think the body should recognize his work. mr. obey: i thank the gentleman and with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. and i ask for an aye vote. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3435. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid -- the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to house res.lusion 697 this 15-miis 15-minute vote on motion to suspend the rules will be followed by five-minute votes on adoption of the frank amendment to h.r. 3267 as modified, adoption of the garrett amendment to h.r. 3269. this is a 15-minute vote.

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the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 360, the nays are 109. two members voting present. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. pursuant to house resolution 697, the unfinished business is the vote on the adoption of the amendment by the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. frank frank, as amended on which a vorded vote is ordered. the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: amendment number 1 printed in house report 111-237 offered by mr. frank of massachusetts as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on adoption of the resolution. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote.

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the speaker pro tempore: on vote, the yeas are 242, the nays are 148, the amendment is adopted, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished bids is the vote on the adoption of the amendment by the gentleman from new jersey, mr. garrett, on

which a recorded vote was ordered. the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in house report 111-237, offered by mr. garrett of new jersey. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on agreeing to the amendment. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. 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: on this vote, the yeas are 179, the nays are 244, the amendment is not adopted. without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the question is on enfwrosement and third reading of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: bill to amend the securities exchange act of 1934 to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on compensation and to prevent perverse incentives in compensation packages of financial institutions. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members please care the well. -- please clear the well. take your conversations off the floor.

members please take their conversations off the floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. sessions: mr. speaker, i have a motion at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: is the gentleman opposed to the bill? mr. sessions: i am. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the motion. mr. sessions: i ask unanimous consent to consider the motion as read. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection? so orded. so orded. pursuant to the rule, gentleman from texas is recognized in five -- for five minutes in support of his motion. the gentleman will suspend. the house will be in order the gentleman from texas deserves to be heard.

the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: thank you, mr. speaker. i would like to preempt a common protest by the gentleman, my friend from massachusetts and let my colleagues know that this motion will not kill the bill. in fact, it will not even send it back to committee. we have the authority right here, right now to provide for the appropriate transparency and accountability just passed by this motion. the legislation that the democrat majority has brought before the house today forces every publicly held company to bear the cost of administering a tohless, nonbinding shareholder vote o packages during every proxy vote. this motion to recommit would improve this intervenous legislation by providing sunshine and transparency for shareholders so there's full disclosure about who is financing efforts to influence

a vote on this new congressionally mandated, nonbinding shareholder resolution. lution. let me give an example of a substantially similar disclosure requirement that every member of this body understands because it's already a current practice. mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house is not in order. members please take their conversations off the floor. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: as federal candidates, we are obligated to disclose to the s.e.c. the name, occupation and amount given from each of our donors. we require this because public interest is advanced by letting voters know who funds each candidate's campaigns. mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct.

the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: my motion asks for the same disclosure so that shareholders know what persons or organizations are spending money to influence the new mandatory, nonbinding vote. the purpose of this motion is not to impede the ability of organizations to influence the vote. if they hold shares in stock, they will be able to express their opinion. the point of the motion is to simply provide voters in this -- voters, in this case shareholders, with access to information about who is spending money and what are they attempting to influence with their vote. my motion tasks the s.e.c. with setting a minimal level of spending with collected important information about anyone or any organization that spends over that amount to

influence a vote, including who spent the money, who what they spent it on and how much they're influencing the votes of other shareholders. this provides transparency for shareholder elections. if we believe voters deserve this information, we should give to shareholders this same level of transparency. once again, i'd like to make it clear that this legislation will not kill the bill. as its opponents might claim. it will not send the bill back to committee to fix its current lack of transparency but allows it to be done right here, right now. i encourage my colleagues to support this common sense motion to improve transparency for shareholders who some outside force is trying to influence their vote. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from massachusetts rise? mr. frank: to oppose the motion.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. frank: that speech would have been impressive, i might have disagreed with it, if it applied to all shareholder votes. the recommital motion singles out the say on pay. if you want to influence pay, you have to report everything. if you want to vote on a merger or acquisition or anything else, you don't have to do it. it's not a uniform requirement of a disclosure. it burdens the say on pay vote and leaves every other vote in the dark, if that's so important, why did we not have a broader version of it? it also is quite burdensome. you would have to disclose, if you want to spend money -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's correct. the gentleman from massachusetts deserves to be heard. mr. frank: if you want to spend money to oppose large bonuses, to oppose large salary, to oppose a company paying 7 % of its revenue, as recently happened in compensation.

if you are a pension fund, if you are a union, if you want to write to your own members and say, this is a bad idea if you hold shares, vote no, you have to give the identify of -- identity of all persons or entities engaged in the activity and the activities engaged. it's not a reporting of the amount of money, it's a detailed one and burdens only those voting on say on pay. it comes from a hostility to the notion of say on pay. members who opposed it two years ago, can't oppose it today so they've got a new factic, they're trying to aggravate it. while we're on the subject of aggravation, mr. speaker, i hope to reduce the level here by asking people to vote no and yielding back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. wrox, -- without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mr. sessions: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested.

those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having risen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20 the chair will reduce to five minutes the time for any electronic vote on the question of passage. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. 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: on this vote the yeas are 177, the nays are --

the speaker pro tempore: on is vote the yeas are 178, the nays are 244. the motion is not adopted. without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the question is on passage of the bill.

all those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. mr. frank: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. frank: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. those in support of the request for a recorded vote will rise and be counted. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. 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.]

eaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 237, the nays are 185. the bill is passed. without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? mr. oberstar: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on transportation and infrastructure be discharged from further consideration of the resolution, h.con.res 171, authorizing use of the capitol grounds for an event to honor military personnel who've died in service to the united states and to acknowledge the sacrifice of the families of those individuals as part of the national weekend of remembrance, and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 171, concurrent resolution authorizing the use of the capitol grounds for an event to honor military personnel who have died in service to the united states and to acknowledge the sacrifice of the families of those individuals as part of the national weekend of

remembrance. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to consideration of the concurrent resolution? without objection, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. mr. oberstar: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? mr. oberstar: i ask unanimous consent for the immediate consideration in the house of h.r. 2913, to designate the united states courthouse located at 301 simonton street in key west, florida, as the sidney m. aronovitz united states courthouse, a bill that's been reported from the committee on transportation and infrastructure. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: house calendar number 101, h.r. 2913, a bill to designate the united states courthouse located at 301 simonton street in key west, florida, as the sidney m. sronovitz united states courthouse. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to consideration of the bill?

without objection, the bill is engrossed, read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee rise? mr. cohen: mr. speaker, by the direction of the committee on the judiciary, i send to the desk a privileged report for filing under the rule to accompany house resolution 636. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 636, resolution directing the

attorney general to transmit to the house of representatives all information in the attorney general's possession relating to the transfer or release of detainees held at naval station guantanamo bay, cuba, and to the united states. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from pennsylvania rise? mrs. dahlkemper: i ask -- ms. schwartz: i ask for immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 662, supporting the goals and ideals of national save for retirement week, including the tax preferred entitle vehicles for personal savings and retirement financial security. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to consideration of the resolution? without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee rise? mr. cohen: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on judiciary be discharged from further consideration of senate joint resolution 19 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the joint resolution. the clerk: senate joint resolution 19, joint resolution granting the consent and approval of congress to amendments made by the state of maryland, the commonwealth of virginia and the district of columbia to the washington metropolitan area transit regula take compact. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the joint resolution? without objection, the joint resolution is read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. >> mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? mr. clay: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on oversight and

government reform be discharged from further consideration of house joint resolution 12 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the joint resolution. the clerk: house joint resolution 12, joint resolution expressing support for designation of september, 2009, as gospel music heritage month and honoring gospel music for its valuable and longstanding contributions to the culture of the united states. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the joint resolution? without objection, the joint resolution is engrossed, read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. mr. clay: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measures just considered. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. . for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise?

mr. clay: i ask we be discharged from further consideration of house res. 513 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 513, resolution supporting the goals and purpose of gold star mothers day which is observed on the last sunday in september of each year in remembrance of the supreme sacrifice made by mothers who lose a son or daughter serving in the armed forces. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to consideration of the resolution? without objection, the resolution is agreed to, and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. mr. clay: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? mr. clay: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measures just considered. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. connolly: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include therein

extraneous material on all of the bills just passed. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. connolly: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. connolly: mr. speaker, when

our friends on the other side of the aisle decide to advance to oppose any health care reform bill, they are putting politics ahead of the needs of the american people. guaranteeing coverage for pre-existing conditions which affect 45% of insured americans, they are against it. closing the prescription drug doughnut hole for seniors, they are against it. protecting families from the cost of catastrophic illness. they are against it. half a trillion in medicare and medicaid savings. against it. a plan of their own? they are against that, too. why? because uniform opposition to all reform, all savings, all extended coverage, why? the answer is simple. chilling and deeply troubling. senator demint, republican of south carolina put it bluntly. if we are able to stop obama on health care it be will be his waterloo. it will break him. at least the distinguished senator from south carolina is honest about the republican agenda. it's not about a substantive critique. it's about politics. a calculated cynical strategy to

derail reform after broken health care system a. reform that can been fit every american family and small business. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? mr. thompson: mr. speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, in july we celebrate national therapeutic recreational week, recreational therapy i embraces the definition of health which includes not only the absence of illness but extends enhancement of the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and leisure development. this caring profession touches the lives of individuals facing life changing disease and disability across the nation. these services are provided by professionals and certified by the national council for therapeutic recreation sert if i education and a recreation specialist. every day countless individuals face rebuilding lives as a result of disease and disability. these individuals benefit from compassionate and cost-effective

care of a certified therapeutic recreation specialist. recreational therapy aims to improve an individual's functioning and keep them as active, healthy, and independent as possible. mr. speaker, i congratulate the caring professionals of the therapeutic recreation profession for the services and care that they provide every day. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. mcclintock: i rise to pay tribute to a young man who gave his life last week while fighting the backbone fire in the trinity wilderness. thomas maravich jr. was 20 years old. weighs in his second year with the u.s. forest service. he was training with the chester helly tech crew assigned to the backbone fire when a training accident claimed his life. raised in hayward but he had come to northeastern california

to protect our forests, our communities, and our citizens from the ravages of fire. thomas maravich had wanted to be be a firefighter since he was a little boy. by all accounts had an exemplary life ahead of him. he was only able to live 20 years of that life, sacrificing the rest of it for the safety of our community and for that we owe him and his grieving family our eternal gratitude. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. price: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. price: thank you. mr. speaker, there is a health care bill that the democrats have proposed here in the house that would have major impact on the way that health is -- health care is provided in this nation. one of the areas that hasn't been talked about a lot is long-term care. specifically the class act, community living assistance services and support act is included which would mandate government sponsored long-term care insurance on all americans.

unfortunately the $50 a day allocation for long-term care insurance is only a portion of the actual cost for the long-term care. consequently, this is a huge unfunded mandate on who, mr. speaker? on you, the american people. instead, congress should consider positive solutions which would make long-term care insurance more accessible by allowing it to be covered under f.s.a.'s and cafeteria plans and other patient centered plans. without a doubt americans need a plan in advance for long-term care. they should be allowed to work with family and trusted advisors to ensure their long-term needs are covered. the government should not limit the type of long-term care americans may select. this is just another example of the government telling people what kind of care they should need and may receive. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman texas rise? ms. jackson lee: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute.

ms. jackson lee: i thank the distinguished chairman and speaker. we have had a long session of hard work. i believe this is an appropriate ending to be able to honor some of america's culture. so i rise today to acknowledge the passing of h.j.res. 12 to designate september, 2009, as gospel music heritage month and honor the gospel music for its valuable and long-standing contributions to the culture of the united states. i thank the majority leader and the republican leadership. i thank the chairman of the committee chairman towns and ranking member issa, government and oversight, all of those who worked along with my 61 co-sponsors who recognize the value of the songs sung by the likes of mahalia jackson and singing "precious lord," sandy pat at this, the work that elvis presley did when he sang his gospel song, kirk carr with "this old light of mine."

and reverend greg patrick who is both a producer and singer. we have a wide vast of musical talent in this nation. i'm glad we are celebrating gospel music. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina rise? ms. foxx: permission to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. the american people are hurting and losing jobs at alarming rate. the president and democrats in congress promised their trillion dollar stimulus bill would create jobs immediately and keep unemployment blow 8%. since the president signed this so-called stimulus into law, the national unemployment rate has reached 9.5%. a 26-year high and over two million more jobs have been lost. it's clear the democrats 1.1 trillion stimulus game isn't working. it's clear the democrats are on the side of more government, more taxes, and more debt. house republicans are on the side of the american people. fighting for working families and small businesses to put america back to work. the american people deserve real

solutions for a real recovery and house republicans will continue to fight for these solutions on behalf of the american people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? are there further requests for one minutes? for what purpose does does mr. poe of texas rise? mr. poe: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into the following members may be permitted to address the house, revise and extend their remarks, and include extraneous material. mr. wolf for today. ms. foxx from north carolina for today. and mr. price for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio rise? ms. kaptur: yes, mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into the following members may be permitted to address the house

revise and extend their remarks, and include therein extraneous material. ms. woolsey for five minutes. miss linda sanchez for five minutes. ms. kaptur of ohio for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. madam, today on july 30, 2009, the committee on transportation and infrastructure met in open session to consider three resolutions for the u.s. army corps of engineers. in accordance with 33 u.s.c. section 542, resolutions authorize core surveys or studies of water resources needed for possible solutions. the committee adopted the resolutions by voice vote with a quorum present. enclosed are copies of the resolutions adopted by the committee. signed, sincerely, james l. oberstar.

the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, and under a previous order of the house, the following members are recognized for five minutes each. mr. poe of texas. the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. poe: thank you, mr. speaker. a year ago today when we recessed for the august break, there were some of us who stayed here on the house floor and continued to talk about energy and american independence in energy. eventually the powers that be turned out most of the lights, turned off the microphone, turned off the cameras, but we talked on that friday, then we continued to talk through most of the month of august even though a formal session did not occur. we talked about the need to be energy independent. now we have gone a year from that and what has happened in that one year? things have only gotten worse as far as energy independence has gone. let me give you one example. in 2008, at this time, in the

united states, proper we had 1 kd, -- 1,80 rigs drilling for crude oil. a year later we only had 1,1 28. that means 680 rigs fewer now than a year ago producing oil and natural gas. what has happened? well, things have only gotten worse. we have, this body, passed barely legislation to punish energy consumption by the cap and tax bill, which means if you use energy in this country, natural gas, electricity, you use gasoline, you're going to have to pay more down the road. hopefully the senate will not pass this legislation. we have fewer rigs and we are not more independent we are more dependen. -- dependent. who are we dependent on? countries who hate us. some countries in the middle east. some countries we know and have heard that are actually the money we spend on crude oil we send them, finds its way to

people who don't like america. and funds their organizations. why do we continue to do that? because we don't take care of ourselves. we hear about clean energy and we all want to go to alternative energy, but we are not there yet, mr. speaker. we need to do the simple things. we need to use and drill for our own natural gas and our own crude oil. we can do that in the united states in anwr, we can do that offshore. that keeps the money in the united states. it produces jobs for americans. don't send those jobs overseas. it keeps our oil companies and our natural gas companies in the united states. it's a good thing for america, but because of the fear lobby, we are afraid to drill for natural gas and crude oil. that is a mistake because it can be done safely. it should be done safely. the place that is we drill offshore it's been proven that it can be done safely. and we should continue to do that. a year from now, hopefully, we won't be in a worse situation depending on foreign countries for our own energy. we should do the obvious.

take care of america. drill safely, drill anywhere that we have natural gas or crude oil, and help bring energy back home to america, furnish jobs, keep that money in the united states, and quit sending it overseas to people who don't even like the united states. and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. . the gentlewoman from california, ms. woolsey. ms. kaptur: the final crisis has resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in u.s. history, from main street citizens to wall street. wall street tightens, and insiders made huge profits off the ponzi scheme they set up that left to the economic boost. as the rest of america tries to dig itself out from the rubble

left in their wake "the new york times" reports today the nine biggest banks paid $32 billion in bonuses to their employees of the $165 billion they got from us, the taxpayers. 4,793 bankers and traders got a minimum of an additional $1 million each. the average dealer at goldman sachs will earn twourds of $1 million extra -- three quarters of $1 million extra. they're dragging their feet on the mortgage workouts. bear in mind, some people in this congress and the obama administration decided to pay servicers to do mortgage workouts because they weren't doing it themselves. so rather than holding them accountable and this congress holding them accountable the administration is paying them and they're still not doing it. look at the rogue's gallery.

bank of america got $45 billion in tarp funds while pulling in $2.7 billion in profits last quarter. they're going to pay $3.3 billion in bonuses. wells fargo got $25 well in tarp fund and turned a $6 billion profit and will pay $9 00 million in bonuses. jpmorgan is one of the worse. they got $25 billion in tarp funds and racked up $2.7 billion in profits last quarter and will pay $8.9 billion in bonuses. i'm introducing legislation today to place a full excise tax on all those wall street bonuses, recoup the taxpayers' money and direct it be used to do real mortgage workouts across this country on behalf of the american people, to get our local real estate markets working again from toast to coast. you know, wall street gorgeous

itself on profits while unemployment is rising across our country, foreclosures are rising, pink slips are rising. look at jpmorgan, within one week this happened in ohio. on a friday they invited borrowers to attend a workshop for workouts. one little problem. nobody from jpmorgan showed up until our office had to do their work and call their staff and get them there hours late but five of the 20 original borrowers who showed up to the meeting were left because they had all taken off work and they were able to get sick time to come to the meeting. and then we invited jpmorgan to a workout and they said they'd send three staff. they didn't. the event went on with one staff member, and people left frustrated because that one staff member couldn't -- this is what's going on across our country. so the obama administration called the 25 servicers up to washington this week and tried to talk sweet talk to them. "the new york times" said it

right yesterday. here's what they said, why aren't these companies cooperating? we're enriching them. but beyond that, even when borrowers stop paying mortgage companies that service the loans, collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. so the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenues. fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services. a florida lawyer who defends homeowners against foreclosure, marjorie golant says, quote, i see the government looking for the servicer for the solution because it will never happen. the tax laws favor them. so despite the federal government's chicken-hearted efforts, the servicers will have none of it because they can make more money with all these bonuses and letting people lose their homes. look in your neighborhood.

how many more foreclosure signs do you see there? when america went to war in the early 20th century, each citizen sacrificed for the nation. now, it's all about the big shots. it's all about their bonuses and their power. has greed really become the top american value? foreclosures are rising, unemployment is rising, 90% of the people in our country say the economy's not working for them. and wall street banks just can't seem to help themselves. they're squeezing more profits off of our people's misery. what is wrong with this congress? what is wrong with the obama administration? what was wrong with the bush administration that preceded it? somebody better stand up for the interest of the republic. mr. speaker, i yield back my remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the senate. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam secretary.

the secretary: i have been directed by the senate to inform the house that the senate has agreed with h.con.res 172, providing for a condition adjournment of the house of representatives in the condition of recess or adjournment of the senate. the speaker pro tempore: mr. jones of north carolina. for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina rise? ms. foxx: i ask permission to address the house for five minutes, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. today the house rushed through a bill that gives $2 billion for the cash for clunker program. apparently the lure of free money from uncle sam had such a tsunami of clunkers that the program has broke. everybody loves free money. the bailed out automakers loved their $86 billion. so it's no surprise that the initial funding for cash for clunkers dried up in a matter of days. so the question is if the government so underestimated

the cost of this program and the backlog of requests from dealers is so already huge, what does this tell us about these types of government programs? that maybe they don't always function as they were predicted to and sometimes they cost taxpayers much more than was estimated. one large dealership in utah had this to say about the hoops they had to jump through to avoid the fines for noncompliance. the auto dealer said dealer are being asked to be compliant with several rules that are often confusing and unrealistic. it is apparent that those writing the rules don't understand how a car deal actually happens. this dealer went on to say that the government agency in charge of the cash for clunker program has, quote, threatened large fines for noncompliance. we are a top 10 dealer in the country and have gone through great lengths to be compliant but is even confusing for us. it will be a nightmare for smaller dealerships around the country. so far we've learned several things from this cash for

clunkers program. number one, businesses and consumers love free money. lesson two, the government is abysmal of predicting how much programs will cost. lesson three, complying with federal mandates is a nightmare. of course, we should not overlook the fact that there may very well be some unintended consequences of this program. for instance, "the new york times" reported in april that france had a similar program from 1994 to 1996. guess what? it worked. well, kind of. there were lots of auto sales initially, but the program was followed by a severe drop in auto sales in 1997 and 1998. isn't that interesting? turns out the program was simply shifting demand forward. what is keeping the u.s. cash for clunkers program from doing the same thing? nothing. but let's return to lesson two. congress' inability to accurately estimate the cause -- cost to new government programs. based on research from

congress' joint economic committee, over the years congressional estimates of the costs of health care programs have been extremely unreliable. for example, when congress was considering medicare part a, the hospital insurance component, congress estimated it would cost $9 billion by 1990. actual cost in 1990, $67 billion. seven times more than congress estimated. and the 1967 estimate for the entire medicare program in 1990 was $12 billion. actual cost, $111 billion. almost 10 times the original estimate. later in 1987, congress estimated that medicaid's disproportionate share of hospital payments to states would cost less than $1 billion in 1992. five years later the results were in. $17 billion which is an incomprehensible 17-fold increase over the estimate just five years earlier.

you get the idea. today's cash for clunkers example is just the latest in the long line of programs that turned out to be dramatically more expensive than anyone predicted. not to mention notoriously difficult to comply with or figure out. perhaps the most amazing part of this example is that it remines me of the ongoing discussion -- reminds me of the ongoing discussion over health care reform. here we have a health system that's in need of reform and some people are pushing a bill that amounts to a government takeover of health care. they like to call it a public option. the congressional budget office already has said it will add $239 billion to the deficit over 10 years. but as we've just seen, government programs have a tendency to take on a life of their own and cost taxpayers way more than was originally estimated or envisioned. while i'm willing to allow for some margin of error in estimated costs, they are estimates after all, what concerns me is today we're starting out for estimates for huge deficits with this health care plan.

at the same time we're paying for it out of the pockets of america's job creators, small businesses. if the current proposal becomes law, are we going to be coming back to these small businesses with another tax increase in five or 10 years? with our track record on programs like cash for clunkers, that wouldn't surprise me one bit. i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentlewoman from california, ms. linda sanchez. the gentleman from indiana, mr. burton. the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert. the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee. the gentleman from kansas, mr. moran. the gentlewoman from minnesota, mrs. bachmann. the gentleman from texas, mr. paul. the gentleman from virginia, mr. wolf.

the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. wolf: mr. speaker, earlier today i sent a letter to attorney general eric holder, which i submit for the record, imploring him to refile the voter intimidation case against the new black panther party that he dismissed in may. this case was brought in january by career attorneys in the department's civil rights division against the party, and several of its members for deploying uniformed men to a polling station in philadelphia on election day last november to harass, intimidate voters. the public can view the video of the incident as well as other examples of intimidation in a january, 2009, national geographic documentary that posted on the web, www.electionjournal.org. one of the witnesses of the election day incident, a veteran civil rights activist, who served as bobby kennedy's new york campaign manager in 1968, has publicly called this, quote, the most blatant form of

voter intimidation he has seen. he also reminded us, quote, that martin luther king did not die to have people in jacked boots with billy clubs block the doors of polling cases, and neither did robert kennedy. it's an absolute disgrace. in 1981, i was the only member of the virginia delegation in the house to vote for the voting rights act and was harshly criticized by the editorial page of the richmond times dispatch when i supported the act's re-authorizing. in 2006, i was again criticized by editorial pages. my commitment to voting rights is unquestioning. given my consistent support for voting rights, i was deeply troubled by a report in washington's "washington times," which i also submit for the record, improper political influence by thomas pirelli led to the dismissal of this case over the objections of career attorneys on the trial tea i was troubled but

unfortunately not surprised to learn about the existence from the chief of the department's apell ate division. -- appellate division. the guidance was not previously shared with members of congress despite congressionally directed request. the guidance that was reported in "the washington times," the chief said in a may 13 memo obtained by "the times" saying that the appropriate action was to have a default judgment unless the department had evidence the court ruling was based on unethical conduct by the government. she goes on to say many other things, which i'll submit for the record, but she ends by saying that the complaint appeared to be sufficient sought by the career employee stating, quote, the government's predominant interest is preventing intimidation, threats and could he hergs against the voters. -- coercion against the voters. eric holder said the

department's civil rights division is, quote, back and open for business. i question eric holder's commitment to voting rights and i question eric holder's judgment. and yet, where are the other members of this congress, republican or democrat, that even want to look at this issue? given both the department's trial team and the appellate division argued strongly in favor of proceeding with the case, i can only conclude that the decision to overrule the career attorney general associate, attorney general thomas pirelli was politically motivated. it is comparative that we proticket -- it is imperative that we protect all americans' right to vote. the career attorneys in the appellate division within the department sought to demonstrate the federal government's commitment to protecting this right by vigorously prosecuting any individual or group that seeks to undermine this right. the only legitimate course of action for the trial team is to

bring the case again and allow our nation's justice system to work as it was -- it was intended. and to see it again, look at it for your own eyes, and eric holder to look at it, look at www.electionjournal.org. i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia, mr. price. mr. price: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, before i came to congress i spent 20-plus years as a physician taking care of folks in the north atlantaa area. this whole debate about the health care bill, there are many aspects of it that gave me great concern. the fact of the matter is, mr. speaker, there are many aspects of it that give the nation great concern. so whether it's the government-run program or the takeover of health care, whether it's the potential for huge mandates from the federal government, many aspects point

to areas of different concern for the american people. one of them is the issue of rationing. issue of whether or not the federal government should be deciding what the extent to which americans receive medical care. so when earlier this year there was a proposal that was passed in this house and in the senate and signed by the president for something called the comparative effectiveness research council, fancy name for a potential rationing board, many people voiced concerns about that, as did i. what we heard from the other side of the aisle, majority party, democrats in charge, was don't worry about it. there will be congressional oversight. the congress will be able to make certain -- hold their feet to the fire. well, mr. speaker, what's now come out is that that may not actually be the case. the imac program, the independent medicare advisory council, is a proposal that is being added to the current health care bill that would create a new presidentially

appointed board empowered to make recommendations on cost saving proposals. these are very, very personal medical decisions that we are talking about here, and cost savings proposals oftentimes mean racksing. -- rationing. this proposal in the health care bill right now would eliminate all congressional oversight of the medicare program and put it in the hands of, you guessed it, the white house and the president. creates a new executive branch agency with un-elected board members appointed by the president to make recommendations on the reductions in medicare payment levels, reimbursement for providers, potentially refusing to pay for services or care prescribed by doctors as they are deemed not to be, quote, cost efficient, unquote. that's the language, mr. speaker. the bill says, quote, that the reforms must either improve the quality of medical care received by the beneficiaries of the medicare program or, not and, or

improve the efficiency of the medicare program's operation. mr. speaker, this is extremely concerning. this congress has created the comparative effective research board that will have the power to ration care based on cost or quality. it would make the board's recommendations binding, binding in the absence of action by congress within 30 days if the president approved the recommendation. many members of congress are concerned about payment rates and rural parts of the country, yet this board eliminates state and community input into the medicare program. by rendering irrelevant the influence of local medicare carrier advisory communities to develop and implement policies expressly applicable. further it would reduce the patient advocacy groups to develop and implement new policies. mr. speaker, the real concern as a physician is that nonmedical

people will be making medical decisions. it's a terrible idea. it's not what the american people want. and they are actually waking up to the proposal that's before congress right now. and that's why you see the numbers of support across this land decreasing. let's move in a positive direction. there is a positive direction and that is to allow quality decisions, medical decisions to be made between patients and their families and caring and compassionate physicians. it's a simple way to do it. not put it in the hands of a bureaucrat. not put it in the hands of the white house. not put it in the hands of the president. let patients and doctors decide. mr. speaker, that's the right way. mr. speaker, that's the american way. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? mr. kucinich: i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order and address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without

objection, the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. kucinich: i thank you very much. i have listened to the health care debate as all members have for the last few months. what's very interesting about it is that in this debate we have essentially talked past the single most effective way to reduce cost and to provide health care for all americans. and that is to create a single payer, universal not-for-profit health care system. such a system is envisioned in and provided for in h.r. 676, medicare for all. a bill that i had the privilege of writing with john conyers of michigan, a bill that is

supported by 85 members of congress, by hundreds of community organizations and labor unions, by over 14,000 physicians, and a bill which represents an idea whose time has come. some basic facts require discussion when we are speaking about our health care system. and that is that we spend about $2.4 trillion on health care in america in all spending. that amounts to about 16% to 17% of our grose domestic product. clearly health care is a huge item in the american economy. if all of that money, all of that $2.4 trillion went to care for people, every american would be covered. of -- but today not every

american is covered. as a matter of fact there are 50 million americans without health insurance, and another 50 million underinsured. why is it in this country which had so much wealth in this country which has given so much of its wealth to people at the top can we have 50 million americans without insurance. by and large it's because people cannot afford private insurance. why not? well, it's very simple. when you look at the fact that an individual can pay $300 to $600 a month or more for a premium, when you look at the fact that a family can pay $1,000, $2,000 a month or more for a health care premium, when you consider that a family

budget cannot in any way countenance the kind of health care expenses that most families can run into, when you understand that any family can lose its middle class status, with a single illness in that family, you come to understand the dilemma we have in america. why isn't health care a basic right in a democratic society? why do we have a for-profit health care system? i'll tell you why. because out of that $2.4 trillion, which is spent every year in health spending, one out of every $3 or $800 billion a year goes to the activities of the for-profit system. for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, the cost of paperwork. 15% to 30% in the private sector as compared to medicare's 3%. this is what this fight is about

in washington. this is why the insurance industry is whoever -- hovering around washington like a flock of vultures. $800 billion a year is at stake. and so they'll do anything that they can to be part of of this game so that the government can continue to subsidize insurance companies one way or another. one out of every $3 goes for the activity of the for-profit system. if we took that $800 billion a year and put it into care for everyone, we'd have enough money to cover every american. not just basic health care with doctor of choice. but dental care, mental health care, vision care, prescription drugs, long-term care. all would be covered. everything. people say how is that possible? it's because we are already paying for universal standard of care. we are just not getting it.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. kucinich: thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from ohio, mr. latourette, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. latourette: i thank the speaker for the recognition and thank the minority leader for designating us for this hour. i'm going to be joined by my good friend, mr. nunez, from california, and mr. mccotter from michigan is on his way. i want to talk tonight, mr.

speaker, most folks in america i think recognize the picture to my left. it's layer rit cable guy. if you watch larry the cable guy, his line is, get her done. get her done is a good way to entertain somebody in a movie. i would suggest it's not such a good way to run the united states of america. and sadly since the beginning of this year we have had a majority in this house, in the other body, and at the other end of pennsylvania avenue that has taken the attitude of just get her done. that can lead sadly to some unfortunate consequences. the first getter done was we were told -- get her done was we were told we had to have an economic stimulus package spending $789 billion of taxpayer money by presidents' day. it was very important that the president of the united states have the opportunity to sign this bill by presidents' day.

so the white house message to the congress was, get her done. and the leadership of this house got it done. sadly they were embarrassed because included, we are going to talk later in the hour, in the bowels of that stimulus package, which by the way was 1,100 pages long and members of the house got 90 minutes to read it, so i doubt very many people read it, so people were embarrassed because they hadn't read the bill to find out that in the bill was an authorization to give the insurance company, a.i.g., which has received more billions and billions of dollars from the taxpayer, bonuses, totaling $173 million. then the next get her done came along and everybody knows we have a problem with the automobile industry in this country. and rather than wrapping up their affairs and going through a bankruptcy the old passioned

american way, the message from the -- old-fashioned american way, the message from the white house was we got to get her done in 40 days. can you imagine a 40-day bankruptcy for chrysler, the third largest automobile manufacturer in this country and general motors, the largest? it was get her done. in the get her done there has been a lot of collateral damage. we have seen plants all across the country, closed. we have seen about 50,000 auto workers thrown -- about to be thrown out of their jobs. we have seen part suppliers not get paid for manufacturing and making the parts that go into the cars. and we will talk a little bit later about the car dealers. some brain yack decided that car dealers were a problem in this con-- country, and therefore we had to get her done, we had close about 3,000 auto dealerships in this country. we are going to talk about that, too. but again just like the economic stimulus bill, get her done is not really a good way to run the

country because the other collateral damage that's occurred here recently is there are about 50,000 people that didn't work for general motors, worked for companies like delphi, that had their health insurance through general motors, and guess what? nobody took care, and cared at all about what happens to their health care. so while some of the u.a.w. members that work for general motors and chrysler are now secured by stock ownership in the new companies, these 50,000 workers don't have any health care. . then we came along to what in my state is a controversial issue, the cap and trade legislation. some folks on my side called it the cap and tax legislation. basically, when fully implemented, i believe, it'll drive any job that's left in the state of ohio out of the state of ohio. but again, there's a way to do things here, i've been here 15

years and the way legislation usually works, somebody has an idea, we talk about it, we have hearings, they bring it to the floor. members who have other good ideas have the opportunity to amend the legislation, then we vote on it. cap and trade, sadly, came to the floor at 3:00 in the morning, i believe we voted on the bill on a friday, and at 3:00 in the morning on friday morning, they put in 309 new pages to the 1,200 pages. again, get 'er done, but we were told we had to get it done by july 4. white house called up the house, said get 'er done and we did. just like the stimulus, people are embarrassed, because just like those 309 pages which nobody read, they have found out this cap and trade legislation, aside from dealing with carbon emissions and setting up a new

speculative system, derivative system to trade carbon credits, it regulates water coolers, if off water coolers in the house or the office with the big jugs you tip over, that's subject to regulation. if you have a hot tub or spa outside your haas, that's -- outside your house that's regulated under the cap and trade legislation. people were really surprised that christmas lights are regulated under the cap and trade legislation. all of us want to deal with climate change but you're going to have to go a long way to convince me that christmas lights are leading to global warming. but that's in the cap and trade bill system of get 'er done isn't a good way to run the country. thankfully this week, they were not able to get 'er done on health care. the committees going through the proposals of this house, the white house said we've got to get 'er done by august 1, which is tomorrow. everybody began moving around.

a funny thing happened on the way to the get 'er done, some conservative democrats, blue dog democrats, said we don't think the government should be in the business of running the health care system. and we should have a united states health care policy in this country, and you know, the previous speaker, mr. price, was talking this bill, again, get 'er done won't take care of it. there are some scary things in this legislation. one piece of it is, for the first time in our nation's history, under the national policy, end of life counseling will be available. well, that's good. i happen to be a big supporter of hospice and all the wonderful work they do at the end of a person's life, but the problem with end of life counseling in this bill is that the bill, get the cost savings they want to achieve, you have to control costs. so many of the models are taken from great britain and canada. in those systems, there's a board, as the president wants to set up, that determines what

procedure is covered, what drugs are covered, what are not. by way of example, the same board in the united kingdom, it's called nice who could be against something nice? but nice doesn't cover drugs for people with alzheimer's, doesn't cover drugs were people with breast cancer, doesn't cover some drugs for people with prostate cancer and the best one was, mack lar deyen ration, the degeneration of the eye and can lead to blindness they won't approve the most effective drug thamplee approve the second most effective drug, but this nice board determined that you can only get treatment in one eye. so if you go to great britain in about five year, you'll see a bunch of folks running around like pirates with eye patches because the nice board is only going to let them take care of one eye. i yield to the gentleman from california. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. i know my friend has spent a lot of time on these issues, we were involved in the first bailout back in the day.

i remember when you and i were very concerned about the country, where we were heading, with the debt piling up, and then we got into the new administration with the stimulus bill and keeping with get 'er done, they got that done. borrowed almost $1 trillion, now they have very little of that money spent oout the door, unemployment was only supposed to go to 8%, now unemployment is at 10%, in my home state of california, it's well over 10%, in my district, it's almost 20%. they got it done, but nothing got done. and i -- when you look at the cap and trade bill, or the cap and tax bill, that was another example of getting it done. really getting nothing done because ultimately in their bill if it becomes law, it won't take out any co-2 out of the air because you're going to have china, india, continuing to build coal-fired power plants.

in fact, your home state of ohio, i know, pays three cents a kilowatt for its electricity because you use one of the greatest resources in america, which is coal. if you look at california today, california, we've passed basically cap and trade legislation through the state legislature, i don't know if the gentleman know this is already, but in california, we're paying 17 cents a kilowatt for electricity. it's no wonder that california's unemployment rate continues to go up, costs to americans continue to go up. the democrat congress definitely is trying to get something done, but in the process of getting legislation passed out of this house, it's legislation that at the end of the day is going to hurt america. just to finish up on this health care debate, we were told numerous times by the speaker that she had the votes. the majority leader said they had the votes. now here we are today, they have -- they don't even have the

votes in the energy and commerce committee, which is still meeting today in committee and it seems like they're not getting it done. thankfully, we don't want them to get this done because we don't want the government to take over our health care system which the gentleman, i think, was pointing out. mr. latourette: i thank my friend very much. you make a great point, i think i want to reenforce that point. there've been speakers come to the floor that say the republicans are the party of no, we don't want to reform health care, we're blocking this great health care proposal they have. that's not true. there are 178 republican members of the house of representatives, 247 democratic members of the house of representatives, they can do whatever they want whenever they want to. mr. nunes: 256 democrats, i believe. how many votes does it take to get a bill out of the house?

mr. latourette: 218. so 47 people can leave the reservation and still pass the legislation. we have four or five good pieces of legislation on health care that solve the problems of the doughnut hole in medicare part d, take care of the uninsured in this country that don't have insurance, that is not only a sad situation but leads to cost shifting for people who do have insurance. deals to make sure you can't be excluded from health care if off pre-existing condition. nobody will talk to our side of the aisle. the attitude since the beginning of the year has been, we've got 258 votes, we're going to do what you want when -- what we want, when we want, if we want your opinion, we'll ask. they're having a fight amongst themselves, conservative democrats and liberal democrats, they can't figure it out. once they figure it out, they'll pass it, pass it in the senate

and the president wants to sign it. mr. nunes: we've heard several times from the white house and the leadership, the democrat leadership in this congress that blaming the republicans for not having a plan. as the gentleman pointed out, first of all, they've never wanted to work with us. second of all, they never asked us for our plans. third, the republicans have very good plans, some plan this is a myself and paul ryan from wisconsin have worked on and we're going to continue to work on over the break. the good thing, the best thing about the plan that we've put together, that the republicans have put together, is that we deal with the medicaid problems in this country. one thing we have to look at over the long run is the debt continues to pile up. we have three major problems in this country that no one wants to talk about. that's the unfunded liabilities that this country has. we have unfunded liabilities of medicaid, unfunded liabilities of medicare, unfunded liabilities of social security.

the sad part about the democrat plan is that they want to put more and more people onto medicaid. in my district, only 22% of the doctors will see medicaid patients. the republican plan we've put forward actually deals with the medicaid problem we have in this country and actually gives people better health care. that's, i think, something that needs to be done. mr. latourette: the other thing the gentleman is hiding his light under a bushel basket, because the other thing his piece of legislation does that this piece of legislation being debated now does not do, is you bend the cost curve. the entire -- two of the reason this is a we're having a health care debate in this congress, one is to get better quality health care in this country, two to rein in the costs. one reason we don't have a bill this week and they couldn't get g done, was that the

congressional budget office came -- couldn't get 'er done, it was going to add $1.3 trillion to the debt my friend brought up the wall street bailout, that was george w. bush, hank paulson, his treasury secretary that came to capitol hill with a three-page bill, can you imagine? a three-page bill. they said, you've got to give us $700 billion to wall street or the world is going to come to an end. mr. nunes: i will add if the gentleman will yield for a sec, this was a bipartisan bailout that was passed. it was the white house working in conjunction with the democrat-controlled house that passed the first bailout and i think one of the things we're going to talk about later as we transition into, i think, some of the things we want to talk about a.i.g., i think you have to look at where that money that went first to a.i.g. and then somehow got to, guess where?

goldman sachs. mr. latourette: the gentleman is absolutely right. you take the $700 billion from the bush administration, $789 billion from the stimulus package the auto bailout which is tipping at $60 billion or $70 billion, take the budget the president sent up here that the majority passed of $3.4 billion, you're talking real money. a lot of folks come to the floor and say, this is a debt that's going to be passed on to our children and grandchildren. that's true. but even those of us in our middle age are going to have a problem with this because we have to borrow it. and you have to borrow it from places like china. and you borrow it at higher interest rates. so it's not only a debt that needs to be repaid someday. the interest on the debt is eventually going to strangle this budget and -- mr. nunes: if the gentleman will

yield again, i want to add one more point to the point you're making, that is that the congress, for many years, has spent too much money. no question about that republicans and democrats have spent too much money. but if you look at the budgets put forward with the stimulus bill and the bailout and the government takeover of companies, look at the unfunded liabilities, the y obama administration potentially could triple or quadruple the debt by the time president obama is out of the presidency. that doesn't include that the obama administration could pile up more debt than all previous presidents combined. >> will the gentleman yield? mr. latourette: i'd be happy to. >> we're in michigan -- i'm from michigan we think in smaller numbers. i know my friends is talking about what's been happening with auto industry, as we talk about the $780 billion stimulus plan,

as we talk about the bailout, the cap and trade bill, i'm not sure how big that was going to get in new taxes. there are folks here who want this government to take over health care. $1.6 trillion. can i just share with you two examples of what happens when we try to do a $1 billion program? will the gentleman continue to yield? mr. latourette: i'm happy to yield. >> this cash for clunkers program, i've talked with four dealers in the last couple of hours. they've sold about 150 cars over the last five days. all we're doing is processing a rebate. it's either $3 50rks0 or a $4 50rks0 check. out of those 150 sales, zero, exactly zero rebates have been approved, jal though the paperwork has been filed. some of the paperwork has been filed three time the paperwork is 21 pages, this is from one of

my dealers. they send in 21 pages. here's what the sales guys wrote. each of these pages have to be scanned in and must be saved with the attached file names then each page must be uploaded separately. you cannot save anything until the end system of if we the website crashes you get to start over. if the website work, it takes approximately one hour per deal. . 34r latourette: taking back my time for just a minute. it's my understanding the website crashed at least twice. mr. hoekstra: it crashed this morning. they get the rejection notice. one of my dealers have said -- you file it the first time. you get a rejection it comes back. you fill it out appropriately the second time. like it's filling out taxes, these 21 pages. he said, pete, i have had a number of these things come back for a third time. i just had one come back, this is what happens from the people who want to run our health care system, the voucher you have submitted with invoice number --

has been rejected for the following reason -- no reason provided. the next line says, the voucher can be resubmitted if the reason for rejection can be corrected. what is this dealer supposed to do? go back and submit exactly the same 21 pages he did before? because the reply came back and said the reason you have been rejected is, no reason provided. they have already under this program because before you file, you have already destroyed the car. you have had to ruin the engine. and the guy's now riding around in their new car, the dealer can't get their rebate check. we can't even handle a $1 billion program. the consumers love this program. mr. latourette: great program. mr. hoekstra: it's a program that has been well-intentioned. it's driving car volume. but it's driving our dealers

absolutely nuts. they are already under a tremendous amount of stress and strain. remember, these folks who can't implement a $1 billion program that all it does is provide a rebate, that's all it does, is it provides a rebate and they want to run our health care system. i ask them, how hard is it to do a rebate through ford or g.m. or chrysler? that's not a problem at aw. they handle it just like that. we just fill out -- send it in and we get it done just like that. these guys can't process a voucher. then we are asking them to plan wages, salaries, and all these other things. latourette: i thank the gentleman. taking back my time. the gentleman has just cained the -- indicated why they can't get her done. they want to get these things done. the fact of the matter is they are not getting them done. the figures i saw there, 16,000 dealers across the country have entered into this program.

you are not talking about mfls application that is need to be processed. you are talking about 16,000 dealers. even if the entire billing was exhausted, that's 200,000 cars. they can't get it done. so if this health care thing gets out of here where the government runs health care, don't want to have any heart problems, because you might wind up with a 1957 chevy engine in your test. mr. hoekstra: the reason for your denial of care is no reason provided but you're note getting it. mr. latourette: that be would be comforting. i want to get back to a.i.g., because that was the first get her done in the stimulus package. folks were embarrassed they actually found out they authorized by voting for the stimulus bill these exorbitant bonuses going to a.i.g. executives. just a week ago saturday, it's been three weeks now, this was the headline in the "washington post." a.i.g. plans millions more in bonuses, troubled insurer is in talks with u.s. over another $250 million in bonuses to their

executives. and why it's important that we follow things like regular order, people say, nobody pays any attention to process here, but why you can't have an $1,100-page bill filed at midnight and expect people to know what's going on and why goofy things happen is because that's not the way we are supposed to govern. get her done is not a way to govern. so in the stimulus bill this chart shows the paragraph that was included in the stimulus bill that specifically, these 40 or so words, specifically said that any bonus that was agreed to before february 11 of this year, which was the day the stimulus bill passed, was protected. and then the $173 billion in bonuses was paid to a.i.g., i saw the president on television, i'm shocked. we had people on the floor on this side of the aisle, i'm shocked. you shouldn't be shocked. if you had done the bill in the

way that the founding fathers intended it to be done, and if you gave people more than 90 minutes to read 1,100 pages they wouldn't have been shocked. they would have known. they would have had a choice. do you want to authorize $173 million for bonuss? if you do, vote yes. if you don't, why don't you fix the thing? >> so for the folks that don't quite understand this, this clause that you have in front of him was in the stimulus bill. and this basically approved the bonuses to a.i.g. mr. latourette: yes. >> i just have a question for the gentleman. do you know how many republicans voted for the stimulus bill? mr. latourette: no republicans voted for the stimulus bill, and 11 democrats also did not vote for the stimulus package. but it's worse than that because when the bill left the house, it didn't have this paragraph in it. when it left the senate it didn't have this paragraph in it. as a matter of fact, the senate

bill on the stimulus package had an amendment that was adopted the old-fashioned way, in a bipartisan fashion, with a democratic senator from oregon, mr. widen, and a republican senator from maine, ms. snowe, they drafted legislation because nobody liked this. handing out billions of dollars to a.i.g. and wall street and seeing these executives who have failed, i never understood a bonus. a bonus is supposed to be you have done a good job. i have yet to meet anybody in any of the jobs hi steve, did you a crappy job, here's a bonus. >> because the -- another clarification. during the bailout how much money did -- before the bailout, how much money has a.i.g. already received from the federal government? mr. latourette: i stopped at $125 billion. so -- >> we went on to award bonuses. mr. latourette: and then -- here's how it happened. so the snow -- snowe-wyden

language is in the senate bill. somehow, you know this, and the speaker knows this, we pass a bill, they pass a bill, when it doesn't match up, we have to have a conference to work things out. so they appointed conferees, the senate sent some guys and gallons over, we -- gals over, we sent people over, no republicans were included, they said let's resolve these two bills. by resolving the two bills, the snowe-wyden language was taken out and this new paragraph protecting the bonuses was put it -- in by somebody. we are talking a little bit about larry the cable guy and get her done. this is one of my favorite games when i was growing up, the game of clue. with apologies to hasbro, the problem is we have asked since that news came out who put that paragraph in? it shouldn't be that hard. who put that paragraph in? nobody will own up to it. it didn't come from the heavens. obviously somebody took a pencil

or eraser and took out the senate language and put in that offending paragraph. but nobody will tell us who did it. we have asked and asked and asked. so here's clue. basically we think that we have it narrowed down to these folks. if you played clue you have to figure out what room it takes place in, what the weapon is, and who is the perpetrator. we know that the weapon was a pen. might have been a computer, aim going to say it was a pen. these are the rooms here in the united states capitol. the banking committee, speak's office, senator leader's office, conference room where these folks met, the lobby i don't think it happened in the lobby, the ways and means committee, the lounge, library, and appropriations committee. now, we have been asking this since march of this year. since march of this year we have excluded the gentleman down here in the lower corner, that's charles rangel, democrat of new york, who is the distinguished chairman of the ways and means committee. he actually emerge interested this conference and sort of threw up his hands, according to

press reports, and said, the government's being run by three people. and i'm frustrated. he left. we don't think charlie rangel did it. >> that could be an important clue. i'm on the ways and means committee. we did not put that language in there. so mr. rangel claimed there were three people that were writing the bill? mr. latourette: basically. that was his quoted statement in the press. the other folks -- we know this individual was in the room. this is rahm emanuel, our former colleague from illinois, who now serves as the president's chief of staff. this is the -- mr. orzag, o.m.b. director. mr. d.o.d. -- mr. dodd, senator from connecticut, chairman of the banking committee, ms. pelosi of california, and senator harry reid of nevada who is the leader over on the other side. i put the question mark down there because -- this really angers me, somebody had to authorize it. but some of the statements have

been staff did it. staff -- listen, there's something seriously wrong if a nonelected official or appointed official in the case of the o.m.b. director can change legislation. they clearly had to have authorization. a lot of eyes were on senator dodd. and the department of the treasury. but here's what's frustrating. even though we are asking that question and it's a pretty simple question, who did it? and maybe they had a great reason for doing it. tell us why you did it. but they won't. and so we have had to go to not only come talk about it on the floor, but we have had to take other action here since march to try to figure it out. so i filed something known as a resolution of inquiry which asked the department of the treasury, hey, who said take out the one and put in the other? tell us who it is. that's a pretty simple question. i'm going to say something nice about the chairman of financial service, barney frank of massachusetts, he took the resolution of inquiry, they got

more votes than we do. he could have killed it. he did not. he voted it out of his committee, 63, 64-0, it's been sitting at the speaker's desk since the end of april, beginning of may. now, again the speaker knows this, the way the legislation gets to the floor is that the majority has to schedule it. and for whatever reason the distinguished majority leader, mr. hoyer of maryland, has chosen not to schedule this piece of legislation for floor activity. even all of the democrats on financial services that want to know the answer to the question will not get the answer to the question because we can't get the bill to the floor. so we have gone a step further and there is a provision in the house rules if they won't act you can file something called a discharge petition. we filed a discharge petition. it's right over there by the attractive lady in the tan suit, and we have asked members to sign it so we can bring it to the floor and talk about it. to date every republican have signed it. we don't have a democratic

member who signed it. that's the only way we are going to get to it. chairman frank did something else commendable. when he voted it out of his committee, he called up the treasury and said quit horsing around. just tell us who did it? he set up a number of meetings with the treasury department. my staff went to the meetings, i went to the meetings. the last contact we have had, the last contact that we have had from the department of treasury, i just want to get it because it really is remarkable, we got a call, the banking staff got a call from a fellow who is in government relations at the treasury department, and said that, we really didn't like that meeting because it was too political and we think our lawyer has said we can't answer your question. what the heck, it's not like we are dealing with somebody from the mob and the lawyer says take the fifth. we are talking about the united

states department of the treasury which is responsible for administering these billions and billions of dollars, and they are telling the united states congress that the lawyer has said they can't tell us who authorized $173 million in bonuses for people who work at a.i.g.? and then they tried to compound the crime because as i said a lot of people were embarrassed. they went home to their districts, even senator dodd, there was a news article. people were screaming at him, how could you do that? how could you do that? what did they come up with -- >> for clarification because i know that folks just coming now in. they are here on their vacations. and they maybe missed the beginning of this. what we are talking about here is that well over $100 billion has been given to a.i.g. we had the house bill that every member of congress admitted that they didn't read. matter of fact, mr. boehner sat

right there where you are, mr. latourette, and asked anyone if they had read it, and no one said they had read it. he dropped the bill right there on that floor and the language that you talked about that awarded the bonuses was not in the bill at that time. so the senate bill, the house bill come together and suddenly that's put in its place. and now we are sitting here with legislation why would we be awarding after giving well over $$100 billion to a.g.i.g., now we'll give these bonuses and no one knows who's done it. mr. latourette: that's a fair summation where we are. that's troubling to me. so we are going -- >> just for clarification. layer the cable guy didn't do it, right? mr. latourette: he's not on that chart. again this goes back to layer rit cable guy, however. that's why get her done cannot

be a way to run the united states ever america because people get embarrass -- of america because people get embarrassed. people will not have the opportunity -- you and i each represent about 700,000 people, you in california and i in ohio, hi no input in this bill, not because i didn't want to. i bet had you no input in this bill. so it's just not the way to run the thing. when you run it this way you get embarrassed. when you get embarrassed you should own up to it. rather than owning up to it and saying take the language out, let's get -- not permit this to happen, it was a mistake, the majority rather than bringing in the resolution of inquiry to the floor, brought a bill to the floor to tax these bonuses which they authorized at 90%. now, i got to tell you, i don't think that these people should have gotten these bonuses, but when you begin to use the tax code to punish people that you don't like and say, today it's the a.i.g. guys, we are going to tax you at 90%, tomorrow it

could be truck drivers. we don't like the guys that do talk raidy, we'll tax you 90%. it's a very dangerous precedent. it's not only dangerous, it's stupid. it's stupid because the head guy, bigous bonus getter, biggest bonus getter at a.i.g. got $6.4 million. . if you don't think you should get a bonus, why let him keep 10%? that's $640,000. it takes eight years for somebody in ohio to make that much. it's not only a misuse of the tax code, it's stuchede. but it was a fig leaf because people were embarrassed. sadly, sometimes when people get embarrassed around here, rather than do the right thing they do the politically expedient thick. thank god the senate didn't pass the bill and thank god president obama -- he didn't say it was

stupid, but he pretty much said it was stupid. mr. nunes: he has done that recently. mr. latourette: now -- mr. nunes: if the gentleman will yield again, you have a long history before you came to congress, you worked for the people of ohio, you were involved in, as a district attorney, and i know that you have prosecuted many people and upheld the law and so as we're beginning to go through this and we're beginning to look at who is out there, who possibly did this, we still, here we are, almost six months after we passed the stimulus bill, and no one knows where this language has come from. mr. latourette: this is really shocking that the united states congress can't get an answer to a simple question who did it. i want to move on, with my friend's permission, to the get

done in the car companies. we were told we had to be an expedited bankruptcy proceedings, first with chrysler and then yen motors, because that was going to save the car industry in this country and we have to move forward. as a matter of fact on april 2340erks president gave a press conference when chrysler went into bankruptcy and this is his exact quote that nobody should be confused about what a bankruptcy process means. it will not disrupt the lives of the people who work at chrysler or live in the communities that depend on it. i was pretty heartened by that. i was heartened because, in twinsburg, ohio, we have, for the moment, won't have, soon, a stamping plant for chrysler. about 1 rks 200 people work there -- 1,200 people work there. in the days leading up to the bankruptcy, the company went to the chrysler employees, the u.a.w. employees, and said, in order to make this work, you have to enter into the new contract. you have to give up some stuff,

wage, benefit, some health care, some vacation. the day before the bankruptcy announcement, the autoworkers in twinsburg, ohio, went to their union hall and cast their ballots on biving gsh giving up stuff said 80% of them said, we're going to do it so we can keep our jobs and make sure the company we work for can survive that kept -- took place all across the country and the contract was approve then a funny thing happened. that afternoon, when all the documents were filed in the bankruptcy case, there's an affidavit from a guy who is -- his name escapes me, robert -- i'll think of it in a minute. that basically indicates oh, no, no, no. there are going to be disruptions, we are closing plants, we are throwing people out of work. specifically eight plants in

cities across america were told even though, hey, autoworker, even though you voted to give up some stuff to stay employed, we're shutting you down. nationwide, it was in excess -- close to 10,000 people, just were told they weren't going to have jobs anymore. the interesting thing is, before the president went to the microphones, he went to talk and give this press conference at noon on april 30, at 11:00 that morning, the white house was very helpful in setting up conference call with members of congress, governor, other people that were interested in this issue and with his task force, his unelected automobile task force. the task force members got on and said, this is a great day. this is a great day. we've saved chrysler or will through this bankruptcy. jobs won't be lost, as a matter of fact, because chrysler is going to enter into a deal with fiat, the italian car manufacturer, we've got great news, we think fiat will bring

5,000 more jobs. i got off the call, watched the president of the united states, then there's another call. when the president was done, we had another conference call with the head, the guy that was the head of chrysler then, robert nardelli. he was basically reiterating the thing this is a occurred in the course of the president's announcement and the very first telephone call, he took questions, which was nice. the very first call that he took was from governor grant hom of michigan, the democratic -- granholm of michigan, the democratic governor of michigan. they've got concerns about auto manufacturing. she said, great job, way to go, i just have to ask you a question. the president in his announcement said, this deal will save 30,000 jobs. i just want to make sure that that wasn't code for something else because there are 39,000 people in the country that work for chrysler. mr. nardelli said, no, no, no,

he was rounding down. there won't be any difficulties. which wasn't true. later in the call, one of our colleagues from wisconsin, gwen moore, democrat from wisconsin she had, used to have, an engine plant in a town called kenosha, wisconsin. she said 800 people work there, where in your restructuring do you envision the kenosha plant being? she was told, we love kenosha, kenosha is safe, it's going to be fine, those 800 people don't have to worry. sill he me and silly representative moore and silly governor granholm, we sent out press releases praising the president and the task force and the work they were doing only to find out my plant was closed and ms. moore's plant was closed. obviously, obviously that caused

some concern by the folks in wisconsin. and the folks in ohio. so the governor of wisconsin, ms. moore, and the mayor of kenosha sent a letter to mr. nardelli to say, why did you do that? the response they got back, mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to insert this letter into the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. latourette: i'm sorry, madam speaker, i didn't know you switched. on may 7, he wrote to governor jim yle and he said, yeah, i know i said kenosha was safe. i need to tell you, i was confused. i thought kenosha, wisconsin, was trenton, michigan. if i had a nickel for every time i got in the car and tried to go to kenosha, wisconsin, and went to trenton, mmp, that would be something. mr. nunes: if i remember correctly, there's a lake that

separates wisconsin and michigan, correct? mr. latourette: now the gentleman is nitpicking. the day before, robert manzo, the consultant that chrysler hired to take them through this thing, the day before the filing, he sent this email exchange, which has been in the newspapers, to the president's task force say, maybe we don't have to go this way, maybe there's another way. he said, i hope you think it's worth giving this one more shot. that is, to not have these horrible things happen through the bankruptcy. here's the response from mr. feldman, the attorney on the unelected task force and basically said, we're done. and indicated that he wasn't going to be treated to another terrorist like lauria. lauria is the lawyer who represented the bondholders, people who invested in chrysler

and they were told that they had secured creditor status. it was $27 billion. mr. lauria represented some of them. the some of them he represented was the teachers' retirement system of indiana. so people who had taught the children of indiana for years and had retired, in order to maximize their retirement fund and -- they invested in chrysler. which was once a pretty safe investment. they were told they were secured, which means they get paid before anybody else gets paid. mr. lauria was advocating on behalf of the teachers of indiana and saying, you cannot just get rid of us. you have to compensate these people who have invested $27 billion in chrysler. but the response from the task force is that these people were acting like a terrorist. mr. nunes: if the gentleman will yield for another point of clarification, you referred several times to this unelected

task force, auto company task force. mr. latourette: right. mr. nunes: and we've seen the czars appointed by the president, 30-something or 40-something czar, every day we add a new czar. is there a difference between the czars and the automotive task force? was there a sarff the -- czar of the auto task force? mr. latourette: there was a czar. mr. nunes: this was appointed by? mr. latourette: appointed by the president. he's gone back into private business, it's now headed by a man named bloom. a funny thing happened on the way to the task force. when they began making these decisions, people began to say, well, who are these folks? and what's their background? i mean, were they in the manufacturing business? did they make cars? did they sell cars? did they manufacturer parts for cars? and "the wall street journal" actually did a study of the

members of the task force and found that most of them don't even own cars. and those that do own cars own foreign cars, the majority of them. mr. nunes: how many people were on the task force? mr. latourette: i think it was 12 or 16. we had one of our colleagues from ohio, mr. jordan, mr. jordan of ohio, who serves on the judiciary committee, and the judiciary committee had a hearing with a panel that asked that question, how many people on the task force have any experience at all in the car industry, and the answer is none. nobody. but despite that fact, they have made decisions. the second decision that i want to talk about is the decision that they made that somehow, we needed to close car dealerships across america. and in chrysler's case, it was 789. in general motors, it's about 2,600. according to the national

association of automobile dealers, about 60 people work at each dealership. if you multiply that by the number of dealerships instructed to close, you're north of 200,000 people. 200,000 people and let's get this straight about car dealers. most own their own buildings, do their own finance plan, do their own advertising, the cost to the automobile company is pretty minimal. but, again, this nonelected task force that doesn't know anything about the car industry said, you know what? toyota sells an awful lot of cars in this company and they don't have as many car dealers as chrysler or general motors. therefore, the car dealers must be the problem. they're the ones that are creating this problem. so they basically gave -- we had a car dealer from michigan, i think he was, just at chrysler's direction, was told to put $7 million into his building to make it attractive and all this other stuff he didn't get paid

for that he got a letter saying, you're no long aerochrysler dealer. we hadhe car dealers basically came to town, they were pretty amazing stories about some of these car dealers and the way they were treated. but you know, it's not just the 3,000 men or women that own these auto dealersships. it's the 200,000 people, the mechanics, the salespeople, the clerks, they're out of a job. and so i don't know how you recover the economy by having less stores. mr. nunes: if the gentleman will yield, this is -- one of the important points here that you've made is that this task force, this unelected task force that has no experience in running anything to do with car, in fact some of them don't even own car, have now made this

unilateral decision, unelected task force to close these dealerships. and the way that they were able to do that is because the government has now taken over ownership of the car companies. mr. latourette: the gentleman is absolutely right. i'll tell you that initially, the auto task force ran from this dealer issue like a scalded cat. they were really quick to put out a press release saying, we're not micromanaging the car company we don't know enough to run chrysler and general motors, this was the car companies, this was general motors and chrysler, they're the bad ones who decided to throw the people out of work. a couple of things run counter to that. first was, just like i think it's an interesting business model that you're going to sell more cars with less dealers, the auto task force in the chrysler bankruptcy, according to an article in the "automotive news"

didn't want chrysler to advertise. their -- advertise their cars in the bankruptcy. when somebody told them how stupid that was, they said, ok, you can spend half of it. it was $134 million. again this unelected task force apparently thinks you can sell more cars if you don't advertise and you have 3,000 less stores across the country. . the other thing that gets in the way is fritz henderson, the president and g.e.o. of general motors, old and new, gave an affidavit to the bankruptcy court in new york, madam speaker i ask unanimous consent that be inserted into the record as well. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. miss latourette: could you tell -- mr. latourette: could you tell us how much time is left in the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 11 minutes remaining. mr. latourette: in this affidavit, mr. henderson indicates that the idea of shutting all these dealerships,

in their case 2,600, wasn't his idea. the purchaser rejected their plan. does the gentleman know who the purchaser of general motors is? it's the united states government. mr. nunes: it's us, the people. mr. latourette: the task force. they rejected cry letter's plan, they reject the general motor's plan. go back to the drawing board. mr. ratner, who was the head of the task force said, you got to come up with a new plan. and mr. bloom testified in front of the senate that they rejected the plans because they didn't find the car company's plans to be aggressive enough when it came to shutting down plants, throwing people out of work, and closing car dealerships. so again just like when people were shocked about the a.i.g. bonus, the people running around town here are saying i'm shocked. you shouldn't be shocked. you told them what to do. you didn't say you have to close 10. you didn't say that you have to close one in cleveland and one in california.

but you did say you had to close a bunch. you can't walk away from that responsibility. now there's legislation -- i thought that the gentleman from new york was still in the chair. the gentleman from new york, mr. maffei, is the lead sponsor of the legislation that says you got to deal with these people fairly, these 200,000 people they tossed out of work. he has proposed legislation, i proposed legislation. mr. ratner before he left in response to the legislation, the administration opposes the legislation to force the reopening of chrysler dealers and prevent general motors from closing dealers. i don't know how much more they could be involved. so that brings us to clue the travel edition. so the task force has said, they are not responsible for 20 auto plants closing and about 50,000 auto workers being thrown out of work. they are not responsible for the

50,000 delphi workers who don't have health insurance today. they are not responsible for the 200,000 people that work at the dealerships across the country that are now going to be out of business. who is? so around this chart we have mr. bloom, this is the secretary of the treasury, mr. geithner, former president, george w. bush, the president of the united states, larry summers the president's economic advisor, and down there is robert nardelli, the former head of chrysler i was talking about. again the same scenario. this is pretty simple question, who decided to take the axe to those 20 plants, those almost 300,000 people and shut her down? it's no longer get her done, it's shut her down. i think we should find out. but nobody will fess up, nobody will say who did it. mr. nunes: no one knows who did

the a.i.g. bonuses, no one knows who put that legislation in. and now no one knows who shut down the automotive plants, dealers, and now we are sitting here with 300,000 people out of work in the largest democracy in the world which is supposed to be a deliberative body where the congress is supposed to make the decisions, and we have no answers. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. i just want to conclude unless the gentleman has another thought. mr. nunes: i just want to thank the gentleman for bringing this to the people's attention. this is really the only avenue that you now have is to come before the people, to come before the whole world and you have laid out a very compelling case that quite frankly we are not getting anything done. in fact we don't know who is doing what around here. and i am troubled by this, that you have brought to the floor of the house, and i hope you will continue up your effort to figure out -- get to the bottom of who did this. mr. latourette: i will.

i thank the gentleman for participating in this. i want to thank larry the cable guy for making a cameo appearance during the course of this. we want to be bipartisan. we want to get things done here. but get her done by a date certain no matter what the details are when you drop 300 pages at 3:00 in the morning, when you drop 1,100 pages at midnight, when you work in private and in secret to draft legislation to do things like cap and trade and health care legislation, it really is not the way that the government is supposed to work. and we know on our side of the aisle as republicans, we did such a lousy job that the voters replaced us in 2006. we understand that. but by the same token there are a lot of bright people on our side, a lot of bright people on that side. and i would believe that we could come together on all of these important issues and give the american people some legislation that they can have confidence in because members of

both party participated. people are very suspicious of washington. they say it's so partisan. always fighting with each other. a giant step toward solving that would be to work these things out in a bipartisan way. i thank the gentleman. i thank the chair. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from oregon, mr. blumenauer, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. blumenauer: thank you, madam speaker. i always enjoy listening to my good friend, the gentleman from ohio, with whom i have worked on a number of projects. i have the greatest respect for him. but i don't always agree with his analysis. and it's interesting to listen to people who are claiming that they are concerned that they have been shut out of the process so that they are irrelevant. i do think there is some real question about the relevance of

some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, but that is a decision that they and their leadership have made consciously . i don't think that my good friend from ohio falls into the description of what his fellow ohioan has declared that republican legislators should be. minority leader boehner has said they shouldn't be legislators, they should just be communicators. because their job is more a political one, not being involved with the process. that is why their budget plan was not a budget plan but it was a press release. in fact, i was kind of embarrassed for them when they announced it with great fanfare and the press asked, where are the details? you're giving us a press release.

sadly sitting on the budget committee, we found that our republican friends were not involved with the serious alternative that would deal with our nation's problems. we have enacted for the first time in history a significant, comprehensive piece of legislation that's passed the house to deal with carbon pollution, climate change, global warming, and the fact that the united states simply can no longer continue to waste more energy than any other country in the world. the republican response? sort of the tone in part has been set by the senator from oklahoma who has declared that global warming is a hoax. we have not seen a republican response that puts forth a

comprehensive effort. in fact the previous eight years of the bush administration republican control were characterized by global warming denial, interference with states that were trying to do something. remember the state of california and nine other states wanted to put in place more effective energy protections for automobiles. higher standards. california has this right under the law. it requires a waiver for the federal government. waivers that republican and democratic administrations alike have always granted. except for the bush administration and the republicans in the latest round over the last eight years. they denied that right for the people in california to move

forward and deal with it. denied the opportunity to save energy, to create new jobs. it's i think frankly embarrassing. most recently we have had a chance to watch up close and personal the debates that are taking place dealing with health care. and i frankly got some personal experience with this because i tried to do exactly what my previous two friends were talking about and that was have serious efforts for bipartisan legislation to improve america's health care. you wouldn't know it listening to some of the rhetoric that comes from leadership, but there are actually areas of broad bipartisan agreement. one deals with the notion that

our senior citizens and people who are facing -- and their families that are facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances dealing with end of life situations that these citizens and their families ought to be able to have their doctor help them understand what they are facing, what their choices are. and most important have them be able to tell their family and their doctor what they want done . sadly today medicare, although it will pay for all sorts of tests and procedures, 7,000 different categories i think is the count, it won't pay for a senior's doctor or nurse or some other trusted health

professional to sit down and have that conversation with them. madam speaker, when we worked on the ways and means committee, we found that republicans and democrats alike agreed that that was wrong. agreed that this was an area when we were talking about health care reform that we should change. we should have medicare and any reform effort that we brought forward help seniors and their families prepare for the most difficult decision any of us will face. we had bipartisan legislation. i'm proud to say that we discussed it extensively in committee. and in fact some of the most heartenedering -- heart rendering stories for the need for this legislation did not come from our witnesses, they came from members of the

committee, including republican members who talked about why this legislation was important. well, that is why i was proud that this legislation that we have been working on that i co-sponsored, that i had republicans join me in co-sponsoring was incorporated into the house reform legislation, house bill 3200. but you know, people who have watched c-span over the -- or the news over the course of the last week, people who have read news accounts would see that this bipartisan, humane important legislation giving more choice to seniors and their families for being able to make sure that their needs are met the way they want it, that was hydrogened -- hijacked.

we saw sadly on the webpage of the republican minority leader that they are claiming this is somehow leading us down the path of euthanasia. we heard a republican on the floor this week claim that their approach is better because it would protect senior citizens from the government taking their life. . absolutely outrageous and shameful, inaccurate statements designed to inflame, confuse and frankly gum up the works. i find no small amount of irony because what my republican friends were claiming, they wanted to be involved, they were involved. they agreed with it. and yet we're finding people for political purposes trying to

mislead and scare families across america. it's ironic because the only provision that i know that would have been mandate -- mandatory was actually offered up by a republican senator who's a friend of mine from georgia who had offered the proposal. it wasn't accepted, it was later withdrawn, but the proposal wasn't before somebody enroll in medicare that they have to fill out a form telling people what they want. rather than having people guess about it. not a bad idea to consider, but in this climate where people are trying to poison the discussion, stifle the debate and prevent us moving towards health care reform, it would have sadly been

toxic. it's ironic that i had one of my republican doctor colleagues tell me that he has conversations like this often but he said that he wishes that it wasn't in the last hours before a major operation or before it was too late. that people ought to think about tnd and we ought to do it in a reasonable fashion like we proposed under our bipartisan legislation. well, madam speaker, this is an example of where i think our republican friends really need to take a deep breath and decide whether they are going to be communicaters or they're going to legislate, whether they're going to join us in trying to solve these problems. there are amazing opportunities.

one of the things that has been interesting, even the most hardened c-span junkies of late have probably been a little embarrassed for when they hear republicans coming to the floor, braying like donkeys, asking, where are the jobs? interrupting otherwise semicoherent speeches with a refrain over and over again, where are the jobs? like somehow the republicans and president obama have taken them and hidden them. but i give them credit for finally asking an important question. although without any context and without any answer, looking as though they had no clue. next to national security and the health of our communities the record of job creation, how many, what kind and for whom, is one of the most fundamental issues that government will face in tough times of high

unemployment and job insecurity. it can in fact sometimes feel like it crowds everything else out and no wonder, americans want economic security for themselves, their family and ultimately for the country. if we're not economically secure we can't deal with cleaning up the environment, with education and health care. unfortunately my republican colleagues are losing an opportunity not just to ask themselves a question, but to deal with these critical long-term economic questions. because in a dynamic free market economy like the united states, the job creation process is a continuous one. every day in america jobs are being created and jobs are being lost. the real question is what is the balance between job growth and

job loss, what's the nature of the jobs and how do we improve it for the future? i understand my republican friends starting to pay more attention to this because candidly the republican record since 1940 is not exactly stellar in this regard. since 1940 republicans have been in charge of the united states more years than democrats. 36 to 33. but despite that fact, in terms of actual job creation, you can go back and look at the department of labor statistics, for those 33 years democrats created 64.2% of the jobs in

this country. republicans were responsible for 35.8% of the jobs. i'm not saying this was all president kennedy or president johnson or president truman and i'm not saying that there weren't things that president eisenhower and president reagan did that were important and useful. it isn't always the partisan makeup that is determinetive. but there is a very interesting pattern that should count for something. when my republican friends come to the floor braying, where are the jobs, they ought to look at the record and the record is that democrats have a better history of job creation. and you don't have to go back to truman and eisenhower to look at that. it is in fact -- it has in fact been a rather dramatic

difference just in the period of time that i've been in congress. we've had 16 years, eight years of the clinton administration, eight years of bush, where there's a pretty stark difference. the clinton administration produced 22 million jobs in the period of time. they averaged 237,000 jobs per month. despite the predictions of some of my republican friends, many of whom actually are still in congress, that the policies, the economic policies, the tax policies, of the clinton administration were going to destroy the economy. 237,000 jobs per month created.

and that's more than the 150,000 jobs that a dynamic american economy needs to sort of keep in balance. what was the record under the bush administration where the republicans were actually in control -- almost absolute control ofongress and they were in control of the white house? the second bush administration created only 58,000 jobs per month. it's the lowest average monthly job creation rate since the eisenhower administration when the country was almost half as small. it was the lowest average yearly job creation since herbert hoover and it got worse as it went along. the economy lost half a million

net jobs in 2008. now remember, this is an administration, five million jobs in the bush administration, 22 million jobs in the clinton administration, and those are just private sector jobs. in the bush administration, 2 1/2 million people were added to unemployment and there were a smaller proportion of americans who were working when bush left office than when clinton left office. but that trend was actually quite disturbing because for 10 consecutive months as the bush administration was wrapping up, we were seeing job loss and they continued early in the new year. now, i think even my most partisan republican friends would agree that you don't take a massive economy like the

united states and turn it on a dime. the fact that barack obama became president january 20 didn't turn around the jobs that were being shed and lost -- turn around. the jobs that were being shed and lost were a result of the previous eight years' activity. so it is certainly not the fault of the obama administration. the obama administration has inherited the worst financial collapse in american history since the great depression. with the affects that are still being felt on the state and local level and will continue to ripple throughout the economy even after it's turned around. it would be premature at best to rend ar verdict on the obama administration, although i am actually pleased that my republican friends who remain

silent in the midst of the anemic job performance of the republican administration under george bush and actually went in negative areas, i'm glad that they found their voice and are starting to speak out. now it's time to engage their brains in these important long-term questions. the fundamental nature of the job market is in fact changing in this country. employers are slower to replace jobs, assumptions about guaranteed employment and benefits are being challenged as economic models have been turned upside down. we ought to be working on two different levels. one is to stop an economy in free fall, it to strengthen opportunities, to avoid future job reductions and strengthen underlying economic activity. the second is to deal with the

nature of future jobs. it's even more important than the short-term strategy because in a large and growing country we need to be able to provide for the needs of workers young and old with a variety of interests and skills all across the country. this suggests that it is time for my friends on the other side of the aisle to reconsider their opposition to infrastructure investment and unyielding support for more and more tax cuts, especially for those who need them the least. that's the same formula that the republicans were offering which essentially helped create the problem. for eight years they had unprecedented control not just of the executive but of the legislative branch, they existed robust infrastructure investment. even when it appeared a year ago that the economy was teetering, when we were starting to see

actual job loss, president bush and his republican allies would only agree to a tax cut-only solution. we implored, we begged, put unemployment insurance into the equation, put food stamps into the equation. this is money that all the economists agree will have more stimulative effect. this is something that will help people most in need and they'll spend it right away. these are people who are living on the edge. and for heaven's sakes, work with us to spend a little money rebuilding and renewing america because these not only create construction jobs, engineering jobs across america, but it also improves our long-term productivity by protecting the environment, by stopping

congestion and pollution. they refused. the only thing they would agree to was a package of tax cuts, including tax cuts for many people who frankly didn't need them. well, that changed with the election of president obama and strengthened democratic leadership in congress. we produced an economic recovery package and it was passed in a few days in the new congress that met broad needs across the country. as a gesture to republicans, as an effort to get republicans' support, the largest single portion of that tax -- of that recovery package was tax cuts.

now, we're not hearing, as the republicans come to the floor asking in a confused way where are the jobs, they ignore the fact that an important part of this recovery package is their favorite solution, tax cuts, $288 billion. now we limited the tax cuts to the bottom 95%. we're not giving it to the wealthiest americans. but to the americans who need it the most. it by the way fulfills a campaign pledge of president obama. every working family in america who is in the bottom 95% has enjoyed a reduction in their tax rate, a reduction in with holding, that is having some

affect on the economy. . ironically the republicans who came to the floor and said they want to be involved, we put this in to address their concerns and engage them, how many republicans in the house voted for the package? zero. even though almost half the package was their favorite prescription. it was going to 95% of the american public. not a single republican vote. and only three in the united states senate. but we went beyond that. we added $144 billion to state and local fiscal relief. i don't know what it's like in your community, but i'll tell you that if our state legislature hadn't received

several billion dollars for health and human services, a half billion dollars for education, over a third of a billion dollars for transportation infrastructure the unemployment rate in my state would be even higher and our legislature would tie itself in knots trying to figure out what to do. it's interesting, some of the republican governors made a big show that they weren't going to accept this money for unemployment insurance. hello, they had to be forced in states like texas and south carolina by republican legislators to stop grandstanding and accept money to help poor and unemployed in their state.

you know, mr. speaker, it's interesting all those people who voted against the economic recovery, who voted against the infrastructure, it's interesting looking at a list of them that are showing up to be on the platform when the ribbon is cut, when the projects are announced. i find it ironic that republican leaders who voted against it are claiming credit in their press releases for important projects in their state that are being funded. they are communicating but it's a curious communication. claiming credit, blaming democrats because it doesn't happen instantaneous, not being part of formulating the solution. it is, i think, frankly, embarrassing watching the

spectacle, the most embarrassing thing about what's going on in south carolina is not whether some politician was hiking the appalachian trail or not, but the fact that it took their legislature to take a state that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and except money to help impoverished people. that's what's embarrassing. well, i am pleased that we actually did enact this. i'm sorry that republicans decided not to support it. i'm sorry that they are attacking and distorting. i'm sorry that they in the past haven't been concerned about job creation. it's not been an issue until recently when they think they can make political mileage out of it. mr. speaker, this is serious business.

and the american public deserves a congress that will treat it seriously. not coming to the floor braying where are the jobs and ignoring legislation that they have before them, that talks about what investments have been made in health care, in education, in infrastructure. in fact, just this week we had over 60 republican legislators vote against filling a hole in the highway trust fund that would have -- if they had had their way, it would have meant that we would have stopped issuing important transportation projects this summer that make a difference all over america. mr. speaker, i will conclude by

just making some reference to job intensity. we had a program that speaks to job creation and trying to keep the jobs that we've got. it speaks to trying to help state and local government, the private sector move forward. our energy legislation that passed the house if it were to pass the senate and be be enacted in law would -- and be enacted in law would make a huge difference about jobs for the future in the energy business. and everything from wind and solar to more energy efficient construction. it is time for us to use the tools to develop more and better jobs and think about how we spend dollars that will create the most jobs. job intensity. many of the smaller scale projects in transportation,

community livability, rehabilitation they carry multiple benefits. last sunday's "new york times" was filled with stories of decayed roads in the metropolitan new york area, in connecticut, new york, new jersey. but these articles could have been written about all -- places all across the country, from detroit to decatur, davenport, to denver where investment if it happens at all really hasn't been invested in the way that is will create the most jobs. going out in some suburban area and building a new job -- new road in newly developed areas rather than fixing decayed existing infrastructure does not create as many jobs as fixing it first. fixing it first is a winner because it will help restore damaged communities. it will not add an inventory of

more and more roads that will have to be maintained when we can't even maintain our roads and bridges and transit system right now. and fixing it first is much more labor intensive. there are more jobs to be created fixing existing infrastructure that's falling apart than making new infrastructure that will have to be maintained in the future. it also strengthens mature cities. many in america are concerned about the vitality of their inner cities. and it's not just older industrial cities that one thinks of like detroit or buffalo. but cities around the country from cincinnati to my hometown of portland, oregon. people are concerned about what's happening in the inner cities. but you know it's not just the inner city. it's that first and second tier of suburb around them.

we need to be thinking about these metropolitan areas, making strategy investments that are going to strengthen local economies, create more jobs. and enable us to revitalize the neighborhoods that americans live in. there's also a question about what we are going to do with jobs for the future. even if we are able to get the auto industry back on its feet and some of my friends heard colleagues recently talking about their concern about whether or not it was the auto bailout was effectively targeted. well, i think we don't want a collapse of the american automobile industry in the united states. it would not just effect the upper midwest. it would send ripple effects across the country for all those dealerships, for the many auto suppliers.

even if it works, it's very unlikely we are going to have the high level of automotive activity we have had in the past. we've got a lot of inventory. things are being scaled down. what will be the source of new job growth in the future if we are able to hold on to the auto industry that we have? another area that we have had has been the home building and development industry that just over the -- since world war ii has been a source of dramatic growth and activity. especially in the last 20 years, its construction, finance, home sales has employed all sorts of people all along the food chain that propped up the economies in southern california, florida, las vegas, and phoenix. now, these same boom areas are in a collective swoon. and look to have significant development over supply for years to come. we are going to see a rebalance

in the future in the type of housing. smaller families are going to be the norm. by 2040 there will be more single person households than families with children. it's going to require with another 100 million americans that will be here by the mid century, we are going to be changing dramatically. where we live, how we live, how we move. we are going to move forward in restructuring communities. we also need to think differently about job creation. we need as i say to be looking at the job density for the rehabilitation and location of infrastructure. there's going to be an explosion of needs to upgrade our infrastructure for sewer, for water, for the smart grid. future jobs will focus on enhanced efficiency, new energy supplies, being able to clean up

after ourselves. tens of millions of acres that the united states own has been polluted by unexploded or nance and -- ordnance and military coxen because of centuries of military training and activity in the united states. maybe we should start cleaning that up, putting people to work, repairing the environmental damage, and then being able to recycle that land for park and open space, for housing and industrial development. we've got lots of opportunities, mr. speaker, to be able to redirect the economy. to deal from health to energy. that is what the administration and the leadership in congress is attempting to do. the bottom line is that we are going through a major restructuring. it's hard. the administration has inherited the most damaged economy since

the depression. it's not going to turn on a dime. it's going to be a struggle for the next year or two. but it's going be to be -- it's going to be redirected faster, we are going to recover faster, and it's going to be sustainable if we are able to move in the right direction for the future. i have talked about energy, i have talked about renewable resources, using federal resources more wisely. being able to invest in critical infrastructure. i'm hoping, i'm hoping that this is one area that our republican friends will join us to reverse the policies of the bush administration that frankly prevented us from passing the transportation re-authorization for two years. we had 12 short-term extensions and we were forced to except a funding level -- accept a funding level that even the bush

transportation department said was almost $100 billion lower than what we needed. we've got an opportunity to rebuild and renew america. we've got an opportunity to work together. i am hopeful that the american public will weigh in on these issues. nothing is more critical and nothing will bring about a little more grown up behavior here on the floor of the house than if the american public indicates that they are watching, that they ask the hard question, and as members of congress return to their districts this next month for meetings, town halls, with business, with media, with students, churches, civic organizations have americans asking these pointed and direct questions will help us get on track. and i'm convinced that ultimately with the help of the

american public a new administration and a congress that is focusing on what is most important that we will be able to deliver on this promise, we will have a better federal partnership. we will strengthen the livability of our neighborhoods and make our families safer, healthier, and more economically secure. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. without objection the ordering of a five-minute special order speech in favor of the the gentlewoman from texas is vacated. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee, is recognized for the remaining 22 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much, mr. speaker. and i thank my good friend from oregon for giving such a detailed presentation of the enormity of the wourk that we have generated -- work that we have generate in collaborate situation with this administration and what change -- collaboration with this administration and what change really means. sometimes the television news bites and other activities that by the very nature of our nation, which is so diverse, may draw upon our thinking, we don't get to the bottom line of the kinds of opportunities that we've seen over the past eight

months, seven months of hard work from the time that president obama was sworn in as president of the united states and this congress was sworn in for the 111th congress. our work is not yet finished. and we want to continue that work in dialogue with our constituents. so i wanted to speak today, some with a little light heartedness and some with enormous sincerity and seriousness. i want to acknowledge the passing of the mother of the mayor of acheers home, willie baker, in my congressional district. i offer them my deepest sympathy. i rose to the floor yesterday to acknowledge the passing of vermel cook, a pioneering surgical nurse who worked with dr. michael e. debake and denton

cooley. these are issues that members address even as federal representatives in the people's house. so to those families, the cook and baker family, i offer my deepest sympathy. it seems then relevant to suggest that in addition to the many issues that we confront, i had the privilege of joining the senate in having passed today by unanimous consent h.j.res. 12, which for many of my colleagues, 61 of them who co-sponsored, many of them recognized the cultural richness of america. particularly in music, which i happen to be a fan of, and i believe it's so much a part of the american character, whether it's country western, whether it's jazz, whether it's pop, or whether or not it is gospel. so h.j.res. 12 acknowledged today along with united states

senate that we would designate september, 2009, as gospel music heritage month and it would honor the gospel music for its valuable and long-standing contributions to the culture of the united states. i hope that those who are members of various faiths throughout this nation will take the time during their religious services to celebrate gospel musicians, gospel singers, gospel producers, gospel writers and their own church choir or their place of faith church choir, wherever they are, practicing their faith. if there is a choir and it draws the kind of celebratory respect for their faith, i hope they will celebrate it. so i'm very pleased i've done this for the second time and to recognize the importance of the many artists and the many different influences, including country western music, on gospel

music, to recognize thomas doersy and mahalia jackson, the statesmen, the soul starers, james cleveland, the mighty clouds of joy, kirk franklin, the late brenda waters and carl preacher and so many others and then those who went on from gospel like al green and elvis presley and aretha franklin, allen jackson, dolly parton, had a gospel influence. so in this place that is the people's house, we likewise attempt to be sensitive to items of joy and i'm very proud that we will have an event in september, on september 12, at the kennedy center honoring gospel music heritage and i hope my friends will do so. but as we do that we recognize that there are painful experiences, so many of our

constituents are having. and so i rise today to thank my colleagues for joining me in sponsoring h.r. 3450. that is the automobile dealers' fair competition act of 2009. we expect that because of the bankruptcies of g.m. and chrysler that we are in direct line of losing some 200,000 jobs. i believe some 40,000, some 10,000, in state of texas. from the closing of automobile dealerships. not only that, we realize that automobile dealerships, many of them, were the anchors of our communities, the supporters of little leagues, some of them, of course, gave us the best deals of our life, maybe others didn't give you the best deal or the deal you wanted, but they are your neighbors. dealerships in the 18th congressional district hire people. they're like family. they provide cars for our law

enforcement, our city government. they make a difference. and by the closing we know that they're closing small businesses. according to estimates, all termination actions combined could lead, as i said, to the loss of 200,000 direct jobs and many, many productive small businesses will be destroyed. we also know that this termination has been in contrast to the contract al relationship called a franchise -- contractal relationship called a fran chiles. that the different dealerships had -- franchise that the different dealerships had with g.m. and chrysler. so what does the bill do? the bill deals with automobile dealers by giving them, if will you, the ability to have anti-trust protection. they can now have the right to protect themselves by asking the question, is a closing of

automobile dealerships anti-competitive? so in this bill, the bill will provide enforcement to this right by giving dealers an expedited court process to enforce the trade rights. the bill is in essence giving them the right to protect themselves by going to court. this would deem decisions by automobile -- auto manufacturers, specifically the automobile dealers' fair competition act of 2009, would deem decisions by auto manufacturers not to grant franchise extensions to all g.m. and chrysler dealers, provided they can demonstrate that they are still operating as a viable operation, that they can provide or they can show that this is an illegal restraint of trade. in addition the bill will provide enforcement teams to

this right by giving dealers an expedited court process to enforce the trade rights. if new g.m. or chrysler doesn't grant a replacement franchise to a growing concern within 90 days, the dealer can petition to federal court, district court and ask the court to refer the case to a special master who will be required to hear the case and make a ruling within 90 days. we don't want these dealerships to be closed. particularly those who are viable and are working in our community. as many have been. who have provided an economic engine to the community. it is our belief that there is empirical evidence and quantitative analysis that can be done to determine, for example, the impact of g.m.'s mass dealer terminations to g.m.'s market share. so what i'm saying is, if you close dealerships and you leave open honda and toyota and lexus and other foreign-made cars'

dealerships, are you impacting the competitive nature of our manufacturers and car dealers by giving them a noncompetitive edge because you have shut down competitive dealerships trying it to sell american cars and you're leaving the other guys, of which we welcome here in the united states, we're hope opportunity, but you let the foreign-made cars have the higher number of dealerships and therefore you deny jobs, you deny the manufacturers for selling their cars? it's just not right. so i ask my colleagues to join me in supporting h.r. 3450 to provide for the automobile dealers' fair competition act of 2009. it is h.r. 3450. we're delighted to already have a number of sponsors. it is bipartisan. we believe it can be another legislative initiative of which i'm on many, to protect and

provide for automobile dealers and say to the car manufacturers, our good friends in g.m. and chrysler, we care about the suppliers, the car dealerships and all the workers that may now look to unemployment because those dealerships are closing. those are good, good paying jobs and we want them back. so, mr. speaker, i'm hoping that my colleagues, as they return back from the august break, working in their districts, will look at h.r. 3450 so we can likewise move that forward as quickly as possible. now, mr. speaker, i would like to emphasize the importance of good health care. health care for all america. health care with a public option. and for some reason we think that this is something strange but every single poll that has asked the question, would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option to compete with private health

insurance? not closing down private insurance, and you can see the increasing strong numbers. 65%, 83%, 76% and 72%. one of the highest, i believe, indicated that this would not close anyone's private health insurance. in fact, it said, public plan option creating a new public health insurance plan that anyone can purchase. some of the other polls say, ensuring that you can continue in your own choice. and so i'm very proud that i support the public health insurance option that allows people who have insurance to stay where they are, but it allows all the small businesses to be able to provide themselves with insurance so they can do their business right. what about leaving a job, getting fired and wanting to be a sole proprietor?

you don't have to worried about being covered. pre-existing disease, you don't have to worry about being covered by good health insurance. the idea that you're not old enough for medicare, you won't have to worry about having good public insurance. let me give you an example and this is happening in districts around america. in the 18th congressional district, for example, up to 14,600 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees. 5,300 seniors would avoid the doughnut hole in medicare part d. 480 families would escape bankruptcy each year. health care providers would receive payment for $49 million in uncompensated care each year. ask your hospitals, they do not get reimbursed when they are the good samaritans and take people into their emergency rooms or take people in who are sick. once they're in the emergency room they admit them. uncompensated care in my district alone will get 49 --

$49 million and 184,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high quality health care. what can we -- how can we beat this? help small businesses, individuals who have ideas want to get out and show their entrepreneurships, want to be a proprietor, maybe they have two employees or 10 employees, you will get a public option. don't let those scare tactics of you'll lose your insurance or it will accelerate beyond belief, because we have cost control in this bill. in addition, don't let anyone miss -- misdirect their anguish at physician-owned hospitals. they are valuable. do you realize that doctors come together and save hospitals from closing? they did that in houston, texas, with st. joseph's hospital. they want to do that in my district with adding heighting hospital. some of my colleagues have told me about rural hospitals that

are closing but doctors who care about the hippocratic oath believe that they're there to be care givers and they run and they provide the saving grace by putting money into, investing in those hospitals and saving them and keeping them from closing. . they, too, should be allowed to take in patients under this health care reform. they are not double dipping. we want the quality to be high. we want to regulate it. but anyone that knows a doctor that has interest in a hospital by way of ownership, small amount, kept regulated, you know that that hospital, if it's a general acute hospital, can give good care. if it's a specialty hospital can give good care. so i am looking forward to the opportunity to again begin this debate because i believe it is important. mr. speaker, i also want to acknowledge the critics that say that the stimulus package has not worked. well, i will tell you that houston metro in houston, texas,

has a new start transportation system is going to be eligible for stimulus dollars as we move forward. i only use the 18th congressional district because it is right at my fingertips, but there are jobs being created. just alone in my district, housing and urban development, we have had $13.6 million in stimulus dollars. education, $42.5 million in stimulus dollars. and we want to continue to raise the question for our governor to take out the $3.2 billion that is in the rainy day fund in the state of texas and utilize those stimulus dollars to put teachers back to work. we were able to ensure that every teacher in texas will get an $800 salary increase the day they start work when the new school year starts. those are stimulus dollars. came through the working of the democratic congressional delegation of the state of texas. $800 increase in their salary. $22 million in social security and small business administration, $8.5 million.

that means in loans to our particular employees -- excuse me, in small businesses that are receiving moneys from this important generating of jobs. so we have been able to fix our courthouse with $807,000. we have been able to fix our federal building with $109 million. we have been able to work, if you will, with the catholic charities emergency food and shelter, $24,000. we have been able to reach the community of the streets outreach with $25,000. we have been working with new kit care emergency food and shelter, they received dollars. northwest assistance ministries received dollars. this is one district but multiply it for the needs acrossure community. we have been able -- across your community. we have been able to keep

nonprofit workers to help those who are unemployed. new construction, substantial rehabilitation, garden city apartments, new construction, substantial rehabilitation. mr. speaker, we are putting people to work. they are working on the construction and rehab of those apartments where individuals live. they are giving individuals a cleaner, safer, better quality of life by improving their apartments. what i ask my colleagues to do and those who may be listening, go to your local city halls. it's public knowledge. ask them to print out for you a list of the stimulus dollars that have already come. more are going to come. those will be grant dollars. it means that any of the nonprofits in your states or cities or counties can apply for dollars that will put people to work. right now we have the ability to utilize some $700 million in what we call green jobs. of course you can't see it

overnight. you couldn't see it in march. you couldn't see it possibly in february. maybe you didn't see it in april or may. because, yes, processing is important. documenting your dollars, where are your tax dollars going? making sure we have the right report is correct. but in houston i'm very proud to have worked on the stimulus dollar legislation providing language to ensure that minority and women-owned and small businesses will be recipients of those dollars in the appropriate manner so that we don't leave out small businesses who would have the ability to legitimately be receiving stimulus dollars through a government process and work that they would be doing. and construction dollars for all the construction workers out there. rehabilitation is a right way to work. i'm glad that the heights, houston heights tower received some 95,000, those are where a lot of my senior citizens live, for new construction and rehabilitation.

i remember going to the heights tower during hurricane ike. so it is important to refute some of the negative commentary that the stimulus dollars don't work. they do. $877,000 have gone to my city of houston in the 18th congressional district alone, new construction substantial rehabilitation. people will have a better quality of life. wesley square apartments, $508,000. new construction substantial rehabilitation. some of the homeless persons who have come upon hard times, many of them homeless veterans, will be able to have a better quality of life because stimulus dollars were utilize. mr. speaker, i believe that we are -- we have come to the end of the a portion of the 111th congress and i'm proud we passed an schips bill that enrolled more children in health care. we increased the minimum wage. that we provided for parity for

women in working, that their income or their salary is competitive with men. that as well we have begun to stand down in iraq and our defense appropriation bill speaks to helping move the defense of iraq to the iraqi national forces. i offer my deepest sadness and reflection on those lives that have been lost, our soldiers o the frontline, those that are now being lost in afplgt we will work hard to -- in afghanistan. we will work hard to stand down there to ensure the country of afghanistan can stand up. but we have been working hard to ensure that that happens. i have been working hard to help the people of pakistan. we passed a pakistan relief bill in essence out of foreign affairs so they can stand up. so that they can help with social programs. they can help economically. that we can help those who are in the camps because of the violence that was perpetrated.

that we can show the respect for the soldiers in afghanistan. their own soldiers in afghanistan. afghanis and the pakistanis who have lost soldiers themselves fighting terrorism. we passed h.r. 2200, the bill i authored, helping to secure transportation, airports, trains, buses to emphasize more training for flight attendants, to provide more resources for the transportation security administration, to ensure that america is safe. so this house has been busy. and as we go home to our districts, we will not run away from the idea of good health plans. because my friends, i don't know what the friends on the other side of the aisle have, a bunch of question marks about the health plan that my friends on the other side of the aisle has offered. i want them to join us. i can articulate what we have done. i realize that we have made great strides.

i know that the people want, if you will, good health care. so as i close i want to thank the speaker. i just want to leave you with this forceful message. we are going to get the job done. we are going to get health care for all americans. and the stimulus is going to work for you. and celebrate gospel music heritage month in september as we help our automobile dealers return to their jobs and to retain their jobs. you know we have been working. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bills. the clerk: h.r. 3357, an act to restore sums to the highway trust fund and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes.

mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i appreciate the privilege to be recognized here on the floor of the united states house of representatives. having had an opportunity to listen to some of the dialogue that took along previously, i'm glad i have a chance to raise these issues. on the front of of everybody's mind in this -- front of everybody's mind in this country is the situation of our health care and our health insurance. for 306 million people in the united states. i would point out that if we look at the size of this economy and the size of this population, it is a huge endeavor to think that we would take 17.5% of the american economy, 17.5% of our gross domestic product and switch it over to a government-run plan and do so in almost the blink of a legislative eye. and do so without the full deliberation of the floor of the house of representatives or without the american people having an opportunity to weigh

in. i am glad that this process has been slowed down however great the price has been and so that there's an opportunity now for some of the legislation that has been more closely refined, shall we say, in it's 1,100 or so-page form to be available to the public, a public that has more access to this information that's going on here in the house than ever before. because of being able to access this information now by the internet. those of us and all of us in this congress have websites and i would think there's at least one link on every member of congress' website that will help you find, i say, madam speaker, mr. speaker, help find the access to this information on where we are with the bills that are being deliberated here in this congress. as i look at where we are today and what's out there, i'm very interested in the entire month of august, and i'm very

interested in the first week in september those are the times when the american people will have had a chance to read the bill, talk to the people within their profession or whatever their interest group is that have read the bill, weigh their ideas, do this across the backyard fence, do this at the coffee table at work, and be able to give us the benefit of the wisdom of the american people to weigh in on all the components that have been created here that are promised to come at us and perhaps have a vote on a final passage. not here, not any longer this week or next week, or in the month of august. but perhaps in the first or second week in september. and something that this will decide the fate of the -- if it's passed, of the health care system of the united states. i believe at least as far as we can look into the future. and it is a national health care plan. it is a government-run health care plan. it is a model that transforms the entire health care system in

the united states. today we have more than 1,300 private health insurance companies competing for premium dollars. and they do so by providing the best value for the dollar and marketing that best value for the dollar and trying to adjust those policies to meet the demands of the american people. over 1,300 private health insurance companies and among them they offer in the aggregate perhaps as many as 100,000 different health insurance options. and the president of the united states has said, he just wants to offer one more option, 100,000 -- 100,001 policies in america for everyone to choose from. this extra government option he would offer as if there wasn't enough competition out there among the 1,300 health insurance companies and roughly 100,000 policies that are there. how could anyone presume that

one more policy would just compete with the other policies out there would result in anything other than, 1/100,000th more options for the people of the united states. i would submit there is a lot more afoot here. there is a lot more afoot here. the people advocating for this public option, the people that are advocating that the federal government should run their own health insurance policy in order to compete against the private sector are the people who sometimes they'll leak it into the media, sometimes thee will shout it out in a private meeting, but in their soul they want a single payer government run socialized medicine, one option, government plan for everybody. and they want to run every private health insurance company out of business and take the 100,000 options that the american people have with it. that is their agenda. i could put together a string of quotes from the very liberal members of this congress that find themselves in powerful

positions in this congress gavels in hand that are determined to take away the private health insurance options and turn it into one government plan. even the president of the united states believes in that however much lip service he's paid to the idea of telling the american people, if you like your health insurance that you have today, then you get to keep it. that's one thing that i cannot accept that the president believes when he says it. he's a very smart man. he's got to understand that if it says in the bill, and it does, section 102 of the bill that every private health insurance policy has to be rewritten in the first five years of the passage of the legislation that's proposed, that means the american people's individual policies will all change within five years and they will have to accommodate themselves to the new qualifications that will be written by a health insurance czar to be appointed by the

president later. and regulation that is are not in the bill but regulations that would grant that health insurance czar the power and authority to set the standards. so he might rule that every health insurance policy in america has to pay for abortion. he might rule that everyone has to pay for mental health. he might rule that everyone has to pay for all pharmaceuticals or maybe only generic pharmaceuticals. whatever he may decide he'll be looking at the costs of the premiums, the percentages of co-payments, and the regulations will be written so that the public option, which is so carefully defined and that language that's determined to be defended by the democrats in this congress, so that the public option can compete with all of these 1,300 private health insurance companies that have competed in the marketplace for years and found their niche in the market and done it the american way. somebody thinks there's too much money in the health insurance business, why don't they get in

the business and provide that health insurance and lower the premiums and cut down on the administrative overhead and take money and profit out of it? that's how it workers in the free market system. . you don't need government to come in and do it for you. you needo take a look and determine, is it a monopoly? if it's a monopoly, then teddy roosevelt rides again. let's bring him in and let's bust the trust. but if you have 1,300 health insurance companies and health policies you don't have anything that looks like a monopoly. you see something that looks like the maximum amount or nearly the maximum amount, anyway, of competition in the marketplace. so that argument is speeshes, the idea that we need to create one more company unless it is the intent of the proponents to create socialized medicine, one-size-fits-all, take away the american people's individual policies and give

them a government policy or a facsimile of a government policy that will be their former private health insurance company that's had to adapt to the new rules written by government and be an offer -- offer them a qualified plan. now, why am i suspicious of this? i am mrs. mcmorris rodgers: than suspicious. i -- -- i am more than suspicious. one of the problems is that there has been such an indig nation of those of us that have said that this is a government-run health care plan that they're proposing. they have tried to censor us here in the united states. they have actually effectively to a degree censored members of congress who simply wanted to mail out the flow chart, the schematic, if you will, of what this proposed health insurance plan or this health care policy looks like. and i would take the people in this country back, mr. speaker,

to this little chart right here. this is a chart that hung on my office for probably a decade starting in 1993 when hillary clinton came to town and became the secret master of the reform of the health care and the government takeover of health care in the united states. a lot of people remember, as i do, those were intense times. i was watching my freedom being marketed away day by day in secret meetings, secret meetings that i don't know if they have actually kept minutes but i know they weren't available to the public. the press wasn't allowed in the room. there wasn't members of congress in there. there were people in there like "ira" magazine that were hand picked by hillary and bill clinton to devise a plan. the idea is put these smart people in a room, let they devise a plan, no kibts on this plan because if that happens then the american people will start to gumbel. if they start to gumbel they'll

talk -- grumble they'll talk out loud and then the american people will come to washington and say they don't want a government-run health care plan. that's what they finally did. they finally said they are not going to tolerate it and the american people, scared enough members of congress and united states senators that they were going to lose their seat if they supported this monstrosity that this monstrosity was finally pulled down. this was a time when the united states senator phil gramm said that this health care policy will -- that it will be over his cold dead political body if they passed something like this. he stood there, he meant it. they held their ground. people in this house held their ground. people like dick army held their ground. dick armey was instrumental in helping form this chart, this black and white chart that is the schematic that shows all the government agencies that

are created by the old plan back in 1993 which i'll at least give bill clinton credit for, he wrote a bill. he presented a bill to congress and he asked congress to pass the hillary plan, and, of course, congress liked their job, they didn't pass the hillary plan. and when i call it a schematic, i don't know one might think today that's prejor tif. but in here they actually do call their own plan a scheme. someplace in this chart it addresses at least some of the components in it as a scheme. well, i call it a schematic or maybe more appropriately a schemeatic, mr. speaker. but it has here an ombudsman who is supposed to broker a deal because people can't create bureaucracy. we have to change the name of that because people know what an ombudsman is. we have the h.m.o. provider plan that doesn't show up in the other chart that i can see. h.m.o.'s have slid down in

their prop laret. here we have the global budget. in 1993 a global budget for a health care plan. all of these squares and boxes are created as new affiliations with the exception of the executive office of the president. a few others. but generally speaking this scheme, and they call it a scheme, does scare the american people. now, mr. speaker, i point out that as scary as this chart looks, we have another chart here that is far more scary. this is the color-coded modern-day software driven packaged up plan that is a very accurate facsimile of what actually is taking place in the democrat bill here in the house of representatives. this is 31 new agencies, and there are subagencies and other responsibilities that are behind it. but just to look at the chart,

mr. speaker, one can look at all these white boxes here. if they're not the clerk will designate and they are white and have black letters they are existing agencies. these are already hoops people have to jump through. and then when you look at the colored boxes, the orange and the yellow and the green and the blue and the purple, those are all new agencies. these are all new hoops for the american people to jump through. these are all tried -- excuse me -- these are untried, they are untested. these are -- when you create new government agencies, you know, you run a little beta test because you don't know how it's going to act, how it's going to function. and you don't know how people are going to react. all you can do is guess how people will react. and you don't know if you can actually manage this. but i'll suggest this, we don't do that good of job of managing the health care that we pay for out of this federal government today. right now the federal government's paying 80% of what the cost is to deliver medicare services. and if i look at my state where we have a high percentage of

medicare patients because we have a very high percentage of senior citizens, then the percentage of that medicare that is -- that they're providing is less than 80%. and one of the reasons is because we have some of the highest quality care. the state of iowa, if people go there, mr. speaker, they can expect that they will receive quality care in the top five of all of the states in the country year after year after year. and with that high quality of care, iowa sets at the lowest medicare reimbursement rate. so we're looking at this and wondering, if it is the majority, and that means the democrats, and that means the president's idea, that we are going to fund the cost of this $1 trillion to $2 trillion health care schemeatic we have here, we are going to funded it in part by reducing the funding that is going to medicare by roughly $500 billion when a medicare funding that is

already inadequate at best pays 80% of the costs and they're going to cut these costs and fees going into the states to come up with enough money to pay for this? so what it means is, mr. speaker, it means this. if you take $500 billion out of medicare in order to fund a national health care plan, that means you're taking it right out of the health care for the senior citizens in the united states of america across the board. the health care access for senior citizens will be diminished. the services will be diminished. presumably the quality will be diminished because the doctors and nurses and prosiders will have to spend -- providers will have to spend less time with patients, that means less quality care and it means fewer services to our senior citizens. so this $500 billion, half a trillion dollars taken out of medicare right out of the medicare services, the health care services for our senior citizens in order to find a way to do a paid for for a $1 trillion to $2 trillion

national health care act. and president obama has said, we aren't going to raise any -- we are going to pay for all of this. we're going to find a way to pay for it. well, that's the problem that charlie rangel has run into it in the ways and means committee. but it looks like some of it comes out of the pockets of -- excuse me -- not the pockets of our senior citizens that are accessing their health care. it comes out of the services to them. and the arguments that i've heard behind closed doors, the derogatory comments that have been made about doctors and nurses and providers and the allegations made, for example, by the president of the united states that we have doctors that are removing tonsils because it pays rather than because they need to be removed, i think that needs to be documented and it needs to be quantified. and, yes, there are people in every industry that don't meet the highest industry, but to paint the whole industry with anecdotes like that that can't

back it up clouds this debate and makes us not have progress. this chart, by the way, this chart that we've called government-run health care, we have called this the -- well, it is the organizational chart of the house democrats' health plan. and this schematic that has 31 new agencies, i would just direct, mr. speaker, your attention and the public's attention down to these boxes right here in the bottom. this white box here that says traditional health insurance plans, that's where the 1,300 companies are. that's where the 100,000 policies are. in this square box right here 1,300 companies, 100,000 policies in traditional health insurance plans. according to the bill, section 105, all of these plans, every single health insurance plan in america would have to -- would have to run through -- they would be here in this white box in order to -- they couldn't

function after five years unless they met the qualified health benefits plan here's in this purple circle right here. in order to be qualified, they would have to meet the new government standards that are not yet written. these new government standards would be written by the health choices administration right here. health choices administration would be run by the h.c.a., health choices administration commissioner. now, he's a commissioner, or she, because america is up to here with czars. we have 32 czars. we do have more czars than the roman offs and they're less accountable than the roman ofs. i don't know if we have -- romanofs. i don't know if we have subpoena power when they were managing car industry, for example. we know we had a car czar that had never made a car nor sold one. we presume he'd driven one,

probably not fixed one, but he was running the car business in america. an on the phone styles, multiple times a day with president obama's appointed c.e.o. of general motors, car czar isn't doing too well. got replaced. now we have a new car czar and that new car czar said the federal government would like to divest themselves eventually of general motors and perhaps the chrysler stock but there is no definitive plan, just kind of a general goal. well, looks to me like the general goal has been nationalize huge industries in america rather than divest the federal government from those and let the free market prevail. so if we end up with and this bill passes, we'll end up with a health insurance czar. he will be running the health choices administration, and he will be called the commissioner of the health choices administration. but he'll be the czar. commissioner. i don't call him comaczar. but he'll be calling the shots

for all these 1,300 companies that exist tight and writing the regulations so that they could become qualified health benefits plans coming out of there. so 100,000 qualified health benefits plans from 1,300 companies would have to qualify under new standards written by the new comaczar commissioner by the health choicesed a mfrlings. now, if you had a few million dollars invested in a health insurance company, mr. speaker, would you really be interested in investing more money in that company on the odds that that new comaczarissioner would let you? when they want to take you out of business and they say so? people like chairman of the financial services chairman, barney frank, who says on tape that he believes there has to be a public option.

and it is this purple circle here. chairman frank says there has to be a public option and because that public option is a path to a single payer plan, a single payer plan is code word for socialized medicine, one-size-fits-all, the government runs it all and every one of these plans that were in the private sector would all be swallowed up, they would all be squeezed out and eventually this purple circle becomes the whole and everything else is swallowed up and diminished. i think this happens if this bill passes because it's the goal of the liberals in this congress to end private health insurance and eventually end private health care and eventually have every doctor working for the government or else for a government prefixed price and the nurses and the clinics doing the same thing, they might be billing fee for service or fee per patient but they won't be running their own clinic, they won't be working except tifly anymore.

. -- except tifly anymore. the oldest -- competitively anymore. the oldest one is germany. the last century and a decade, about that far back, they passed their first national health care plan. that was back before we had much for medicine and certainly didn't have anything that looks like modern medicine today. but the german plan was passed under autobahn bismarck. he did so to expand his political power. but it got established then. d t. there will be germans that defend their policy and no doubt has helped millions of them. and many have stood in line, at this point they don't understand the concept of freedom like we have to purchase a policy or be an employer and select from the policies we want and do the best we can working with our policies

and being an agent for our employees to put the best packages together or to purchase individual policies. in germany, you can buy a private plan there. they are proud to have private plans in germany, even after more than a century of socialized medicine. but today it's this, mr. speaker. 90% of the plans in germany are the public option. 90%. and the 10% are the private options. now the private options, they only exist as the companies functioning and selling in germany in order to cater to those people who are reasonably well off, those that believe they can get a little bit better quality of care, even though they have to pay a premium for that better quality of care because they don't want to be in a government line. they want to take -- it means too much to them. 90% on the public option.

10% on the private option, mostly self-employed and independently wealthy people. not regular common people. very rare. not people that are generally working for someone else for a wage, not punching a time clock or wealthy people. it's that about 10%. 0% public plan. that's germany. united kingdom passed their national health care act in 1948. and there, they were recovering from the second world war and they were a nation that was nearly broke. nobody had any money and industrial base had been destroyed by the bombing from germany and used all of their resources to save their country and god bless them, they were a great ally and great thing for the world that the allied powers were successful in world war ii and we turned back the level of tyranny that was threatening to

swamp the world. but great britain was broke pothe world war ii and they were looking for anything that provided them security and they could manage health care in great britain if they took it over. this nation was in peril in world war ii and grew government in a great big way. there was a threat to take over the steel industry in that era as well. we managed to provide sector industry that turned out bombers and battleships and the things we needed to be successful in that war. but if our industry had been steroid destroyed, if the spirit of the people had been hammered as it was on the percentage of its population as it was in great britain, we might have been looking for security and needed to do something with government to provide what wasn't being provided in the private sector. i read, mr. speaker, through a

whole stack of "collier's" magazines during that century and they featured what was being implemented at that time. and they showed pictures of long lines, long lines outside the clinics and interviewed doctors and showed them frazzled and tired and they lamented they could not do that doctor-patient relationship that they had before and had to limit the time per patient and move from room to room to room and had to set up more rooms and get them ready for exams so they could walk in, order what was going to happen and go onto the next one and doctors who hurry likes that makes mistakes, just like any human being. and the assembly line was taking place in the united kingdom in 1948. and the stories from that era

are the same stories we hear about socialized medicine that exists in the united kingdom today. and they aren't different that you hear about in other countries, including germany. i ran into an immigrant from germany and i was in a store some months ago and told me he had a hip replacement and it had gotten back and he waited a long time in line. and finally he decided that he would try to get himself in more than one line so he had the best chance to get on with his life. and so he got in a line, the shortest line he could get into was the line in italy. so he cued himself into the line for a hip replacement in italy and some months later he was able to have the surgery and replace the hip. now, good surgery, healthy and moving around and enjoying life. but to have to go to another

country to have the surgery done , it begs the question, must be a lot like what it's like to be a canadian, to go to another country to get your surgery done. thinking of the canadians and those kinds of surgery, i could give an example on that. we had a presentation done that was a little over a week ago by a doctor from michigan. and this was on a thursday night, week ago thursday, if i recall. he has practiced medicine in canada and the united states. and providing services in canada, he was working in the emergency room and a patient came in. he had a torn a.c.l. and his knee was a mess. this doctor in the emergency room in canada examined the knee and said, you need surgery and

you need it right away. i'll schedule you for surgery in the morning. apparently the doctor wasn't familiar with the standards of qualifying for reconstructive surgery care. and he found out after he made that promise to the patient that he had to first get him scheduled for the specialist who approved the surgery. and so he did his best to get that patient covered because the patient was in a lot of pain, had to put him in a knee brace, he was on crutches and scheduled him finally to be examined by the specialist who approves the surgery. and he was examined six months later, not operated on the next day, not operated on six months later, but on crutches and with a knee brace on unable to work, six months later examined by the surgeon, the specialist who approved the surgery. the surgery was approved. that was an obvious thing to the

doctor. and six months later, they did the surgery. mr. speaker, i have to go back and reiterate because it sounds implausible. a young man with the knee torn up, a torn a.c.l. and needed surgery the next day. in the united states of america, would he have had surgery the next day. instead, the exam to approve his surgery, which is required in canada, took six months after the injury and the surgery took place six months after the exam, almost a year to the day the surgery took place to reconstruct the knee. and we know what happens. he lost more than a year' work because the rehab was couple of months and all of that loss of quality of life, the things he could have been doing, his entire loss of productivity, gone, because bureaucracy is calling the shots, not the doctors, in canada. now, that sounds like an

anecdote. it is a real live human being case and i'm confident i could trace that back and name the individual and i'm confident i could get that individual to come here and try to talk to the thicker skulls that exist on this side of the aisle. here's the data that supports this individual that some might allege is an anecdote and it's this. the average waiting time for hip surgery to replace a hip in canada, the average waiting time is 196 days. once you are approved for surgery, you wait in the line in the cue, 196 days. a lot of people with bad hips are on crutches. 196 days. if you are waiting for a knee replacement, you wait for 340 days in canada. outrageous delays, loss of human productivity. and there isn't anybody's chart that calculates the loss to the g.d.p. of canada, gross domestic

product of canada, lost work time, cost to their economy, because people would otherwise be productive or hobbling around in crutches or sitting in a wheelchair because they can't get the services until the delay . until that delay is over, mr. speaker. that's what goes on in canada. furthermore, there are companies in canada that have -- when they offer their employment, they set it up as part of the employment package that the worker has an opportunity to come to the united states if he needs reconstructive surgery. let's say it is heart surgery that would be necessary, it's written into the policies and some of the policies in canada, if have a good job and benefits package, they will have it set up so they'll package you up -- say you need bypass surgery. they could put you on a plane and fly you to houston for heart surgery and get you back on the

wellness side of the thing. get a little rehab and then send you back home again and set that all up and it's turnkey. turnkey provided there because they know people can't wait in line in canada. everybody is not going to be alive at the end of their waiting period. in the united states, it's a different story. we get people in immediately. we bring them in immediately, because it's lifesaving. in canada, they make provisions to get out of the country and come to the united states. there are countries set up in and karr for the purpose of packaging up health care. and this is not a documented story, but let's presume it this way. let's say you live in toronto and need hip surgery and don't want to wait the 196 days and want it done and get on with your life. let's just say travel agency companies are a natural to tie up together with health care

providing companies, people who know things about health care, you might be able to go into a company in canada and contract to the mayo clinic in rochester, minnesota and turnkey that. here's the airplane ticket, hotel, shuttle bus, the transportation from the airport to the hotel. you show up at the clinic tomorrow morning or on the morning following your flight. you will be examined that morning. if it's what they think it is, you will go into surgery the same day or next day, give you the rehab you need, take care of you, fly you back home to toronto. all of that for, write one check, hand over your debit or credit card and have access to the best health care reconstructive surgery in the world right down here in the united states of america. why is that? do the people on the other side that propose this scary

schematic, color-coded -- it will be 31 agencies, do they think the best health care in the world that bring people not just from canada but all over the world to access this best health care, do they think that it just kind of randomly spawned itself out of american society or do they think there are real reasons that we have the best health care system in the world? i think there are reasons for that. one is health care is important to us. and the american people are willing to pay for high quality health care, because our health is the most important thing we can protect with the capital we have in this country. and we are a country that is comparatively very, very wealthy and have demonstrated our commitment to health care by committing our wealth to health care and we should not begrudge the people who are making our lives more enjoyable and should

not begrudge them that. if we think they are making too much money, we should get in the business and compete against them and gather in some of that profit and competition lowers the price. adam smith wrote about that in "wealth of nations" and it was true before he recognized it and it will always be true. this schematic, by the way, that is here is not something that the democrats in this congress want to see out in the public eye. it's something that they want to censor, in fact. here's the model of what they have done. . this chart that shows 31 agencies that shows how every american that owns a health insurance policy will have to watch as that policy smits to the new regulations -- submits to the new regulations that's written by the new health insurance czar and qualified

under new rules that will be written by that health choices administration commissioner. they will watch every policy change in america or else watch the qualifications be adapted to a few policies in america that the federal government wants to allow to compete. people understand this chart. but here's what's going on. over the head of the franking commission, i believe, it's been prohibited for members of congress to send this chart off in our mail to the american people, mr. speaker. i don't think there's ever any comparable job of censoring members of congress than what's going on here. they have decided this chart can't go out in the mail paid for under the franking privilege that any other chart can go out. we saw mail go out under president obama's stimulus plan that advocated in a partisan way for how the stimulus plan was going to solve our economic

problem. democrats in this congress used the franking privilege to try to convince the american people that the stimulus plan was the only way to go, and it's clear to everybody in america today the stimulus plan has failed, with exception to the gentlelady from texas say it had succeeded and created jobs. she hasn't showed me where they are at so i'll not say anything until i see some jobs created by that stimulus plan. mr. speaker, the point is in a partisan fashion, democrats in this congress used the franking privilege to put virtual stamps on their mail to tell the american people that the stimulus plan was necessary or the economy was going to collapse. that went on. this chart is not pie in the sky threats that scare people. this chart is just stomp down accurate. and it has been -- it has

withstood the test of the criticism of even the democratic staff in the ways and means committee and energy and commerce committee and the joint committee on taxation. they've tried to blow holes in it. there's a little tweak there, but it's not substantive. it's simply specious to make that little point. bottom line, 31 new agencies, other obligations that are behind these squares, added to the other white boxes that are existing programs and agencies. it creates all these hoops that the american people would have to jump through. and democrats don't want this -- they don't want this chart shown to the american people. so i thought, ok. if they don't want us to show this chart, there must be a lot of truth here that they surely don't want to have to face and they surely don't want to see the american people come to their town hall meetings and fill up that room and ask them how they're going to defend

sexualowing up 17.swallowing up 17.5% -- have we done that good of job running fannie mae and freddie mac? have we done a good job in anything except for our military that has achieved victory in iraq? does anybody have confidence that the federal government can run health care better than the american people working with their private health insurance companies negotiating for their own policies? i say not, mr. speaker. i think the american people understand what this is. i think they understand when something is censored, it's not profeign. democrats want to fund the national endowment of the arts which is funding millions of dollars to produce profanity in america. they're not offended by all of the profanity that goes out from the national endowment of

the arts. they're offended by the truth about their bill about health care. and so they censor it because they have the majority here in this congress, and they decide which staff people get a paycheck and which ones don't in some cases. and they also have the benefit of the president, i believe, and there are people in this capitol building and in this complex of offices around who are more interested in pleasing the president, i think, than they are in preserving the fundamental integrity of the franking privilege or objective debate. this is objective debate, and here are some of the subject matters that democrats don't want us to use when we describe this national health care plan. these, mr. speaker, are all objectionable phrases. and these are phrases that have -- here it is. the seven dirty words or phrases, says you can't -- i'm

going to use them -- you're not supposed to use to describe the leading democratic health care proposal. these are the words that in part brought about the censorship of this color flow chart of the 31 new agencies that swallows up people's private health care in america. can't call it a government-run plan. they want to amend that. they have another word for that. i think it's the public option rather than the government-run plan. it is a government-run plan. and i will submit, mr. speaker, that you can walk down the streets of america and you can ask those good, wl-educated, commonsense people that i have the privilege to represent in western iowa and in many places across this country and go to them a month ago and say, explain to me with regard to health insurance what is a public option. now, i can only imagine what kind of answers that we would get if we asked people what

that meant, but i will suggest that most of those answers would not have been accurate. it would not have said, oh, a public option. let me see. that's what president obama wants to make sure everybody has that would be government-run health care. if they were going to describe what a public option is, a regular man or woman on the street with common sense couldn't describe what a public option was if they understood what it was without describing it as oh, government-run health insurance. they have to describe it as government-run or they couldn't describe it at all. this word is far more descriptive and honest than public option. public option is orwellian gobble dei gook on federal health insurance. we just say government-run. the president wants us to say

public option. they want to censor government-run. i am going to say turnover and over again government-run. don't say single payer. a single-payer system means socialized system. we can't say single payer. a commonsense person on the street, you'd say, what is a single payer for a health insurance public option? well, let's see. they would have to say a single payer is only when one entity pays for all of the health care that an individual might receive. so let me describe how that works. if, mr. speaker, someone went in, let's go to that hip replacement because that's an easy thing to describe, somebody went into the clinic and said i am in terrible pain here and i don't think i can hobble on any longer. what can you do, doc? a doctor would do that examination. he'd likely do an x-ray. and he'd evaluate the x-ray. if he was satisfied with it he

might prescribe that there be reconstructive surgery there that would put a new hip joint in that individual, put them through some rehabilitation and hand them a cane that can be handed away later on and get them back out to the square dance. all of those things can take place that will be billing that would come from the clinic, billing that would come from the service of the surgery, billing from the an these yolks and the hospital bed and the gauze and -- an sympathies yolks and the hospital bed and the gauze. who would pay for all of that? well, it might be the patient today. and it might be medicare. and it might be a private health insurance company. but when they stay single payer, that's code for the only entity that ever pays for it all -- i shouldn't say that exactly because there are private individuals that will pay for it all out of their pocket. and so the entity they're talking about is the federal

government paying for all of the health care services. that is socialized medicine. that's taxpayer funded, government doing it all, single payer. but if you're not versed in the vernacular of the orwellian gobbledy gook, i don't know if a single person can describe what single payer means. the democrats think it is per gorative. so using the terms that describe what they want to use as pergorative, it shouldn't show up on a colored chart and we shouldn't send it out and can't send it out on our frank mail otherwise they'll bill it out the cost of our own pocket. can't say socialized medicine. socialized medicine does dribe

what they're talking about -- describe what they're talking about, maybe not in the first phase because they don't do what canada did eventually and outlaw the health insurance policy that everybody in america that has a policy owns. if you apply the canada plan today, the canadians outlawed private health insurance. they did so incrementally in the provinces over the years and then they did so in a federal fashion sometime i believe -- i have to guess but i think the year was 1964 that that happened. it may have been after that. so canadians have socialized medicine. they have single payer. they have government-run. we know what's going up there, don't we, 196-day wait for a hip, 134-day for a knee. they have a government-run, single-payer, socialized medicine. can't say obamacare because that's a policy that's becoming

unpopular. we use shorthand to describe things. this is why the american version of the english language has been such an effective language to communicate because it's fluid and it picks up new meanings and it conveys those meanings. i think we can paint the picture of what -- of this society and this culture very effectively becomes our language adapts and it flows and it moves. and this is one of those words in our language that back in 1993, everybody knew what hillary care was. hillary care was the black and white -- i think i can do it. hillary care was the black and white schematic that we had then. no one wondered. it wasn't a pergorative then. this went out by franking mail in 1993. it was devastating those that wanted socialized medicine. we just simply called it

hillary care, and this chart was in the minds of millions of americans as they went in and filled the offices of their members of congress and said, i don't want that. and i don't want this thick to be run over the top of -- thing to be run over the top of senator phil gramm's cold body out there either. now, i don't know who has taken that kind of stand that's gotten that much press out of it but i hope they're there and they're strong and they have the courage to speak up. this was hillary care back in 1993. we are not supposed to -- we are not supposed to declare this to be obamacare in 2009 because this has been censored by the democrats in this congress who think that these terms that are on this chart are pergorative. government-run. what about a government-run united states marine corps? that makes me feel good.

i like government-run air force, i like government-run navy, i like government-run army. government-run tells you what's going on if they are going to run the health care. single payer. hmm. single payer says that government will be calling all of the shots because of the golden rule. whoever has the gold makes the rules. the government will have all the gold and they will write all the rules for everybody's health insurance policy in the united states of america. that's in the flow chart that's behind here that's been censored. and if it's single payer it is socialized medicine. to declare it to be obamacare, pretty accurate. i haven't heard whether the president disagrees with the liberals in this congress or the liberals in the united states senate. i have heard the president talk about all kinds of socialized medicine programs. all he said is that defends the private market is if you like

your policy you get to keep it. simply not true, mr. speaker, when you look at the chart, when you look at the language and you understand that every single policy would have to qualify under rules yet to be written by president obama's appointee, the health insurance comma czarissioner. would we get rationed care? indeed. . they propose to take $500 billion out of the medicare funds that are streaming there now. how are they go to go do that? they're going to have to cut down on services and surgeries for seniors and access to health care in order to come up with the $500 billion. all of that spells rationed care. care has been rationed in every nation that has a single payer, socialized medicine,

government-run plan. i can't believe it will be anything else. obamacare will be ration care. we're on a path if we pass this to single-payer socialized medicine because there will be government-run care for everybody whether you can hang on to your plan or can't. government-mandated care is another term we aren't supposed to use. but this chart, the color-coded chart of the 31 new agencies schematic is full of government mandates. that's what they are. they are mandates, mr. speaker. almost all of them. keep your change care. i don't know that you get to keep your change. i don't use that phrase very much, but that's one of the things they have used as

objectionable. in the end, in real sumation of this issue of the national health care plan that has almost been completed crafted here in the house of representatives and probably poised to go before this house on a vote sometime after labor day, presuming that there are enough members of congress still standing after the public shows up at their town hall meetings, at their offices, at their house, wherever they might be able to encounter their member of congress or their staff, members of congress still willing to walk this path, we are likely to see a vote on the floor and the result will be all of these things that we're not supposed to say now. if it will passes now it will be government run, single payer, socialized medicine, obamacare, rationed care, government mandate care when everybody else's insurance will have to

qualify and will be drafted by the new health insurance czar, the commi-czar-issioner of america. that's where we are. so i will quote congressman john shadegg who articulated this, when he said, if you like your health insurance that you have today, get ready to lose it. that's what will happen. the american people understand that it is their freedom that their discretion is at risk and people who want to create a complete nanny state who have nationalized eight huge entities here and moved us on a left ward abyss in the private sector, through huge investment banks, a.i.g., fam, fannie mae, general motors, chrysler, all now under

the control of the white house and this white house now wants to take overall the health care in america eventually. and we understand that was president obama's original policy. he has just moved to set up health insurance in such a way and he can promise you you get to keep it and i promise you it will not look like anything you have today if it has to write new regulations that you have to qualify for. i will submit that republicans have good solutions to this. and what we're trying to fix here is this. here's where i agree, mr. speaker. i believe that we have a very, very difficult economic situation to work our way out of. i believe that it may be as serious as anything we have seen since the great depression, but

i'm not certain of that because i lived through the 1980's during the farm crisis and housing crisis that we had and the banking crisis we had during that time. those were tough times. i want to measure this before i commit that this is a very bad time. we have our challenges ahead of us and we have to fix our economy. with that, i agree with the president. but the president says that health care in america is broken. i don't agree. i don't believe it is broken. i believe we can improve it and we should. but the president declares that we can't fix the economy without first fixing health care. now if health care and that encompasses health insurance and the health care that's provided through our clinics and our hospitals and the whole breadth of the health care we have, if health care is broken, there must be a service out there that's not adequate compared to some other country in the world.

health care is not broken. we have the best. about 14.5% of our g.d.p. and some of the costs thaw see in the rest of the strilized world are around 9%. they have socialized medicine, they don't have the research and development that we have. we lead the world in the development of pharmaceuticals and surgery techniques and we lead the world in survival after this cancer diagnosis and we lead the world i believe in the diagnosis of cancer itself. all of those things are at risk today, but if we have to, according to the president, change 100% of the health care system that we have in order to declare we have fixed it so we can declare we are fixing the economy, i will submit that that statement cannot be valid. it cannot be defended or sustained in open public debate or any kind of analysis, because they want to spend $1 trillion

to $2 trillion. if we are spending too much money on health care in america, why we need to dump another $2 trillion to fix it? if we're going to fix it, we should be able to fix it and save money, not dump trillions of dollars into it and raise taxes and cut funding that goes into medicare and deny health care services to our services, all of that wrapped up in the name of fixing something that's not broken, just transforming america. socialize three investment banks, a.i.g., fredee mac, fale and this is about the nationalization of the best health care in the world and taking away the freedom of the american people to go out and purchase a health insurance policy that they choose. i want to expand the health savings accounts and provide 100% deductibility for everybody's health insurance

premium and reduce the medical malpractice liability by capping the liability claims so people can get whole again and trial lawyers don't get rich. we can do all of those things and more besides. and by the way, there is only 4% of america that are chronically uninsured. 4%. 10 million to 12 million. depending on who you look at. and we would upset 100% of the health care system in order to fix it. expensive health insurance program only to be compared to other programs. i think that would be a big mistake and we could never get back from that colossal mistake because it creates 306 million people that would be dependent upon the government-mandate care and i reject it and i hope the american people do. and mr. speaker, i thank you. and i yield back the balance of

my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa for a motion. mr. king: pursuant to house concurrent resolution, 111th congress i move that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly pursuant to house concurrent resolution 172, 111th congress, the house stands congress, the house stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m.,

>> the cash for clunkers vote was applauded by president obama who said the program exceeded all his expectations. we talked to a cattle reporter to learn more about the bill. >> how did this cash for clunkers bill come about? >> the news that they program had run out of money -- there was use interest in the program and they had basically run through the $1 billion in terms of commitment. >> there seemed to be a rush to get this done. the proceedings were actually delayed on the floor today. why has it become a top priority today? >> today is the last day before house members go on recess.

they are trying to get this program through before they leave to go back to their districts, and after it gets to the house it will head over to the senate and be there at least through the end of next week. >> when was the bill first created? >> it goes back a couple of months. it only sort of took effect recently. in its original incarnation, it was just an idea of $4 billion, but it was pared back to $1 billion. as the sum was cut back, the estimates were cut back to 250,000 vehicles. the program itself only recently got to being set up. there has been a lot of momentum behind a program for the last couple of weeks. >> if the program gets

extended, where will the money come from and how much money are looking at? >> as is currently -- lawmakers are talking about adding $2 billion to it, so a total of $3 billion. the $2 billion of additional money would come from the stimulus program. that is what house lawmakers are talking about at the moment. that would be taking the $2 billion from a fund for renewable energy loans. >> i look at that house the day from earlier today. -- a look at that house debate from earlier today. >> mr. speaker, i yield myself three minutes. >> the gentleman is recognized. >> late yesterday came to our attention that the cash for clunkers program, which went active just a few days ago, has

proven even more wildly popular than its strongest supporters had predicted. just last month, congress passed the program, which provided up to $4,500 if you trade in your old gas guzzlers for a new car that gets better mileage. that was done in hopes of spurring some new car sales and encouraging people to be little more environmentally friendly. we provided $1 billion in a supplement to get it going, enough for about 250,000 sales. the program kicked off monday. it has already officially received 40,000 requests for reimbursement, worth about $160 million in rebates. in a survey done by the national automobile dealers association this week, it suggests at least 200,000 deals have been completed but not yet officially submitted. that is true, and we are being told it probably is, then the entire $1 billion is just about exhausted. so we have before as a bill to

provide stop-gap funding for cash for clunkers by allowing the administration to transfer up to $2 billion from the department of energy's innovative technology loan guarantee program which does not expect toward funding until late next year. some would call this letting the markets work. consumers have spoken with their wallets, and they are saying that they like this program. clearly it is doing what was intended to do, to spur car sales in this sluggish economy. this action will keep it going, hopefully, and i would urge support for the bill and reserve the balance of my time. >> the gentleman from california. >> i rise to point out the absurdity of the situation we find ourselves in today. in the majority's haste to slam legislation through the floor, with almost no consideration at

the committee level, with no time for consideration by the house membership in general, and with absolutely no ability for the members of this body to amend bills on the floor, we are now seeing the effects of such shortsighted martial law tactics. mr. chairman, the cash for clunkers program was passed on the suspension calendar, so no members were able to offer amendments. the senate had a comparable bill with some significant differences. the house and senate bills should have gone to full and open conference so those differences could have been negotiated and a conference report then brought for a vote. instead, the leadership of this body, without consultation or negotiation, struck the house version of cash for clunkers on what was supposed to be a clean

supplemental. . . efforts overseas and the war on terror. they had to do that because of the mess the majority created of the conferenced bill and i use that term loosely as most of the funding levels and programs were determined not in a conference but by the house leadership and by my chairman. but when it came to counting votes, the leadership and the chairman had to do some dancing chairman had to do some dancing and started loading up the war supplemental with extraneous and unrelated items on -- all of which needed to get more votes. cash for clunkers was one of those items. my colleagues in the senate, senator feinstein in particular and senator collins, had some serious concerns with the house bill. senator feinstein tried to negotiate some changes to improve the program, but was rebuffed, as i understand it, by

my chairman. basically they were told it was his way or the highway. here we are today, not one hearing on the cash for clunkers program in the appropriations committee, not one hearing on the needs of the program prior to receiving funds, no one hearing on how the first $1 billion has been spent, not one hearing on how much money the program will need to get through the fiscal year. instead we find ourselves on the suspension calendar for the second time in three days. bailing out another program, shoveling another $2 billion out the door this fiscal year after we shoveled $14 billion out the door to bail out the highway programs and other related items. my colleagues are going to pat themselves on the back for finding an offset for this transfer and for that i say two

things. first, you should have been finding ways to offset spending all year. second, if there was an extra $2 billion in a stimulus program that was suitable for a different purpose, why did we spend the $2 billion in the first place? how many other billions of dollars are in the stimulus not being spent that we can return to our taxpayers? now, many of my colleagues will say, this is a great program, a necessary -- and necessary for the revitallyization for the economy and the car did industry and i'm not really going to argue with those goals. those are good goals and we are looking for solutions. however we are sure this program is working like it's supposed to. i don't think so. how is it that we didn't hear of this funding problem until last night and even then we were told there's roughly 24 hours before they were going to shut down the program?

this program has only been up and running one week. if that is how the government is going to handle $1 billion programs affecting all americans, i ask, whatever will we do if the administration takes control of our health care system? i quote one car dealer from new york, if they can't administer a program like this, i'd be a little concerned about my health insurance. i would say, amen. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves his time. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: mr. speaker, i yield myself 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. obey: mr. speaker, i'm not going to give any political speeches. we're simply trying to react to one program the public has apparently latched onto. the demand for this was so great that within three days of its inception the funds were apparently totally used up.

that indicates that we need to do something if we don't want the program to shut down three days after it begins. that's what we're trying to do today and with that i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from new york. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for two minutes. >> i thank the chairman for the time. mr. speaker, i was one of the original co-sponsors or sponsors of the cash for clunkers bill. many of us knew that it would work well. few of us realized how well it would work. this program has been truly stimtive. many people are questioning whether the congress -- stimulative. many people are qug whether the congress is passing anything that will stimulate the economy. this program has stimulated the economy. we have doubled car sales over the past five years. this is truly stimulative. it is creating jobs, it is a creating a surge for -- it is creating a surge for car dealers. the american consumers are satisfied with it. the american consumer has taken cash for clunkers on a test drive and they want to continue

driving cash for clunkers. they want to continue this program. in fact, not only should we continue it over the next six weeks by providing emergency funding, but we ought to improve it when we return in september. we should improve it by increasing the efficiency standards, we should improve it by making used cars eligible for the program, we should improve it through a long-term program because we have learned that the short-term program was so successful that we have exhausted the funds in only five days. this is an example of a bipartisan program that makes sense. we need to create a bridge of funding for the next six weeks, come back and extend it and improve it into the future. i want to thank the distinguished chairman for yielding me the time and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i yield to the gentlelady from michigan three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlewoman from michigan is recognized for three minutes. mrs. miller: mr. speaker, i was proud to be the co-sponsor of the original legislation we passed months ago. cash for clunkers. . what a fantastic success. this program has succeeded everybody's expectations and most of the naysayers are admitting it's the best $1 billion that the federal government has ever spent and here's a couple of today's quotes from those who are directly impacted. first of all, the c.e.o. of one of our nation's largest auto groups said, the most brilliantly conceived and most effective economic stimulus program ever put forward by the federal government. ford motor company says, it's a huge success. this congress appropriated $1 billion on november 1, whatever came first, and only several days into the program and now we need more cash for the cash for clunkers. if we can just think about the tremendous multiplier, economic multiplier, effect this is having. it is good for the auto dialers, it is good for the auto manufacturers, it is good for the suppliers, it is good for workers, it is good for the

states, mr. speaker. think about all of the revenue that is being generated by sales tax and licensing fees as well for this program. good for the environment, it's getting all these old vehicles off the road and it's absolutely great for consumers. let me just read quickly, here's one letter i got from a lady in michigan. thank you for pushing through and helping develop the cash for clunkers legislation. i am now the happy owner of an american-made 2010 ford fusion that i am going to be picking up on july 30. it has been 12 years since i've been able to purchase a new vehicle. due to the cash for clunkers plan i was able to save over $7,000 before taxes on my ford fusion. my old vehicle was a 1995 ford windstar with 150,000 miles. she says, i'm so excited for me. well, we're excited, too. mr. speaker, throughout our nation's history, since we've had the automobile, actually, it it has been automobile sales that have literally pulled our nation out of recession. and this time is going to be the

same. i think we are seeing ourselves being placed on the road to economic recovery here and this road is paved by the cash for clunkers program. i actually wrote a letter at the beginning of this week to the speaker and to the house leadership saying that we were going to run out of money and that we were going to need some more money for this program. here we are on friday of the first week. we absolutely need to do this, mr. speaker, we cannot leave for our august recess until we fund -- until we vote for this reprogramming of unspent economic stimulus funds for this program. we need to do it. and one other thing, for those who keep saying that we need to get the government out of the automobile business, if you really want to get the government out of the pocket of general motors or whatever, this is the way to do it, mr. speaker. i would urge my colleagues to support this bill. it is very, very important. not just for the state of michigan, this is a national economic program, best thing we've ever done. more cash for cash for cluers. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time.

the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: i yield a minute and 45 seconds to the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for one minute and 45 seconds. mr. levin: i ask unanimous consent to revise. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. levin: the public has spoken . consumers have been going to dealerships. the white house has now acted and the issue is whether this house will respond. as i see it and i think the public will see it this is a test whether congress can shed its disagreements on other issues and respond to what the public indeed wants.

the rush to use this program shows its need. i say to the gentleman from california and anybody else, what else do we need to see? this program is working. the white house has made clear that the dealers can go forward. this program is open until further notice and dealers are urged not to rush too much but to do it right in the first place and get in line. so, it's open until further notice. the question is whether this institution will shut it down or whether it will continue to open up the valves? it will be good for everybody, it will be good for the national economy. this is an issue -- michigan,

ohio, wisconsin, indiana, illinois, but for whole the -- for the whole nation. this is an issue of our national economic recovery and anyone who votes no on this is saying no to an important boost to our economy at a critical time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. chairman, i am proud to yield two minutes to the co-chairman of the bipartisan auto caucus, the gentleman from michigan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. >> i thank my friend from california. i'm from this great state of michigan where our unemployment is sadly at 15.2%. almost twice the national average. last night we learned from the national association of auto dealers that in fact this program in three days has brought about almost a quarter of a million new car sales in just those three days yet the cash is going to run out literally in the next couple of days without an infusion.

it's important that we're not taking new money, this is existing money. this bill moves existing money into other accounts so it will not add to this year's deficit. but it is going to run out without this legislation. here is today's "usa today," full page ad by chrysler, dodge, jeep, $4,500 if you bring in dollars back, if you purchase a new vehicle, bring in your old one. a lot of our auto dealers can do it. whether it's the big three or the transplants, too. nationwide one in 10 jobs are auto related. in michigan it's about one in four, one in five jobs. auto sales, the last three years -- auto sales the last three years have declined by nearly 50%. 16 other countries have done this. whether it be germany, south korea, even slovakia has done this. and in all of those 16 countries, car sales have come

back. this country has lost one in five manufacturing jobs in the last 16 months. if we want to keep jobs here in this country, bring back some of those that we have lost, obviously it's got to be in the auto sector where one in 10 jobs are auto related. this bill sends those dominoes the other way. it brings people back in the showroom, we've demonstrated that just this week. it brings back the call orders, we've heard in a number of dealers across michigan that they're running out of cars. guess what they're going to do? they're going to order them back and that's going to bring people back to work. wouldn't you rather have -- let me just end on this, wouldn't you rather have people working and paying taxes than being unemployed and receiving benefits which in michigan are becoming exhausted? i ask my colleagues to vote for this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from wisconsin.

mr. obey: mr. speaker, i yield a minute and a half to the distinguished gentleman from michigan, mr. dingell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. dingell: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. dingell: mr. speaker, i rise to commend the leadership and commend my dear friend, the chairman of the appropriations committee, for his extraordinary leadership on this matter. the success of the cars program in just a few short days has been extraordinary. the program has been doing so well, in fact, the initial $1 billion allocated for the program is already running low. this is a great problem to have in the midst of all the difficulties that we confront. it's a sign that the program is not only working well and the consumers are very interested, but it's also proving that cars is providing a jolt, a meaningful upward jolt to our economic recovery efforts. this is a simple extension. it's an infusion of money in an

area where it's needed and where it's working. the legislation should not get bogged down by calls for changing the program. that would only serve to stall the extension and confuse consumers. we cannot and should not make changes in an extraordinarily successful program that has only been operating for a week. that would be irresponsible. i would add that the additional $2 billion for the program has already been appropriated under arra and will not cost the taxpayers an additional time. i ask for passage of the bill. i commend the leadership and i thank my dear friend, the chairman of the committee, and the other members of the committee who has made it possible for us to consider this legislation so fast. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. hensarling. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for two minutes.

mr. hensarling: i thank the gentleman for yielding. cash for clunkers, mr. speaker. obviously it's a popular program. it's a clever title. it pays people several thousand dollars to trade in their old cars if they buy new cars. and, yes, yes, mr. speaker, people are hurting in the auto industry. there's no doubt about it. but i would also note that the taxpayers are hurting. $80 billion to chrysler and g.m., and the auto industry, the auto industry does not have a monopoly on hard times in this economy. recently one of the largest poultry producers in america, pilgrim's pride, just a few miles outside of my congressional district, they had to declare chapter 11. maybe we should have a cash for cluckers program and pay people to eat chicken. then after that we can have a program to pay people to buy tv's and then a program to pay people to buy lumber. it would pass the test. it has a clever title.

it would help a large industry. it would put free money in the hands of consumers, but this is not, this is not a humorous affair, mr. speaker. and it's not humorous because this is an extension of a program that has the government picking winners and losers. why is the auto industry the winner, why is the poultry industry the loser? this is one more step in enshrining us as a bailout nation. now, people say, well, it's $2 billion that's coming out of the stimulus program. well, i would tell my distinguished colleagues that that is still $2 billion that has to be borrowed from the chinese with the bill sent to our children and grandchildren at a time when the national deficit has hit $1 trillion for the first time in history. you cannot bail out, borrow and spend your way into economic prosperity. instead, let's unleash the spirit of entrepreneurial capitalism, let's help small

businesses with tax relief, let's grow our way out of this economic recession. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: i yield a minute and a half to the distinguished gentleman from michigan, mr. kildee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. kildee: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, when we passed the cash for clunkers legislation last month, i said it would provide a much-needed boost to our auto industry and our manufacturing communities. after just one week we see the great success of this program. i've been working closely with the white house, the auto task force and my congressional cleeds to add addition -- colleagues to add additional funds to keep it up and running. this program has been an unprecedented success and there are no plans to suspend it. this program is a successful example of economic stimulus at work. to continue this positive program, i have joined my colleagues today to introduce

legislation to redirect $2 billion from the economic stimulus bill to the cash for clunkers program. we are poised to pass this legislation through the house of representatives today and urge my senate colleagues to do the same as quickly as possible. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: i yield, mr. speaker, two minutes to the gentleman from michigan, mr. hoekstra. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. mr. hoekstra: i thank my colleague for yielding. i'd like to begin by thanking the chairman of the committee and the ranking member of the appropriations committee for moving so expeditiously in getting this bill to the floor of the house this afternoon. you know, the response from consumers to this program has been, as one of my dealers described it this week, he had chaos in his showroom. it accomplished what we wanted it to accomplish. i was skeptical when this program passed a while back, but it has delivered customers into the showroom, and they are buying cars.

and being from michigan, experiencing a 15.2% unemployment rate, this is not going to only provide opportunities for employment in the people that assemble cars but also for the suppliers and those types of things. and hopefully this can be a catalyst for a stronger economic recovery. it appears to be one of the programs in the stimulus package that have passed this house that actually appears to be working. at the same time, while we are, you know, maybe euphoric about the parts of the program that are working, i think we also have to recognize that the back end of this program, the parts that are being handled by the federal government have been a disaster for our dealers. i have yet to have one dealer who has sold a car that has gotten it approved by the department of transportation. we can't -- the federal government can't process a simple rebate. i've got dealers that have submitted the paperwork three times and have gotten three rejections. the last one came back and it

said no reason for rejection. what is a dealer supposed to do? they've already destroyed the cars that have been traded in, they have sold the car, they're now on the hook and expecting a check for $3,500 to $4,500 from the federal government and they're not getting it. we need to get these back room problems fixed to be able to call this problem truly successful. it can't just be the front end. it has to be the entire process, from selling it to the customer to the dealer getting the money from the federal government. that all has to work seamlessly for this program to be an unqualified success. thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: mr. chairman, i yield a minute and 45 seconds to the gentlewoman from ohio, ms. sutton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from ohio is recognized for one minute and 45 seconds. ms. sutton: i thank the gentleman for the time. mr. speaker, i rise in support

of this legislation that's going to provide an additional $2 billion for the cars act. a bill that i sponsored, sometimes referred to cash for clunkers, but by any name, this bill has been thus far a tremendous success. it has helped consumers purchase cars that they couldn't have purchased in this economic downturn, perhaps, but which they needed. it's going to give them cars and fuel savings for a long time to come. it's helping our auto companies, our auto dealers, all of the jobs associated with that very vital and important industry in this country to maintain itself, to continue and give it the chance to grow and restore. the program also, of course, is good for our environment because it's taking out -- less fuel efficient cars and getting them off the road and replacing them with more fuel efficient cars. this is an unprecedented success. and my colleague is right, we must make sure that it works throughout the entire process. but we are well on our way, and i appreciate the leadership of

the chairman of the appropriations committee, secretary lahood, the administration who i've been working very closely with to make sure that we build on this success, which is stimulating our economy, keeping people working, helping our environment and helping our consumers when they really, really need it. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i'd like to say to the gentlelady who has offered this floor, she has more -- i'm proud to yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. campbell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. campbell: thank you, mr. speaker. and i thank the gentleman for yielding. you know, mr. speaker, cash for clunkers program was inartfully drafted, it is more complex than come bersome than it needs to be -- come bersome than it needs -- cumbersome than it needs to be.

the administration of it has not gone on well but it has worked. and, mr. speaker, we have passed a number of things in this congress this year intended to stimulate the economy. the vast majority of them have not had that effect. but this one has. and it has clearly worked. for the initial billion dollars to be exhausted, that means that roughly 250,000 new vehicles must have been sold in just the last week or two in order to exhaust all of that money. that is clearing inventories in car dealerships which means car dealers will be ordering more cars. when they order more cars, plants will begin to run again. plants will open up. they will be producing more cars, and people will go back to work. there will be suppliers that will produce supplies, various parts for those cars, steel mills will be produced for those cars, and those people will go back to work. there will be trucks and trains that deliver those cars and those people will go back to work. and, mr. speaker, the $2 billion for this is coming out of the existing funding, so it is not increasing the debt or

the deficit any more than what has already been there. mr. speaker, i support this bill. i support this effort. there is -- it is the one thing we have done in this congress that is absolutely working. it is stimulating the economy. it is creating jobs and we want it to create more. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: i yield a minute and a half to the distinguished gentleman from massachusetts, mr. markey. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. markey: i thank the gentleman very much and i appreciate your hard work in extending this program. this program is a win for consumers who are trading in old gas guzzlers for hybrids, a win for our economy and a win for energy independence and the environment as the new vehicles are averaging 60% more fuel efficiency than the junkers being taken off the road. however, i am concerned that we are taking funding from the renewable energy loan guarantee

program and would express my strong belief that we must find a way of replenishing those funds as soon as possible. mr. chairman, could you work with me and other members to ensure that the funds for this program will be replenished? mr. obey: if will the gentleman yield? i share the gentleman's view that the renewable energy loan guarantee program is of vital importance to creating a new green economy. we have talked with the white house. we've talked with the speaker. and i want to assure you that all of us certainly have every intention of restoring these funds. mr. markey: i thank the chairman very much. i know that this has always been the highest priority for yourself, for speaker pelosi and for the obama administration. and i look forward to working with you in the future in order to make sure that we have a win-win here for renewable energy and for fuel-efficient vehicles. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from arizona, mr. flake. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arizona is recognized for two minutes. mr. flake: i won't take two minutes. i have to say i thought i had heard it all until i came to the floor today. somebody said earlier, this bill is a success. ford motor company loves it. i think that that's self-evident. but i think that there are taxpayers around the country who are wondering why we're taking $2 billion more from them to decide which industry here is going to get a break. we decided to give out free money and now we're surprised when people take advantage of it and love the program. i mean, that's the nature of human nature. if you're given free money, you like it and you want more. and that's what this program is. why are we deciding to aid this sector and not another? if you're mr. or mrs. businessman across the country, you've got to be wondering if we have lost our minds here by saying we're going to continue to give out more money just for

this industry but not help the others. i just -- i don't understand this process and how we can bring this up this quickly but an appropriations committee that can bring a defense bill to the floor in 18 minutes for a markup that has more than 1,100 earmarks, i guess, has no problem doing this. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. obey: mr. chairman, i yield myself 20 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. obey: i just want to say, mr. chairman -- mr. speaker, that we've heard several times here today about this action are complaints from the people who helped wreck america's economy and are now complaining because of the way this president and this congress is trying to pull the country out of the ditch and restore economic growth. we've come to expect that, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant. with that i yield a minute to the distinguished speaker of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the spea