[no audio] >> the ranking member on the right and the republican chairman of the judiciary committee meeting this morning to consider the nomination of judge sonia sotomayor to the supreme court.

news reports indicate that it is likely that the vote on her nomination will be postponed for another week to one week from today. the house comes in this morning so we will break away for coverage at 10:30. there will be general speeches and they are back at noon with about 20 bills on the agenda, including the overhaul of the coast guard acquisitions. the senate is just coming in, gaveling in for more debate on the defense programs and policy bills. one key amendment will be voted at noon which strikes and authorization for $1.7 billion for the f-125. on the health care front, three out of the five congressional committees have cleared the legislatoion from their dockets.

the house ways and means and the house commerce was said to me today. they will not. members will meet with the president at the white house instead. >> i would note that senator sessions and i are joined by senator feinstein, fine gold, and durbin we have 10. i have been advised by senator sessions that the republicans wish to put over the nomination of judge sotomayor.

they have the right to put it over. we will come back in on tuesday rather than thursday of next week. we will do that because the u.s. supreme court is coming in early, in a very unusual case. they usually come in the first monday in october. they will come in on september 9 to hear a case. we all know that judge sotomayor will be confirmed, i hope once she has passed out of this committee that there will be no delay on the floor because she will have very few weeks after being confirmed to move to washington, said her

office, and prepare for a major case on the mccain/fine gold bill on september 9. the delay will not help her or the supreme court. having said that, we will stand in recess. >> thank you, mr. chairman. some say you did not go fast enough and others say you went too fast but it looks like we will be on track with the confirmation if it occurs. it will occur sooner than john roberts. our staff tried to fulfill our responsibility with and that -- without any unnecessary delay. >> i appreciate that. we have the a bandage -- we were delayed by one week would just as robert -- justice roberts.

we will stay in recess until 10:00 next tuesday. [gavel] >> thanks, jeff. hey jeff? [no audio] [no audio] [no audio]

>> the senate judiciary committee agreed to postpone the vote on supreme court sonia sotomayor for one week. we have lots of information for you about her confirmation process, including video of all the hearings, a look at some of her speeches, and her written answers to over 200 questions posed by the committee. all that is online at c- span.org. both chambers are in session at the capitol today. the house is gaveling and for general speeches at 10:30, eastern time. legislative work starts at noon with 20 bills to be included, including one on the coast guard acquisitions program and one congratulating the nba champion los angeles lakers. they will continue work on the 2010 defense bill with a vote on

striking a precision for f-22 fighters. to take this up to the house, an update on how the health care debate is proceeding on the house side from this morning's "washington journal." guesthost: you serve on the houe committee. i understand you wanted to get on this committee to work on this issue? guest: when i was on the state legislature in connecticut, i figured out that if we want to cover everyone in connecticut and do something about cost, we could not do it one step at time. we needed a national approach. when i got here, i figured out that if you want to have a role in that debate, being on the

energy and commerce committee was the way to go. we are right now in the middle of debating the house version of the house bill. we hope to have that out of committee this year. we would like to the house floor for consideration next week. host: chairman waxman will be convening tomorrow? guest: we want to get to the essential issues behind health care reform. the reason people don't have health care is because it cost so much. we spend twice as much in this country as any other industrial countries. this bill has to fundamentally be about reducing the cost of health care for individuals. the government will bankrupt

itself if we do not get health care under control. chairman waxman and members of the committee will spend today trying to get out -- get at the issue of cost. as the central issue of health care reform. host: president obama will meet this afternoon with members of the committee. will you be on that meeting? guest: i think they are focusing on that issue of how to reduce costs in the bill. i think that is an important exercise. if we can find a way to bend the cost curve and start paying for quality health care instead of paying for volume, that will benefit the entire process. i hope that chairman waxman, president obama, and the blue dogs, will find some common ground. host: about seven blue dogs on your committee. how much are based during the process? guest: we have a diverse

colchis. when you win -- we have a diverse caucus. i think that there is a real consensus around a lot of the issues that the blue dogs are talking about. there is the idea that we need to stop paying for the amount of health care. we need to start paying for the quality of our health care. it is bad enough that we have the most expensive system in the world. it is worse that our out, is near the bottom of the pack. a lot of the advocacy that the blue dogs are doing will get health care costs down and improve quality, i think you will see conservative, moderate, and liberal members of the committee willing to support that kind of movement on the bill. host: how realistic is universal health care?

guest: our first call has to be cutting costs. that allows us to get to universal health care. we have to realize that we have universal health care but it is inhumane and you have to wait till you get to an emergency room to get care. that is one of the things that is bankrupting our health-care system. people have to wait until they are so sick that they are treated in an emergency room which is often the most expensive care they can get. covering everybody in this country with health care is not just the right thing to do, it is the responsible thing to do, financially. the bill in the house gets 97% coverage. for many of us, we will require health care reform to get coverage out to that many people in order for us to support that.

host: the gop focuses effort to kill the health bills is the story in the newspaper. it says there is rising public anxiety of president barack obama's handling of the health- care issue. they compare the health care bills moving through congress as a failed economic stimulus bill. winning the hearts and minds of the american people, what will have to get done before the august recess? guest: in 1993, republicans saw that as a means to win back the house. it did not become a policy debate. it was a political debate. it is clear that republicans are seeing the same opportunity here. senator jim demint said the other day that this could be president barack obama's waterloo. i think that is emblematic of the sentiment of many republicans that no matter whether or not this is the right thing to do or there could be a

constructive role for republicans, there are many that simply want to stop any health- care reform from happening in order to gain some political advantage. i think president barack obama is right to call them out on those tactics and say to the american people, "listen, even if your member of congress is skeptical about the democrat bill, press them to engage. try to make it better instead of trying to make this a political issue about stopping part of the agenda for political gain." host: let's go to the phones. caller: i would love to see the republicans get along with president barack obama. he is doing the best that he can. i voted for rick perry.

i think we should compromise. let's get on with the business. i lost my husband last year on april 21 because i could not get him in a nursing home because he was not under the traditional medicare plan. i had to find a nursing home that would carry him, that would take him in is -- in his situation. he was also a veteran and the veterans asked me to come get my husband and finding a place to go. i was very devastated. guest: i wish that your story was unique. the problem is, there are hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country who are dying or becoming debilitated. they do that have access to health care. the richest country in the

world, the most powerful nation on the globe, that is not right. that is not republican or democrat issue. getting sick and not being able to get care or becoming one of the 50% of bankruptcies in this country better caused by health care, that does not discriminate between republicans and democrats. i wish there was more common ground on this bill. one of the central questions will be, do we want to get a bipartisan bill for the sake of having republican votes or do we want to get a good bill? it is my view that we get a good bill. i want to get insurance to as many people as possible and to cut costs for businesses. we may not get a lot of republicans. it is the right thing to do for the american people. i will press the president and the of ministration and my leadership to get a good bill if we cannot get a bill with a lot

of republicans. host: the president is indicating that he is backing off the aggressive time line he was originally seeking. what will it take to make that happen? you are a relatively new member of congress, in your second term. guest: this is an incredibly complicated issue with an enormous amount of interests in the issue. i would like to get a bill before we leave next week. i think it is important to get a good bill and get it right and make sure that members are comfortable with what they both corporate if it takes more time, i think we should take more time. i do not think we should set up artificial deadlines. that being said, we have had decades to talk about health care reform. the american people have waited long enough. the elements of the bill we are discussing in the house have

been out there in the public discourse for at least the entirety of this year. i do not think that would be too much to get a bill by the time we leave. if members feel like they need more time, i think many of us want to make sure that we get a bill done that members of congress are comfortable with and their constituents are comfortable with. if that means we wait until the fall, then that may have to happen. i think we can get a bill done by the end of next week. host: president barack obama is declining to take a surtax off the table in the escalate debate over how to pay for a new health-care system that would cover millions of uninsured people. talk to us about paying for this and where you think it should come from. guest: the president has been firm on paying for health care. the fact is that the last major health care bill that was passed in congress by the republicans

in 2003 when they extended prescription drug benefits for the medicare program, they did not pay for any of that. a bar of every dime to finance that expansion. we cannot afford that as a nation. our kids cannot afford that. we have to pay for this health care bill. i think we can do that in the majority through cuts to our current rate of health care growth. the house bill has about $500 billion in cuts to our health care system. i think we could squeeze out more. i am encouraged by the discussions that are happening between henry waxman and the blue dogs because i think we can get more cuts. we will have to probably increase more stream of revenue. the proposal now is to ask those among us who have done very well to give a little bit more in order to pass health care reform. whether that number in the and his people making over to its

$70,000 or over $500,000, that is an important discussion to have. it is not unrealistic to ask people who have done very well by this economy to pay a little bit more. this is to make sure that their neighbors have health care. host: nancy pelosi suggested revising the tax provisions, one of the most contentious parts is -- contentious portions of the house bill. the tax was approved friday by the ways and means committee. we have a comment from twitter. i would be proud to pay additional taxes to help fellow citizens receive fair access to health care. are you hearing that for many people? guest: i don't think so. i don't have a lot of concessions that are volunteering to pay more. -- constituents that are volunteering to pay more. people understand that we will have to spend money up front to

get savings on the back again. by ensuring the 48 million people who do not have insurance, it will save us money in the long run i think the amount of revenue increases in the bill can be smaller than it is today. we need to focus on bending the cost curve and enacting more aggressive payment reform. i do not think we will need to have the kind of revenue- enhancement you have in the bill right now. i think nancy pelosi is recognizing that host: host: omaha, neb., go ahead. caller: the health care bill as it is right now -- i resent in this debate -- host: \ host: i think host: i think we have to move on because of problems with the

phone line. let's go on to waterbury, connecticut. what is your name? caller: carmen. i have lived in waterbury all my life. i am 84 years old. my wife is still with me. i switched, just this past summer, from republican to independent. i will still vote for some republicans. i will still vote for some democrats thought -- but i will not vote for tom murphy. i cannot understand where he comes from. he talks about this country being the richest country. it is the richest but i cannot go and pay for my own insurance, see my own doctor, my wife does the same thing, and i am just

about making ends meet to do this. i understand that if this is the richest country, why can i pay for my own insurance? the government does not have to tell me who to see and when i see them. guest: your concern is a fundamental aspect of health care reform. at the foundation is preserving the ability for you and anyone out there who wants to stay on their private insurance to do so. there are good things about an hour health care system. we do not have to throw those out. what we are trying to do is to say to the people who do not have health care that we want to get them covered but also to say to you and the millions of people who are very satisfied with the the coverage they

have, whether you purchase it yourself or get through your employer, that you can stay there. i think there is a great benefit in that. 70% of people have insurance today are somewhat satisfied with what they have very we have no interest in taking that away. we just want to give you and the business that you may work for more options. joyce needs to be the foundation of this health-care reform package. nobody wants to -- choice needs to be the foundation of this health care reform package. that is the basis for health care reform discussions. host: let's take a look at the comments that michael still made yesterday. >> president barack obama is a good man who cares deeply about the country. he is determined, with an unprecedented singleminded mass, to transform this into something

that none of us would recognize. candidate obama promised change. president obama is conducting an experiment. he is conducting a dangerous experiment with their health care, and the quality of our lives. he is conducting a reckless experiment with their economy. he is conducting an unnecessary experiment with our tax dollars, in experiments that will transform the very way of life of our country and our citizens. the president is rushing this experiment through congress so fast, so soon, that we have not had a moment to think if it could work or to think about the consequences to our nation, our economy, and their families. the barack obama experiment is a risk our country cannot afford. it is too much, too fast, too soon. guest: it is interesting when i hear michael steele for other republicans talk about not being able to afford the health

care reform. the real question is, how can we afford to do nothing? the studies i have seen suggest that sitting back and doing nothing right now will cost this country and the health-care system twice as much as any estimates of the bills we are seeing today. over the last 10 years, for a business in this country, health care premiums have gone up 120%. workers' wages only gone up 30%. that is unsustainable. if we want to figure out why we are in trouble as an economy, part of the answer is that health care costs are crippling our business community. if we want to compete in this world, we have to understand that one of the things holding as back is the cost of our health-care system. i understand that the chairman of the republican party wants to stop health care reform because he thinks he can create 1994 in

2010 from a political perspective. there are people talking about the health care reform, like your callers, this is not an experiment, it is a necessity. host: respondents were asked what affect a government- managed health care coverage option would have on access, 40% said it would exist and worse, 30% said it would make a better, and 22% said it would remain the same period. how'd you counter that opinion? looking at a government-managed plan. guest: the polls i've seen show that overall, anywhere from 65% - 80% want the option

to buy into a government- sponsored health care insurance plan. that is not something like what members of congress have or what medicare beneficiaries have access to. i think that the fundamental question is giving people the choice to do that. if people want to stay on a private insurance, they absolutely should have the right to do that. if they think they can get a cheaper health care insurance products or they can get a more efficient health-care products for the federal government, allow them that choice. that is what will cost -- that is what will bring the cost of our system down. the budget office said that the public health care option would save $75 billion in our health- care system. that is savings i think we can't afford to pass up. host: next up on the phone,

philadelphia, pennsylvania. caller: i see this health care problem differently. the problem is not that so many people have lost their health care and then don't have it today. the problem is that so many people still do have it. if you go back six months, there were tens of thousands of people working at general motors auto dealerships. they all have health insurance. fast forward, -- they were content with their health insurance. fast forward six months, general motors closed those dealerships. these people are out on the street with no jobs. they have no health insurance. everything that they own is at stake. they have their life savings, the houses they live in, there for a 1 k plans, they are all at risk especially if they get into the hospital. the problem according to me

today is not that the people who still have health insurance have no insurance against losing that insurance. that will put them into bankruptcy. guest: we have this image of bankruptcy as someone who made an irresponsible decision that puts them in insolvency. the fact is that half the bankruptcies in this country are caused by a medical illness where the person could not pay and they did not have insurance or the cost sharing -- >> we will leave this now as the u.s. house gavels in next four mourning our, general speeches, legislative work starts at noon with 20 bills to be considered including one on the coast guard's acquisition program and another, rattling the nba champion los angeles lakers.

the house comes back at noon for the legislative work. the house is in today. they're working on 2010 defense programs and policy bills. it will buy that new today on a provision striking the at-22 fighter plane production provision in that bill. here is the house floor on c- span. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., july 21, 2009. i hereby appoint the honorable john t. salazar to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker

of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the senate. the secretary: mr. speaker. i have been directed by the senate to inform the house that the senate has passed s. 951, cited as the new frontier congressional gold medal act in which the concurrence of the house is requested. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2009, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to 30 minutes and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. lungren, for five minutes.

mr. lungren: thank you very much, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, last night i had a telephone town hall with constituents in my district. as i made the call, i informed them that we were going to discuss any suggest that they wanted, but i wanted to concentrate on health care. as a result, i had one of the largest response i ever had. thousands of people got on the line, most times there was no less than 1,400 people on the line. i didn't choose them by party. i didn't choose them by income. i didn't choose them by occupation. it was random, calling people in my district. the response was overwhelming. overwhelmingly negative with respect to the plans they hear about coming from the white house, the senate and the house. and why were they negative? they were negative because the people in my district were concerned about whether or not the government was going to dominate health care in this country and whether those who were satisfied with their plans, even though they had

some imperfections, even though they had some desire to have them improved, but by and large had made choices with respect to their plans, wondered whether their freedom of choice would be taken away by the government plan as presented by the president and by the leadership in both the senate and the house. it was interesting, they were also very concerned about the cost. when they hear the word $1 trillion they begin to think this particular plan has real problems. and as we discussed the various aspects of it and as they referred me to the c.b.o., the congressional budget office's report that disappointed the white house and democratic leadership in the house and the senate because the report suggested that this program cannot pay for itself, that we're talking about at least $1 trillion to be imposed on the american people, the dialogue

that i had with my constituents was very lively. they were also concerned about the fact that we have medicare and medicaid, as we call it in california, medical, that is on an unsustainable path to bankruptcy. this has been pointed out by the director of c.b.o. as well as many others outside the halls of congress and outside the federal government. and so the american people are trying to tell us that they are concerned that we have an unsustainable program already that we have not faced up on, and on top of that we are going to impose this new national health plan. it was interesting because the president has said and the democratic leadership have said that, look, the public option is just that. it's not going to destroy the

private sector. and yet constituents in my district were very, very clear as to their understanding of the necessary impact of this program. they also were concerned about the promises made in this plan. i guess you could sum it up in these words. first entitlement and then rationing. when government takes over a program like medical care and when it promises everything and when you see the track record with respect to medicare and medicaid you understand that at some point in time we're going to hit the fiscal wall. and government's only ability to control costs at the time, if you look at other government-centered health plans around the world is through rationing. you can look at it in canada and you can look at it in great britain. you can look at it in every country in the world. and frankly i do not want and

my constituents told me last night they don't want the imp significance of a government -- imposition of a government-run health care. that question was posed last night. could we say in the plan that there would not be the intervention of a government bureaucrat to dictate to your doctor as to what your health care should be? that specific amendment was voted down almost on a party line vote. every democrat on the party save one voted against that prohibition. every republican voted for it. in other words, it was crystal clear. the amendment presented last night before that committee was in this plan can we at least promise the american people there will not be intervention by a federal bureaucrat to dictate the care you will receive or not receive from

your doctor? that public public policy prohibition was voted down. if you believe that health care delivered by the federal government is superior to what you get now, go to your local d.m.v. and see if you'd like them making the decision with respect to your medical care. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the majority leader, mr. hoyer, for five minutes. mr. hoyer: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. hoyer: thank you very much, mr. speaker. ladies and gentlemen of the house, this week the house will debate legislation to give the principle of pay-as-you-go or pay-go the force of law. quite simply, supporting pay-go means that we agree to pay for what we buy. and if it can be one of the most important actions we take for fiscal discipline in this congress. pay-go is essential because america faces unprecedented debt and a fiscal year 2009

deficit of $1.7 trillion. a "new york times" analysis found that 90% of that deficit is attributeable to the downturn, bush administration policies and the extension of those policies. but however we got into this hole it's imperative that we find a way out of it. pay-go is not a cure all. , not a solution entirely to our deficits but it is an important and valuable start. and it is a proven first step to deficit reduction. in the 1990's, the clinton administration took record deficits accumulated by two previous republican administrations into record surpluses. and the pay-go rule, supported by both republicans and democrats, was a key part in that fiscal transformation. as president obama has recognized, and i quote, it is

no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved to record surpluses in the 1990's, and that when this rule was abandoned we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt. today we can once again use pay-go to begin rolling back the dangerous fiscal situation that confronts us. under statutory pay-go congress will be required to find savings to balance the dollars we spend. on the one hand it will constrain unnecessary spending and subsidies. on the other, it will force those in favor of tax cuts to explain exactly what they want to go without in return. in other words, pay for them. none of those choices, of course, are easy. but it is exactly the avoidans of hard choices that saddles our children and grandchildren with the debt that confronts us. in addition, deficit reduction

will mean fewer interest payments on our debt which in turn will help make us sustainable entitlements in the priorities that matter most to the american people, including education, clean energy and health care. the pay-go law would apply to new policies that reduce revenue or expand entitlement spending. it will exempt extensions of current policy on the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax and middle income tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and medicare payments to doctors. some would criticize these exemptions, but i see them as an important way of keeping pay-go credible and enforceable. it is clear that there is bipartisan support in congress for extending those policies without offsets. now, very frankly, i would vote for offsets but we have seen that that does not happen in the united states senate and there is inclination not to do it here.

a pay-go bill that does not exempt them would have to be waived again and again, turning the cause of fiscal discipline into an empty promise. i find it much more sensible to make a fiscal discipline promise we can keep. i would also note that the exemptions in the house legislation are narrow than those the president's original proposal sent to us. most notably, they only apply to middle class tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and not to tax cuts generally. mr. speaker, pay-as-you-go cannot remove us from our deficit hole in a single stroke, nor will it. that will take much hard work. pay-go is not enough in and of itself, but it is absolutely necessary because it keeps us from digging the hole any deeper. it is tested and proven, and i hope that all of my colleagues, democrats and republicans alike, we adopted this policy

in a bipartisan way in 1990. we reaffirmed that policy in a bipartisan vote in 1997 with speaker gingrich and president clinton reaching agreement on that pop significance. yes, it's tested and proven -- and that proposition. yes, it's tested and proven, as i've said. i hope it is agreed to when it comes to the house floor later this week. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms. foxx, for five minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm sorry i don't have the time to respond to the majority leader's comments about pay-go, but i would simply say that the democrats passed pay-go policy when they first took over and we're getting deeper and deeper into debt. and if that's what pay-go does, we'll be on to us if we sign on to it. the president, the speaker and the majority leader are all in a rush to pass legislation

here. so much in a rush they will not even give members a chance to read the bills. why is that? it's perhaps because they don't want people to know what's in the bills, but the american people want to get health reform right, not just fast. artificial deadlines for passing legislation serve a political purpose, not a legitimate purpose. i promise that i will not vote for any health care legislation that is not publicly available in its final form for at least 72 hours in advance of a vote. every member of congress should have time to read the health care bills they are asked to vote on, and the american people should be given the same common courtesy. let's give them significant time to fully understand the details of a health care proposal rather than stream -- steam rolling partisan legislation through congress. we should make august a national health care awareness month so americans can let their member of congress know

where they stand before they vote because we already know many problems in the proposals that are being put forward. number one, the bill contains zero savings from eliminating or even reducing waste, fraud and abuse. in an attempt to correct this egregious lack of oversight, ways and means republicans offered six amendments during the committee's markup to reduce wasteful spending. all of them were rejected by the democrats. we know that the house democrats' health care plan will increase federal spending significantly. that coming directly from the c.b.o. appointed by the democrats. we know that it's going to raise taxes on small businesses through surtax increases. of taxpayers who file in the top brackets, more than half of them are small businesses. the democrat plan, according to a study by the tax foundation, would raise the top tax rate in 39 states to more than 50%.

it includes fines of up to $500,000 on employers who make an honest mistake thinking they had provided what the government deemed, quote, sufficient, end quote, coverage. employers who can't -- it will give an 8% payroll tax on employers who can't afford to offer health insurance to their employees. employers who do the right thing and offer health coverage to their employees but it's deemed insufficient by the government, and employers who aren't paying at least 72.5% of an employee's premium, 65% for family coverage. . they plan to take over every aspect of our lives. every piece of legislation passing out of this house is aimed in putting the government in more control of our lives and giving us less freedom. the health care bill is the

worst of those. cap and tax was horrible. this is even more horrible. we must not into passing health care legislation. we must slow down and get things right. the american people are hurting. we know they're hurting. unemployment is going up dramatically under this congress and under this president. and we need to be dealing with what we can do to create jobs and help individual families, not make things worse by killing more jobs, by raising taxes. that's what pay-go does. it's hard to make cuts in spending, easy to raise taxes. and that's what they plan to do. we shouldn't let them fool the american people again. fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you. we have got to stop letting the democrats do these things, rushing bills through, hiding

things in obscure language and taxing us into high unemployment in this country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlelady from south dakota ms. herseth sandlin for five minutes. mr. sanders: thank you, mr. -- here here i rise the co-chairman of the blue dog coalition with pay-go as a necessary budgetary tool to restore discipline in regards the collection and use of taxpayer money. i would like to thank the majority leader, the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, for his strong, steadfast and unquestioned support for statutory pay-go and for those words earlier this morning in support of this important legislation. as i stated and as the majority

leader has, this is an important budget tool to impose tool. it is a tested and proven tool from the 1990's, as has been mentioned. president clinton and former speaker newt gingrich agreed to back in the 1990's. i think it's imperative that opponents of this legislation explain more clearly why they lived with pay-go with little or no complaint in the last decade and the surpluses aided by such discipline and why they abandoned such discipline that led to a doubling of the national debt over the last eight years. we need to make priorities and tough decisions as to ensure fairness to future generations. it is essential to a don't statutory pay-go as one step among many others to ensure both economic and national security. it is not fair to future

generations, the united states in anyway to be beholden to foreign creditors. the interest on the national debt alone is more than we spend on education and veterans combined. statutory pay-go is necessary to impose discipline in both chambers. one of the earlier speakers mentioned that since adopting pay-go in the house rules that the deficits have worsened. unfortunately, many of the -- much of the legislation passed out of this chamber that abides by house rules for pay-go come back to this chamber after action in the senate that strip how we pay for our priorities. that's why again, reinstating pay-go as a budgetary tool in statute is necessary for both the house and the senate and fortunately supported by the current administration.

so, mr. speaker, i encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ask the hard questions about what worked in the 1990's to produce budget surpluses, about what didn't work over the past eight years to result in a national debt, a record national debt, and what tools are necessary to get us back on the path of fiscal discipline and surpluses once again. statutory pay-go is one key, one tool among others that will lead to this kind of tough decisions and priorities necessary to restore the fiscal health of the country. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from indiana, mr. pence for five minutes. mr. pence: permission to address the house for five minutes and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pence: thank you. i come to the floor today mr. speaker at a time of great moment in the life of this country.

the american people are hurting. we are facing in this country the worst recession in a quarter century. we've lost two million jobs since this congress and this administration enacted a stimulus bill. the unemployment rate at the time we passed the stimulus bill was 7.5%. we were told that we had to spend that nearly $800 billion borrowed from future generations of americans so the unemployment rate wouldn't go over 8%. it's now 9.5% and rising. we saw this democratic majority pass a budget that will double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10. and that's if the economy starts to grow again, which sadly few economists believe it will in the near future. now this summer, we saw this majority in the name of global

warming pass a national energy tax that will essentially raise the cost of energy for businesses and individuals by thousands of dollars per year and now comes health care reform. government takeover of health care in this country financed with nearly a trillion dollars in tax increases. yet my colleagues, many of whom i deeply respect, come to the floor this week to talk about something called pay-go fiscal discipline. well, the truth is, in this majority and this administration, pay-go means you pay and they go on spending. the truth is we've got to come to terms with these difficult times. we've got to begin to demonstrate the priorities that businesses and family farms and working families are demonstrating at this time of national challenge and economic

recession. families and businesses are sitting down and prioritizing what should come first. we ought to have national energy legislation to set us on a pathway towards energy independence. we ought to have health care reform that brings real competition into our economy and lowers the cost for consumers. the first thing we ought to be doing is coming together and creating jobs. and we know how to create jobs. john f. kennedy knew it, ronald reagan knew it and george bush knew it. fiscal discipline in washington, d.c. and tax relief for working families, small businesses and family farms. the last thing we need right now is one more massive tax increase, one more government takeover of one more american industry. what we need is focus and we need to prioritize what this congress is working on. we ought to be asking what the

american people are asking today with a heavy heart and say look at washington, d.c. where are the jobs? health care, energy independence, other priorities, other talking points on capitol hill are not going to get the american people back to work. congress should come together, men and women of goodwill and strong principle and work in such a way that can restore this economy and then work in a bipartisan way on the major issues facing our country, so help us god. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. tonko for five minutes. mr. tonko: request permission to address the house for five minutes and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. tonko: the house will be taking up h.r. 2920, the statutory pay-go act. the bill sponsored by our majority leader, steny hoyer,

will renew our commit mpts to fiscal responsibility and protect core democratic values. as the president said less than two months ago, the pay-as-you-go rule is simple. congress can only save a dollar in one place if it safes in another just as families cut back, so must congress make difficult balancing decisions. this rule was put in place when the country saw record deficits turn into record surpluses. it is no surprise to learn that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled our national debt. pay-go legislation will require that turn deficits into surpluses under the clinton administration. it is critically important to pass pay-go to ensure our fiscal health and stability as congress considers health care reform legislation, a necessary item. we must be able to pay for this reform without burdenening our

taxpayers. to understand this important pay-go legislation and the record deficits this country is facing, we must understand how we got here. we must move toward a balanced budget which will initiate an of fiscal responsibility. pay-go is an important and critical piece of legislation in that process. first, the number of factors have brought us to this cash-strapped position. under the previous administration, the pay-go principle was abandoned, reckless tax cuts for the wealthy were passed and two wars were funded outside the budget process. on top of that, our economy has seen one of the most severe recessions since the great depression. congressional efforts to get the economy moving again have proven to be fairly effective thus far but have come at a price. understanding these problems in the long-term fiscal constraints, what does the pay-go legislation do? it will require all new policies reducing revenues or expanding

entitlement spending be offset over five and 10 years. as congress did in the american recovery and reinvestment act, pay-go will have an exemption designated as an emergency. any future extension of upper income tax cuts to be offset as well as force a serious examination of wasteful subsidies in the budget and tax loopholes that can be eliminated. this means pay-go will force advocates of tax cuts to acknowledge the cost and show how they will be paid for and fund america's most important priorities consistently for future generations. certain exemptions on discretionary programs funded in its appropriations process will be granted under pay-go. these programs are the low-income home energy assistance program, head start program, pell grapts, the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children and housing assistance. pay-go will establish an

enforcement mechanism at the end of the year if congress has not already paid for the cost of all legislation enacted during that given year. mr. speaker, this legislation is a priority for the president. he understands as we do that we must balance short-term deficit spending for economic recovery with a commitment to restoring fiscal discipline. the large deficits that we inherited as a result of the reckless borrow and spend policies of the previous administration have put pressure on funding for important priorities such as health care, education and as clean energy jobs. we must ensure that regardless of who was in power, pay-go will be a powerful impediment to reckless tax cuts financed by debt. mr. speaker, the people of our country elect us to come to washington to represent them in the best way that he we can. after years of unrestrained spending, and ram pant waste and fraud and abuse in federal spending, it is clear we cannot continue along the same fiscal

path. however, with the right tools including a statutory pay-go budgeting process, we can reverse this dangerous trend and begin to put the country back on a fiscally sustainable path. mr. speaker, that is why i support h.r. 2920 and encourage our colleagues to do the same. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from maryland, mr. stearns for five minutes. mr. stearns: address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: from florida. mr. stearns: i address the rise of critical regulatory reform. 1912, a year before he became president, president wilson stated, quote, waiting to be solved lurks the great question of banking reform, end quote. here we are almost 100 years later and we are facing the same lurking question. the treasury department recently issued an 85-page white paper

containing five objectives for reforming our financial markets, although a few objectives may sound good on paper, the devil is always in the details and a closer look at this new plan reveals a fundamental change to our financial system and economy that will stifle the innovation and competition fostered by the traditional american free enterprise system giving way to a future of big government propping up all companies that are too big to fail. specifically, the obama financial regulatory reform plan calls for creeding the federal reserve a vast amount of additional authority with the power to create new requirements for capital andly quidity and any firm whose size and interconnecttiveness could pose a threat to financial stability if it failed, end quote. the fed, which has failed in the

past as a regulator would be allowed to oversee almost all aspects of any financial company in the united states and its foreign affiliates. specifically, the fed will be able to regulate in land and close down companies not normally under their control if they deemed them to be a danger to the economy. . my colleagues, this is total government control. additionally, the treasury will be given more powers as well. such as the ability to appoint a conservator or receivor to stabilize any financial firm that is failing, any large financial firm. this will be done in lieu of bankruptcy proceedings and the result will almost certainly lead to those too big to fail institutions backed by the united states government having the upper hand in the market. particularly when it comes to raising funds and smaller competitors will be forced out

down the line. thus, we are destined for an economy dominated by what is government backed entities like fannie mae and freddie mac. this isn't the answer to our financial problems. we cannot erode the components of our free market economy because we're afraid to let the market work. it will devastate the innovation and competition that has traditionally driven the american economy. another issue worth mentioning when discussing regulatory reform of financial markets is the issue of transparency and possible conflic of interest. bill gross of pimco, a private financial institution that manages the world's largest mutual fund is heavily involved in the mortgage securities market and is an open proponent of the treasury public-private investment program.

interestingly in the spring of 2008, pimco actually presented a plan in washington, d.c. for public-private partnership very similar to the plan geithner came out this year. pimco is now hoping to be one of the companies that the treasury picks to help buy some of the $1.25 trillion of mortgage bonds that helped sank bank of america and city corps. and they looked -- citicorps. and they looked at the government to help stay afloat. pimco's close relationship with the treasury and the fed should not allow it to be the beneficiary of billions of dollars gained through federal contracts and preferential investment opportunities, particularly with geithner's public-private investment program that he's proposed. mr. speaker, a free market is an economic system in which individuals, rather than the government, makes a majority de

-- majority's decisions. in a free market economy, the government's actions is limited and it should act as an umpire, issue regulatory procedures. the obama regulatory reform plan will move us away from a free market system and be involved in the private sector. we are moving to a system of inner dependence of companies relying on big governments. this slimet unamerican and in the long term consequences of such a plan is dire. let's not make washington, d.c., the bailout capital of the world for every private company in the world. let those companies suffer the consequences for their risky actions. instead, let's be good stewards of taxpayers' dollars keeping in mind that more regulation doesn't mean better regulation and a powerful federal reserve isn't the answer to all our financial problems.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. boyd, for five minutes. mr. boyd: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. boyd: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to highlight, mr. speaker, the pay-as-you-go legislation that the house will be considering later this week. this is a bill that the blue dogs and i have endorsed for the last several congresses. now it is a priority of this president and of the house leadership and more than 165 co-sponsors of this legislation. i'm always intrigued by those who would oppose pay-go, like my friend, mr. pence from indiana, who spoke earlier, that basically criticized the deficit spending that has occurred. i assume that he'd be critical of that in the last previous administration and this tad mferings. but yet he seems to oppose the one tool that we have that has proven to control deficit

spending. the principle is simple, mr. speaker. you have new spending programs, you have to pay for them. it is very simple. pay-go was one of the tools that led this country in the 1990's to record surpluses. however that tool, pay-go and others that were in place, were allowed to expire under president bush and the republican leadership of this body in 2002. those who claim that pay-go didn't work need simply to look at the numbers. when it was on the books, we had balanced budgets and even record surpluses, but after it was allowed to expire we saw the explosion of new spending programs and spiraling deficits to go along with it. by putting pay-go back into law we will get back on the path toward fiscal responsibility and long-term sustainability. it is no secret by anybody that works in this place and now even out in the country that we

have an unsustainable budget picture looking forward. when you have a budget hole, mr. speaker, the first rule of thumb, the first rule you need to follow is stop digging. pay-go does that by ensuring that new programs that are enacted must be paid for. we owe it to our children and to their children to stop digging this hole deeper. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this pay-go legislation in order to return to fiscal discipline. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from vermont, mr. welch, for five minutes. mr. welch: i thank you, mr. speaker. i seek five minutes to address the body and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

mr. welch: thank you. i'm here, too, to join in advocacy for pay-go legislation that is going to come before the house floor this week. you know, pay-go is what it sounds like. if we have a new program we have to find a way to for it, either through cuts or revenues. if we have a proposed tax cut, we have to find a way to pay for it. either in a reduction in programs elsewhere or shifting of priorities and spending. and it's a very simple elemental approach. if you're going to pay for -- if you're going to buy something you have to pay for it. families know it in their family budgets. they have to do it all the of the time. and government really is no different. it's no different because in the end if we borrow money at some point we're going to have to pay it back. and we've gotten into a habit in this congress of not paying for things. in some cases expenditure programs. in other cases tax cuts. and we've had some back and forth this morning with our friends on the other side of

the aisle and without getting into the blame game, which doesn't get us anywhere, there is an irrefuteable act and that is in the past eight years with the tax cuts, with medicare part d that was not funded, with a war in iraq and a war in afghanistan on the credit card we have gone from the largest surplus in the history of this country to the largest deficit in the history of this country. and what it means is that our kids and our grandkids are the ones who are going to have to pick up the tab. and aside from the fact that that's obviously unfair and none of us want to pass on the burden of debt for our spending on to others, it really is going to restrict what it is that generation can do to meet its own challenges to educate its kids, to provide health care to its kids and themselves, to provide for the

national defense. and we have the capacity to impose on ourselves a rule that families have to impose every month when they sit around the kitchen table going over their checkbook and trying to figure out how at the end of the month they're going to make the checkbook balance, and that is to accept the burden of the discipline of paying for our tax cut proposal or our spending proposal when we make the proposal. voters know that. they want fiscal responsibility . and in fact they're concerned about the deficit rightly is at the top of their agenda. and we've had extraordinary circumstances here that have required extraordinary actions with the economy going off the cliff and stimulus spending, with the legacy of a war in iraq and in afghanistan on the credit card. we have restored truth in

budgeting so that those two things, the wars in afghanistan and iraq, are now on the budget so it's painful because we're seeing in black and white what the cost of those enterprises are. and we know that we're going to have to pay for them. we're not trying to hide it. we're being direct. the american people are entitled to that cannedor and they're entitled to have -- candor and they're entitled to have us respond in making certain that we going forward adopt pay-as-you-go principles. you know, it's not just good in theory. it's not just good for conservatives or liberal. it's good for -- or liberals. it's good for everybody. i'm a big supporter, as i think most of us are, in this country we achieve the goal of having all of our citizens covered by health care. every citizen should be covered and have access to health insurance. every citizen should help pay for it. and if you lose your job you shouldn't lose your health care. but the president has

acknowledged that worthy as that goal is we must pay for it. and the health care bill that we're now considering has to be paid for. what a difference from what happened with the prescription drug program that was largely put on the credit card and is not able to sustain itself or pay for itself. one of the reasons it's so important to have pay-go is that it imposes the discipline on us to kick the tires of a program. you know, health care is a great example. we need it, we have good health care in this country, but the cost is going up two to three times the rate of inflation, two or three times the rate of profit growth, two or three times the rate of wage growth. so people are falling behind. the middle class is getting squeezed. they're facing higher co-pays and deductibles. by adopting pay-go it's forcing us to look at our delivery system and ask ourselves, how can we reform the delivery of

health care to make it more efficient, provide more value for less money? and in fact there's examples after examples of how we have in many cases excess utilization. so this bill will be helpful to awful us. it's important for us to pass this legislation. thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 115 west edward street in erath, louisiana, as the conrad derouen jr. post office, mr. scalise, is recognized for five minutes. -- the gentleman from louisiana, mr. scalise shes is recognized for five minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. many are dealing with this tough economy by tightening their belts, managing their family budgets and unfortunately they're looking to washington and seeing this congress that's being run by people that don't get what the american people are dealing with across this country. spending is out of control here in washington by this administration and by this

congress. and you look at the proposals that we're debating today. you know, health care in america needs reforms, but with all of the problems that exist we still have some of the best medical care in the world. in fact, people that live in countries that have a government-run plan and who have the means come to america to get care because in those countries government takeover of health care has led directly to rationing of care. and so what are we facing today? we're facing a plan by the president, speaker pelosi and others here to have a government takeover of america's health care system. and when you read the bill, and, you know, you hear all of this great rhetoric. you hear the president saying, if you like the plan you have you can keep it. the problem is the bill doesn't allow you to keep your health care plan. there's actually a section in their government takeover that allows a health care czar, some bureaucrat in washington that was never elected to anything to be able to take away your

health care. if they don't think that it complies with these new federal requirements. so if you like what you have, this health care czar can take it away from you. in fact, if you're uninsured, and all we hear about is the uninsured and we need to address the problem of uninsured, and i agree. the problem is when you break down the numbers and you get to the number that's uninsured, you get to the number of seven million people. when you look at the people who choose not to get health care who are currently eligible, you end up with seven million americans. that's a number we can address without blowing up all of the things that worked for over 300 million americans. but in their plan they actually tax some of those very people that are uninsured. the congressional budget office just gave testimony last week, unfortunately, the chairman of the committee threw the public out of the meeting. it was a secretive meeting that didn't allow the public to come into. and i guess after they heard the testimony you can see why because the testimony said, number one, that the cost in

this bill are out of control. all of the savings that we heard that were promised don't even exist. . they talked about the taxes, $580 billion in taxes. $240 billion of penalties, penalties that would be applied to american families that maybe don't go along with this new government takeover of health care. there's $29 billion of taxes on uninsured people in their bill. congressional budget office gave the specific testimony that this bill, this government takeover of health care adds $29 billion in new taxes on the backs of uninsured americans. and this is as they are running around saying they want to help uninsured americans. i know uninsured americans out there don't think $29 billion of new taxes on their back is the kind of help they want.

when you look at the bill, you start to realize what they're doing and proposing is the very government takeover where rationing of care would exist where a government bureaucrat can get in between the relationship of you and your doctor. same thing that happened in canada and england, where unfortunately just yesterday, we saw the story of a 22-year-old, who was denied life-saving care, denied a transplant by this government bureaucracy that exists in england that rations care. in fact, in committee last night, i serve on the energy and commerce committee where this bill is currently being debated. we were in committee until 12:30 in the morning. we had an amendment that would have prohibited a federal bureaucrat in washington from interfering between the relationship of an american citizen and their doctor. that's the most sacrosanct that

exists. no one should come in between you and your doctor. they voted down that amendment. this is about rationing. there is bipartisan agreement on the reforms that need to address the real problems in health care. what their bill is about, a government takeover, growing government more, adding more to the federal deficit. hundreds of billions of dollars by c.b.o. testimony would be added to the federal deficit at a time when americans are saying, congress, get a grip, control spending. people saw that the stimulus didn't work. this bill is a horrible idea. government should not be taking over our health care system and interfering between the relationship between us and our doctors. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chairman and the speaker recognizes the gentleman from louisiana mr. mel and cron -- mr. melancon for five minutes.

mr. melancon: thank you, mr. speaker. if we do not begin paying out our bills today, we will shortchange future generations who will face cuts in priorities such as education, health care and national security. in order to ensure our long-term fiscal sustainability, we must work together to return to the proven effective pay-as-you-go rules that brought our budget to balance in the 1990's. we have a president who is committed to changing the fiscal course of this country. together, we are putting an end to the out of control spending we have done in the past. to that end, the president has charged congress with passing statutory pay-go and we have an obligation to see that this critical piece of legislation reaches his desk for signing. our federal government is -- our federal government simply cannot continue to live beyond its

means, mortgaging its future on the backs of our children, reinstituting statutory pay-go will send a message that the government is serious about putting the country back on serious economic footing. the time to act is now. the president has put his words into action and i look forward to working with the blue dogs and my colleagues in the house and senate to make statutory pay-go a reality again in this country. i thank you and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. boustany for five minutes. mr. boustany: mr. speaker, american families and small business owners are struggling with high health care costs. they are also struggling with access to a doctor. getting to see a doctor and establishing a relationship with

that doctor so you can lead a healthier lifestyle and building the kind of trust that's necessary so the doctor knows the patient and knows what it's going to lead them alongal healthier pathway and having the patient trust the doctor so the advice that they're being given is something they will adhere to. a american families are struggling. small business owners are struggling a we have to do something about this. and republicans believe we should reform health care, but we need to do it responsibly and in a very, very thoughtful way. so as not to disrupt the system we currently have. if you have health insurance that you like that leads to a relationship with a doctor, you can keep it. but we don't want to see a system completely devastated or disrupted. we want to build off of what works. and i have to tell you, i'm a member of the house ways and means committee and worked on the bill in the house which outlines the president's plan and that bill doesn't do near enough to provide good, accessible health care. furthermore, it's a very expensive bill. the congressional budget office

has just started looking at this and they're seeing a very expensive bill that's going to add significantly to the deficit. now as a physician who has practiced medicine for over 20 years, i look at this and say whoa, wait ap minute. let's get this right than to rush into something and cause disruption in the health care system where we have some things that are working. one of the speakers earlier mentioned that we've got in effect the finest health care in the world. we've got the most highly trained doctors and nurses. we have people from all over the worldcoming here to train and we have those living in other countries come here to get their health care. we have a cost problem and insurance problem and we need to fix that. and we have to make sure that insured's coverage leads to access to a doctor forever american. republicans have ideas on how to

do this and basically incorporates three basic principles, information to give you information to make decisions for your family or small business, to make cost comparisons, to create transparency, information among physicians so we don't duplicate tests and run up the costs. these are important things. information is important throughout the system. and we believe we can incorporate this in a very cost effective way. secondly, choice. americans want choices. they like to shop. let's give americans a wide range of choices to meet their family needs or small business needs in health care. if we do that, that will create competition and that will start to drive the costs down of health insurance premiums, which we are struggling with. it will make it more affordable and more people on it. we can address the uninsured by targeting our response. and finally, we need to put families back in control of

their health care destiny. there should be nothing between the doctor and the patient in this. that's the essence of good high quality health care and that's the only way we're going to control the costs ultimately by fostering and strengthening that patient-doctor relationship and making it something that every american has. we'll fix health care. republicans have those ideas and many more and we will share them further with the american further. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas mr. hinojosa for five minutes. mr. hinojosa: i ask unanimous consent to address the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. hinojosa: mr. speaker, i stand before you as a member of the education and labor committee. it is a pleasure to stand before you today to speak about the adult education and economic growth act of 2009, known as h.r. 3238 legislation that my friend and colleague,

representative patrick kennedy of rhode island and i introduced on thursday, july 16, 2009. as we all know, our nation is facing one of the most difficult economic times in history. technology and globalization, coupled with the economic recession are causing low wage and low-skilled workers to become particularly vulnerable. according to the bureau of labor statistics, unemployment among individuals with less than a high school diploma has risen from 7.5% to almost 15% in april, 2009. the unemployment rate for high school graduates with no college degree has increased from 4.6% to 9.3%. currently, the u.s. ranks 11th among oecd countries in the

percentage of young adults with a high school diploma. we should be concerned that we are the only country in which younger adults are less educated than the previous generation. more than 40 million adults across our country have basic skills needs or limited proficiency in english that keep them from participate fully in work, in family and community activities. in the year 2007, more than 25 million adults ages 18 to 64 had no high school credential. in 2006, 18 mill -- 18, 400,000. in my congressional district alone, there are 154,adults without a high school diploma.

another 444,000 do not speak english very well. in texas, we have 3.8 million adults who do not have a high school diploma. this is unacceptable. we must do much more to educate our adult learners and assist them in acquiring the 21st century skills they need to succeed. in my conversations with business leaders in my congressional district and across the country, they have shared their desire for highly educated and trained workforce. employers need highly skilled workers to compete globally, particularly in high growth industries andccupations, such as health care. despite these alarming statistics and realities, we have not made adequate investment in our adult education delivery system. our adult education and workforce training delivery systems are in great need of

reform. in many states, thousands of adult learners are experiencing long waiting lists for literacy service to increase their literacy skills or improve their english language. more than 75% of community-based literacy programs currently report waiting lists. current funding reaches only 2.8 million of these adults each year and thousands more are on those waiting lists that i mentioned for adult literacy services. a report issued this month by the president's council on economic advisers preparing the workers of today for jobs of tomorrow underscores that our modern economy requires workers with higher skills that need to employ workers with education and training beyond the high school level. in closing, i want to say that the report identifies

limitations to our education and training system, including low completion rates, limited accountability, poor coordination among different programs and excessive bureaucratic restrictions on the use of training funds. if we are to remain competitive in the global economy, we must invest in high quality adult education and workforce training programs that lead to families sustaining jobs in careers with promise of advancement and post-second area education. mr. speaker, i invite members of congress on both sides of the aisle to sign on as co-sponsors to this legislation. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. lewis for 2 1/2 minutes. mr. lewis: thank you, mr. speaker, i rise today to express the deepest concern for the fact that unemployment rates have rizzen to 13.7% in the endless

empire. there are those who believe the solution to every problem facing america involves more government spending here in washington. i'm committed to the fact that just the opposite is the case. we must do everything we must possibly can to encourage private sector growth. the sooner we get back to the point of creating job opportunities in the private sector and recognizing that growth of government for the sake of government is not the answer, the sooner we'll solve this problem. the jobs for san bernandino lie in the sector, so let's create an opportunity for those looking for jobs of the future and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from rhode island, mr. kennedy. . mr. kennedy: i want to thank chairman ruben hinojosa on the issue of adult illiteracy.

just like ruben hinojosa and his district in texas, in my state of rhode island where unemployment rates continue to rise, 23% of the adult population in my district alone lacks a high school diploma. last june when the national commission on adult literacy gave its report, it served as a wake-up call. the commission found that 80 million to 90 million adults in this country have deficiencies in basic education, and that our investments in adult education and training were reaching less than 3% of those who need it. that's why we need to ensure that our adult education and work force training programs have the tools and resources they need to prepare our workers for the next generation of jobs in energy, in health care and in technology.

we need to improve the way we deliver adult education and work force training programs. the way we provide career paths to higher growth fields. through greater involvement with business leaders, state agencies and adult education community and work force leaders. we need a better leverage -- to better leverage employers to provide educational programs to their employees. we need to enhance the use of technology to improve quality learning, access and delivery of adult education, literacy and workplace skills services. the adult education and economic growth act, which ruben hinojosa and i are introducing, will do all of these things in order to improve those employed and unemployed with the ability to obtain the skills they need to compete in an ever-changing workplace. i urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and i yield back the balance of my

time. the speaker pro tempore: frelf pursuant to clause 12 of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until noon today >> looks see if i have a good

picture. let's make sure the general can duress. this is brian at the pentagon. >> brian, i can hear you just fine. >> general, thank you for joining us this morning. this is the first opportunity we have had to meet with you in this format. by way of introduction, this is major general daniel bulgar, commander in baghdad. he assumed duties there in february 2008. o'byrne multinational forces. he has a very important area of responsibility in iraq. thank you for joining us and sharing your perspective. i know you have a few comments he would make, to start with. then we are taking some questions here from the press. let me

>> i am the commander of the first cavalry division out of fort hood, texas. in iraq i am commander of multinational division baghdad. i lead to 31,000 u.s. soldiers as well as sailors, airmen, and marines. our mission is to protect the 7 million people of baghdad province. there are 6 million in the city proper. the rest are in the countryside that surrounds the city. our operations, we work closely with the iraqi-baghdad operations command. he commands a much larger force than i do. he has 150,000 people in all. six complete iraqi divisions. 40 iraqis, a third are in the army. another third in various kinds of police. the rest are the sons of iraq, which is the local version of

neighborhood watch. they are very important. they are former insurgents. as we look at that, since we resumed our duties on the 10th of february this year 2009, we have been operating under the security agreement between iraq and the united states. all of our combat operations are in partnership with the iraqis. we do a raid or a patrol, we are combined, and the iraqis will hold any one we need to detain. warrants are issued by iraqi courts. both sides do independent ta sks, like local based protection patrols. we share information so we know what each other's up to. we have been working that way since we got here. given the iraqi numbers in baghdad, they have always had a really big role.

that role got a lot bigger on june 30. on that day we formally turned over the lead for security to the general there and iraqi forces. in the city we support the iraqi general. we work in partnership with the iraqis in the areas outside the city. there we take care of enemy hideouts. regarding the security agreement, iraqi forces in the city have asked for some help in doing their job. training, intelligence, it ground clearing. some supply of medical assistance. we continue providing that. if we also protect our forces while carrying out their tasks. we help out and protect state department teams as they worked in the city. our numbers in the city are really a lot smaller than they used to be in the past. we use a lot of means to make sure that we get the job done

while reducing our visibility, so we are not an annoyance or facility tfrustration to the iri population. i look forward to answering your questions. >> general, thank you for the overview. we will start. you have the first one. >> this is laura jake's with associated press. i am wondering if you can talk about the numbers of forces you still have in the city of baghdad, if any of them are staying in the cop's or whatever situation you have there, forces actually living in the city as opposed to victory or in the green zone, and how long you expect that to go on? >> that is a great question. i will tell you, our numbers in the city very a lot every day depending on a particular mission. it is basically about 1% up to

2% of the iraqi numbers. if they have 150,000, you can do the math on that. as you noted, most of our facilities are outside the city now. the joint security sites that surround the city as well. at the height of the surge in 2007 we had about 76 basis in the city and a large number of even small patrol bases numbering up in the hundreds. right now the number of u.s. facilities you would find in the city would be in the 10's. the low tens. i don't want to give a specific number because we cannot disclose that for a lot of reasons. one of the challenges as we reduce numbers is protected for us is something we have to look at. it puts us and iraqis in the position of having to maybe move more forces into the city, but our goal is to reduce the forces over time. >> do you expect those outposts

in the 10's to be operational? standing up? >> i think they will remain operational as long as we need them, based on the mission. you'll have a significant mission changed next august that our commander-in-chief as given us. the entire combat role will it decrease even outside this cie y and we will switch to an advisory role. then is the best to do the task from an outpost in the city or somewhere we might want to use occasionally and then move on? what do our iraqi partners want and what is the smartest way to do that, is the question. it is also frustrating to have u.s. soldiers even in small numbers living in your city, it is also a challenge to have us flying over u.n. helicopters or driving armored trucks to get to and from the site.

sometimes that can be frustrating. we want to come up with the right balance. we never pretty good balance right now. as our numbers reduce according to the president's directive toward the 2011 withdrawal, i think we will keep looking at our bases. the way the iraqis are looking right now, i think there will be more sites that will close or reduce in size. as we change our posture even over the next few months. it depends on what makes sense in the situation and what our partners need from us. >> go-ahead. >> have you taint your customer on patrols as you tried to keep the u.s. profile down? >> no, in fact reporters,

embedded reporters can accompany us. we will tell them where the risk is higher or lower for them. the forces we have in the city do need for protection missions and they get supply and go to partner with iraqis sometimes on training missions. and the embedded reporter would be welcome to do that. if the only exception potentially would be in a hybrid situation, just for the safety of the report we might ask them to stay back a little while we sorted something out. essentially the same thing as usual. the only difference with the numbers greatly reduced in the city, what we would see, greg, is there are not that many opportunities to do stuff in the buildup part of baghdad. if you want to go out with american units, it's probably better to go to the countryside because there are more american units there. we're happy to let embedded reporters look around and see what the men and women are up to. that includes the iraqis that are partnered with us. they have their own rules from

it department of interior. but they are usually willing to talk with them, especially small numbers. >> we are hearing a lot of reports on frustration among troops with some of the rule changes. could you speak to what you are hearing from your guys. his vocal about the cooperation with--i got an e-mail in my hand about maybe you were being pushed back from the iraqis, your operations in the city? >> it's a great question. it has been challenged or as. you put 180,000 people inside a city of 6 million, we reduced our numbers significantly, but you will get a lot of interpretations of a 15-page document in english and arabic.

aside from some local arrangements be made in terms of borders and mission statements we have given our guys, that is what a lot of iraqi people heard. that document as 30 articles and there's all kinds of things in it. i am sure some attorneys somewhere could make sense of it. what we got his votes on the ground trying to make sense of it as they are carrying out their tasks. in addition, a lot of the iraqi public media trumpeted what was in article 24 about leaving out of the cities. there's 30 articles in the agreement. they could have talked about article 4 that said some americans would be asked tuesday to help out. you could expect some confusion in such a large document. there has been a degree of friction. this has had some for short. each day it gets a little bit better working together.

we have been under this system since it essentially january 1. some people are asking us what they're doing there? in other cases the iraqis said we needed -- they needed us to do a combat operation, but we explained we are in a supportive role. it's a cooperative been my experience when there's a big change in operations like in baghdad there's always going to be some hiccups, some friction. one thing i like to point out, and if this is it pretty well been seen there is not been a lot of confrontation or pushing or shoving or any silly stuff in baghdad. there have been some scenes where american and an iraqi commanders have to walk up out of their vehicles and figure out what's going on, but we had that at the earlier parts of the war as well. a lot of that comes from not speaking the same language. the one great thing is from the

iraqi general all the way down to our iraqi privates and our own province, they know the partnership is the name of the game, especially in the city. just do the math. we have such a small percentage of uniformed people in the city right now. we have to partner and work with the iraqis as we do stuff. i think in a lot of ways it is built on what we have done up until now, build on years of work. despite those initial frustrations, it seems to be going pretty well. to be a good thing i would point out which is important is the security situation in baghdad also remains pretty stable. some people worried that if we pulled our major combat forces out, we might have a big spike and violence. there are bad guys out there and there have been unfortunate incidents, but nothing like a sustained violent impact of al qaeda or any other militant groups we fight against. that reflects the fact that the iraqis were pretty much ready

for this move and they have grabbed the ball. there was an attack on a shrine that happened over the last few days. iraqi security forces handel that almost completely on their own. we gave them very minor support. they did a great job, generally kept the city sales, got all the programs out. then taking the lead in the city. next august it will be that way all over the country. >> tello, general. i'm from nbc news. you mentioned the security situation is relatively stable. can you quantify that in any way? give us an idea of how many attacks there are now compared with when you press derived both how many offensive -- common operations u.s. soldiers are supporting compared with logistical support? >> sure.

basically, let's first talk about enemy activity. when we got here the enemy was averaging in baghdad four attacks a day. at that number stay pretty stable. there was a drop after the 30th of june where it ran about two or three attacks a day. it has picked up a little lately. the bad guys but we fight, especially al qaeda, they are combat tight organization, so they have to go through planning and preparation cycle. -- a combat-type organization. they had to adjust after june 30 to figure out what was going on. we certainly had an upswing after that, which we expected right before the third. some groups wanted to get credit for driving americans out of the city. that was kind of strange because we are told them we relieving. there was little bit of a trough. we're selling back to four attacks or five attack today.

we want that to even lower. as far as from the operations, we have done a little bit of a shift. we started that in june. more american combat forces are out in the countryside. that is where the bad guys hide their weapons and ammunition and where they go to plan attacks. now you have more of us looking around their with iraqi forces out there. that started putting pressure on them in june that i think we have seen. they're planning cycle was not as good bets by the first half of july was quieter. we can keep the pressure up and drive the numbers down even further. as far as u.s. patrols, in the city it's a lot less because there are a lot less forces. automatically, if there is less of us, there is less patrols and operations. because we did not decrease the overall number of soldiers or marines in baghdad, it is more like we are in the outer ring of a doughnut and leave the iraqis in the inner ring with those advisers and assistance. if you look at our numbers, you

will see a little bit more activity in june, especially in the countryside, to drop the hammer on their hideouts and the supply side. now there are more steady state operations, iraqis leading in the city and us partnering in the countryside to go after those networks and by alex. >>-- and hideouts. >> general, can you talk about your relationship with the soi in april or sometime this spring there was some friction between u.s. forces and isf and soi. your soldiers went into a home in one city on a raid and there was some concerns about some soi becoming bad guys against. can you talk about the status of

that relationship now? >> yes, i will. i hope you heard when i gave the discussion of our iraqi partners iraqi partnersoi is th. soi is the sons of iraq. they are third of the fighting strength that protect the people of baghdad. we see them as intimate parts of our team. the iraqi general, my iraqi counterpart, he refers to them truly as his sons, not just sons of iraq. if he says he treats them just like his own soldiers or police. would you referred to worsen the cubs that occurred in terms of getting them paid and getting them on to the iraqi perrot. the u.s. paid to the bill for those folks up until last october. the iraqi government took it over. the government of iraq fiscal year runs according to the calendar year. there's starts on the press of january. they plan to the fiscal year

when oil prices or running at $150 a barrel. those prices are not there anymore. if so not just the sons of iraq program, but every program the iraqi government sponsors, including defense, police, agriculture, all had to do serious tightening of the belt. there was physical bureaucratic confusion about getting the sons of iraq paid. the other thing to remember about that group, they are reconciled and surgeons, but some of them are professional criminals and terrorists. -- reconciled insurgents. when we went in at the end of march in one neighborhood in east baghdad there was one a man who had taken over a town almost like a member of an organized crime syndicate. he was taxing the people for his gangs. he had grabbed a clinic we had built and turned it into a headquarters. if he was doing awful things to people in terms of injuries and

deaths, hit squad activities. there were new warrants against them. iraqi government went in and got them with emergency response brigades and with our special operations guys helping. we help clean the mess up afterwards. in that particular engagement, although there were some people killed, about 12, former soi's , the vast majority of that group said it wanted nothing to do with those bad guys. any son of iraq is a former insurgent. you have to remember. if you have 40,000 or 50,000, a couple will drift back the other way. we have seen some of that. the government of iraq has committed to paying them. and they are committed to a job placement program that we are directed the pilot. if i'm going to a meeting on thursday with the iraqi general and we will start sketching out

how that will start. i expect that to pick up in the next month or so. the prime minister of iraq is coming to d.c. this week. prime minister maliki has been very committed to the reconciliation efforts. he has met with the sons of iraq and is committed to getting this thing right. if that is the way we want to solve this. we want these folks to be part of the new iraq and not to drift back into the insurgency. we watch it goes along with our iraqi counterparts. >> as you look at the units that will replace u.n. baghdad, have you determined what the mix of those units need to look like? do they need to be heavy in field grade officers and nco's to do more partnering work or do they need to look like a regular brigade? >> great question. if you look at the recent announcement for the department of defense, forces coming behind us, you will see several army units are designated as advisory

and assist brigades. there will have exactly what you described. they will have additional officers and nco's specifically is focused on the ardeshir role. by the time we get to august -- on the partnership rolle. as units replace us, they will be in that organization. we are not waiting until then to make the shift. our forces in the city are already in the advise and assist role. if we are learning some ways to do it, how to organize, how to get around, how to work with your partner. we are staring at right now. we have a team with some units coming in to replace usk that right now is in germany working with them. we will send some other guys back to the states to share those practices. we would use video teleconference and things like that to make sure we keep them as up-to-date as possible on that stuff. you are right on target.

there will be an adjustment of what we bring in. the one thing i would mention. this was in the department of defense announcement. and the u.s. force that comes year will have the capability to protect itself. it's not simply advise and assist and that all were capable of. we will have the full authority to defend ourselves. unfortunately, even with great iraqi partners, sometimes stuff can happen when you have to be ready to protect yourself. paris -- there is still a dangerous enemy out here. much more focused on advising and assisting in the new ones come in. >> a lot of field grade officers and nco's out there. while you reduce the strain on the junior enlisted, to keep up temple fairly high for the majors, lieutenant colonels, things like that? >> well, i think that is a

legitimate concern. i am on a second tour. many are on their third and fourth. that is a challenge for an army with our strength. i know you have seen some of the thoughts and recommendations about possibly expanding the size of the army this year to give us some more space to take care of things like that. but you cannot grow a major overnight. we have what we have. we have to look at what is the smartest way to do that. i would say that right now in list parts of iraq we are in a critical phase that we want to consolidate the sacrifices and hard work made by the folks on the collision side and on the iraqi side. we will probably have to have more sacrifice over the next year or so. the fact that we will reduce down by next summer tour residual force of about 50,000 rosso, will remove some of that

pressure. we have not seen the full requirements coming out of the afghan campaign. although we are starting to get a picture of what that may look like. for a lot of us, we may have to go over there to continue the mission there in afghanistan. the army has taken a hard look at the strains on the bourse and doing what they can produce them. for the near term, for us and for the next year or so, the nco's and field grade officers will have to probably do one more iteration before we get out of the high operational tempo time. we just have to be smart as to how we take care of them and their families and set ourselves up for the long term. >> general, when you talk about the residual force next august, how do you characterize how they will be in iraq both will most

of them be inside baghdad both because that's where the operations are both or will they be spread out all across the country? where will we see most of these forces? >> it's a good question for gen. odierno and general petraeus. they are looking at a variety of options. military guys can come up with a lot of plans. i have seen all kinds of options proposed, ranging from spread out in the countryside during training at ranges and facilities. just outside the cities to assist with counterinsurgency training tasks. moved out to the borders to help with more conventional missions in terms of a national army, prepared to defend against -- >> part of the news conference this morning from iraq. the u.s. house is gaveling and momentarily for legislative business. 20 bill to be considered today. including one on the coast guard acquisition program and another

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the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin. chaplain coughlin: god of mercy and goodness, may this midday moment of prayer and dedication be received as a welcomed gift by all, refreshing your people and clarifying our purpose in serving this nation. bless the work that congress has begun, rectify any defects and strengthen its integrity. let us finish the tasks you set before us in a way that pleases you and gives glory to this nation and your holy name both now and forever. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof.

pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from minnesota, mr. paulsen. mr. paulsen: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? >> request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today in strong support of statutory pay-as-you-go legislation which will be taken up this week by the house. this bill demonstrates our commitment to fiscal responsibility and will restore the policy that led us from deficit spending to debt to surpluses. we have to reduce our deficit

spending. if we don't we will not be able to invest in vitally important priorities like health care, education and clean energy. pay-go is very simple. all the policies that cut taxes or reduce revenues must be paid for, offset in five or 10 years. all policies that expand entitlement spending must be paid for in five or 10 years. discretionary spending is not subject to pay-go and exceptions could be made for emergencies. this makes common sense and families live by it every day. if you spend more in one area of the family budget, you've got to cut back in other areas. it's about time that our government start living by the same rule. thank you, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the minority leader rise? mr. boehner: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. boehner: mr. speaker, before i came to congress, i ran a small business. and in that small business i offered a health insurance benefit to my employees. i offered a pension benefit to my employees. both of these plans were as a result of a 1974 federal law called erisa, the employee retirement income security act, that allows employers to offer retimplete plans to their employees -- retirement plans to their employees across state lines. over the years employers now provide health insurance to their employees to the total of about 132 million americans today get their health insurance through their employer. but in the democrat health care plan, i noticed this morning in an article from "the wall street journal" there's a provision in there that in their bill after five years all employer plans will have to be approved by the department of labor and the new health

choices commissioner who will set federal standards for what is an acceptable health plan. now, these employers are providing these plans to their employees. they're trying to provide a benefit their employees want and need, and now the federal government is going to decide what your health plan is going to look like. i would suggest that a lot of employers in america are going to look at this and decide, you know, this really isn't worth it. and under their plan, if you're an employer and you don't provide health insurance you have to pay an 8% payroll tax to the federal government. 8%. now, most employers probably pay more than this for their health care, and so as a result, i would think a lot of people are going -- a lot of employers are just going to pay the 8% tax and allow their employees to be shoved into the government-run plan. according to the congressional budget office, some 23 million americans would lose their

benefits from their employers and be forced into government health care. according to one group, 114 million americans would be forced into the government plan. this is not what the american people want. and if you put an 8% tax on payroll, guess what? employers are going to hire less people, and most of my constituents are asking, where are the jobs? and if you tax employment through this health care plan or you tax employment under this crazy national energy tax, you're going to create less jobs in america. at a time when we need jobs and we need our economy going again we don't need to be taxes employers and taxing employment because we're going to get a lot less of it. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from arizona rise? ms. kirkpatrick: i ask permission to address the house

for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. kirkpatrick: mr. speaker, i rise in support of the statutory pay-as-you-go act. this commonsense measure will help bring fiscal responsibility back to washington. with the national debt at almost 11.6 trillion dollars, congress needs to start showing some discipline. i launched my do more with less campaign to cut inefficient spending and reduce the debt. i have been proud to support billions of cuts in the fiscal year 2010 appropriation bills, and i have called on the treasury secretary to use returned bailout funds to pay back what we owe. i am also pleased to be an original co-sponsor of the pay-go bill. by requiring that congress offset spending dollar for dollar, this legislation will ensure that washington makes the tough choices it takes to

get our country back on track. pay-go helped produce the budget surpluses of the late 1990's and it will help us restore the balance now. i urge my colleagues to stand with me and support passage of this bill. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i rise and i ask unanimous consent to drouse and to revise and extend my remarks. -- to address the house and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. cantor: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, at a time when millions of americans are losing their jobs and families are desperately seeking employment, this congress and this administration have made job creation a secondary concern, and as a result, they have squandered a golden opportunity to put people back to work. and frankly the american people have had enough. they've had enough of the stimulus bill that's wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and not staved off job loss. they have had enough with the national energy tax that will

impose extraordinary job killing taxes on the people of this country, and now, mr. speaker, they've had enough of talk of a health care bill that not only will fail to deliver the access and quality that we need but it will cripple small businesses by imposing an 8% payroll tax on them. mr. speaker, the question is, where are the jobs? congress and this administration have been asleep for too long and we can do better, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. baca: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. baca: american health system is not working. we can not stay with the failing system that we now -- we cannot stay with the failing system that we now have. what good is an insurance card if there's no real access to service? what good is the current system if i have a senior under

medicare, like in my district, scared that their doctors won't see them anymore? we also need a health care reform that gets past the politics and past the rhetoric that every single person is covered. i stand here to advocate for those without a voice, for those who cannot afford to travel to washington, d.c. i stand here to advocate for a viable public option to compete with the private sector. i stand here to advocate for the american families, and i say the american families who are busting at the seams who are trying to meet their ends by hoping that one day that they won't get sick and they'll have the coverage. i urge my colleagues to advocate for all american families and pass health care reform that is needed for all american family in this country. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise?

mr. pence: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pence: thank you, mr. speaker. in the midst of the worst recession in 25 years, after months of runaway federal spending, bailouts, record deficits and a national energy tax, now comes a government takeover of health care paid for with nearly $1 trillion in tax increases. before we move on to the next big government scheme of this administration, the american people are asking, mr. president, where are the jobs? make no mistake about it, the president's health care bill will do nothing to lower the cost of health care and would be a disaster for the american economy. if obama care passes, according to the experts, if obama care passes, you'll probably lose your health insurance and you might just lose your job. the american people know we can do better. we must do better. for the sake of our economy and reform, i implore my democratic colleagues, say no to a

government takeover of health care and higher taxes and say yes to a bipartisan majority in this congress that is committed to fiscal discipline, reform and putting americans back to work. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. chilleder: thank you, mr. speaker. it's a privilege to come to the house floor today to express my steadfast support for pay-as-you-go legislation that is scheduled to be introduced this week. as a member of the fiscally conservative blue dog coalition, i believe reinstituting pay-go is vital to restoring confidence with the american people, that washington and this congress is indeed serious about reducing the federal deficit and not continuing the reckless spending policies so often associated with washington over the past decade. the people of north mississippi and the american people all understand that at some point the bills have to be paid.

going from a $5 trillion debt at the end of the clinton administration to a now over $11 trillion debt, it is not hard to imagine the daily frustrations i see every weekend at home on the faces of individuals and families struggling in this economic downturn. it is time for congress to start operating just as the families in my district do and adopt statutory pay-go as the law of the land. i urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this landmark legislation. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from washington rise? mrs. mcmorris rodgers: to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. mcmorris rodgers: the health care version currently being debated in congress is recognized and called by many as a prescription for disaster, disaster as it relates to ensuring quality and affordable health care, and disaster as to

the impact it would have on our economy. governors across the country, republicans and democrats, are fearful it will only add additional costs to an already unsustainable system. the mayo clinic says this bill misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for our patients. in fact, they say it will do the opposite. c.b.o. last week stated it would worsen our economic outlook by increasing deficits and driving our nation more deeply into debt. there's many reasons to be skeptical of this plan. the job loss, the additional debt, the government intrusion between you and your doctor and your health care decisions. some continue to say it's better than nothing. when you are sick or your son or daughter is sick, you don't want the doctor just to do something. you want them to do the right thing. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? mr. mcdermott: i ask unanimous consent to address the house

for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, 15 years ago frank luntz wrote the speeches for newt gingrich to come out here and scare the american people about the clinton health reform. they succeeded 15 years ago, and what have the people gotten since then? nothing. the number of people have gone up and up and up and up who do not have health insurance. so here they are all here again today one at a time. folks, they're here to scare you again. mr. speaker, the people are smarter this time. in the election of 2008, they elected a president who said he would bring health care reform to this country, and they gave the democrats an overwhelming majority because they're tired

of the fear machine. now, i know you all have your talking points. frank luntz pulled them out of the door and shined them up for 2008 and he said, here's what worked in 1994. use it again. it won't work, mr. speaker. the people want health care reform and we're going to give it to them. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair will remind members to direct their comments to the chair. . mr. carter: the lady on television said where's the beef? where's the jobs? one of the things that the president promised was jobs for this country. the speaker said it's about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. but the national unemployment is 9.5% and in the midwest, it's double digits. yes, the democrats have given us

some jobs. they have given this cap and tax bill, which is going to stick a tax collector in everybody's pocket, destroys small businesses and destroy jobs. they have given us 33 czars at $ 137,000 a year to reward cronies by creating new jobs in washington. last night the energy and commerce committee voted to put a bureaucrat between the doctor and his patient to tell him how he's going to treat that sick person. that's a new job they want to create. they've got this idea that if they throw enough money to acorn they will create jobs and keep the indictments away from them. these are not jobs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise? mr. perlmutter: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

mr. perlmutter: i appreciate my friends wanting to talk about jobs. the arguments they want to pursue, but don't want to let the facts get in the way of their argument. and let's start with the report we received today from the federal reserve. we know that jobs fell off a cliff last fall and earlier this year as part of the bush administration efforts for jobs. private nonfarm employment fell by 670,000 on average per month from january to april but declined to 312,000 in may and 415,000 in june. the declines in construction jobs were the smallest since last fall. small declines in temporary jobs and employment in nonbusiness services turned up in may and increased further in june. that's why we have the stock market going up. that's why consumer confidence is going up because this is working, even if my friends' arguments are not working. with that.

mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. dreier: permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker prtempore: without objection. mr. dreier: last night i talked to one of my constituents. this man is an unemployed truck driver. and his statement to me was a very clear one, where are the jobs? where are the jobs? he said, you guys back there in washington are putting together -- you put together a so-called stimulus bill that cost me -- he's still a taxpayer, $1 trillion and now you plan to take over the entire health care system in this country. he said it would be devastating. and i'm looking for a job as a truck driver again. and with what you have done on cap and trade, it's going to undermine my ability to do that. the message is loud and clear. it's not coming from anyone

putting together talking points, mr. speaker. it's coming from the american people to democrats and republicans alike in this congress. where are the jobs? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from idaho rise? >> address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. milk milk mr. speaker, today congress will consider a law requiring that what every taxpayer must do, something very simple and basic, pay for what we spend. 10 years ago, thinking it didn't need fiscal discipline, congress abandoned this commonsense approach and went on a spending frenzy doubling our national debt and now we face the largest budget deficit in our nation's history.

our government cannot continue to borrow and spend and create higher levels of debt and pass the costs to our children and grandchildren. we are relying on trillions of dollars on money borrowed from china and meench oil states to pay our bills. this can't continue. it's time to grow up and act like responsible adults and return to fiscal santi. any new spending we pass must be deficit-neutral. this is the first step towards returning to fiscal responsibility to ensure our creditors and demonstrate that we deserve to govern. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair must enlist the cooperation of members of heeding the gavel at the expiration of their time. for what purpose does the

gentleman from california rise? mr. mccarthy: permission to address the house. mr. speaker, this morning, i opened up my hometown paper. on the front page of the local section, there is an article. the current county, unemployment rate for the month of june increased to 14.7%. if that's a talking point, it's coming directly from the paper. one year ago, the unemployment rate was 9%. the american people know if americans are not working, america is not working. my constituents ask me is this obama economy going to improve. they continue to ask me, if you take more from what people earn from the energy tax every time you turn on a light, when you go to the health care, taxing and taking away the choice. but i tell them there's a chance for a better way. there is a better way to work together to focus on small business. small business creates 79% of

every job in america. we can do better by working together and stopping the unemployment rate. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from new mexico rise? >> mr. speaker, i rise to congratulate the friendship baptist church in roslyn, new mexico. it will be sell baiting 47 years of service. the friendship missionary baptist church has been dedicated to the people of their community for nearly half a century. i would like to congratulate the pastor and former pastor of faithful leadership to the church and the community. churches like friendship baptist achieve great distinction because of the hard work, dedication and compassion of their congregation. the leaders of the church and their staff are to be commended for their guidance.

friendship missionary baptist church has been and will remain a place for fellowship and source of hope for the people of southern new mexico. i'm honored to have churches like friendship missionary baptist church in my district and i commend them on their years of service. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? mr. blunt: address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. blunt: would a government takeover of health care create jobs? no. we should be focused on job one right now which is find the jobs. but, mr. speaker, if the energy and commerce committee had continued to work today, i would have introduced an amendment to require all federal elected officials including the president and vice president to set aside our health care benefits and enroll in their new idea of a government-run health care system. if the majority is confident their plan will provide the very

best health care for the people we represent, we ought to demonstrate that confidence by enrolling ourselves. i don't believe that government-run health care plan will be the best for the people we represent, but a government competitor will be the only one left. a government competitor would be like an elephant in a roomful of myself. the fast myself get out of the room and only the elephant is left. it's time we put our health care where we want the american health care to be, mr. speaker, but it's time we find the jobs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from maryland rise? ms. edwards: permission to address the house for one minute. i rise today because we really are on the verge of finalizing groundbreaking health care legislation which will benefit generations to come and 250 million of us who have health care, but who are tired of skyrocketing premiums and

deductibles. did your salary go up 114% this last decade? it shouldn't didn't, but that's what happened with premiums and deductibles. this is about real reform, knots for insurance companies and bean coupters, but for the american people. i want to emphasize the importance of including a robust public plan option, relying on the medicare provider network in the final reform bill. providing americans with a real choice in doctors and insurance plans puts americans back in charge of their health care, not insurance companies, but real people and patients. i would say that for those who believe in the free market, why are you afraid of a public plan and something that competes? i think it's time for us to do health care reform and lower costs and make it affordable and benefit those who have health care to lower deductibles and our premiums and i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise?

mr. poe: permission to address the house for one minute. the unemployment rate is in double digits. some states have the highest unemployment rate in history. the economy is bleeding jobs because the trillion dollar stimulus bill was a jobs-disaster bill. jobs, jobs, jobs. that's what we heard from the taxocrats and didn't give anyone a chance to read it and the american people didn't get to read it and they have to suffer. but the stimulus bill did help one city, however, washington, d.c. has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. how can that be? the stimulus bill stimulated government programs funded at taxpayer expense. these aren't real jobs. government doesn't create anything. all they do is suck money out of the private economy they could create real jobs. the bureaucrats created more jobs for red tape regulating bureaucrats and forced citizens to subsidize. all the stimulus bill did is spend taxpayer money to create more government regulations,

government control and more government bureaucrats. that's too bad. and that's just the way it is. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? mr. hall: i rise today to dispel the myth that health care reform will suddenly move the burden for paying for the uninsured onto the rest of us. all americans are paying for a broken health care system with 47 million americans uninsured. the cost of caring for the uninsured gets past on to all of us. the american family is paying more than $1,000 a year to support the uninsured. this fee is buried deep in every premium and pays for the health care system. health care costs are soaring out of control. premiums have grown three times faster than wages. these staggering prices are too high for american families. members of congress must come together to address the problem

for the health of middle-class americans. cost of inaction is too great to sit back and do nothing. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: democrats have papetted a target on the backs of america's small businesses. as the unemployment rises, 2.6 million jobs lost since january, democrats continue to propose policies that will kill jobs. first there was cap and tax, which will skyrocket electric bills, gas prices and food prices and make american businesses less competitive. now they have a government-run health care full of tax hikes and mandates on small businesses, which it estimated will cost 1.6 million more jobs lost. small businesses create the majority of jobs in this country and doing the best they can in this tough economy, but all they

hear from democrats and pay higher taxes. democrats should stop feeding big government and start providing relief to small businesses. where are the jobs? we need health care reforms that will bring americans regardless of their pre-existing conditions. help small businesses provide insurance for their employees and keep in place an innovative side of our health care system. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget our froops and the global fight on terrorism. . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from wisconsin rise? ms. moore: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. moore: you heard the commercial, don't support government health care. so the question that you need to ask yourself then is, do i feel lucky? do i feel lucky that i won't be one of the 14,000 people a day who lose their jobs and can't afford health insurance, that i won't have such a high deductible that i will avoid

preventive care and end up with end stage cancer because i didn't go to the doctor? well, do i feel lucky that junior won't break a bone and i end up in the emergency room with a $5,000 bill? do i feel lucky that i won't go bankrupt from my health care problems? do i feel lucky that i won't have some preexisting condition that prevents me from getting a new job? do i feel lucky that my health care premium won't grow three times faster than my salary? the american economy is in the intensive care unit. the disease is the high cost of health care and the medicine is health care reform. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. paulsen: mr. speaker, last week my home state of minnesota saw the unemployment rate rise once again while seeing its exports drop by almost 20% from just one year ago. the number one priority of this

congress and this administration should be job creation. but it's clear that the economic stimulus policies being pursued in washington is failing. they won't pursue real policies that will put minnesotans and americans back to work. instead we've seen reckless spending and reckless borrowing at unprecedented rates. so much so that the fact now that every man, woman and child in this country owes over $37,000 as their share of the national debt. mr. speaker, we should be reforming health care without throwing even more new taxes on the backs of families and small businesses. and we should be giving priority to helping small businesses our number one job creators to put minnesotans and americans back to work. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. carney: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to remember the 40th anniversary of the apollo

moon landing and the deep sense of pride it gave our nation. i like all americans watched with amazement as neil armstrong declared that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. that moment demonstrates the magnitude of the american know-how, ingenuity, innovation and our ability to rise to a great challenge. my home state of st. louis, missouri, was instrumental in the success of that moon mission serving as home to then mcdonald douglas, who manufactured components for the third stage booster rocket for saturn v. that third stage booster rocket launched those astronauts into lunar orbit making that historic journey possible. now it's time to lead the world once again in the innovation and science and technology, especially as we transition to a new clean energy economy. americans are ready to be called to action for a great challenge again. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from michigan rise?

mrs. miller: to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. miller: the american people were told that we had to act immediately because of our economic crises. we were also told that that plan would create or save three million jobs and that the unemployment rate would not rise above 8% and that we had to act so fast that actually not one member of this house or the american people had a chance to read the bill. and what has actually happened since that time? well, the economy hasn't gained three million jobs. it's actually lost three million jobs. where are the jobs? and unemployment is almost 10% in my home state -- and in my home state of michigan it's 15.2% today. 787 billion dollars added to our national debt and an annual deficit approaching $2 trillion. mr. speaker, now we're being told that we need to pass health care reform immediately because we're in a crisis. we're told that it will be deficit neutral because it includes massive new taxes on individuals and small businesses. but c.b.o. says it will

actually increase the deficit, mr. speaker, while others say it will force millions of americans out of their private health insurance. we do need to reform our health care system but doing it in such a panic mode is a recipe for disaster. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? mr. reichert: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. reichert: mr. speaker, our economy is struggling, and unemployment is near 10%, yet the health care proposal being considered in congress ask our job creators, the small businesses of america across this country to pay a new 8% tax. last week in the ways and means committee i proposed to exempt small businesses from this penalty tax if it would result in businesses having to lay off workers, cut wages or reduce jobs. america's businesses are hurting, and we're asking them to pay more taxes? yet my amendment was rejected. requiring small businesses to pay a penalty tax is no way to

help them stay in business and create jobs. american workers will be harmed. workers will bear the new costs through lost jobs and smaller wages. i ask my colleagues to reject this bill. americans need the competence that their jobs are not in jeopardy, that we're working to protect and strengthen their health care while supporting the small businesses that create jobs. and these aren't speaking points. that's just some straight shooting from the sheriff. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. coffman: mr. speaker, president barack obama's chief of staff, rahm emanuel, talked about the economy. he said earlier this year that our nation's financial crisis presented an opportunity to accomplish agendas unrelated to

the economy. a good example of that was the so-called stimulus bill that had nothing to do with helping to save or create jobs in the private sector but everything to do with expanding government programs and pushing our nation $787 billion deeper into debt. the obama administration and the congress should be focused on one issue and only one issue and that is stabilizing our nation's economy so that americans can keep the jobs they have and get back the jobs they lost. only when the economy is stabilized should we be debating other issues such as energy policy and health care reform. mr. speaker, the american people are hurting and it's time that our president and the democrats in congress stop ignoring their pain and get to fixing this economy. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. lee: it amazing me how out of touch we are in washington. for months now the constituents in western new york have been asking, where are the jobs, any jobs? well, according to this chart of job postings we found out where they are. right here in washington, d.c., as we continue to hire thousands of federal bureaucrats. it's one of the only cities that's growing and all for the wrong reasons. it's appalling that we're continuing to grow the federal government while we're running a deficit of $1.8 trillion. when i ran a business, you always had a budget. you lived within it. when you look around d.c., you see construction cranes all around the skyline. it's because we can't construct enough buildings to house all

these federal bureaucrats that we are now hiring when we have this deficit. we have to stop this excessive spending and work together to create the right jobs and the right sectors. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. spier: thank you, mr. speaker. the -- ms. spire: thank you, mr. speaker. we've tried to find a story that fits with the message, no change, no reform. but i only have to look to my district to sharon alameda who sent me this letter titled "what's wrong with this picture?" . each month sharon and her husband, frank, net $3,811 from social security and pensions. but they pay out nearly $2,800 for sharon's cancer treatments.

that leaves them just $1,000 for food, utilities, gas, insurance, never mind a little something for the grandchildren. thank god they own their own home and no longer have a mortgage. mr. speaker, sharon and frank worked hard. they played by the rules and raised a beautiful and supportive family. they do not deserve this. so to the critics of reform i say let the canadians worry about canadians. it's time we come together to provide real health care reform for sharon and other hardworking americans. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. lungren: mr. speaker, trouble. we have trouble right here in capital city with a capital c and right here we have to figure out a way to help the americans we're about to choke. you have trouble right here in capital city with a capital t and that rhymes with d and that

stands for debt. right here in capital city we have trouble. remember the millions, the billions, the trillions, and don't you forget we have trouble. we're in terrible, terrible trouble. the game of some 256 members is a devil's bet. oh, yes, we have trouble, trouble, trouble with a t that rhymes with debt and it stands for democrat. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. speaker. it's time for commonsense health care reform that will strengthen free enterprise, lower costs and expand access to affordable quality care. unfortunately at a cost at $1.28 trillion, democrats wish to create a new government program that will unwillingly force more than 100 people out of their current coverage, increase taxes by $818 billion and cut 4.7 million jobs.

according to c.b.o., this legislation will also increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. and as a result, would ration care, force doctors out of their profession and hospitals out of business. and ultimately provide fewer options and longer waits for patients. locally new health mandates in south carolina, a state already in financial crisis, would create more unbudgeted costs and reduce funding for other important issues in the state. spending so much that accomplishes so little, a government takeover of health care is the wrong direction for all americans. republicans have a better an that expands access to affordable health care and allows families to choose the plan that best fits their needs. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore:

without objection. mr. culberson: mr. speaker, continental airlines, one of the largest airlines in houston, have just laid off 1,700 people. and my friend, mr. chris lee from new york, put together this chart what this liberal leadership in this house is doing with our hard-earned tax dollars. they're redistributing the wealth to washington, d.c. out in san francisco and in state i compals across the nation. but we fiscal conservatives understand that it's common sense to create jobs to cut taxes. you get lawyers and bureaucrats and regulators off the backs and out of the pockets of small business people. we need to cut taxes to create jobs and do so immediately. we need to cut spending at the federal level, to reduce the level of debt out that our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay. the inspector general for the treasury has just reported that these irresponsible bailouts that this liberal majority has passed could cost taxpayers up to $23.7 trillion on top of the $60 trillion in unfunded liability that we have already

passed on to our kids. it's time to cut taxes and create jobs and get the government out of our backs and out of our pockets. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana rise? >> request unanimous consent to speak to the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. fleming: thank you, mr. speaker. the more details the americans learn about the government takeover of health care proposed by the president and the liberal leadership of congress, the less support there is for this insane idea. a "washington post"/abc poll shows more than half of the country is opposed to this plan. yes, this deep dive into socialism is fading fast. the nonpartisan c.b.o. says this plan won't reduce the cost, as the president suggested. it will accelerate it. and we know that will kill jobs. this liberal congress ran the stimulus and the cap and trade, which nobody could read before

voting, down the throats of the american people, but they are now fed up and on to their strategy. we don't want d.m.v., department of motor vehicles-style medicine with long waiting lines, delayed care and skyrocketing cancer death rates as in canada and the u.k. we don't want a system that will bankrupt this country and ignore the elderly, and we sure don't want our tax money paying for abortions. simply put, we want commonsense health care reform, not nonsense health care reform, as now proposed. the speaker pro tempor the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. . >> i was chairman of the florida chamber four years ago and we represented 137,000 businesses. 99% of those businesses were

small business and created 75% of the jobs. but yet today, we're going to tax health care. it's not a tax on profit. it's a tax on payroll. you got $1 million payroll, making no money, you are pay-go another $80,000 a year and put people out of business. they want to put together a third tax of 5.4% on businesses. they want to get to the millionaires. do you know who those folks are? small business people. you wouldn't know that. that's the majority of them. you are going to take the 8% and add another 5.4%. you're going to kill millions of businesses and kill millions and millions of more jobs. we need to get focused back on the economy and jobs in america today, right now. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. green: i serve on the energy and commerce committee and health subcommittee and in session until 12:30 last night and it was beginning to be a bipartisan bill. we accepted republican amendments and democratic amendments, but we have a long way to go. let me tell you the facts. 43 million to 50 million people in our country are without health care. they get health care through the emergency room. you know who pays for that? those of us who have insurance, who are fortunate to have employer-based insurance, whether a federal employee, state employee, city employee or work for some of the large industries. we have insurance. but 43 million to 50 million people don't. our country's employers and employees spend more per captaina than anywhere in the world for some of the worst results for the average illnesses. we will debate a bill in a few minutes, the increase in diabetes eates in the hispanic

community. it can be dealt with early on. our health care system decides to deal with people after they are so ill and more expensive. we need health care reform in our country for cost containment and also to make sure that every american doesn't have to get their health care through the emergency room. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> address the house for one minute and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> americans are asking where are the jobs. we have been promised jobs over and over again by the obama administration and the majority in this congress, but unemployment numbers continue to rise. when the president took office, 11.5 million people were unemployed. that number now stands at 14.5 million americans unemployed and looking for work. where are the jobs? in february, when the majority rammed through $1 trillion bill with zero input from my republican colleagues, americans

were promised unemployment would remain at 8%. five months later, unemployment is at 9.6% and climbing. in my home state of florida, that number is 10.6%, the highest in three decades. where are the jobs? the stimulus bill is not working and despite what vice president biden says, we can't borrow and spend our way out of this recession. instead of spending trillions of dollars on failed programs and misled policies, we need to focus lowering taxes on families and small businesses. again, where are the jobs? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee rise? >> address the house for one minute the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wamp: the world is looking to us for innovation and that's the goose that lays the golden egg, free enterprise system, entrepreneurship and american innovation can pull this economy back in a good direction, not regulation.

other governments are moving away from regulation and high taxation. we're moving towards it. it's innovation, not regulation. you look at the new cap and trade legislation for energy and the environment, it's a regulatory scheme, a taxation scheme, not an innovation scheme. where is nuclear power and new technologies that can lead to robust job-creating u.s. economy. look at the health care system, it's a regulatory scheme and litigation scheme, protecting the status quo in litigation. the greatest medical centers are saying this government-insurance scheme is the wrong approach. we need less litigation and unleash the entrepreneurship and innovation so we can lead. where are the jobs? they are in our free enterprise system. the government choked it with taxation, regulation and i yield

back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from rise? riberibe -- i reserve the balance of my time. i reserve the balance of my time. the unemployment rate is approaching 10%. republicans have a different plan for economic recovery. and while we didn't have enough votes to pass it, we relied on american inagainity and small businesses. our plan would have plused immediate results by putting tax dollars right back in the pockets of american taxpayers and job createors. recently it was reported that someone in the white house sees the need for another stimulus. instead of doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result, perhaps it's time to give republican alternatives a serious look. it's not too late not to pass a real stimulus plan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from utah rise? >> ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute

and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. chaffetz: i rise with depp concern about the families of the united states of america. the economics of this credit card congress are not working. where are the jobs? you cannot tax and spend our way out of our challenges. i firmly believe president obama and speaker pelosi and the democrats in congress are taxing, spending and borrowing too much money. this credit card congress has put us nearly $12 trillion in debt. we are spending nearly $600 million per day just in interest on that debt. bailouts and stimulus bills that is not helping the average person at home. we have a proposal to slam through a government-run chinese financed system that puts the government between my doctor and my wife. the economics driven by the democrats don't work. we need accountability and a strong national defense. we need to restore liberty for the american people and small business.

that's where you will find the jobs. stand up america and put a stop to this credit card congress. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. gingrey: address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. gingrey: one of the american people's biggest fierce about the democratic health care reform plan is the prospect of having a government bureaucrat stand between them and the doctor they trust. i have heard this time and time again at town hall meetings and letters and phone calls and from patients. the house democratic leadership has promised the american people that the fears are unfounded while drafting a 1,000-page bill that creates this to the side which treatments will be covered. late yesterday i gave my colleagues a chance to put their money where their mouth was by offering an amendment in the energy and commerce committee that would simply bar federal

political appointees from intervening in patients' decisions. an easy vote. who do you want making your decisions, your doctor or government bureaucrat? every democrat save one voted against this amendment. it's time for congress to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and not the bureaucratic-patient relationship. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama rise? >> address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. aderholt: mr. speaker, the people in south alabama and really across our country want to know where are the jobs. where are the jobs that were promised by thadministration and the democratic leadership of this congress back in february where $787 billion stimulus bill was forced on the backs of the taxpayers of our country with one simple promise that if we

keep unemployment below 8% and create 3.5 million jobs over the next two years. but where are the jobs? instead of creating new jobs, 2.5 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus bill passed. the unemployment rate is inching closer to double digits. in five of the six counties i represent in south alabama, that unemployment rate is at double digit unemployment. there is a serious lack of credit built in our nation's capital. don't take my word for it, just listen to the american people. they want to know where are the jobs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. westmoreland: mr. speaker, when this administration took over on january 20, the unemployment was about 7.2%.

and they made a promise that this new stimulus of $787 billion would create or save 600,000 jobs. since that point, we have lost two million jobs. where are the jobs? one of the president's -- his top economic advisers, pictured her, mr. larry summers, has made us feel better in this country by telling us and i will tell you what he said, all of the statistics pouring into the white house every day, top economic adviser larry summers highlighted one friday to make this case that the economic freefall has ended. the number of people searching for the term on economic depression is down to normal levels, summers said. search for the term were up four-fold when the recession deepened earlier in the year and it shows that consumer confidence is higher summers told the council for economics.

where are the jobs? i tell you, someone in this administration is asleep at the wheel. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? >> ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, the american people are hurting. millions of americans are out of work and hundreds of thousands continue to lose their jobs each month. in my home state of ohio, the unemployment rate reached 11.1% in june, the highest in decades. according to "the columbus dispatch," this adds up to 33,000 jobs in ohio has been lost during the month of june which is up from 8.8% in january of 2009. the article goes on to state that over the course of the past year, 279,000 people of ohio have lost their jobs including small businesses, farmers and

134,000 manufacturing jobs. at the end of the day i trust the american people and our small businesses, the taxpayers to spend and invest their own money as they see fit. that will get america back to work. the other side of the aisle's economic policies have this backwards. the government continues to tax dollars and spend the dollars as they see fit. not only is that inefficient and wasteful but flat out wrong. where are the jobs? it's time to get ohio and americans back to work now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from from ohio rise. >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. mr. smith: >> i rise -- i rise today to ask a simple question, where are the jobs? my constituents along those across ohio and our nation, they're asking, where are those jobs? many my home state of ohio the unemployment rate is 11.1%.

we have the seventh highest rate in the nation. every single county in my district is equal to or higher than the national average. and two counties are actually above 15%. but that number is rather did he seefing. a large percentage of our population has given up looking for work or taken up temporary work. people in ohio in my district are hurting. we need jobs and we need them now. only $6 million of the department of transportation recovery act dollars have been spent so far in ohio. the recovery and reinvestment act was supposed to provide immediate stimulus to create new jobs. where are those jobs? people are hurting. five months later, there are no jobs. i'm asking, where are the jobs? the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for whur