this criticism of guantanamo. pulling them out of a state of the art prison which has state of the art rules and state of the art treatment and they're moving them to the tune of $200 million to an island out in the middle nowhere, which, by the way, these guys aren't on the

no-fly list. we voted on that two weeks ago to fut them on the no-fly list and the majority killed it in a big way. now what's to prevent them -- we paid $200 million to palao and they get their feet on the ground and on the great white jet wherever they want to go. and they're not under detention. in the bahamas, they have the island. what's to prevent -- the bahamas, you can go on a boat than go to the united states. but seriously, this is ridiculous and i'm sure the rest of the world has got to be saying, these guys are crazy in the united states setting up these guys in a seaside resort in jamaica.

i yield back. insanity rules. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from texas. and we were having discussions about things that were not heretofore unimagined a few months ago or even a few years ago. and as we transition into this discussion about guantanamo bay. the discussion will go on. if there are a few of them that could potentially be facing the death sentence. a few. i guess i should pass my request over to the gitmo closing czar and ask him how many are facing a death sentence. let's look at it in this fashion and that is, looks like -- they are going to close guantanamo bay. they will disburse these people. some of them are likely to be released in the free world. some into the united states of america. these are the worst of the worst. we have about a one out of seven

residism rate. the least dangerous is the most accurate way to describe them. out of those 558, we see a rate where they turned around and attacked american people, one out of seven we know. i don't know what percentage we don't know. if one out of seven will come back and attack americans when you pick the best of the worst, what will be the attack rate on free people when you release the worst of the worst? it will be greater than one out of seven. and this number is 241. divide your seven and divide that factor by a two or three and you'll come up with a number. you will see 50 or more of them that will attack americans or other free people. the bottom line of the executive order is that most or all will eventually be released and they will attack free people and

innocent people will die and among those innocent people are likely to be americans and that will be the news story that will come back and we'll replay it and unravel it backwards again and say only cost 20, 30, 40 lives so we could avoid this criticism and shut down an exration that has been able to accommodate the people who are there now and the uighurs who are wasting away in uighurville. i can't even say it. mr. carter: i like that. mr. king: i wanted to also and if the subject matter has been utilized adequately, i want to take this discussion over and talk a little bit where we are on cap and trade, cap and tax. looks like this administration is -- and the majority in this congress is determined to push

through a waxman-markey bill or some version of it, probably the version that came out of committee here a few weeks ago. and have taken this position and i hold it that they're wrong on the science and economics. i want to address the science in a fairly short degree here. and it turns out to be this. remember our history. this issue was brought before this congress, i think the year was 1988, although i haven't referenced that. that's strictly from memory. when there was a hearing on global warming. and the lead witness on that was dr. james hanson. he and i went to the same high school together. he was ahead of me and i don't recall him. but the testimony was mid-summer. the room was not air conditioned. the humidity matched the temperature. and as members sweated, they were being told this world was

going to get warm and all kinds of things were going to take place. 1988, that was a few years after all we had the interest in the ice age. there was a coming ice age that was published in some of the major publications and it was inest tabble that the earth was going to cool and people were going to have to migrate to south texas. and it's a fact that at least one, and probably more than one, although scientists were certain we were going to undergo this ice age, are now on the side of the argument that the earth is going to get warmer and get warmer fast and then anything that's a weather anomaly is going to be the result of global warming. if you remember, we had a few hurricanes as a result of global warming. last year, hurricanes were way last year, hurricanes were way off.