accordingly, favorably, to an energy plan, to an environment plan, and to an economic recovery plan. so, across the board all of these plans are responded to in progressive fashion. the same is true as you made mention of the infrastructure issue. we think traditionally of roads and bridges. well, many of those bridges that are measured deficient need to be addressed for public safety purposes. but it also responds to the iron workers across america who will have to provide for the supplies. all of those who work in the industries, the trades that are connected to the ordinary transportation construction projects out there. your cremeant manufacturers, those that are providing all the resources that are required, all of that produces more than just construction jobs on the scene. there are many ancillary industries that are favorably bolstered simply by this

investment. and when we talk about infrastructure we can't stop just with roads and bridges. we need to look at the most efficient form of travel, that being rail, and building into that, today's ahead of the curve responses with high speed, energy efficient rail. again, that requires embracing r&d so our brightest science and tech minds can create efficient braking systems and efficient cars that can be utilized in the transportation, rail transportation corridors. all of that inspires progress and it allows us to take some of the brightest minds that can help us with the intellect, the covers -- discoversy -- discoveries that we require and involves a full spectrum of employment so we cover the full spectrum of jobs out there and provide again hope for american families.

i think it's important to work with the deployment of these wonderful, innovative, and ingenious measures used now by other nations. recently, the seek coalition in congress, of which i'm a member, it's a brand new vehicle this year, the sustainable environment and energy coalition, has been bringing in guest speakers. we had the most recent former energy minister of denmark in to speak to the group to talk about the inknow vague that denmark was doing with its economy on energy-related matters. afterwards i spoke to him, and representative, -- representative sutton, what he said was so interesting. i asked him, where did you get the ideas for this. he saidmark of them are american patents. we have not provided for the funding mechanism to take the whiz kid ideas in the lab and

other centers, we have not provided the funding to deploy those into manufacturing or into retail use so that we can get the return on investment that was made. the angel network, the venture capitalists, that valley of death as it's labeled, needs to be addressed. if we do that, we're providing more jobs, not just in r&d, but we can induce wider manufacturing operations. you talked about manufacturing and the heyday, we all know of manufacturing, that was here. i represent a series of milltowns a necklace of communities along the course of the erie canal and the mohawk river. they were the westward movement, they were ep centers of innovation and invention, staff maryland times by immigrant labor that created those ideas that allowed us to rule the world and we created the west ward movement with that sort of canal activity and those milltowns. today those milltowns have gone

rusty and we can save manufacturering in america if we do it smarter. we don't have to do it cheaper. we need to do it smarter. with the emergence of nanoscience in this country, there's a nanoscience center in the capital region of new york that i represent, that just yesterday -- or two days ago, introduced an investment that will allow them to provide for precision characterization and inspection of product line development and manufacturing. this will take us a long way to being the best and the smartest and that's the sort of investment that american workers deserve. america's families can have that hope brought into their fabric of their family, simply by the wisdom that can be inspired with sound public policy here and the investment of resources that can make things happen. ms. sutton: that's exactly right, representative tonko. as you point out, these

initiatives have massive effects for the good of the whole. you get the benefit of the r&d jobs and the benefit of all the spinoff and manufacturing and -- i mean, that's what built this country that is what built this middle class that we aspire to. you know, i'm the youngest of six kids from a working class family. my dad worked in the boilermaker family his whole life. and somehow, from those roots, in this great country, i was able to come to the house of representatives of the united states. and i take that responsibility so seriously because i know it's an unlikely story, it's an unlikely story that someone not born to wealth and privilege can come to a place like this to be a voice for people out there who on the want a chance to do a hard day's work for a fair wing. -- fair wage. we've gotten away from that in

this nation and manufacturing -- though we may not make all the things we used to make, we will make other things and when we do make those other things, when we make those green energy products, when we use the steel to build the windmills that, you know, right now, we're not using our steel and our ingenuity, but there are so many out there in the united states with the capacity to do it and the desire to do it and they're just looking for a government that will work with them and that's what wear about, finding ways to work with them to accomplish these goals and create the opportunity and build the potential of this country that we all know that it has and it shall always have. and so, it's really -- it's a pleasure in the sense that the challenges are hard, but the

potential is greater. the potential that we have before us outweighs, outweighs the difficulties that we face. and we have to make that the case. that is our job here in the congress. so, i'm glad to be here, down here, tonight to talk about these issues with you, because among all the highest of high priorities in my view as a member of congress, right now, at this time, for the people that i represent, it's jobs, jobs, and jobs. mr. mr. welch: you know, anyone who knows you shares that view. you -- mr. tonko: you know, anyone who knows you shares that view. we don't have the opportunity to let this pass us by. we will have failed yen rations of americans if we do not

advance a sound energy for jobs across the board. and it's not like someone else isn't going to take over because we're now seeing a robust pickup of activity in india, china, japan, germany and other centers around the world. we have no choice. we cannot be lulled into a false sense of security as if the recession, deep and long as it is and was, isn't enough, as if the job loss was not enough. we now are challenged by the actions of others who are moving past us, so for many, many reasons, many fair and just reasons, maybe some we don't want to acknowledge we need to move forward aggressively with the sound job agenda that will speak to the heart and soul of this nation, the working families of this country. now, when you talk about energy transformation and jobs that can be created, isn't it ironic that we'll hear on this floor

debates about whether carbon emission is a reality in our lives. all while these job opportunities are passing us by. delay here is costly. to perhaps the millions and billions of dollars. carbon emission? let's talk about job emission. let's talk about the job loss. because as we go forward, it will be critically valuable if we can put that focus onto this job package, as well as the infrastructure and i would also say, while we're talking about energy, water/sewer systems. water treatment centers. i, in my former life, just before congress, after my years of service in the legislative body, the new york state assembly, i went to nyserda and led that authority, the new york state energy research and cooperate authority. here are ways to help local communities.

water is the commodity. they say in the next 30 years, it will be transportation, water, and energy. and we need to invest in that infrastructure. let's do it in state of the art fashion, where we're creating energy efficient water treatment centers, invest in these centers, help local governments grow job opportunities. one of the marketable strategy cents to have an abundant and up to date water supply a sewer treatment center, so you can have these facilities in your midst. i think that's so very important. as you talk about think american dream that your dad allowed you to dream that took you to noble levels, it began with education. and higher education. and so investing in the given infrastructure of education, investing in green schools, improved schools, all this needs to be part of our package. we know that leadership is responding to that jobs agenda. we know that as a task force,

there's a lot of homework to do, but you have rolled up your sleeves as co-chair with representative hastings, the two of you leading us along with the chairman of the caucus, john larson, and many of our standing chairs like george miller and certainly speaker pelosi, all of us working together can make this happen. there are great ideas that every member is feeding this body and we need to move forward, aggressively, but effectively and intelligently, so as to create the package that is the greatest pronouncement of economic recovery we can imagine. representative sutton, it's great to work with you. i'm inspired because of the sort of intellect that you bring to the discussion and the many people with whom we've partnered that have it within their heart and soul and mind to make a difference. ms. sutton: well, i'm humbled by your words. you're very generous. but i have to say that, you

know, there are those out there who on the other side of the aisle, sometimes we hear it about how bad things are and oh, my goodness, and -- but we don't hear solutions. and you know what, it doesn't take a lot to identify the problems. the american people know what this recession has brought us. they know what happened as the deficit skyrocketed under the last administration and when the democrats took over from the republicans who were in control for many, many years. now all we hear sometimes is just about how bad it is. well, how do you think we got here? you know? so we are about solutions and about continuing to work on it until we accomplish what we need to for the american people

because nothing ever gets done just by identifying problems. we have to make things happen. because we get the results that we create. and right now, we're living and trying to fix, the results that were created not by the party of no, as sometimes people refer to those on the other side of the aisle, because they weren't the party of no, they were the party in control. they were in control when wages were flat. for the american people. and productivity was through the roof, as was the g.d.p. was rising as well. people were working harder, working longer and getting less. in fact, representative tonko, i'm going to go down to the well here, i have a graph that will show exactly what was going on. mr. tonko: it's rather dramatic and to think what was happening with productivity on a curve and what was happening with g.d.p. and its curve and

contrasting that with the average american incomes, the household incomes, is a very painful but telling story and representative sutton, now that you're by the chart, explain for the american public if you will, just exactly what was happening through this time frame and again, there was a lot of work to be done to stop the bleeding. people say, well, what are you doing about jobs? what are you doing about the recession? wait, this took a while to clean up and now it's time to move forward with the progressive agenda. but describe for us, please where this great recession began and just what the surfs tell us on that chart. ms. sutton: you know, representative tonko, last year, when the so-called meltdown occurred, there were a lot of people where i live who were thinking, as they listened to the experts say, oh, we didn't see this coming, they

were all say, what? are you kidding me? we've been living this for quite some time in ohio. part of the reason they felt that way, if you look at this chart right here, entitled every day people were struggling before the great recession began, productivity, g.d.p. and median household income is reflected on the chart. here's where our recession hit in a big way, according to the experts, what was happening as we built up to our big recession? productivity and g.d.p. were going through the roof and this line down here, with this big gap in between these two, this is what household incomes were. mr. tonko: if you'll suffer an interruption if you'll yield, i think in simple terms what that is saying is, some people were

doing quite well and maybe perhaps realizing a bonanza and others were asked to live with what they've got and they stayed flat lined. is that perhaps an easy way to place it? . . ms. sutton: wall street was having a party and people were using credit to pay for their most basic needs. there were a lot of people in this country who also were subject to ever escalating fees and all kinds of issues that they face with those credit issues mounted or they got hit with a health issue. and even those with insurance, we know so many were forced into bankruptcy because, why? their wages and everything was way down here as productivity

and g.d.p., somebody was making a lot of money but it wasn't the american people. mr. tonko: whose pocket was it coming out of? the american working families. somebody approved that there be no regulator, no watchdog over the financial sector. somebody said, let's create a doughnut hole and let us let people make a bonanza and tax break to the upper income strata. that chart is telling us that was a fairy tale, that was fiction, not truth. a number of these elements now come to haunt us. so bringing about regulatory reform in the banking industry and the financial sector stepped on just a few days ago, making

certain there was a tax cut for middle-income america in the stimulus package, historic largest tax cut for middle-class america, making certain we start putting down payments on to those issues like our energy infrastructure which failed in 2003, ending this offline, offbudgeting of a war in iraq that has brought og budget to have truth and honesty in the budgeting, all of this hit at once. and then in investing in a stimulus to stop the bleeding. we had to bring things under control and now talk about the progress that needs to be made, needs to be struck in not only bringing about jobs, but inspiring an innovation economy, whose jobs will be uniquely american through h.r. own -- through her own workers, clean

the environment and respond to a progress to an agenda and outcome at our manufacturing centers and inspire investments in our public safety workers, our firefighters, police, and bring back strength in our education process that won't deny our future workers. our children are are our present and future. this needs to be brought into one intelligent package as you lead us with representative hastings and representative larson, as we go forward, this will be important now to create a smart investment out of what was a huge catastrophe where we went from the largest surplus to the lowest deficit, the greatest deficit and where we could have had -- stayed on course, reduced the deficit to zero in this calendar year. what a tragedy for all of

america, and now the task of building a smart response has begun to the task force and leadership of the house. ms. sutton: representative tonko, you put it very well in identifying that there are many facets to what we have to do to provide the economic opportunity that the american people need and deserve. and what we see here is that even before the recession, they weren't getting the economic opportunities that they need and they deserve, because their wages were flat, while those at the top were, as i say, reveling in the profits. and the productivity of the american worker. mr. tonko: could i just ask you to point on the chart what year where we are starting to see the dip for the average income

household for a americans. in 2001, where it really begins to dip and continued to decline throughout that eight-year period or so. ms. sutton: mr. tonko, you're right. it goes completely flat before it falls off the cliff. and then it's a struggle for a long time and no small part because of what you point out. i heard it said that there was no -- people robbed the banks. well, then there was no sheriff and the banks robbed the people. and we saw some of that, right, in recent times. and the american people are smart. they know what was going on. and they know how the economy was working for them. now, it was working a little better than it is for a lot of people now, but the reality is, they still deserve better. and so we don't want to

necessarily go back to this place where there's a big gap and all the wealth is concentrated necessarily up here with the american people still up not able to get by working two or three jobs. but it doesn't have to be that way. we want people to make money in this country. we want capitalism to flourish in this country. and we want to facilitate that, but people who work and contribute, contribute should be paid a fair wage and they need to know the security of a job that is going to be there, the opportunity will be there for themselves and for their families, that they will have access to the health care coverage that they need. that's the point i'll yield on. mr. tonko: interestingly in that flatlining of the red curve on your chart is that period, that 10-year stretch where we saw health care insurance premiums

more than double while that income, that average household income remained flat. what a painful experience and then we all know through anecdoteal evidence of the many stories of catastrophic situations where people were hit with, 37% increase in insurance premiums over two years with one less wage earner where they have to pick up $18,000 in medical expenses. this recovery requires bringing health care into a reformed situation, where there's affordability, accessibility, quality health care, making certain that our nation's employers and the families are all benefited by flattening and then bending that health care insurance premium curve. there are so many pieces of the puzzle coming into play, that this house, this majority, has advanced as high priorities, high priorities, energy reform,

health care insurance reform, job creation and retention, making certain that services are provided in our communities, relief to state government, all of this is part of the package that will be put together in a very academically sound manner. and when we do that, i think the working fasm list will be inspired by the sort of attention they will get because they have not received that degree of sensitivity to their struggle. and we have allowed this to go far too long. and finally now, the recession, we hope, is stopped. the bleeding has been stopped, and we go forward now with the task of rebuilding, rebuilding an economy but need to do it in a way that responds to many of the policies out there that will drive this nation in terms of smart outcomes, smarting manufacturing investment, stronger energy outcomes, a

better and more sustainable health insurance program. all of these underpinnings of support so that the jobs we develop are going to be there for generations and where there will be cutting-edge jobs that haven't been on the radar screen. if we can do that with the mix, job elements that will be available for our families, then we will have responded in a more wholesome fashion and we can say we have begun the process that will bring a sustainable outcome, a recovery opportunity and a strong sense of hope that we build into the fabric of this country. i think we're onto the start of a long process. i chuckle when i hear people say, what have you done? the unemployment rate is so high. the people losing job are at discount. where have you been? i'm a new arrival. you have been working on these issues for the last

term-and-and-a-half. all the indicators were telling us what was going on, but turning our backs to a situation does not offer comfort to americans, jobless and even those who hold a job that they may not have that job much longer. representative sutton, your leadership in this regard, your leadership with representative hastings and representative larson and speaker pelosi and chairman miller and our majority leader, everyone coming together, putting this together in a forum that allows us to share openly and with great sense of vision, keen vision, we're going to make this happen. we're going to have a wonderful comeback, i believe. ms. sutton: i thank the gentleman again for his generous words and his points that are right on the mark. and you started out by talking about the cost of health care

and how they have been skyrocketing, skyrocketing as the american workers' wages and american families have been flat. and the burden that that has placed on people and fact of the matter is led so many into bankruptcy. and we all know the stories. we all know about those who can't get the care they need when they need it. and it's because of cost. and we hear people out there, some of the same people who brought us the republican recession and this economy where wages were so flat, for ordinary americans. and they talk about how we don't wsh did he shouldn't do this health care reform. and the reality is, well, you know, no health care reform really wasn't working for the

american people whose costs continue to skyrocket. and if we don't do anything, the costs will continue to skyrocket. the same is true about energy. there are those who may argue against the merits of what we do, but to do nothing is going to result in the same results that we have gotten from doing nothing or not taking aggressive action that brought us the republican recession. and energy costs are going to go up and up and up while this economy has remained down here. so the good news is as we take action to go fashion this mission of job facilitation for the ordinary american families in this country that are its great strength, that it doesn't have to be this way, that we can all prosper, those who make the most as well as those who are in the middle and those who aspire

to the middle class. that's the great promise of this great country. and you know, you have pointed out a lot of the things that we need to do, investing and research and development and innovation and infrastructure. and you have pointed out how other countries in the midst of this global recession are doing that. and that, too, is a factor that we can't ignore. we cannot stand still in these days. and to those who participated in bringing us the republican recession that ended not only in such an increase in the deficit in this country, but also resulted in the job deficit in this country, some of those same people, representative tonko, will stand here and say that it should be all about jobs, that we should be working on jobs. well, we are working on jobs.

and i know that the c.b.o. has said through the a.r.a., that we have saved or created 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs. and i say to those who have been complaining about jobs, who didn't vote for the american recovery and reinvestment act who brought this on, you didn't vote for the a.r.r.a., so how many jobs have you delivered or saved to the american people in this short time as we pursue as americans, not as democrats and republicans, but as americans, a path to recovery, for ordinary families who need and depend upon us? . mr. tonko: representative sutton, you're on to a key factor. the third quarter of this calendar year saw most of the growth if not all of it, in our

economy, as something related to the stimulus. inspired by the stimulus. not as great as we would like. some 3%, perhaps, growth. with a reduction of .3% to .9% in unemployment. but it's a start. i think that, you know, when we talk about the transformation that we can do with our energy agenda, with generation, with reduction, efficiency should be our fuel of choice. what we can do to reduce demand. all of that inserted into a sector like the manufacturing secor allows more jobs because we can reduce the cost of production, which again, the company is competing in a global marketplace. we hear the stories. we hear the sad tales that are difficult. one in five children lives in poverty in this country. that is driving pain in the lives of so many families. when you hear stories like people having a job for 15 years in a manufacturing sector, now losing it. when i hear a dairy farming

couple tell me they don't think they can afford their daughter's high school graduation ring, we need to address all sectors of the economy, including our agriculture. as a sector. the dairy industry needs to be responded to in a way where we provide those who work 24/7 a fair return for the market -- for the product -- the produce they bring to market. there are so many challenges that behoove us to be at our very best. now is the time, after all of this neglect, all of this destruction that was allowed to happen, it's a huge mess to have cleaned, cleaned up, and now we go forward and inspired by the many stories that are real in the lives of people that will inspire our process to respond to people. i think it's so key, so elemental -- elementary statements out there that are made about various factors that

drove job reductions in certain communities can be addressed, simply by doing it in a wise and sensitive manner. there are the tools at our fingertips, we are creating that package that will respond to it. this will not be, if we have our say, as a majority, i believe, a jobless recovery. that is not going to render any sort of hope for people. it resonates with a flatness work a pain, more than a flatness system of the charts tell it all. the american workers tell it even better. when we are -- when they are left without a job, the dignity of work. we need to be inspired by the past history that spoke to us, the years of franklin roosevelt when a c.c.c. and a works program a w.p.a., were developed and they built this nation and it responded infrastructure wise to the needs of communities across

this country, coast-to-coast. we have a pioneer spirit of which i spoke that was centered in the milltowns along the stretch of the erie canal that gave a west ward movement that brought itself first to ohio, our neighbors to the west, then inspired an entire world. we created product designs and invention and innovation that drove a wonderful agenda. so our hearts are full of a pioneer spirit. it's the american way to solve problems. that's truly the american spirit and we can do it with a great agenda here. representative sutton, it's been wonderful to be able to join you this evening and work with you side by side on the task force for creating jobs. we have a voice that will resonate on behalf of working families in this nation and we'll talk about taking that curve and swinging it upward so it's not a flat line in the lives of people. while that red line looks painful, it's even more painful in the pocket when people realize the jobs lost and the

dollars lost and the opportunities lost are so real in their lives that they're counting on us to do our job and do it with tremendous sensitivity and i thank you for your leadership. it's been a pleasure to join you thevpk. ms. sutton: representative tonko, we thank you for your leadership, of all those you represented in new york and all those you speak for across the country, this is something we can do in this great nation and we can do it together. we can do it, you know, all of us within this chamber have an interest in seeing our country prosper. and that's what the job creation task force is all about and we will be back, we will be working in the meantime to make sure that we realize, we realize and we do our part to put forward the economic opportunity that the people that, as i said, we're so very

honored to serve and represent what they need and what they deserve. with that, i yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. walden, for 60 minutes. mr. walden: thank you very much, mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. walden: thank you, mr. speaker. it is that season, it's the christmas season is upon us. and i sort of felt like i must have been at the nutcracker because i -- i haven't seen that much spin since the sugar plum fairies. in "the nutcracker." let's talk about jobs and the recovery. let's talk about fact and fact. so when the american recovery act, the stimulus, was raced through this floor on a totally

partisan move, we were told to expect that with the stimulus, as you can see here in this chart to my left, that this is what would happen to unemployment. remember, when the year started and president obama took office and the democrats claimed control of the senate with 60-seat margin that can overrun any filibuster, 60 seats and a 40-seat margin here in the house means they are unparalleled in their power and control and ability to pass anything they want, any time they want and sign it into law. they told us when the year started an unemployment, let's see, unemployment was at 7.6%, january this year. high by national standards. no doubt about it. highest it had been in many years. we were headed into a recession, no doubt about it. we'd been through unprecedented times.

but we were told if the american taxpayers would just go out and loan the congress, actually it's in the the american taxpayers yet, it's our kids and grandkids that get to pay it back later. right now we're going to the chinese, japanese and oil-producing nations and saying, can you loan us that money? if you'll loan us that $800 billion. here's where unemployment will end up. it's going to just barery go up, come out about 8%. we were told by some of the democrats who were all for this that if we didn't pass the stimulus into law, that unemployment would go clear up to here. now let's look at what really happened. many of us on the republican side of the aisle said, that isn't going to work. just throwing more taxpayer money you don't have, borrowing money from foreign countries that already have loaned us

more than they want to, and throwing that out in rapid succession may create a few jobs, but the long-term implications are dangerous for the future of this country because of debt. and you're not going to create that many jobs. sure in a year or two, you can't help but create jobs, we'll talk about some of those, a lot of them were created here in washington, d.c., not in real america and are not sustainable. but we were told if we pass it, here's where we'll be with unemployment at about 8%. if we -- if we don't pass it, gosh, we'll end up almost at 9%. so they rushed it through here and what are we at? we're over 10% unemployment. that's the red line. you see, some of us on the republican aisle actually come out of the private sector. we actually have signed the fronts of payroll checks like i have and my wife have for 21, almost 22 years, we were small

business owners. we took over a very small family business, got it out of debt, on its feet and we grew it in 20 years. we employed 15 to 17 people. small communities in oregon. i know what it's like to be small business owner, comply with the heavy hand of government regulation and the burdens of taxation and all the things you all in government think ought to happen because you know best how to create jobs what a farce that is. so we see what happens. when you throw money at a problem, you waste it. and you don't create jobs. you see republicans did have an alternative. my friends an colleagues who were on the floor here earlier said we had no alternative they know that's really not the case at all. in fact, the congressional budget office evaluated both of our plans and said the republican alternative would create twice the jobs at half the cost. now, there are a lot of smart christmas shoppers out there, boys and girls, men and women,

come closer. there are a lot of smart shoppers who look for bargains and they say, if i can get twice the product at half the cost, that's a bargain. unless you're the democrat majority in the house and senate and downtown. then you want to spend twice as much and get half as much. you want to tell the american people, pass my plan and i'll get you no more than maybe 9% unemployment, somewhere in the upper eights, actually, they said it wouldn't go above 8%. whoa, it was at 7.6%, now it's over 10%. let's talk about what happened to that stimulus. how did they spend the money? there was an interesting report out in the hill -- in "the hill," $6 million borrowed from your kids and grandkids, borrowed from the chinese, chap jap these, the oil-producing companies that buy our debt and our kids and grandkids will get to repay this with interest.

$6 million of those dollars went to now secretary of state hillary clinton's pollster. i'm not making this up, folks. this is not a fairy tale. two firms, run by mark penn, current secretary of state clinton's former campaign pollster, received a toe ol of $5.97 million in taxpayer funds from the economic stimulus that solved all these problems. a public relations and communications fund received the funding to advertise the analog to digital television switch, reportedly saving three jobs at the firm. three jobs. $6 million. of the $5.97 million, $2.3 million was also allocated to his campaign polling firm. at the end of the day, taxpayers spend $6 million to save three jobs. how many of you go home to your

constituents and say, in a town meeting, can you loan me $6 million, i've got a brilliant way to create three jobs. for hillary clinton's pollsters and public relations people. to tell people in america that by the way, you're going to switch from analog to digital on tv, which they were capable of figuring out on their enwe didn't need to spend nearly the $2 billion spent in the overall conversion effort. they're smart enough to figure this stuff out. if they're not, they got 12-year-old kids who can figure out how to make the d.v.d. not blink, the v.c.r. not blink. $6 million, two jobs. $2 million on a dance theater. "los angeles times," the minneapolis city council voted to use stimulus funds to convert a vacant 99-year-old theater into a center of death instead of funding a solar energy panel manufacturing

plant that would have created seven times as many jobs. my friends who were talking before me talked ability green energy jobs. here was a perfect opportunity with your federal tax dollar thoss create green energy jobs and the minneapolis city council decided to put it into a dance theater instead. the dance project would cost $2 million and create 48 permanent jobs according to the city. interestingly in the spring newsletter, the theater estimated that completing the project would only create 26 full-time and part-time permanent jobs system of in their spring newsletter, they said 26. now it's reported at 48. the solar energy panel manufacturing plant, meanwhile, that was in competition for the money, received only $300,000, yet it would have create 360 jobs by 2011. but they -- they couldn't do the right, what is it, minuet.

they couldn't spin correctly. maybe they didn't have the right tutu on or the right shoes. they only got $300,000. the dance theater got $2 million. americans could have created 360 jobs in minneapolis, they made that decision. councilman paul ostro was the single councilmember to vote against the center of dance saying, it wasn't creating enough jobs to qualify, whereas the solar energy plant clearly fit the president's goals, it was a home run. it was a home run. i told you a week or so ago about the 95 -- about the $95,000 being spent to study viking-era pollen in iceland. viking-era pollen in iceland. $95,000. you see why when when i get up here sometimes, having been a small business person and helped create jobs and watched every nickel, because you do that in real america, not back here, but when you're in real

america and creating real jobs and trying to get to something we call positive cash flow and maintain that, you watch every nickel. you don't let $95,000 go out the door to study viking era pollen in iceland. . you don't throw money out the door. you are trying to grow and expand your business. my friend earlier talked about as if the whole american recovery, the whole economy and the greatness that we have originated because of some federal programs in the great depression, the w.p.a., c.c.c. and certainly they left a nice footprint behind with our park lodges and buildings and they did some wonderful work. that is not the essence of america's economy. it doesn't start and stop right here in these two wells, the

well of the house or there at the leadership table. we aren't the innovateors and creators of jobs. that's out there in america. ladies and gentlemen, that is in the real world. where somebody has an idea, they get a couple of people together who want to believe in that idea and they put that money forward. they don't take it from somebody, like the tax man or woman does. they put their money at risk and say if we do it a little better, a little smarter, we can be successful. we can create jobs. we can benefit from that. and by the way, it's our money at risk as private citizens. and so, we're going to be careful how that gets spent. we aren't going to waste it on lavish offices and all those things. small businessmen and women. you know, the ones behind the computer and wall, trying to

keep the computer operating. i have been in your offices. i can show you the pictures and the piles. i know what it's like to work day and night to make your ideas successful. that is the entrepreneurial spirit that works. but yet here in washington, under the party that's in power, they know no limit, no limit to federal government involvement in your life. they know no limit to borrowing and spending and believing that they should take over your health care. they want to put a bureaucrat between you, your insurance company and your doctor. it's bad enough trying to get health care. i pay for health care for our employees, my wife and i did, paid 100% of the premium. i know what those cost increases look like. we never could target enough. and i want to do something to

reform health care and i have supported many proposals to do so. the irony is the plans coming out of this congress, these plans, however, increase premiums on employers, drive up the cost curve on those of us who are trying to figure out how to make health care more affordable. the democrats' plan drives up the premium, puts mandates on individuals and taxes on small businesses and will cost millions of jobs long-term and make america less competitive. less competitive. you don't think capital doesn't flow any more and we don't live in a global economy, we don't need to be on our best game and have the most efficient process available to create jobs and run a business? no. i sit here in amazement. i sit here in amazement. i have spent all-nighters in my business trying to make it work.

i have struggled trying to pay the bills, get up early in the morning and try to figure it out, trying to cut your costs and save jobs. we were in business 22 years. i have seen the good times and bad times and i know what it's like. but i also know that it's important how you spend your money. fox news report, the national institutes of health received $8.2 billion in stimulus funds. i'm for them. n.i.h. is conducting a 65,462 study on the relationship between h.i.v. and sex in st. petersburg, russia. 65,472 to study the relationship between h.i.v. and sex in st. petersburg, russia.

$700,000 on how taxes, trade and politics affect trade in the southeast asia, $73,000 to study whether the asian tradition of dragon boat racing will enhance the lives of cancer survivors. $73,000 to look at whether or not dragon boat racing enhances the lives of cancer survivors. why don't we put it into screenings? that's the administration that says women don't need to do breast screenings maybe as often or even at all. that's the report that came out from this administration. how absurd is that. put your money in dragon boat racing, don't do mammograms. doesn't make sense to me or to americans. we are looking at some of the other spending. $67,726 in taxpayer money to send staff to customer service

seminar. the united binge and casino used a federal stimulus grant to send their staff to a customer service seminar. it was held at a local technical college to teach them how to handle confrontations with customers. these are the investments. you see why some of us, every republican voted against this stimulus. we knew it was going to be wasted. let's go to the congressional budget office, because they said, you know in the first year or two, you can't spend that much money and can't create a few jobs even though they are short-term. i give them that. what they look at is the debt service cost that actually becomes in the out-years, years, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, a drag on the economy. it will cost us jobs, because you can't borrow $800 billion and not have to pay it back,

even the federal government needs to learn that listen. even the federal government needs to learn that listen. let's talk about the debt, because that is the single biggest threat to our country's future, to my son's future, to your children's future, is this enormous theft, intergenerational theft senator mccain called it, where we are taking money from them and stealing their credit card and we are using it like there is no necessity to ever pay it back, to buy things today that they get the bill for later. at $1.4 trillion, this year's deficit is more than three times than that of a year ago. i want that number to sink in. $1.4 trillion this year is triple what it was last year. oh, and who was president last year, george bush was. so they want to blame the prior

administration. we had our complaints at times with any administration. $455 billion deficit the beginning of last fiscal year. this fiscal year under democrat-controlled senate, house, white house, $1.4 trillion. 10% of gross domestic product, highest level since world war ii. deficits, however, went up under both parties, that's why we need a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. great state of oregon has had it in its constitution since statehood and forced the state legislature to make tough decisions to balance the budget. sometimes i have agreed, sometimes i haven't, sometimes they have raised taxes or cut spending, but at the end of the day, they had to balance the budget. if you want to reform the congress, you would require that this congress every time and the president, regardless of party,

has to balance the budget. you can have an exception if there is a war, emergency. federal government has unique roles, but this is spending with reckless abandon. debt held by the public rose $7.5 trillion or 50% of g.d.p. total debt now, when speaker pelosi took over, it was at $8.9 trillion. it's so hard to keep track of billions going to trillions. well, i think 100 bucks is a lot when you are spending taxpayer money. we're talking millions? frget it. billions? we don't go there any more. we are talking trillions. now why does that matter? the house controls the purse strings. whoever controls the house

starts every spending bill. that's how the process works. the house, united states house of representatives, this body, you mean and women who are watching and here tonight know that is how it works. the president can veto but at the end of the day, the house controls the purse strings. $8.9 trillion. the debt now $12 trillion. every man, woman and child is responsible for $39,000 and going up to $45,000. the debt is projected to double in the next five years, triple in the next 10. under the president's budget, the debt would triple in five. now i want you to think about a debt that goes to $20 trillion and how you ever pay that back. when republicans were in charge

of the congress and before the 9/11 attacks and the wars broke out, we actually paid down debt, half a trillion worth, it was a proud moment for this country, this congress and both parties. but it was republicans who drove it. we worked in a bipartisan way to get it done, though and the economy's strong and we paid down debt. go with me on this. ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, get closer to that tv because we will go through that math. i was a journalism major. $20 trillion is at issue. to pay it off, presume the congress would have to run a surplus of $1 trillion a year for a 20-year span and not spend it. actually applied to paying down the debt. how many in this chamber tonight think that's going to -- well, nobody raised their hand, because nobody believes congress will ever run a $1 trillion

surplus and apply it to pay down the debt. that's why these issues today in our country's life are so, so critical. because we have taken our kids and grand kids' credit cards and spent like there was no reason not to and they're going to get the bill. according to the "washington post," when adjusted for inflation, world war ii, korean war, interstate, race to the moon, iraq war, vietnam war added up to $6 trillion. we are now at $12 trillion. the government will borrow $9 trillion over the next decade. let's go to a bill that just came up. called the omnibus. whenever you hear that word, shudder your children's eyes and ears. american families are hurting. 10% unemployment. democrat leadership responds with a massive spending bill last thursday.

last thursday this came forward. and let me talk to you about that bill. 2,500 pages. 2,500 pages, nearly half a trillion dollars in spending, half a trillion, 5,000 earmarks on hundreds of pages and we under the democrat leadership, we in the house of representatives, you know how much time we were given to read it? i'm not evelyn wood, i'm not a great speed reader, two days to read the bill since the conference report was filed. two days, half a trillion dollars was spent, 5,000 earmarks and we were given two days. the omnibus contained appropriation bills, $446.8 billion, so half a trillion. 12% over the combined funding levels for the same six

appropriation bills last year. how many of you got a 12% raise? how many of you would like to have a job? how many of you got a 12% raise? these six spending bills gave your federal agencies 12% in spending. there will be those who will say it was for all these wonderful -- everything's wonderful when you are giving it away. everybody wants to be santa claus. there is a big bag parked behind the sleigh. more presents than kids. the problem is, we don't have the elves' work shop. we have kids and families a.m. home who are unemployed trying to figure out how to make ends meet and you would think this government is running a huge surplus. we are running a huge deficit that hurts jobs, takes away jobs

and they spend 12% more. some of these bills, transportation-h.u.d. bill was 23%. state and foreign operations, 33.2%. in addition, the normal appropriations, the agencies funded in this omnibus received 128.2 billion in the stimulus bill that we heard about earlier. when you heard about the stimulus, the american recovery act and how evil it was and republicans didn't vote for it, remember where the money went. it went back into the government. it didn't go out into middle america. some of it did certainly but did not go out far outside of washington. here's the final tally. the omnibus spending bill i just referenced brings new spending for nondefense, nonven -- nonveterans' spending to two

years ago. the speaker pro tempore: would the gentleman suspend. . >> mr. speaker, i send to the desk a privileged report. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 973, resolution waiving a requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the committee on rules. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. mr. polis: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon may proceed. mr. walden: now, mr. speaker, i assume that that is the rule coming out of the rules committee that provides for a same day consideration of four pieces of legislation. would that be correct? could ask a parliamentary inquiry? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will state his inquiry. mr. walden: does clause 6-a provide for same day

consideration of the bill? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. mr. walden: thank you. so what you've heard there is a procedural action that has importance because it comes right into the point i'm talking about with the omnibus where we had two days to consider a bill that costs americans -- american taxpayers half a trillion dollars. what's coming up next are the four go home bills. these are four bills we have to pass in order to wind things up before christmas. and they will -- they'll take these up tomorrow. i haven't seen them, have you? have any of you? nobody here's seen them. maybe they have in the rules committee which just has apparently finished its work but we haven't seen them. that he will raise the debt, they'll spend -- i don't know. i'm told one of them's going to spend tens of billionses of dollars. don't know how much, don't know where. there will probably be a

continuing resolution to fund the government because the democrats who control the house by a huge 40-vote margin, 41, the senate with 60 votes and the white house couldn't even with that massive overwhelming powerful control couldn't pass the budget bills by the time the fiscal year ended. now, in america, in real america, that's the area outside the beltway of washington, if you don't pay your bill on time what happens? what happens? you get an interest penalty. what happens? somebody says, hey, you're behind on paying your bill. what happens here? nothing happens except it will come november of 2010, i predict, because i think americans have had enough of what's happened here. so what happens here is they didn't do their work. they didn't finish the process, they didn't pass the budget. they didn't meet the dead lines. so now we punt it into 2010.

for the budget year we're already in. both parties have done this. it's why we need to reform the process. but, hey, they control 60 in the senate. that gets you past any filibuster. 60 votes. they control the house with a huge margin. and the white house. and not even with those margins, with single party powerful control of both chambers of congress and the white house could they pass the budget bill. that's why you had the omnibus at the end of this week where they lumped six of them together and jack up the spending by 10%, 12%. so here's the final tally, the omnibus brings the new spending for nondefense, nonveterans discretionary programs to an 85% higher than just two years ago. 85% higher spending by the federal government. you want to know where your money's going, out of your paycheck into this body and out into the bureaucracy. so it should come as no surprise

during that time which tracks with the recession that's eliminated 2.9 million american jobs, the salaries of government bureaucrats has exploded. employs -- employees making salaries of $140,000 or more jumped to 19% during their session's first 18 months. you wondered where the money's going. you wondered where the money's going. let's go back to the republican plan. because once again when it came to the deficit a lot of us came out of the private sector. small business. every business that makes jobs is a good thing in america these days but i happen to come out of small communities and represent a district that's 70,000 square miles of gorgeous country, high desert plateaus, forested, mountain ranges, wonderful agriculture. we believe in renewable energy, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal,

renewable energy matters, it's a good thing. republicans have supported renewable energy, i have, and will continue to as long as it's reasonable and doesn't jack up rates. but even with what's happening right now, with the speaker taking the government jet over to copenhagen and a whole bunch of members of congress, they're going to go to that climate change conference. now let's look at what happened here in this congress. when they passed the -- when they passed the climate change bill, the global warming bill, and i was on the committee that dealt with that legislation and it's, you know, it passed in pretty record time. it's a $700 billion cost, but what does it mean to you as an individual american out there? well, let me tell you. if that becomes law, it means the loss of probably two million to five million american jobs. because companies will look at all the requirements and say, i can't either afford to continue to operate and i'm closing my

doors or i found a cheaper place to manufacture my producted than the good old u.s.a. so i'm going to go and open a factory in china or india that doesn't play by the same rules that this law has and i'm going to move my jobs over there. sorry. you just won too many things. so for the average american it means a loss of a couple million jobs. a couple million jobs. this is being done intentionally. they're passing this knowing what the estimates show from the national association of manufacturers, the chamber of commerce and other organizations that looked at this legislation, this cap and tax, cap and trade legislation, and they've said, we run the numbers, this is going to cost us a lot of jobs. puts new taxes on, it's a huge big federal involvement in everything you and i do. in this economy. but what else does it mean? if you're a consumer and you happen to live in the great northwest and are a customer of

pacific power, they've reviewed this legislation, they've run it through their power production model and out comes the data. and the data on what cap and trade that the democrats passed, speaker pelosi's bill, would do to a specific customer in oregon and the rest of their region is in the first year your electricity rates, as high as they are today, will go up 17.9%. you know, maybe this is the year you do want coal in your stocking. 17.9%. is what your electricity rates will go up. now, that's bad enough. maybe you have put in the fluorescent lights and i think oregon's been a real leader in that effort, to reduce your energy consumption. maybe you're weatherized and done all the things to reduce your energy consumption, maybe you crank it down to 67 instead of 68 degrees in the winter and not run the air conditioning in the summer, maybe you can adjust for that. but here's what it does when you go to to the gas station.

there are estimates out there that say, the cap and tax bill that speaker pelosi and others in this chamber have passed will drive up the cost of gats -- gasoline to america by 50 cents, 60, 70, some say as much as $1. nobody knows for sure until it takes effect. explain this to me. this is like bad santa. explain this to me. this isn't the present i want. i don't want higher gasoline prices. don't you think that had an effect on our economy? it certainly did on the families i talked to in medford and john day and across my district that commute great distances. if you're a farmer or rancher you saw what it did to the price of fertilizer when natural gas went up. saw when diesel went up to $5 a gallon. we should be accessing america's great energy resources, not importing them. we should be working toward new fuel efficient vehicles and backing up that research. i actually drive hybrids on both coasts.

i'm fortunate in that that respect because i don't want -- in that respect, because i want to reduce my fuel intake and consumption. man, i have -- i want to do my part, i'm fortunate and able to do that now. a lot of people aren't. they're stuck. they can't buy a new car right now. they may not even have a job. my state's like sixth highest unemployment in the country. i have five counties lingering. rather than access our great oil and reserves which by the way there are estimates that the peak price of gasoline in this country, that america's great oil and gas reserves, if not blocked off by the congress, the democrat-controlled congress, if we had access to those and all of them, it would produce a value of $60 trillion. $60 trillion. now that was at the peak of the value of gas and oil, certainly. but let's say it dropped by half and it's only $30 trillion.

remember that debt i talked about earlier? the debt that can be $20 trillion? what if we actually developed our own oil and gas resources in america, became less dependent on, you know, hugo chavez in venezuela or some of the other countries that frankly aren't real friendly to us, what if we stopped funding some of the things they do to actually work against our way of life by not sending money on oil, what if we -- spend money on oil, what if we developed our own resources? they say, it will take you 10 years. let's get started. while we work in a transitional vehicle that doesn't have to use oil and gas, which i'm all for, but in the meantime, hardworking americans have to take that pickup truck, and do the work on the cattle ranch. there are a lot of people hauling things back and forth so that our economy functions. $3, $4, $5 diesel about killed them economically. so why don't we access our great oil and gas reserves? we should. and we generate revenue to the government that if you had a

fiscally responsible congress, we used to pay down the debt and pay down the debt before our kids come of age and our grandkids come of age. that's the christmas present i'd like to see. that would be like sort of good santa. you know, as opposed to bad santa. bad santa says, we're taking away everything we have, we're going to rely on foreign imports for oil and gas, we're going to jack up your electricity rates. you know, that's not christmas like i know it. i want a real christmas where we put people back to work in the private sector, not trying to figure out something about viking in iceland, that's where some of your stimulus money went or jobs that last a day or two or a week or two and then go away and get counted as if they're permanent. i want permanent family wage jobs. this country can get back on its feet if we get this congress out of the way. but as i talked to business people i hear time and again, i can't keep pace with the change

coming out of washington. you're changing everything related to energy. i can't plan -- i don't know what those costs are going to be. i don't know where you're headed, i don't know -- how i'm going to deal with that. and then health care takeover by the federal government. same sort of thing. is government going to run all this? ambition i going to run all this? what's that going to cost me, ambition i going to pay a penalty? you know, there's another couple of million jobs projected to go away with the government takeover of health care and the debt. people who do have some money want to invest in a startup company are sitting on the sidelines because they don't know what's going to happen on tax policy. do the tax reductions that spurred a very strong economy go away? or do they stay? do people who have some level of wealth lose it all to the federal government on new year's day of 2007 or do their kids --

2011 or do their kids go tote continue the family farm or family business or does the tax man show up with the undertaker? that's the choice. that's the choice. and it doesn't have to be that way. we can create real jobs in this country. let me tell but the other real jobs you can create. and that is in the great northwest woods. now, you've heard me on this floor before advocate for bipartisan legislative changes, changes in the law, that achieved broad support in this congress to allow us to go out and be good stewards of our federal forests. teddy roosevelt created these for thes in 1905, he began that process with the great forest reserves and he said in a speech in utah that the purpose of these researches -- reserves was twofold, to make sure we had good, clean water for agriculture and that we had timber for home making, home building. those were the two purposes he outlined in his speech in utah

at about that period. . the choice that the liberals have made in this government and in this congress is away from active management to locking things up and calling it management, calling it preservation. as a result, you have forests across the west that are overgrown and choked, they can't breathe. meanwhile, you have all this ladder fuel building up underneath them because we have suppressed them. stopped forest fires and we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to fight fire. over half of the forest budget goes to fight fire, where we should be doing the work on the ground to prevent fire, getting

the ladder fuel out of there, used to burn up naturally. we aloud it to grow up. the outcome is like your yard if you don't weed, mow or any of that, it just becomes a mess and out of balance until something catastrophic happens. fire is the great equalizer of the forest and it is devastating when there is a fuel load that exists today. and so the fires burn and they release enormous amounts of carbon, not only carbon dioxide, but all kind of pollutants into the atmosphere that are equivalent to vast volumes of automobiles on the highways. you aren't going to stop every fire. nature has a wonderful way of

continuing to participate in the management process. but we can get out and protect our watersheds and we can put people back to work, because this really is about jobs, jobs in the woods. but, you know, in my district where we have 20% unemployment or nearly so and probably higher than that in some areas because people have given up. we are sixth in the country with unemployment. the policies of the federal government on federal land have been so over the top. we have lost the jobs. we have lost the mills. and in some communities they are close to losing hope. and nothing this congress has done has helped them in a measureable, sustainable way. so last week, my colleague from washington state, brian baird, who unfortunately just announced his retirement from this body,

he and stephanie herseth sandlin and some others who care about our great forests offered up legislation to take a successful law and expand it out over condition two and three forest lands and allow our professional scientists and biologists, all the people involved in forest management to get out there, get unshackled from the courtroom and the computer, get away from the lawsuits and the litigation, the lawsuits and get out and actually do what they were trained to do, get our forests back in shape, protect the watersheds, put people to work. we use lumber in this country. this is a carbon right here. this is wood, you know that. this is wood. this is a carbon simping.

this was a tree once. what we do now is we put off limits our federal forests for active management and harvests for the most part and instead we import wood from countries that have virtually have no environmental rules. and as a result of that, we just shift the problem and make it worse somewhere else, rather than managing our forests, we let them go up in smoke, catastrophic destructive wildfires that does damage to our water heap sheds and our has been dat, kills firefighters, kills people in their homes, burns up their homes, so much that we could be doing. not because we don't spend enough federal money. one of the things that drives me over the top, over the edge, off the cliff is when people say to me, if i just had more

government money or more government employees, i could solve that problem. you know, we are at a debt load that is unsustainable. not every problem demands a government solution from washington, d.c. and in fact, we should be more creative than that. spending someone else's money isn't that hard. you can throw it away, throw it away to causes, programs that study pollen from vikings. i got to find out about those vikings with pollen. i don't know if they used claridon. but you can throw money out the door, flush it away. those of us hove in the private sector know every dollar is hard to get. making a profit ain't easy. that's why you are so tight with your funds.

and you know the good times come and good times go. if you are successful enough, you try to set aside a reserve. yet in this congress, my gosh, it is out of control in terms of spending and the deficits. you know, the omnibus that passed last week, the bill that spent half a trillion dollars, two days to think about it, it's not the way to legislate. it's not responsible. it's not becoming of this body. it is not how we should operate regardless of which party is in control. right now the democrats are in control. so they get the glory and they get the responsibility. and it needs to change in terms of how we operate. my colleague, brian baird, from washington state and several members on both sides of the aisle, supported an effort to

get at some reform that said we should change the rules of how this house operates so that the american people, the members of congress and the press could see legislation on the internet, the great equalizer of information, on the internet, at least 72 hours before it comes up for a vote on this house floor. 72 hours. now i think it ought to be two, three weeks, by the way. remember this omnibus spending bill was 2,500 pages. nobody in here read it. i voted against it, by the way. i wasn't alone. i think every republican voted against it, just like we did against this stimulus. the alternatives we have offered. not on that one because i don't think we were allowed to, but certainly on the others, on health care, energy and creating

jobs, we have offered creating alternatives and we will talk about those in subsequent evenings, but this notion we should have 72 hours should be bipartisan. and i say to my colleagues, i guarantee you if that resolution to change how we operate in this assembly were to come up for a vote and it said, we get 72 hours, these bills go on the internet for 72 hours so the whole world can read them and understand them and by the way, give us input on what may be wrong before we vote on them, that's a concept that's novel, if that resolution were brought to this floor and yeas and nays were called for, i doubt there would be a dissenting vote. anyone here think there would be a dissenting vote? no one would go back to a town

hall and say, no, you shouldn't have 72 hours to read the bill. i began to ask this question when we were taking up the global warming bill, the administration cabinet secretaries who came before us to tell us the great wonderful nature of this legislation and i asked a simple question of every witness who came before us, have you read this bill. have you read this bill. and with one exception and that person was right at their last hearing we had the last day and i think saw it coming, everyone said well, no. i really haven't read the bill. but i know its contents. we ought to have 72 hours to read the bill. that ought to change. now, i know when i filed a discharge petition and that goes in a box over here -- not in a box, they keep track over it

here in the ledger. it takes 218 members of the house to sign that petition and then it comes up for a vote. but the democrat leadership in the house has made it very clear to their members not to sign the petition. only six of them have and i commend those for standing up for what's right for this body and this process and the american people, those six who signed it. the others have buckled at their knees apparently and refused and walked away. it is available to be signed tonight, tomorrow, when we come back in january. and the american people are watching. they know that this would be a good thing. they know this would be a good thing. i see we now have the omnibus has arisen. arise. when we talk about 2,500 pages

of spending, this is it. this puppy is 2,500 pages of spending. this is what the congress was given two days to work its way through. this is half a trillion dollars. ever seen half a trillion dollars? this is it, right here. half a trillion. come on down. half a trillion dollars. you wonder why the deficit is so big? no time to consider this thoughtfully, thoroughly, rush it through. rush it through. 2,500 pages. so the stimulus, the recovery act that spent $787 billion, i told you, two days to consider this omnibus spending bill. when the stimulus bill passed in february of this year, the house was given 12 hours to review it. 12 hours.

it was 1,073 pages. 1,073 pages, spent $787 billion. that's where the viking pollen study in iceland came from or the sidewalk around a casino or sending them to sensitivity training, don't be rough on the slot table. cap and trade, $846 billion is the cost of that bill. , 1,428 pages, 16 1/2 hours to consider it and by the way, they dropped a 309-page amendment at 3:00 in the morning. i'm going to tell you, nothing good happens at 3:00 in the morning. nothing good happens at 3:00 in the morning. you know, nothing good happens

at 3:00 in the morning. you get hit with a golf club at 3:00 in the morning. 16 1/2 hours of consideration. the health bill introduced july 14, 12:51 in the afternoon, $1.28 trillion. remember we are talking t's. we are now talking trillions. , 1,026 pages. in the committee upon which i serve, energy and commerce committee, we were allocated 19 hours and 9 minutes before we started voting on that bill. now, remember, i'm including the all night hours, all night hours. according to a newspaper here on the hill, actually "the hill," democratic leaders waived transparency rules at least 24 times to rush votes this year alone, 24 times and 12 of those

bills were available for less than 24 hours. this omnibus bill, just this last week passed 221-201. no republicans voting for the bill. increasing federal agencies 12%, some as much as 21%. final tally for this omnibus for these programs, took it up to a level of 85% higher than two years ago, 85% higher than two years ago. the debt up 1.4 trillion. the deficit this year, $1.4 trillion, one year. it wasn't that many years ago, i'm getting older, i think it was in the 1980's, i think our

whole national debt was $1 trillion which was an enormous amount then. now it's going up by more than that annually. this is a freight train without brakes. this is a runaway train that's headed off a cliff and it's going to take americans with it if we don't put a stop to it. you cannot continue down this path. you cannot continue down this path. . so, we've tried to figure out how some of this money has basketball spent. the press is doing -- has been spent. the press is doingity job. the press is doing its job. the new orleans "times-picayune" details, louisiana has seven congressional districts so louisianans visiting recovery.gov, that's the website where all this stuff is posted, so there's great transparency and accountability, remember, this was the website the

president and the vice president, joe biden, said, by golly, you're going to see it all, see it all out there. so louisianans visiting recovery.gov found themselves not just skeptical but truly puzzled to find money going to louisiana's eighth congressional district. there are not eight, just seven. and listed the 45th, the 14th, the 32nd and my favorite, oo. i don't know if that's oo 7 or -- i don't know. according to the director of communications for recovery.gov, it rely on self-reporting by stiplants of the money. this is oversight? this is transparency in i mean, this is a government that can't figure out who's going to the white house for dinner is spending your money and this is transparency, pounds that information from federal reporting.gov has been simply transferred to recovery.gov and

no one checks to veryify its accuracy. or to take note of the fact that utah doesn't really have seven congressional districts, it has three. south dakota has one, not 10. pound, we're not certifying the accuracy of the information. we know what the problem is and we're trying to fix it, he said, that's -- ask why recipients would put in random numbers, pound replide, this is my favorite, who knows, man? who really knows? there are 130,000 reports out there. somebody should know. it's your money. well, again, it's not really your money yet because we borrowed it. congress borrowed it from the chinese, japanese, the -- all kinds of lenders. oil producing nations that we pay exorbitant prices to for crude oil because we don't have our own resources here. they're the once do -- ones doing it. talladega county, alabama, saved or created 5,000 jobs from only one $42,000 in stimulus funds.

5,000 jobs, $42,000 expenditures. now they're efficient. that would be $8.40 a job. now there's some cheap places to work, i don't even think alabama is paying their people $840 a job, though. so there's something wrong there. belmont, metropolitan housing authority in ohio reported 16,120 jobs saved or created. for $1.3. now that is efficient, too. so congratulations to bell month. that's $80.64 a job. folks, the government is not the creator of jobs. not jobs that are sustainable because you have to take money away from those who have it to redistribute it and it's not being done very efficiently, affordably, transparently or with accountability. and how long do these jobs last think? want jobs created out in the private sector that fund the

government and by that i mean if you have a vibrant private sector people are paying taxes. businesses are making a profit, they're going to pay a tax. pay a lot of tax. individuals earning a salary, earning a wake, -- wage, they're paying tax, ask them. that's what funds government, not the other way around. and that's the difference between many of us in this body. is there -- is there are those who believe every problem need as federal solution, regardless of what it costs now or in the future. that's why you need a balanced budget, requirement in the constitution to keep both parties in check. we didn't get this -- we need to get this house back in order and i mean the global house. the u.s. itself. how money is spent, how it's allocated, what we do with it. this is obscene. it really is. but all i see is just one

government takeover after another. now, is there room to do more oversight where it's necessary, fix markets where they're broken? yeah. will we debate how far you go in that? we should. but we should do that in an open and thoughtful manner. you know, i served on some nonprofit boards, a hospital board, you know, a business association board. we'd have vigorous debates but we only did it for the notion of common good with he bring what we had to the table. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. walden: and we'd try to find a solution. i thank you, my colleagues, for letting me share those comments with you tonight and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. moore, for 60 minutes. mr. moore: well ms. moore: well, thank you, mr. speaker. let me say to you, mr. speaker, it's such a privilege to stand

in the well of the house of representatives. each time i stand here i just shiver and shake and think about the -- just the -- how i got here and the unusual circumstances that have allowed me to be here. really coming from a very poor background, parents who had very, very meager means, but it was because of an educational opportunity that i'm able to be here with you, to speak with you here this evening. you've heard it all from the well of the house of representatives, mr. speaker. you've heard about all of the problems that we have in our economy. and this evening i want to talk to you about the importance of re-establishing ourselves in the world as a nation that is graduating students from college and producing the next

generation of innovators and engineers and doctors and scientists and teachers so that we can re-establish ourselves in the world and continue to enable our economy to grow. but of course you've heard about all of the problems that sort of crowd out a really important discussion about the importance of funding educational opportunity. you've heard about the two wars and the escalation which is going to cost us $30 billion. you've heard about the war spending, between 2001 until twine we -- 2009 we spent just under $950 billion for iraq and afghanistan and we've just included another $139 billion for both wars. in july the d.o.d. was spending $11 billion a month on both

wars. and c.r.s. projects we'll be spending another $400 billion to $900 billion in the next 10 years. you've heard about the entitlement programs, medicare and social security and how they're endanger and we have to fund that -- endangered and how we have to fund that. you've heard about the escalating cost and the so-called takeover by the government of health care. you've heard about the great recession where as many as 700,000 jobs were lost in a single month in the last 15 months. you've heard about the financial systemic risk that threatens the economy not only of the united states of america but the world. in requiring countries, including this one, to develop billions of dollars in stimulus funding. you've heard about various proposals to right ourselves and

to justify our economy. you've heard proposals to just simply reduce spending. you've heard proposals to give tax breaks to the wealthy and that these tax breaks will somehow trickle down to support those workers and small businesses. and you've even heard whispers of raising taxes -- raising taxes. and very few people raise as a solution to this problem, look at looking at hard at what we're doing in terms of advancing post secondary education allege opportunity and that's why this evening, mr. speaker, i'm so happy to be joined by my dear friend and colleague from virginia, a representative bobby scott. who serves on the labor and education committee and i'm sure will give us some valuable information about the importance

of preparing the next generation of students. mr. scott: well, thank you, thank you very much, and i thank the gentlelady from wisconsin for talking about education and talking about the importance of educating all of our young children. a quality education is more important today than ever before, with the rapid development of a global marketplace we find that we're competing not just with cities across your state or even cities across the nation but cities all over the world. and we can't compete with other countries on things like lower wages. there are people who work in other countries for wages that we can't compete it with. we can't necessarily compete in terms of location. you don't have to work right next to your co-workers anymore. if you can work across the hall from your co-workers, you can work as cross the globe from your co-workers and in manufacturing, if you manufacture something you don't have to be that close to your

customers. you have ship things overnight from almost anywhere. in the global economy,y when you're trying to get a plant financed, thered to be a time where you had to locate the plant in the united states because you needed financing. now with worldwide banking you can put that plant anywhere you want. the one reason that businesses would want to locate in the united states or in a particular community is because they know they can find well educated workers and so education becomes the competitive advantage. and when you start looking at the location, you know you can get the good workers, you know the communities will benefit by having good education, we know those communities that invest heavily in education suffer less crime, pay less welfare and we know the individuals' benefits, the students' benefit with a good education, the more you learn, the more you earn, the more education you get, the higher your income will be. so we need to focus on education

if we're going to maintain our competitiveness. but unfortunately we're finding that we're slipping in terms of math and science, any international basis. we used to be fairly high, we're kind of drifting down, kind of in the middle of the pack right now but we're dropping. we used to be number one in graduating our students from high school. now we're dropping. we used to be number one in those going to college. used to be number one by far. now there are many country -- now many countries are having more young people go to college and graduate from college than in the united states. ms. moore: will the gentleman yield? mr. scott: i'll yield. ms. moore: i guess what i'm recalling is a country where -- i mean, we invented the telephone, we invented the automobile, the television, the camera, google, ipod. we've made major medical breakthroughs, we discovered the

cure, we discovered penicillin, practically eradicated polio by developing the vaccine. and we've done this because we have been number one in the world for developing a brain trust and so i guess i'm sort of curious about -- about the statements you've just made that we're no longer -- we no longer have the smartest students or the best work force and that we're no longer leading in innovation and technology. mr. scott: and that's why, if the gentlelady would yield, that's why we need to remain competitive and make sure that all of our students have an opportunity to go to college. we need to make sure that they have the knowledge to be successful and we need to make sure that we're making those investments in early childhood education and elementary and secondary and make sure that all

of our students have access to college. that means we have to make sure we continue to invest in pell grants, reduce the interest on student loans so everybody can get into college. one of the things we also have to make sure we do is make sure they have the support, not only encouragement to go to college, the financial access, but also the support so they can stay in college. that's why the federal trio programs are so important. a talent search in upward bound math and sintse, student support services, once they get into college, educational support centers and the mcnabb achievement program, the trio program, encouraged low income and first generation students to think in terms of college and many of them it's not just an expectation in their families. so they think that after high school that's going to be about it. we need to instill upon them an expectation that if you can do the work, you ought to continue your education and the trio programs are extremely important

in making sure they have not only the financial access but the support once they get there so that they can graduate. . . ms. moore: this congress has been great in providing shal aid. pell has seen between 2001 and 2009, pell grant has seen an increase of over $27 billion. now these trio programs that you talk about have a funding level of $853 million. that's less than $1 billion to the pell grant of $27 billion. can you sort of share with me why you don't think financial aid strategy in providing

financial aid to students, while that's a great strategy, can you tell me why you think it's so important to fund these trio programs in addition to the pell grant ? aren't we making a big enough investment in pell? mr. scott: we need to make those investments because the cost of college is going up even more than the increases in pell grants. we have done a lot in pell grants in the last few years, after several years of no increases, we have made significant increases in pell grants. but the pell grants does not pay as much of a portion of your education as it used to. with a pell grant , you could almost pay your entire tuition, room and board at a state college. now it's about 30% and you have to come up with the rest. and people back in the 1960's and early 1970's, could work at a part-time job and work your way through college. now it's very difficult to even

with a pell grant working 40 hours a week. it's still very difficult to work your way through college today. we need to make sure these opportunities are there. even though you have financial access, with the pell grants, student loans and scholarship, you need the support to get the work done. many students will start in college and won't finish. and you have dropouts not only in high school but also college. and we need to make sure they have their services and the beneficiaries of the trio programs do much better at college completion than those who don't have support services, you have the counseling and tutorial and other support services. they're so important. we need to make sure the trio funding goes up as much as funding for financial access like pell grants and student loans. we know that one of the things

that we have to recognize is investments we make in education are so important because if we don't make investments in education, we end up paying the bill anyway. that is not only from the judiciary committee but the education and labor committee, and we know there is a strong correlation between those who drop out of school and end up messed up in the criminal justice system. the high school dropouts are much more likely to end up in prison. those who graduate from high school and go to college are much less likely to get caught up in the criminal justice system. when you look at the costs of incarceration and affordable welfare, if we had made the investments in education to get young people on the right track and keep them on the right track, we wouldn't have had to make those expenditures in criminal justice and social service programs. and so education is extremely important and much more

intelligent use of the taxpayers' money, investing in education, rather than waiting for young people to drop out of school, mess up, join a gang and get into a bidding war as to how much time they are going to serve in prison. i saw an article in new york, for every juvenile incarcerated, they spend $200,000 a year locking up juveniles. california has the same number, over $200,000 per year per juvenile. and just think of what kind education could have been provided a few years before to make sure that the young people got on the right track and stayed on the right track. investments in education are not only good for the economy and not only good for the community but save more money than they cost when you look at the the cost of educating the next jon ration. ms. moore: i come from a community where there is a great deal of discussion about

failures of students in fourth grade reading tests, failure of students in the eighth grade math test. so i'm interested in your description of how the trio programs really provide an intervention, as it were, in admittedly a systemic failed process up through middle school. and the trio programs, as i have come to understand them intervene literally in kids' lives in middle schools through the upward bound program, for example, through talent search. really identify that next generation of students who have the capability and the capacity to go to college to really keep our country on top and many

countries do this. they have done it for generations. they have identified kids in middle schools and despite the incapacity of that family based on their income to put their kids in private schools, to give them tutoring, the trio programs intervene in middle school and put them on a college track. and here are some of the data and statistics. i guess i want you to respond to. first of all, in terms of low-income students and not talking about any particular race or anything, because as i understand it, 37% of those students enrolled in trio are white students, 35% are african american, 19% are hispanic, 4% are native americans, 22,000 of these students in trio are dis

aked students and 25,000 are veterans. so here, we have a really diverse group of students who take advantage of these trio programs, but they have one thing in common, they're all low-income students. they're all students who are disadvantaged by not having wealthy parents who can send them to prep schools and here, this is -- these are students that we are depending upon to become that next generation of engineers and scientists and biologists and people who are going to correct the conditions of our lakes and forests and be these innovateors, but only -- of all the low-income students, only 41% enroll in college. and there is some -- you know, after six years in these student

support services, we find 31% of these students actually obtain a bachelor's degree and only 21%, literally 10% fewer of them graduate from college when you've only given them a pell grant . i guess that's one of the problems that you have tried to share with us today that if you're going to spend $27 billion and make that kind of important investment in financial aid, it sure is important to give these students the wraparound services that they need, perhaps remediation in math and reading, some support services. i'll tell you a little story, if you will indulge me, mr. scott. i was pregnant at 18 years old when i graduated from high school.

and i was not headed to college. as a matter of fact, i was at the boys and girls club, i was at the boys club watching the boys play basketball when a young man walked up to me and said, the director of the educational opportunity program in marquette is looking for you and he said he wants you to come down there right away. and that's how i ended up in college, 18 years old, pregnant and what these programs do is they actually interrupt the poverty cycle. they actually interrupted the outcome for me to just be a welfare mom, receiving food stamps with no hope of ever making an important contribution to society. and so, i think that if we're looking at a long-term bang for

our buck, these trio programs and increasing the funding for these trio programs will certainly do that because we can't afford the downward slide that you have described. i'm not sure that people have really understood the seriousness of this. you mentioned that we are probably in the middle of the pack. and according to the organization for economic cooperation and development, we're about 15th among 29 industrialized countries in college completion rates and that really has consequences, because when you look at china and japan and south korea, these are countries that are now the innovators in the world. they're producing the engineers. there used to be a time that you saw chinese students sitting in american universities.

you don't really see that nism. they're staying at home -- see that anymore. they are staying at home and obtaining their degrees. president obama has indicated that he is -- he has a goal of producing the highest proportion of graduates, college graduates in the world by 2020. and to reach that goal, this pell grant increase is a part of that program. he also wants to expand the reach of community colleges, invest federal money in research and data collection, other reforms to the student loan program and simplify the student aid process. and i'm wondering, the gentleman from virginia,, you know, whether or not those are very good intentions, but i guess i'd

like you to respond to -- i mean your experience on the education committee, whether or not just simply providing financial aid and collecting data will get us there. mr. scott: if the gentlelady would yield. one of the things we have to do is make sure we get all of our students headed towards college. you mentioned the impact of finances and income of parents. one factor is that many parents never went to college and there is not an expectation of -- that their children will go to college. if your parents went to college, there is an expectation you will go to college, too. not an expectation of whether you go to college, but which college you will go to. it's an expectation. when you do not have parents that went to college and this is one of the main focuses of the trio program, they want to

develop that expectation. when i was in college, i was an upward bound counselor and i could see in the program the profound change in attitude that young people had as the summer went on. at the beginning of the summer, i remember you could ask young people, what are your plans for the future? and they would start telling you their plans for the weekend. later in the program, you would say what are your plans for the future and tell you what courses they needed to take in high school to get into college and courses in college in order to get into law school or medical school. they planned their future a lot longer than just the weekend. when you have a different perspective and start having an expectation that my future includes college, a lot of things happen. one, you are less likely to use drugs and get caught up in delinquency because you know that will adversely affect your

future. so just the fact that you are looking at a future, you are much more likely to get on the right track and get on the right track to actually achieve those goals. ms. moore: would the gentleman yield? you indicated, i heard you say that we need to get all of our kids prepared to go to college. and i'm wondering if we aren't concerned about class warfare. we talked about those parents who are not low income. they have gone to college and had a college fund for their children early on. and perhaps these are parents who might feel somewhat resentful that there's a program out there that provides supportive services for low-income students, as i indicated. 41% of low-income students -- i

mean, if you're not an athlete and you can win a scholarship, if you're not summa cum laude, you might not have access to scholarship funds. what would you say to those parents about the need to make sure we have access to all students to college? . mr. scott: one of the things we found on the crimes subcommittee is that so many of our young people are not graduating from high school and some -- in some states, in some schools and they're called dropout factories, half of the children who go to those schools fail to graduate. it's important if we're going to have any kind of society that we encourage young people to go to college because at least that means they'll get through high school. if you do not pay for education

you will pay for welfare and crime. and so the important for us as a society to make sure that we invest in education so we won't have as much to pay for in crime and welfare and also we'll have an educated work force so that when businesses come to the community and consider moving their businesses to your community you'll have a good educational work force, well educated work force to show off and you'll also demonstrate that if they bring their business here, their workers will have access to a good education. so it's in everybody's best interest to have a well educated work force and to make the investments in education. the pell grants make sure that everybody can have access, significant reduction in interest on student loans that's taken place in the last few years, and a lot of things we're doing and we're helping -- helping colleges, we've made significant investments in colleges and now they can help

their students. a lot of things we've been doing but the main focus has got to be to get young people into college and once they get into college to make sure they have the support services, the trio programs will provide, to make sure they can actually graduate. ms. moore: thank you. will the gentleman yield? mr. scott: i yield. ms. moore: i was just looking at an article that was published in "forbes" magazine recently called "investing in american future" and one of the points the author made was that in california 2/5 of the state's jobs are expected to require college degrees by the year 2020. but the number of adults with those credentials will fall short. so the not just a matter of providing an opportunity for middle class and upper class students, i think we've been joined by congresswoman sheila jackson lee who has spoken often

about the need for businesses to have educated -- an educated work force, i've heard her speak very passionately about how there are so many requests among our business leaders for foreign students to come into the country because we don't have an educated work force and so the gentleman, i'd like you to respond to that. mr. scott: you mentioned 2/5 require college but more that than -- than that require some education past the high school level. some kind of training, some kind of education, maybe not a four-year college or two-year college or career training corps so you can understand your -- learn your trade. most jobs will require -- there used to be a time when you could get a low skill job, keep it for 40 years and then retire. the jobs of today require continual learning, life long learning.

you've got to be retrained. a lot of jobs will become obsolete. instead of one job for a long time, most people have four or five or six jobs during their careers and it's important to make sure that you can learn and you have life long learning so you can keep up with the new jobs. most -- 40% require college but virtually all of them, good jobs, will require some kind of education past the high school level. ms. moore: thank you so much. i was wondering, i'm so happy this evening that we've been joined by congresswoman sheila jackson lee from houston, texas, and i would yield to her at this time. ms. jackson lee: let me thank the distinguished gentlelady from the great state of wisconsin for her persistence in the work that i found her doing when i visited her district some several years ago. she has been persistent and consistent and i'm delighted to

join her this evening along with my friend and colleague from virginia. i served with bobby scott as the chairman of the subcommittee on crime, but he has redefined that committee and he realizes with his experience on the education and labor committee that we're going down the wrong direction and i combined the idea of steering people away from a life of crime or the mistakes that we've made in the criminal justice system with the poor response that we have given to our education system. you know, i really think that we took our education system for granted. it was there, we were at a point in our lives in the 19th century, the 20th century, most particularly when we were really churning in the economy and we were at the cutting edge of invention, we had television, we were doing transister radios, we did the telephone. we were really, if you will, at

the peak of the envy of all the world. and we took for granted that individuals would start school, public schools, by the way, and they would finish school and some would finish high school but they would still be at an economic level that they could provide for their families and others went to college. so i'm listening and listening to this discussion about our international competitiveness and i read this sentence to you, america no longer has the smartest students or the smartest work force in the world. i will take issue with that and say that we have the smart people but we have not cultivated them and provided them the support system that a trio provides, a steering, it's almost as if you had a playing field and you told people to just get out on that playing field, there were no guidelines, there were no basis -- bases so make, there were no touchdowns to make and what would you get? you have very poor results. but if you had some guidelines, if you told them that they had to go from one point to the next, that they had to kick the ball into the field goal area,

they had to make a touchdown or they had to hit a home run. and that's why i've come to the floor today because i want to share these statistics, but i want to refute these statistics and i want to say, it's time now to go back to the old, to reinvent -- reinvest in our education as if we cared about it. so let me cite these numbers that may have already been put into the record but i believe it's important that show that 2007 trends in international mathematics and science study, which is really a baby of mine, i've been on or served on the science committee for 12 years and in that my emphasis was math and science and nasa and what nasa can do to inspire young people to want to be scientists and mathematicians. it measures the math and science knowledge of fourth graders. our students don't perform like those in competitor nations. only 10% of u.s. fourth graders and 6% of u.s. eighth graders scored at or above the international average in math.

that means that 94% of our eighth graders are getting beat by countries like singapore, hong kong, england and russia, and pakistani students scored better in math than our fourth graders. that means there's a legitimate argument for trio. trio provides the kind of road map that gives you the support system that really causes students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get to the finish line, to be able to kick the goal, to make the touchdown, to make the home run. and i believe that we've been lax in the funding, you know, it's always easy to cut funding for the vulnerable. we don't have to roar which are about -- worry about any funding for the vulnerable because their voices cannot be heard. we know that just across the country the university of either southern california or berkeley has students who are picketting

and sitting in for weeks because of tuition increases. so we know our disadvantaged students are more disadvantaged as they raise tuition costs and they don't have a support system. so, for example, here's what trio has done. college rates for trio versus nontrio students, all local income students, 40% enroll in college. 77.3%, upward bound students. upward bound math students, 86.35% and talent search, 79%. what is there to convince that trio works? that the support system works? student support services, low income bachelor degree attainment with a six-year period, student support services, 30.9% receive pell but no support. 21%, way down, receive neither pell nor support. 8.9%, they just don't make it. ms. moore: will the gentlelady yield? ms. jackson lee: i'll be happy to yield.

ms. moore: this is the question i have for my colleagues here. if the so clear as you've indicated, the gentlelady from texas, that trio works, if it's so clear as the gentleman from virginia has indicated that we need, in order to remain globally competitive and to continue to be the innovative country and to really devolve away to develop and crealt new revenues for our country, i mean -- create new revenues for our country, i mean, we're not just going to cut spending and raise taxes and have that be adequate for remaining a first class nation, if it's true that we don't have enough upper class students who are graduating from colleges that we can afford to ignore low income white students, low income african-american students, low income hispanic students, low income asian students, disabled students, veterans, who are in these programs, if we can't

afford to ignore them, we've got to grab them and educate them so that we can meet those goals in that bar. why has trio been flat funded? what are the consequences of the fact that trio was flat funded during fiscal year 2006 and 2008? had just a minimal increase in 2009, a minimum increase in 2010 and god bless them, our appropriations chair, dave obey, added $20 million to trio this cycle but after all of the negotiations with the senate, only $5 million was retained in that program. what are the consequences of reducing these vital services to trio students and our remaining competitiveness in the world? we need at least $200 million

for this program. ms. jackson lee: if the gentlelady would yield, you're eloquent in crafting the frustrations that you experience and so many of us experience and you know what the answer is? they just don't get it. not the friends and allies who work so hard, chairman of the appropriations committee on the house side, so many members who understand what trio means, but the overall thinkers about education and how to cut dollars just don't get it. trio costs an average of about $1,000 pursuant to per year. $1,000. pell is estimated to spend approximately $25 billion helping over seven million students get aid. the combination of a trio effort for a student counters the tragedy and let me just retract that word and not utilize tragedy, but when you look at it and you say, we are the country that spent the 20th century

inventing everything the world now uses, when we think of china we're glad that it has made gigantic steps of development, it still is a developing nation, but all and a lot of what china has made its economic rise on has been what we invented in the 20th century and now they make it in a more cheaper manner. so what we're losing, we're losing the genius of our invention and inventiveness. h. 1-b is what you're talking about. they've become the popular response to i'm not going to worry about the fact that our children don't know math and science. forget about it. we'll just import thousands upon thousands. i have no quarrel with them. we just stood today and introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill. there is no quarrel with the idea that this nation is a nation of laws and immigrants, but there is a quarrel when we throw to the side those disabled, those veterans, those

disadvantaged students, those single parents, children who have a single parent who would not have the ability to follow through on college, so what do we lose? again, we lose the ability to invent for the next generation, we lose the scientific minds that are going to be at the cutting edge of finding the right kind of cure for hiv-aids or stopping h1n1 pandemic or finding a cure for cancer or being able to fix crumbling bridges. this is what we lose and frankly i believe we are long overdue for the wreck oning that comes with -- wreckons that coming with the idea that we are ignoring our children. . i would like to talk about advanced classes. you polled and found out how

many of those classes are being kept, advanced placement. they're all about budgets. we don't respect or appreciate how much money good education can generate. and i think that we lose our rightful competitive place in the world and i would rather invest $1,000 in trio than $1,000 in making war and taking a chance of losing one of our bright young men or bright young women who has gone on the front lines. we appreciate them. but what i'm saying is we should give equal opportunity for those who either after their military service or in the midst of their military service or that they want to go to school, we should give them the opportunity to do so. and that's what trio is all about. i would be happy to yield. ms. moore: my colleague

representative scott is a great mentor of mine and he is an expert on one of the subjects that really consumed a great deal of time on this floor and in our committees, and that's the subject of the budget deficit and how we dig ourselves out of this hole. and i guess i was wondering if he would share -- i'm sort of surprising him with this question, but i guess i would like for him to talk about the revenue options or the cutting options or how we got into this fiscal hole that we're in and what the role of educating and having an educated workforce will have on us ever being able to approach some sort of deficit reduction. and i would yield to the gentleman. mr. scott: there are direct consequences of spending more money on education, one of which is that the average income of

those who you have invested in, average income will go up. from a budget perspective, as more taxable income. those that you invest in will be able to help fund the government. there -- that is on the plus side. on the minus side, if you don't educate people, they will be involved in crime and welfare, expenditures. you end up with more expenditures. we need to make sure we make these investments in education so more and more of these students are going to college. and we know what works. we know that trio works. the trio program, talent search, upward bound, math, science, all help students think about college and get them on track. student support services, educational opportunity centers and achievement programs help

students once they get to college. they are much more likely to graduate and complete their education, making sure they will be much more contributing members of society. and we know they work. there are currently 2,800 programs serving low-income and first generation students. you can only imagine that without trio, many of these students wouldn't even be thinking about college. and if you just look around the country, many of these programs have waiting lists, young people that are trying to get the help of a trio program, but because we haven't funded them adequately, there aren't enough slots and have to languish and perhaps not get into education. we need to make sure those investments are there. if we are looking long-term in the budget, we need to make sure people are self-sufficient, not

dependent on government and investments we make long-term are investments we need to be making. ms. moore: thank you so much for that, gentleman. the department of education really bears this out. they say a high school dropout earns about $18,000 a year, that is if they are not costing us money in the prison system. a high school graduate, $26,000 and associate's degree, 38,000 and bachelor's degree, $65,000. and we consider our aging baby boomers, we need to make sure we have a lot of higher income individuals working toward all of these innovations that we are so capable of. scott scolt if we don't make the investments that we are talking about today, we may end up -- this may be the first generation that has a lower achievement of education than the previous

generation. many children of college-educated parents are not going to college. and we're just very close to have this generation less educated than the last. first time in american history that has ever taken place. ms. moore: wow. penny-wise and pound-foolish. i started this hour out by talking about all of the competing problems that we discuss on this floor, you know the cost of the war, cost of health care, cost of medicare and social security, those entitlement programs, the cost of escalating the war in afghanistan, the great recession, we are at its height, 700,000 jobs lost in a single

month, bailout funds for the too big to fail institutions. and so, if we allow ourselves to get mired down in this and decide that $200 million for education programs is too much money, that would be the perfect place to talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish, wouldn't you agree? mr. scott: i would agree and we have introduced the act that looks at investing in our young people getting them on the right track rather than waiting for them to drop out of school and get arrested and incarceration. if we take that approach, you are able to save money. comprehensive approach to juvenile crime, one in pennsylvania, where they spent $60 million in investing in young people and they saved $300

million. and those kinds of results happen all over the country when you take the comprehensive approach making sure young people can get on the right track and stay on the right track and get out of the cradle-to-prison pipeline and get to cradle-to-workforce pipeline or cradle-to-college pipeline. that is cheaper to construct than the cradle-to-prison pipeline where you spend huge sums of money locking up people. if we make the right investments and getting young people on the right track and keeping them on the right track, we not only have a better society, but the budget will look better. ms. moore: thank you so much. that is amazing information. the gentlelady from texas, i would love to hear what you have to say on this matter.

ms. jackson lee: i think this discussion should be a road map, but it also should be a prime mere -- primer, a tu torial, we should heed some of the comments that have been made and i would like to build on the criminal justice system which has grown. i would say to the gentlelady that there are millions of persons or at least a million persons in our prison system throughout the nation. it is known to be the largest prison system in the civilized world and called the prison industrial complex because there is so much money spent in incarcerating persons and does not seem we have gotten it again to invest on the front end. according to the national center for education statistics which study the math skills of

15-year-olds through industrialized countries, our united states students ranked 25th internationally. why? probably not embraced by the trio concept. high school students, 75%. i realize that trio goes forward into the college area, but it means that these students are not getting support earlier. high school graduation, 75% of high school students graduate within four years. 25% of our students are left behind. today, one in 10 still lack a high school degree. and according to the alliance for excellent education, 76% of white students graduate in a four-year period, compared to 55% of hispanic students and 51% of african-american students. we need inspiration. the alliance estimates that high school dropouts from the class of 2008, listen to this number -- will cost the united states

$319 billion in lost wages over their lifetime. is there any defense for not supporting trio, for not funding it to the max so that we can draw these students through the high school period into the college and then see them graduate and invest that $319 billion into the economic engine of this economy and have them on the other side, having skills that are markettable skills? and i start out by saying, we have been cited as not having the smartest students in this century or this time frame. and i said no, these are smart students. we just have not given them the rules or laid out the plan and not directed them or provided them the trio support system that can be so helpful in providing the kind of economic engine for america. so in this climate of high unemployment and all of this talk about creating jobs, we cannot ignore america's

education system for our children. ms. moore: thank you so much gentlelady from houston, texas. and thank you my dear friend and colleague on the budget committee and also on the education and labor committee. before we close out this hour, i just want to sort of summarize what we have said here this evening. we really admire this congress and our president for really revamping tuition and making adequate tuition a priority. it has been so important to revisit how we make student loans so we just don't provide funding for bankers and actually use those funds for students to simplify student forms. it's even important to invest in research about educational outcomes. it has been very, very important to have seen the dramatic increase in the pell grants, because without this tuition

assistance, students would not be able to make it. tuition assistance is a vital component in helping low-income and first-generation students or any student get through college. without these dollars, higher education would be unobtainable for millions of students who rely on pell to pay the bills. but all too often, pell is a wasted investment for our low-income kids, because they don't have access to guidance counselors and tutors and the other types of support that comes from the trio program. it doesn't do the students or our country much good if we spend millions on first-year pell recipients only to have those students drop out after their second or third year. that's not a sound investment. a sound investment is making sure that when we commit to provide educational resources

for our most vulnerable kids, we give them all the tools to successfully see that journey through. that's why we're here today. this congress has drastically increased vital funding for pell grants. and i have been and will continue to be a staunch supporter of that increased investment, but i also know that millions of those dollars will be wasted unless we also invest in the tools to get these students through college. and more importantly, our country, our country, our beloved country that we love so much and love so dearly and a country that has given us an amazing lifestyle of modern living is at risk if we don't educate the future workforce. and we got to start with our tiny tots in early education.

that's a long-term goal. right now, we are having an emergency, emergency. students are either not graduating from high school or they're graduating with deficiencies. and in order to step up, we need trio programs, a modest amount of funding, $200 million in the scheme of things. nothing like we are spending on all the other crises in this country would help these programs serve those students who are on waiting lists. and with that, i would yield to the gentleman from virginia. . mr. scott: thank you. i want to thank the gentlelady from wisconsin for her hard work. she's indicated, benefited from the trio program so she knows firsthand as i do as a counselor in college, i spent three years as a counselor in upward bound programs, noticing the profound change from the beginning of the

program to the end of the program. we need to make sure these opportunities and this guidance is made -- this guidance is made available to all students to make sure they can get into college and then to support services once they get there so they can graduate. these are important programs and i thank the gentlelady for organizing this special order and i thank the gentlelady from texas for joining us. ms. moore: thank you so much. ms. jackson lee: if i may. ms. moore: the gentlelady may use the rest of our time. ms. jackson lee: a word of appreciation for you and a picture is worth a thousand words. these tall bars, if they can be seen, shows what happens to upward bound participants, much higher than the little low bar here that shows students without assistance and one last point, that one in nine african-american -- african-american men are more likely to be in jail than if they have a graduate degree. we can lock up people but we can also break that chain, open the door to opportunities. the gentlelady has told and

expressed to us her story, it's a powerful story and i would say we need to give everyone the same chance that so many of us have had for a great opportunity. ms. moore: well, this has been great, this has been fantastic and i would say that the importance of of this program is the diversity. it is not a program that just benefits one gripe of people. 37% -- one group of people. 37% of trio students are white. 35% are african-americans, 19% are hispanics, 4% are native americans, 22,000 of trio's students are disabled students and 25,000 are our beloved veterans. this is a program that embraces every american from all backgrounds and makes sure that money is not the reason that you cannot use your brain. talk about a brain drain, it's a brain drain when the only thing that stands between you and greatness is an education.

thank you so much and good night. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. ms. moore: mr. speaker, i would now ask -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. moore: thank you, mr. speaker. i would now ask -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair would ask the gentlewoman to suspend.

the speaker pro tempore: %

>> senators joe lieberman and susan collins comment on the fort hood shooting investigation. and richard holbrooke discusses u.s. policy in afghanistan. from the white house, illinois governor pat quinn and senator durbin discuss the federal government's deal to purchase an illinois prison to house guantanamo bay detainees. >> we want to welcome everybody. we received a letter today from the secretary of state and the secretary of defense and attorney general and secretary of homeland security and the bureau of national security, indicating that thomson, illinois, is selected to be the prison in a land of lincoln to incarcerate detainee's from guantanamo bay. as well as the site of a new federal prison that will be

located in western illinois. we believe in security and safety at all times. this will be the most secure prison in america. no one has ever escaped from a federal prison. the security enhancements. at the thomso -- at the presenty vacant for about eight years, will make it the most secure a maximum security prison in our country of all time. we think that is important to protect the safety of our state as well as the whole country. it is important to note that any detainee's that are going to be incarcerated at this prison will only be allowed to speak to their lawyer. they will not have any visitors. this means a lot for our state in terms of economic opportunity. we are in a depressed area of illinois. severe unemployment. more than 3000 jobs will be created. more than $1 billion in purchasing power brought by having a new federal prison.

a great majority of the prison that will be housed, a federal prison house? thomsowill bed at thomson somer country needs. it is make sure we -- it is important that we incarcerate people that that are a threat to society. i join with senator durbin. received letters from the community as well as other communities nearby. since this became known, more than 30 county boards, city councils, chambers of commerce have passed resolutions of support. local community is united in wanting to have this prison located at thomson, illinois. we look forward to working with the federal government to make sure this is done right. we always believe in helping our country. the most important thing we can do and the war against terrorism

is work together, work behind our military to make sure our country is safe and sound and democracy is safe. >> i will have senator durbin speak out. for several years now, it is unclear that we need to close guantanamo. it was a decision made under the bush a administration, supported by robert gates, supported by general colin powell, general petraeus and president obama. part of the decision on closing guantanamo is to decide where to transfer the remaining detainees. we estimate they will be fewer than 100 altman be transferred out of guantanamo. the president came forward and asked governor quiinn and myself whether and i would accept that responsibility. we have looked at it carefully and closely. we have done that with the understanding that the people of our state of illinois have risen to the challenge to serve this

nation. we do it every day. our men and women and list in the military and risk their lives illinois was the first state in the nation to build a federal super max prison. we have done that before and we are doing that again. we believe this is in service to our country to make sure that guantanamo is phased out and the threat it poses to us all around the world is eliminated. secondly, this is a great opportunity. our state unemployment numbers, the most recent ones, were 11%. in western illinois, even higher. people are desperate for good jobs. the jobs we are talking about are some of the best. over 3000 new employees in this area, half of them from local people who would be getting jobs with the paychecks and could benefit packages. these are jobs to build a family, build a neighborhood, built a town in the community. that is what we need. there have been critics of this.

but we went to the source. we went to the people in the area would be affected by this decision. the support for this present is overwhelming. and it is bipartisan. at every level. people understand we can safely and securely hold fewer than 100 guantanamo detainees and 15 or 16 -- 1560 -- 1500 or 1600 prisoners and the federal bureau of prisons. this will be the same as prison in america. president obama made the right choice for our country. his home state stands behind him. we see this as a great opportunity to not only serve our country but provide meaningful jobs for a lot of people desperate for work. >> thank you p. i want to thank the governor and the senator for their strong support in bringing to resolution a national security issue of the highest order.

and thank the people of illinois at this important time. in taking this action, we are removing from terrorist organizations around the world a recruiting tool that guantanamo has come to symbolize, in recruiting terrorists and potential terrorists, warriors of the future that would harm our nation and see to alter the way we live. we think by taking this action, guantanamo will soon be closed. and that we know that this facility will be extremely secure. we also know the military personnel will staff the security and the people who run the security also know how to do this in a safe and secure way. this is going to be a facility that will be very safe. it will pose no danger to the

community. we will take all steps necessary to maintain that the security of the people of illinois and the surrounding neighborhoods and enhance our national security. thank you very much to you senator and governor for stepping forward on behalf of the people of illinois. we are most grateful to you. >> this group is said -- [inaudible] >> would he say the same thing about president bush's call to close guantanamo? would he say the same thing about secretary gates, who served under both administrations? that they somehow forgot 9/11. that is an understatement. we will never forget. we will make sure the people responsible are held accountable, to military tribunals or through the courts. >> our new housing is people indefinitely? >> we will appeal to members of

congress, many of wondered where this was going to be resolved. i think the president, in coming to his home state, made it clear that we think this is not only a safe facility but a great opportunity for our state. we hope to get bipartisan support. >> what is the funding level? >> i can tell you we are still negotiating between the state and federal government. the prison costs $145 million. >> it was built in 2001. we have a commission, advisory commission that will have a hearing all week from today near thomson to answer all questions. the sole authority for selling the present rests with the government. -- the prison rest with the government. we will try to get a fair market value. we will have appraisal's taken. >> talking about the federal

monies? -- that is being sent up to the hill to refurbish or add on to it? >> it says so and the bill in department of defense as well. we do not have -- >> what about the military tribunals? >> i do not know the answer to that. >> it came up today, that there is not going to be military commission trials. >> it is not a new development. . .

>> have you been told how long the construction of the upgrades will take? is there a timeline? >> governor quinn -- [inaudible] >> mitch mcconnell also commented on the guantanamo detainees agreement. here are his remarks to reporters. >> public observation on the effort to move to guantanamo prisoners to western illinois. gitmo norrith is something the american people are clearly opposed to. it is outrageous to suggest this is a good federal government jobs program. current law permits moving these

detainees to the united states for long-term detention, so if the administration proposes to shut down guantanamo and move these prisoners to western illinois, they are going to out do change the law -- going to have to change the law, and it is a waste of a perfect facility for this purpose, a state-of- the-art facility with courtrooms for the trials, all presumably to make of popular in europe. it is not a popular decision in the united states, and i think this will continue to be a big issue, particularly in illinois because the people of illinois are going to be turned into a target for potential terrorist attacks.

i was hoping he would reconsider, but he did not. >> the chairman and ranking member on the homeland security committee speak. >> as part of the homeland security committee of investigation of the fort hood murders of department of defense personnel allegedly by major hasan, and we are focused on a government oversight investigation to learn from this incident so we make sure both the department of defense, justice, and any other branches of government take action that will come to the best of their ability, prevent anything like the hasan murders again. we heard from the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, karl schneider, secretary of the

army for manpower, and army major general, the commander general of medical command at walter reed medical center korean regina -- walter reed medical center. our purpose was to do look at information sharing and what should have occurred according to existing procedures between the joint terrorism task force of the justice department' and within the army and what are the existing army personnel policies regarding extremism in military them we heard previous testimony from jack keene that expressed concern that the existing military policies regarding extremists whom were basically

back in the cold war, and if they had been updated, were updated appropriately but not enough to cover cases 0 white separatism and racism -- to cover cases of white supreme in -- supreme some and racism. we wanted to do this without compromising the criminal investigation, but the department of defense would not agree, so the interest in proceeding with our investigation, we did a closed briefing. i would say generally it has taken too much time to gain the cooperation and consent of the executive branch of government.

this is a classic struggle. the executive branch has a responsibility to proceed commode but so do we, to try to protect people who serve in the military from the deadly attack like the one carried out. i feel we have turned a corner and last week in our attempt to gain access for staff interviews for personnel at the department of defense, the department of justice, etc. we're roid to hold another close during hopefully quite soon, -- we are going to hold another closed hearing hopefully quite soon. apparently someone happened upon a major hasan's name as the topic of a terrorist investigation, who has been regarded as the topic of radical imam.

i hope we have turned a corner that will enable us to carry on our responsibilities and make recommendations to the start constructive without interfering with a criminal investigation. >> i share in the -- cheer the determination to better understand the shortcomings led to the failure to share critical information in this case. today's briefing for their advance our understanding and of land -- further advance our understanding and some of the gaffs in policy that prevented some potential sharing of information within the army and with other agencies involved region most notably, the joint terrorism task force. today ' was very helpful, but i

would be remiss if i did not express my disappointment in the head ministration -- in the administration's working of this case. it is clear the department of defense has been instructed to fully cooperate with the in ministration's reviews and investigations that appeared to not be under restrictions of any kind from the department of justice. it seems to mean the administration needs to record the same kind of cooperation to congress as we carry out our constitutional duty to exercise oversight in this area, so i am going to continue to press the administration to make available to the committee document and people, the weaknesses we need to undertake

the kind of investigation we're committed to undertaking. >> you talk about information sharing. hasn't been clear to you whether anyone under the umbrella learn about his communications feminist unfree -- his communications? >> there is not much i can say from this briefing, but that is the subject of inquiry. you know it has been reported publicly from unidentified sources that there is a judgment made in the joint terrorism task force once this e-mail appeared to not begin a formal investigation, and as far as we know from public sources now, all but was done was a computer

check of his personnel file in the central database for the military, so that is a very relative question. the key question is what was the quality of the judgment made once this e-mail appeared, being the subject of a terrorist investigation allegedly, and the question was was a shared with anyone, and if it had been shared, what would they have found in the personnel file, and that goes to the question today, which is what our existing procedures regarding the requirement to report conduct by a fellow service member the raises questions

about whether the service member may a threat to other service members. >> on the health care bill, as senator reid -- >> i will come back to that, but i would welcome first questions about the investigations. >> the more sedate about the gaps you are talking about. what exactly was not done that should have been done? can you also talked about the e- mail is? did you learn anything more about their content? >> we cannot say any more, but the questions we are asking our -- i go to the public hearing -- others testified awhile back that existing army personnel regulations dealing with the extremism, subversion, mostly our cold war era procedures. they are related to a different

kind of threat, and that is troubling. it is eight years after 9-11, so it is time to upgrade that information and create sensitivity without compromising. we want muslim americans in the u.s. military, so the question is not to inhibit that but to have a system -- one somebody seems to be sending warning signals, to please begin with some inquiries. are you ok? what has happened it does not appear the military has of david personal of policies to reflect the threat of extremism. the military has well-developed policies for reporting individuals who have been approached by foreign powers if.

that is the cold war aspect. in addition, the army has love- developed policies to deal with white supremacist groups region well-developed policies to deal with white supremacist groups. it does not appear the military has reacted quickly enough to the preeminent threat of today, and that is islamic extremism, so there appears to be a real gap in the protocols in the personnel procedures, and that is one of the issues we are exploring. >> ahead and finish your question. >> you mentioned the

administration closed the briefing on what you thought it should be open. what reason did they give for closing? >> we would like a private access. this is basics of about procedure, what the task force is. they did not want it, and we could get into issuing subpoenas, but it is not worth the battle. our aim was to make recommendations. let's do that in a closed session for did it was a very productive session. we're going to proceed and do the same with the department of justice, and the most important in we want -- the and ministration turned toward cooperation after conversations we had