is helpful in producing jobs, but the federal government when it tries to hire people, all that does is take jobs away from the private sector. all of these things are job killers. so let's go in a more positive light and say, what do you do to create jobs? it's the reverse of these things. you might even have some trouble in a couple of areas, but doing well in some other areas and you can create jobs. this is a prime mere on this whole bit about the problem with unemployment in america is not really that complicated when you understand that the jobs come largely from these 500 smaller employee-sized companies and created by the fact that those companies and the owner of those companies have enough money they can invest in their company and do the new processes and

innovations and ideas that americans are so great in doing and that's what the economy strong and what makes jobs. . we have here a cartoon, the president speaking to small businessmen. the president is saying, give me one good reason you're not hiring. what do we have coming into the china shop? three big bulls. one is the health care referendum, cap and trade, or cap and tax. then there's -- another is a war tax. well, the point here, in a cartoon form, obviously the bulls are not going to have a good influence on the china shop. the president doesn't seem to get what's going on with the businessman. he's not looking too excited about good reason for why you're not hiring with these guys coming in the door. let's take this back to what we were just talking about. the health care reform.

health care reform was going to introduce probably in a minimum $1 trillion worth of spending, or close to it. and so what happens if the government does a whole lot of spending? they're going to do a whole lot of taxing. guess who is going to be taxed with all -- several different types of taxes to pay for socialized medicine? it was going to be the small businesses man. so what have you done relative to our chart here when you have the senate and the house has already passed this trillion-dollar socialized medicine bill, has all these mandates on small business, what have you done in terms of jobs when you pass a socialized medicine? you're creating economic uncertain dity because the bill hasn't passed, we don't quite know what's going to happen. there's uncertainty. there is also the slowdown in the economy, which is not helped by a tremendous level of spending and debt, excessive

taxation. of course the taxation in the -- in this bill, in the socialized medicine bill, is going to fall very heavily on these small business owners. if you take their money away and force them to provide health care, they're going to have incentive, one, to get rid of employees because they can't afford them anymore because the health care is so expensive for them, so they'll find a way to get rid of employees, and what they'll do because of excessive taxation, they won't be investing in new things. then cap and trade, cap and tax, bull number two, that's the large tax that was going to be part of the solution to global warming. we're going to talk about that a little bit too. that also had a very, very large tax associated with it, not only did it have a very big tax to increase the cost of energy, it had a very large tax in terms of red tape.

in fact, i suppose that the red tape and the amount of additional federal authority to regulate anything in the energy area, including even how individual american citizens' houses are built that is building codes at the federal level, building codes, regulating how you build your house and whether it has the proper carbon footprint or green footprint, all in this bill with not only the large education tax in history but also a great deal of red tape. these are all things that hurt jobs. should we be surprised that we're getting a high level of unemployment? we should not be surprised. we're breaking all the basic laws. well, as congressman akin i'll comment on this. we were told we needed to pass a $787 billion stimulus bill.

and what was the idea of the stimulus bill? the idea was that government is going to spend a whole lot of money and by spending money, the economy is going to be better. now, that entire premise is suspect. if the economy was going to be better by us spending money, we would have one of the most robust, healthy economies in the whole world. we wouldn't have any unemployment. we would be going gang busters if federal spending was a thing that was going to make the economy good. but most people, with a little common sense, if your family budget is in trouble, the thing you're going to do is not run down to the local store with your credit card and stack up a whole lot of debt and spend like mad, unless you're a little bit nutty or had too much to drink. anyway, we were told that the thing to do is we've got to pass this $787 billion stimulus bill. we were told, if you don't pass it, you know what's going to

happen, america, and you congressmen representing americans if you don't pass this stimulus bill, you may see unemployment go up to 8% if you don't pass the stimulus bill. this is the president's forecast of the -- of what's going to happen if we pass a stimulus bill right here. this is 8% unemployment he says, we're going to keep it under 8% if you get this $787 billion into our hands to spend. and this is without the stimulus he said, this is what's going to happen. if you don't pass the stimulus, it's going to do this. of course the red line is what actually happened. is this red line a surprise? no it's not a surprise at all. i stood here six months ago on the floor and said this stimulus isn't going to work. is it because i'm smart or brilliant in no, it's simply because i know a little bit about history, i know what will and what will not work. if the democrats had known

something about history, they would have at a minimum learned something from a fellow democrat, this democrats' name was henry morgenthau, frank lip roosevelt's treasury secretary he appeared here in congress in 1939, and we have some old people in congress, not too many people probably remember henry morgenthau, but they could know something about history and about franklin delano roosevelt. here's what henry morgenthau said after eight years of spending money on -- it's called keynesian economics, henry morgenthau was a close buddy and associate with little lord keynes, he was a strange fellow, a british man, came up with this idea you could stimulate the economy by spending money. they went at it hammer and tongs.

at the end of the eight years, this is how well it worked. henry morgenthau appears before the house ways and means committee, we have tried spending money. we are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. that's pretty straightforward english. we've been spending money more than we ever did before and it doesn't work. i say after eight years of the administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot. and so, it's not rocket science to see that this idea of spending $787 billion that we don't have, it's not rocket science for us to be able to stand here six months ago and say, hey we hope it works, but it's not going to work, it's never worked in history before,

it's a lousy solution, it's going to make the problem worse. we said all of those things. dozens of people stood on this floor and said those things. and it's not because they're so smart, it's because we understand the basics of what it takes to make jobs. the thing that kills jobs is too much government spending. now, i will say about the stimulus bill that we put in place, it would have made henry morgenthau very uncomfortable. it wasn't even traditional, old-fashioned stimulus. old-fashioned stimulus might be making highways or building hydroelectric plants or hard job creation. this thing was more an expansion of welfare. it was giving money so that organizations like acorn could apply for community organizing and a lot of things that really were never going to create jobs in the first place or if they were, they were government jobs. those things, the result has been, look, we've got

unemployment by the time you get into the latter part of this year, up in excess of 10%, not 8% but 10% unemployment. that's not a big surprise. so today, what do we do? we passed many stimulus -- mini stimulus. little brother to big brother stimulus. this was, instead of $787 billion, only $150 billion today. did we learn anything from our experience? no. i think it was einstein who said if you repeat the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, you may be crazy. that's what we've done today. we came up with a junior stimulus bill and passed it on this floor and the people who voted for it were the democrats. they were a little reluctant in voting for it because it didn't work very well the first time when they did the stimulus and they're not so confident that it's going to work again. so what are we looking at in terms of obama-pelosi spending.

well, you've got the second half of the wall street bailout here, $350 billion. then you've got this economic stimulus thing that has not worked, we said it wouldn't work, it doesn't work, it will never work, yet they spend $787 billion -- they haven't spent it all, they're swapping it into other government programs. then the schip and appropriations, another $400 billion over there, i.m.f. bailout that chart is wrong, it's probably about $110 billion. then the house got excited about doing some serious spending, they passed a c57 and -- cap and tax, that global warming bill, let me see what the number of that is. get the chart turned around, $846 billion. the reason that's a little hazy is because the senators weren't brilliant enough to go along with this $800 billion cap and tax or cap and trade bill.

this is going to extend a huge government net over the energy business and it included probably -- it was probably worse in terms of red tape and government than it was in terms of its tax. the ironic thing is, i'm an engineer and the thing about this bill that's particularly frustrating is that it doesn't appear there's a consistency between the stated purpose and what the bill does. let's assume for a minute that global warming is an imminent threat. it's something we need to spend billions of dollars on. sometimes people don't call it global warming anymore because it isn't clear the planet is warming, so they call it climate change, but anyway, the theory runs along the lines that there are these various organic pollutants, particularly co-2, carbon dioxide, that's the bubbles in soda pop. the theory is, if man kind makes enough co-2, which we

make by burning carbon or coal or gasoline or diesel, we make crmbing o 2. if we make enough of this is that the co-2 reacts with other kinds of effects, particularly water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere and they amplify the event of the co-2 and the sun warms up and the climate gets hot and melts down. that's the idea. let's assume that were true and it was a bad thing to make co-2. i don't believe that is true, some of that is true. let's just say it was a big problem. we need to -- do wed need -- -- the federal government has the regula tir authority over building codes, how you put a wing in your house, it's not necessary at all.

let's say we wanted to reduce the co-2 in america reduce the co-2 by the amount -- of all the passenger cars that drive on the highways in america. let's say that's our objective. just to start with. we're worried about co-2, we want to make it so that it was the equivalent from a generation of co-2 of turning off all of the american passenger cars on our roads in america. that would be a pretty ambitious goal if you were worried about co-2, that would be a good place to start, maybe. how would you possibly accomplish something like that? the fact is, you could accomplish it relatively easily for much, much less money than what's here and much less government regulation. what you would have to do is simply take the coal-fired plants that produce 20% of america's electrical output and replace them with nuclear plants. we currently produce 20% of the electricity in america is

produced in nuclear plants. if we were to go from 20% to over a little over 40% nuclear generation, we would eliminate the co-2 from effectively every passenger car in america. that's not that complicated, and the nuclear plants are pretty efficient and over time, would probably prove to be not much different in cost than the dole--- coal-fired plants are. is that the objective, to get rid of crnching o 2. i've become a little cynical because the engineering solution to this problem is not where the legislation went in the house. . everything we're doing is killing jobs and we can't seem to understand why the small business can't make the jobs. and now we go onto the government health care proposal

passed here on this floor not so long ago. what's the price tag on that? well, even with a little bit of financial hocus-pocus, it is up near $1 trillion. we spent $1.8 trillion today, but that was for the appropriations for the defense of our country. but to add this big socialized sin -- medicine bill, this is going to bury our economy. congressman akin, are you being a little bit -- are you overstating your case? you are a republican and seems like you are bashing those democrats for overspending? didn't you under the bush administration spend too much money? let's look at that question. the worst deficit of the bush administration occurred in 2008 under the pelosi congress.

that worst deficit was $455 billion. that was a bad deficit. $4 5 billion. and maybe more effective number to say, what was that deficit as a percent of the gross domestic product of america? that's a way of looking at that number. that was 3.1%, which is actually fairly common as you look back over a number of presidents that they did that kind of spending. anyway, that was 2008 under a pelosi congress, push's worst spending, $455 billion. now, what happened this year? under pelosi congress and president obama, instead of $455, it was $1.4 trillion, three times more than bush's biggest spending, which i wasn't fond of his biggest spending.

i did not support some of the costliest elements that were there. this year, three times over what was with bush. than what does that do to our deficit as a percent of g.d.p.? we go from 3.1% to 9.9% of our debt to g.d.p., which is the highest level since world war ii. this track record here, it doesn't make a lot of sense, billions and trillions of dollars. what does this mean? when you put it? context, this year, three times more spending than bush's motion aggressive spending. we are making bush look like scrooge with the level of spending this year. what does that do? it affects employment and jobs, because that spending has to come out of the pockets of american taxpayers and some of those pockets, in fact some of the deep pockets are the people

that own the businesses that can no longer do the innovation and the improfments do create jobs. -- improvements to create jobs. and that's a very serious problem. you have to say that this is a new era of irresponsibility, the national debt of the united states at $16.17 trillion. in other words, have we been spending too much money? yeah, we sure have, but this year has been a regular budget buster and that is a serious, serious concern. and of course, in the long-term, the concern with medicare and medicaid growing over time, absorbing more and more of the budget. there is a certain level the american economy can sustain in taxes. if you raise the taxes higher, what happens? the economy suffers so badly that you don't collect any more money from the government. and that's overtaxing is pointed

out by a guy by the name of laffer. you think, well, look, we want to spend all this money because it's really good to take your global warming and pay for everybody, give them free health care with a socialized health care system and we have to do this here because there are all kinds of additional money we are giving to different people, wall street bailout, winners and losers, so we will be having to spend this wall street. and as people come back and pay back some of the wall street, now what we're going to do is turn that money around and give it to other businesses. now the government is playing in the private business. we have a president who fired the president of general motors. that would have raised eyebrows indeed. the problem is it's creating unemployment and the problem with jobs. it gets back to these things

here, which are just awfully simple but inflexible, immofble kinds of facts. when you follow the policy we have been doing, we are increasing red tape and government regulation. we are engaged in excessive government spending, unlike anything that's ever happened before in our history. we have a problem -- i haven't talked about this insufficient liquidity. we have about a perfect storm going on for small businesses in america, but here's what happened. the federal reserve, they don't actually print money, but it is called printing money. they have increased the liquidity in america and done that by a factor of 10 last year. if you look at the chart of the amount of m-1 money. it runs like a sawtooth and we get to last year, end of last year, this year and it jumps by a factor of 10.

so the federal reserve created all this money, boom, it printed a whole lot of it and that's available at a very low interest rate and the big banks have access to that. but the question is, does all that liquidity get down to the small businessman, because if you could get that liquidity into the hands of the small businessman and knock his taxation back, you dot the formula back chugging and churning. it's not the government that's going to fix this economy, but the american individuals, the free enterprise spirit of americans and the people who love freedom who have the ingenuity. i think i can do it and build my own business, and make a living for my family this way and the people have the courage to take the risk, to put the equipment together and put the system together, to put the invention together and america grows one dream at a time and they're the people that pull us out of

recession and it is those people that are hurting with excessive taxation. with this liquidity thing, the small bitses can't get their hands on money at a reasonable interest rate because this is what happened. that liquidity trickles down to the little banks and little banks get some of it and all of these regulators are running around and the bank is saying, man, i'm not going to loan money to any small business unless i know it's a slam dunk because i'm skating on a very thin edge. i have a lot of assets that my bank owns that aren't too strong and i'm afraid they are going to shut me down. i'm not go to go loan money to anybody that comes down the pike and when you do come down the pike, i'm going to charge you a pretty good interest rate. what happens is the small businessman who is intimidated because of the threats of all of

these taxations that are coming along, he is already intimidated, he has economic uncertainty and has to slow down the economy. he is getting excessive taxation and i haven't talked about the taxes. the bush tax cuts are expiring. so the death tax is coming back, the dividend tax, the capital gains taxes, all those are coming due because those tax things are expiring and going back and resetting at a higher rate. they see death tax, capital gains, dividends taxes and now seeing the other taxes, socialized medicine taxes and energy taxes and cap and trade and one other thing he has got coming and with that, he is thinking, i'm not sure i want to borrow anything. even if he does get the courage up to borrow something, he goes to the bank and the bank says

before i was giving you a couple percent or those loans, but now i'm going to get a little more interest from you, i think about 6% is what i want now. all of a sudden, the small businessman, even if he qualifies and has a strong business, it's going to be harder for him to get this liquidity. so aside from the taxation, excessive government spending, aside from the red tape and mandates, economic uncertainty and slowdown, now he is getting hit with a problem of liquidity. this is fairly close to a perfect storm for small business. and guess what? we aren't surprised that unemployment has been going on up. do we have good news? it is always nice to have good news. until we fix these things or at least a number of them, you aren't going to hear much about good news.

people will say we hit the bottom and everybody looks at these things like a cycle. doesn't have to be a cycle. f.d.r. turned the recession into a depression. we can follow into his footsteps. we don't have to follow that. we don't have to do all of this tremendous level of spending and taxation. it's not necessary. it's not what the republicans are proposing. we know it won't work and we have learned from morgenthau and other people as well. and what's the solution? well, actually, it is kind of interesting. one of the people that learned that the solution was j.f.k., a democrat. and what he did was what? he cut taxes. al democrat cutting taxes? he did. he understood the businesses have to have some breathing room and cut taxes and guess what? economy improved.

ronald reagan comes along. same basic idea. he says, we have a bad economy. how can we ever compete with the soviet union when our economy is all in trouble? what did he do? he had a huge tax cut, two or three times what george bush's tax cut was and called it trickle-down economics and everybody made fun of him until the economy took off like a horse and pulled us on ahead and continued to spend money on defense and bankrupted the soviet union and the berlin wall fell down and the western world was freed from the threat of an aggressive marx e marxist commune activity regime, he understood the basic principles. who has given us the model, j.f.k., ronald reagan and president bush all understood this principle you have to get

off the taxation and big government spending. here's the funny thing that's interesting and it was called supply-side economics. but here's how it worked and you could see in your own logic how it would be. let's see, someone appointed you to be king for a year. and the only thing you could tax was loaves of bread. and so you had the power to tax them. you start thinking in your own mind, how would you do that? well, you might say, i could put a penny of a loaf of bread and penny a piece, you could figure out revenue. i bet i could raise money if, instead i put a $10 on every loaf of bread and you would say that would be a whole lot, but

except people wouldn't buy a whole lot of bread. so i wouldn't get as much tax as i thought i would. as you play this back and forth, you come to the conclusion that there is a point where if you razor lower the taxes, you will get less tax revenue. that's the thing that ronald reagan and j.f.k. and bush ii understood. they understood that if you get the -- get off the taxes, the government could take in more money than they would have if the taxes were higher. sounds like making water run up hill. but it doesn't. if you think about the loaf of bread you say, you could tax something so much that nobody buys it anymore that you basically stall the economy. when bush was facing a recession when i came to congress in 2001, he was criticized. in 2003, he reduced dividends,

capital gains and death taxes. those things affect the guys that own these small businesses. when he did that, what happened was government revenues went up even though the taxes, rate of taxation went down. how in the world could that be? it's the same principle. it was called the laffer curve, an economist. so the sloogs to this doesn't mean that americans have to sit around with no jobs and suffer tremendously with a lousy economy. the solution is available. the solution has been used time after time in american history. and the thing we're doing now has also been used to turn a recession into a depression. what we have to do is stop spending too much money. it's not complicated, same thing you would do in your family budget. you can't say that you are

fiscally responsible, criticize george bush for creating all of these problems when his highest level of spending of $455 billion is less than 1/3 of what we have just spent in this year at $1.4 trillion. and when we get the ratio of debts to gross domestic product higher than it has been since the second world war, you know something is wrong and it's not that complicated. this whole idea of employment and what makes job is very straightforward. . i hear democrats beating on the drum saying, we're going to tax that rich man, get his money away from him and give it to everybody. the trouble with socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money. guess who you're going to tax? some of those rich men are the

guys that own these companies. the men and women, the entrepreneurs that own the companies, many times, the amount of profit the company makes is like their profit. they plow it back into more jobs. now if you tax those people out of their hides, guess what's going to happen? they don't have any money to reinvest in their country -- in their company and you kill jobs. you can't separate the people who run the business and the jobs. they're not separable. if you want job, you have to have employers. you can't have employees without employers. if you tax the employers too much, then they can't have employees. it's not very complicated. yet what we hear constantly is all these fat cats are going to run the tax up on these well-to-do people. as it is today, you might be amused to know that 50% of americans pay about 1% of the tax revenue in america.

50% of americans pay about 1%. i believe my numbers in that are pretty close to right and you could also say that a very, very large percent of taxes are paid by a very small percent of americans. if you drive that too hard, what happens, again, you squeeze the small business and the wheels come off the track. that's what we've been doing. we have not been making the situation better. and it's not complicated, we can fix it, but we can't fix it with what we did today. today the democrats decided to increase the debt ceiling. another $300 billion. they decided to spend money on the defenses of our country, which i supported and voted for, but also another $150 billion in this stimulus kind of thing which didn't work before and we know it's not going to work again. so, we're not using the right approach. we're not going back to the basics of how jobs are created

and what we're doing is, we're spending americans' money, not just our own money, not just our kids' money, our grandchildren's money, at this kind of rate. we cannot afford these kinds of programs in the condition of our economy. we condition right the economy. there's things that can be done to fix it. there's a great deal that can be done with health care. even if you believe in global warming, and it's a high priority to spend billions of dollars on it, even if you believe that, there are a whole lot of better solutions and a lot of government red tape and taxes, you could move to the nuclear model, which is going to reduce co-2 significantly. this economic stimulus, we saw how effective that was. that's the thing that we're claiming we're going to keep our unemployment below 8% and here we are at closer to 10%. then of course the wall street bailout. this was a failed idea from the start. it was sold to the congress that the entire american

economy was going to collapse, that there was going to be sulfurous smoke bill lowing out of the earth, if we didn't come up with $700 billion in unmarked bills and we wanted it in a big hurry because we made a big public announcement, the stock market is watching you, congress. congress obliged and i think it was a bad decision. they passed that stimulus bill, so now we've got politicians running around inside the private sector, deciding on the salaries of private employees and the recent bill we passed here just last week gives the federal government the authority to regulate financial transactions and at least in theory could give them the power to determine the salary of a bank's teller. do we really think that's a job that congress and the federal government can do efficiently, to determine the salary of people in private industry? is that what we want our

government doing? do we trust our dwovert to be telling us whether we can put an addition on our house and we have to prove that the carbon footprint of our house is just right to allow us to be able to put an addition on our house? do we need to have energy taxed a whole lot more when the economy is in the condition it is right now? is this threat of global warming, which by the way a whole series of emails and electronic files were released from the scientific university in england, that is the center for collecting all the data on global warming, it found these scientists had been fudging the data. what they found was in fact, they were less than professional and had been doing everything they could to squash any article appearing in a journal that would question the absolute rigid science that global warming was an imminent disaster on this planet. when all of these -- all the evidence of the fact that the

data had been doctored, that they had been intentionally trying to squash the opinions of dissenters, trying to say that it's settled science, it's nothing settled at all, what these emails revealed in east anglia, but that was kind of dubious science all the way along. and the question is, is that as important as our dependence on foreign oil? i'm not sure it is. but even if it is, there's a solution to that which is replacing coal-fired carbon -- coal-burning plants with nuclear plants. france has 80% nuclear generation if we went to 40%, we would get rid of the co-2 from all those passenger cars. and so this is not the approach. we have been taking the wrong -- the whole economics of what we've been doing is wrong. that's why people are feeling pain. they're feeling unemployment. that's why people can't make their mortgage payments. that's why people are having to

move in with their parents and all kinds of other sacrifices are being made. that's a tragedy. because this is something that's not that complicated, it's something that there are models to show us what they could be doing in government. the republican party has proposed all the things that i'm talking about and solutions that, in terms of health care, there isn't something that should be doing? of course there's things that should be done in health care. but if you've got a problem with the plumbing in the kitchen sink, that doesn't mean you remodel the entire kitchen. that's what the democrats are proposing. in socialized medicine, the government could fake over all of health care. you.net have to do that, but there are things we could do to help the situation. we have a good health care system in terms of delivery. the pay-for piece of it is broken. it's because about a third of americans don't pay anything for their health care. no wonder that starts to create stress in the system.

there are things we can do to improve efficiency and the way the health care system works, but it doesn't mean scrapping it. there are good proposals, ways to solve the problem, but the -- when we're talking about jobs and employment, we have to remember what the basic principles are and the basic principles are those small businesses have to be healthy. they're never healthy when we spend too much money, when we create too much red tape, and when we tax too much and also when we don't get the right rules in terms of liquidity. now i heard on the floor here, not so long ago, the democrats saying that this entire recession is the fault of george bush. of course he's the one that brought the hurricane. it's always vinet to find someone to blame. what's to blame in this recession? what's to blame in terms of job losses? it's these things here. anyone who has run a small business, check with anybody who has a friend, talk to somebody who runs a small

business, ask them. is economic uncertainty a problem in terms of creating jobs in yeah. slowdown in the economy, yeah, that makes me concerned. excessive taxation, yeah if you're going to tax me a whole lot, we've got a death tax. the way it work, when it goes back in effect in 20111 or 2012, let's say you've got a business, maybe it's a farm, got 1,000 acres and dad's running the farm, dad dies and passes the farm on to his son. the government says, well, your dad died so we're going to tax you. well, how come you're taxes? he already paid his taxes. it's a double taxation and we want 45% of the value of the farm. the son says that would mean i'd have to sell half the land from 1,000 acres and go to 500, have to get rid of half of my tractor, combines and other equipment. the farm wouldn't work at 500 acres, it needs 1,000 acres.

sorry, bub, you owe uncle sam the death tax. what that does is kills small business when you do that death tax. so these are things that people know that they just -- you just can't do this. and expect to have a trong economy. so that's where we've been making some mistakes. fortunately, this last year, these mistakes have come home to roost. you can say, well, this is -- the bush -- this is bush's mistake, he got the whole economy messed up in the first place. let's go back to the record, back to that conservative newspaper "the new york times," on september 11, 2003, the "new york times" reported, first of all, the president george bush was worried about what was going on with freddie and fannie. freddie and fan mi had aparently lost a few billion dollars, didn't know where they put it. that said, these financial institutions were quasi-public, the implication was that the

government would be in the bag if something went wrong with fannie and freddie. he's quoted on september 11, 2003, in the "new york times" saying, that congress needs to give them authority to regulate fannie and freddie more and so in a matter of a year or twork here in the house, it was a republican house at that time, passed a bill to give the president authority to get into freddie and fannie's finances and regulate them more because they were out of control. the bill went to the senate, as you can expect, but it was killed by democrats in a filibuster on the floor. it never saw the light of day. it was never passed. so it was that fannie and freddie, failing, along with other parts of that real estate market, which was created by laws that we had made saying that banks had to make loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them and also this wild speculation that came from a very, very low interest rate and a lot of liquidity created

by greenspan, you put that all together and get a bubble in the real estate market and the bubble pops and things come apart. now, you can try to blame this thing on bush, but it wouldn't be accurate to do that. he saw, at least in 2003, that we were in trouble and recognized we should do something about it. and so, it's easy to try to blame problems that are created by overspending and overtaxation on the republicans, but the fact of the matter is, the congress has got 80 democrats, more than it does republicans. so this is not exactly what you call a republican-control of the congress or the house. in the senate, the democrats have a working 60-vote majority so they can even break filibusters and pass what they want. they've had a year to work on this and we can see what they've done. we see what happened to their spending. we've seen all these different

things they put money into, these ones that are foggy are the ones just done by the house, the senate has not passed them. and we have seen what's happened to employment as a result of that excessive spending and it's not been good. it's not been good for a reason. so we have today again continued in the same policy. i think americans are getting tired of it. i think they realize you can't blame it on someone else. these are basic factors that people understand that it's businesses that create jobs and that -- if you tax the businesses too much, and if you have the wrong environment for the businesses, they're not going to be able to keep the economy going. ironically, one of the people that suffers a great deal in a poor economy are governments. governments depend on tax revenues for their revenues and the states really take a beating because many of them have balanced budgets they have to meet.

if you happen to be some poor governor in a state when you have a congress like this that's spending money wildly, and forgetting the basic principles of economics, you've got a lot of problems. so this cartoon, as a lot of cartoons have, a certain amount of sense and humor to them. now, give me one good reason why you're not hiring. we've seen a whole lot of reasons why we're not hiring. the trouble is that we have essentially -- we have essentially exasperated every single one of these things and that's why there's not jobs here. . mr. gohmert: how much time do we have? the speaker pro tempore: two

minutes. mr. akin: we are closing up on this seeingment of unemployment and spending and what it is here that is nt -- isn't complicated. we are doing things that are wrong in terms of jobs. if we want to have jobs, it's not the government that's going to create the jobs, it's you, my friends, that will create the jobs. but we have to give you an economic environment that is conducive to creating jobs and that doesn't mean a whole lot more in spending, such as $150 billion son of stimulus, if you want to call it that. the failed bill from last summer that didn't work. doesn't mean increasing the debt limit by $300 billion. what it includes is the same basic principles that j.f.k., ronald reagan and bush used,

which is getting government off the backs of the people of the united states and this is a sad situation. my parents, my father fought in world war ii. and their mindset was we are going to give ourselves a whole lot so our children can have more. some of them didn't go to college. we want our kids to go to college and leave america a better place. is that the heritage of this day that we want to leave america a worse place, we want to leave our kids and grandkids up to their ears in debt having a less bright future than what we had? can't we learn from the great generation that fought world war ii that we want to leave america a better place. i believe theally can public will say we want to go back to leaving us a stronger, better, fiscal year country than we inherited that. but we'll do that by changing

these false premises and policies that are leading us down the wrong path. i thank you, mr. speaker, for allowing me to talk on these very important questions. and i would say merry christmas, wonderful holidays to americans and good night. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from florida, mr. grayson is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. grayson: the policy regarding the wars in iraq and afghanistan come down to the subject of leadership.

and as i have said, leadership is sometimes simply a question of looking into the future, seeing what's inevitable and doing what you need to do to make the future come faster. i think that's true in both the case in iraq and the case of afghanistan. in the case of the israelites in egypt, moses didn't say let my people go two or three years ago . he said let my people go now. we all know sooner or later, our troops will be withdrawn from iraq and afghanistan. so the question is why not now? now, if you asked that question to the other side, the people who want to perpetrate these wars, the answer is always the same in one form or another, the answer is something bad is going to happen. but what that really means, something bad might happen.

nobody knows for sure it might happen. they are speculating something bad might happen. but you can be sure that if the war is perpetrated, something bad will happen. and that is the loss of american lives, the loss of foreign lives, the loss of our national treasure. in the case of iraq, $3 trillion already and the amount grows every day. this in a country with a total net worth accumulated over two centuries of $50 trillion. we have taken 6%% of what our grandparents and parents left to us and everything we have toiled to produce over the cost of our lives and everything that our children have produced. we have taken 6% of all that and dumped it into the sands of meso

ptamia and lost lives to boot. this is because we entered into this war and the war continues to this day. the enemy is called al qaeda and al qaeda in iraq, al qaeda ng pakistan, wherever they pite be, but that's the name they go by and ask yourselves what could they have possibly done to inflict that harm on us? what could al qaeda have done to make us lose $3 trillion, 4,000 american lives, countless lives of other people? what could they have possibly done? they would have had to vaporized new england in order to inflict the same economic damage on us to destroy 6% of our economy. it wasn't possible and was never possible and that's why the war was such a mistake to begin with. it was born in sin, lives in sin

and in the end it will die in sin. it never should have started and never should be perpetrated because every day the war continues, every single day is another day that we risk american lives and many occasions we lose american lives, other people die and again, our national treasure has dissipated until in the end, it will be gone. as senator kerry once asked famously, how do you ask the last man to die in vietnam? good question. how do we ask a man to be the last man to die in afghanistan. how do we ask a man to be the last soldier to die in iraq? there is no good answer why we continue to perpetrate these wars, knowing they will end. and they'll end only one way. paul simon once had a song called "50 ways to leave your lover."

there is 50 ways or more to start a war. once the europeans fought a war because a pirate cut off a man's ear and that plunged two different nations into war for years. at another time, a murder was committed, a man was shot, one man, only one man. he happened to be the arch duke ferdinand and that was the origin of world war i. there are all sorts of ways to perpetrate a war. the 100 year war left england and france penniless. the simple reason is that it takes an effort to build a school, almost no effort at all to blow it up and same thing is true of anything that you can create. so wars destroy and very often they destroy the countries

engaged in them. when america starts a war, when america is involved in a war, we are so strong, so powerful that the only way to end a war is for us to end it. there is only one way to end the war that america's involved in and that's for us to decide as a country, enough is enough, we're done. we spend more on our defense than all other countries combined. and the result of that is that these decisions are made by us, often by the people in this room, often by the president. and it's up to us to decide when enough is enough, when enough people have died, when enough money that has been lost when the price has been too high. i submit that we reached that point in iraq a long time ago. we reached that point in afghanistan a long time ago. in the case of afghanistan, within two months after 9/11, we

had expeled the taliban government from the capital. we had expeled al qaeda from the country and our enemies with no longer in afghanistan at that point. they were in pakistan and remain there today. not a secret. everybody niece it. within two months or three months after 9/11, we had won our victory in afghanistan and sat some later point in iraq, i remember our president standing on an aircraft carrier and the giant sign, "mission accomplished" and both these wars go on and on and on for one reason and one reason only and that is because we americans decide to perpetrate them and we do it out of the sense that something bad might happen, without realizing that something bad happens every single day

that we are at war. there may be 50 ways to start a war but only one way toned it and that's for us to end it and hopefully not too much longer from now. i think the president missed an opportunity and took office with a great deal of goodwill on the part of not only my party, the democratic party, but also on the part of americans who want a better life for themselves. let's not squander that opportunity. we deserve a direction which we regard is the right direction. there are too many people who think we are going in the wrong direction. in iraq, the wrong decks is simply the same direction, the same thing is true in afghanistan. the same direction is the wrong direction. we voted for change, it's true with these foreign wars as with anything else. at some point in the future, these wars will be over and with regard to what the situation will be then, we'll know that george bush started these wars and i sincerely do hope that

barack obama will end them. if not right now, then as soon as possible. and then at that point, the poet shelly will tell us what the circumstances at that point and i yield to that poet and he describes those circumstances in a poem. this is what those circumstances will be like when the wars are over. i met a traveler from an antique land who said, to vast and two lungeless legs of stone stand in the desert. near them on the sand half sunk, a savage lies whose frown and wrinchingled lips and sneer of cold command tells its consultp tur those passions read which yet survive stamped on these

lifeless things. the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed and on the pedestal these names appear, my name is george bush, king of kings. look on my works you mighty and despair. nothing beside remains round its decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bear, the lone and level sands stretched far away. they will stretch far away when these wars are over, these monday youments to the mistakes of our previous president. but in the end, that's what it will be, simply a statue in the desert, pointless, endless, bear. with regard to the issue of health care, we are now waiting for the senate to act.

this house having acted quite a while ago now. and i have to wonder why, why are we waiting so long. what facts are different today on this day in december than were any different in november, any different in october, any different in september, august, july? what can we do today that we could not have done then? i think the sad fact is nothing, nothing is really changed. the fundamental facts are the same. americans are still denied care every single day on the basis of pre-existing conditions, on the basis of reaching lifetime caps, there are millions upon millions of americans who have no health care coverage. there is a million every year who go bankrupt because of that and thousands upon thousands who die every single month for the simple reason they have no

health care coverage. that has been true for this month and not only last month but for year upon year. and we democrats in the house of representatives, we took it upon ourselves with the political capital that you, the american people have given to us, we took it upon ourselves to make that our priority to steady the shaken economy. we delivered. we did what we needed to do. and we have waited and waited and waited for the senate to do what it needs to do. now i pointed out here on this pedestal several weeks ago that the cost of delay is death. people die every single day 121 of them, 122, every single day because they have no health care coverage in america. and i pointed out that there are people here in this chamber who are dead set against health care reform, even at the cost of the

lives of their own constituents. i gave their names. i gave their numbers, for how many people would die in each of their districts on account of our not passing health care reform. it is time to do the same for the obstructionists in the senate and willing to deny their own constituents. this is not a case of one case of opting out but senators deciding one by one that there will be no health care reform not for just their states but for all of america. this is a list of states and a list of those who die in those states, one by one, on account of there being no health care coverage, not once, but year after year. now i propose to provide that list to you all. you'll be able to see it at our website later on today. in the state of alabama, the number is 541 deaths each year.

in the state of alaska, 124 deaths each year. in the state of arizona, 1,185 deaths each year. in the state of connecticut, 326 deaths each year. in my state of florida, an astounding 3,542 deaths each year. in georgia, 1,640 deaths each year. in idaho, 217 deaths each year. in indiana, 727 deaths each year. in iowa, 272. in kansas, 329. in kentucky, 609. in louisiana, 800. in the state of maine, 123 deaths each year. in mississippi, a 518 deaths.

in missouri, 714 deaths, in nebraska, 216 deaths. in nevada 450 deaths, in new hampshire 132 deaths. in north carolina, 1,423 deaths. in oklahoma, -- sorry in ohio, 1,279 deaths. in oklahoma, 550 deaths. in south carolina, 693 deaths. in south dakota, 88 deaths. in tennessee, 883 deaths. in the state of texas, 5,857 deaths each year for lack of health coverage. in utah, 342 deaths. in wyoming, 69 deaths.

and on it goes. for those senators who have shown some reluctance or lack of interest in health care reform, i'm going to provide your names right now to go with your states. in alabama, i'm talking about jeff sessions, i'm talking about richard shelby. in alaska, lisa mruczkowski. in arizona, jon kyl and john mccain. in connecticut, joseph lieberman. in florida, george lemieux. in georgia, saxby chambliss and johnny isaacson. in idaho, mike crapo and james rich. in iowa, chuck grassley. in kansas, sam brownback and pat roberts. in kentucky, jim bunning and mitch mcconnell. in louisiana, david visiter. in maine, susan collins and

olympia snowe. in mississippi,ed that cochran and roger wicker. in missouri, christopher bonn. in nebraska, mike johanns, in nevada john enson. in new hampshire, judd gregg. in north carolina, richard burke. in ohio, george voinovich. in oklahoma, tom coburn and james inhofe. in south carolina, jim dementhe and lindsey graham. in tennessee, alexander and bob corker. in texas, john cornyn and kay bailey hutchinson. in utah, robert bennett and orrin hatch. in wyoming, john bo rah sew and michael enby. please remember these names.

these are people who have stole health care for this country -- who have staaled health care in this country. they watched as day after day, month after month, people get sick and even die because they have no health coverage. i assure each and every one of you that have done anything to obstruct health care, people will remember. maybe not the people who die, but the people who loved them. the people whose names i read at our website, namesofthedead.com. these are people who are gone but the names, the list grows every single day until we solve this problem. then in the end, when we do solve this problem, and it's inevitable, every other industrial country in the entire world has health insurance for everyone, when we do join the ranks of those countries, people are going to remember who made that happen and show kindness and love to them.

people are going to remember who blocked it and they'll show undying hatred. people are going to remember. you'll remember too. you'll remember when the time came for you to do something for your fellow man, to stop the suffering, to stop the hurt , to stop the pain and to stop the dying, you did nothing or you didn't do enough. you're going to remember that and you're going to know that blood is on your hands. may god have mercy on your soul. i yield the rest of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair would remind the members to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the senate or its members. remarks in debate may include policy criticisms but may not include personality. the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bill.

the clerk: senate 1472, an act to establish a section within the criminal division of the department of justice to enforce human rights laws to make technical and conforming amendments to laws pertaining to human rights violations and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request for a five-minute special order in favor of the gentleman from florida, mr. grayson, is hereby vacated. urn the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for of minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. interesting, following the gentleman from florida. in the spirit of christmas, sounds like accusing previously

members of congress and now members of the senate of basically being responsible for deaths and i can't help but address that in this respect. ignorance is a dangerous thing and the fact is, if you examine, mr. speaker, the statistics of those, for example, you take numbers i'm familiar with, of women who find a localized tumor of breast cancer, after the 98% chance of success, of complete elimination of the cancer. that's in the united states with our health care. if we go to what the gentleman from florida is proposing, as we see in other cubtries like england, it's -- in other countries like england, it's about 20 points less.

in other words the program the gentleman from florida is advocating would be responsible for killing one out of five women who find those type of tumors. you can run those statistics throughout health care. so the de-spite what some have said, i know not intentionally trying to misrepresent, i know the gentleman is an honorable man, as shakespeare said, so are they all, all honorable men. but they're wrong. about the facts. and the truth is, we have numerous proposals to reform health care and to provide health care for everyone. one of the great misrepresentations that's been made this year in this house is that health care, so-called health care reform, is about health care reform. it is not. we've heard everyone from the president to people on this side of the aisle say that yes,

we want to insure 30 million more people. the statistics tell us, if they do their program, there will be millions who lose their health care insurance. even if you wanted to insure 30 million people, well, the statistics indicate those 30 million are in approximately 10 million households and you can insure those 10 million households for potentially less than $10,000, so for $100 billion you can insure all the people they say they need to add to the health care insurance rolls. for $100 billion. and yet the estimates are anywhere from $1.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as to what they're proposing it will cost. that makes it clear that the truth is, they're proposals -- their proposals are not about

health care reform, they are about government control and consistently when you go through the statistics of the success rates with regard to different types of cancer, if you go to the programs being advocated, then people get on lists and they die waiting on those lists. people die waiting for the treatment, the therapy, the diagnostics that require lists in a socialized medicine setting. but i want to get away from the partisan politics and the nasty allegations that have been made in here just prior to me speaking and back and forth throughout this year. this may well be the last hour that we have here in the house before we recess for christmas. and before we come back next year. so instead of getting into all

this rain cor, i thought it would be good to help address an area that some people have just not had education about, and that this is the appropriate place, mr. speaker, to make sure that the record is correct, because we have so much wonderful history in this building, in this house. for example, i hear people really concerned around this building, around the supreme court across the way, around capitol hill here, about someone, my goodness, praying in public. we begin every day we're in session here in the house and the senate's in session work a prayer. many an ig -- many are ignorant of the place from which that tradition started where it came. you have to go back to 1787,

the constitutional convention. the constitutional convention, people may recall, it began in 1787 as a result of the failure of the articles of confederation. for those that know history, they would know that the revolution was won in 1783, there was the treaty of paris in which england finally recognized the united states' right to exist as a nation and george washington did something that had never been done in history of man kind before or since then. that is, lead a revolutionary military, win the revolution, and then resign and go home. when we he could be see sar, he could be -- caesar, he could be king, whatever, that's not his goal.

his goal, as he said, was to do his duty to god, basically, and his country, kind of like the scout law. the scout oath, rather. anyway, here they are in philadelphia, independent, 1787, it's june. benjamin franklin is 80 years old. many people say we know he was -- he believed there was a creator out there, but he believed god the creator created things and stood back and let things happen and never interfered. those who also know history know that there were times in his life where benjamin franklin sowed some wild seeds, that included in europe and england. but by the time of the constitutional convention in independence hall in philadelphia, benjamin franklin was between two and three years away from meeting his judge, meeting his maker and he knew that.

he was as brilliant as ever, as witty, amazing man, the genius that he was, and there he sits, there's a picture right outside the house floor, depicting that area in independence hall where they were meeting. now in the beautiful painting, the windows are open, well, the windowed were covered. may have been by blanketed instead of the beautiful curtains depicted in the scene, but for nearly five week they went without accomplishing much of anything, finally the 80-year-old ben franklin rose, was recognized by the president of the constitutional convention, george washington and we have these words because james madison recorded them as secretary of that convention. these are the exact words of benjamin franklin, june 28,

1787, in philadelphia, during the constitutional congress. benjamin franklin said, mr. president, the small progress we've made after four or five weeks' close attendance and continual reasonings with each other are different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many no's as ayes, is, me thinks, a melon collie proof of the imperfection of human understanding. we indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom. since we've been running about in search of it, we've gone back to ancient history from models of government and examined the different forms of those republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own disillusion now low -- now no longer exist and we've viewed modern states all around europe but find no other constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

in this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the father of the lights to illuminate our understanding? in the beginning contest with great britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room. our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. all of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor to that -- favor. to that kind providence we owe our happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. and have we now forget than

powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? ben franklin goes on and says, i have lived, sir, a long time and the longer i live the more convincing proofs i see of this truth, that god governs in the affairs of men. and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? we've been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that, quote, except the lord build the house, they labor in vein that build it, unquote -- vain that build it, unquote. i firmly believe this and also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of babble. we should be divided by a little par shall local interest. our projects will be con founded

and we ourselves should become a reproach and a biward down to future age and what is worse, man kind may here after this unfortunate incidence despair of establishing government. by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. i therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of evidence and its blessing on deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business and that one or more of the clernly of this city be requested to officiate in that service. his motion was seconded and then ben franklin's motion was adopted unanimously and from that day to this day we do not begin congress in this body without a prayer to begin. now, for those who say ben franklin obviously was a diest

who didn't believe, believed that god created or created things but never intervened, his own words seem to defy that. he begged and implored congress to begin with prayer every day because as he said our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. so, mr. speaker, i also ambition here again in the spirit of bipartisanship, in the spirit for me for christmas that has been so historically observed in this nation, we want to just go through and make sure people understand our heritage. now the great thing about our constitution, it does allow for freedom of religion and a freedom not to worship at all. and that is because they're

based on the teachings of christ and his willingness to allow all men to make their own decisions for themselves knowing, as he did, that one day all people will meet their maker. but let's go back to the person that found the new world as it was called. this was christopher columbus and you don't find many history books who -- or which had these kinds of quotes in it. this is christopher columbus in his own hand, in his own journal, he said, quote, it was the lord who put it into my mind, quote, -- i'm sorry, prenth sis, i could feel his hand upon me, the fact that it would be possible for me it sail from here to the indies. all rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me.

there is no question that the inspiration was from the holy spirit because he comforted me with the raise of marvelous inspiration from the holy scriptures. there are those who say the real lesson of columbus is that it's amazing what you can do even when you don't know where you're going, you don't know where you are when you get there, so long as you get the government to pay for it. but i would submit that there was a creator, a creator as christopher columbus believes, who put this into his mind to sail west and discover this area so that the greatest nation in the history of mankind could rise. now, if you go to the pilgrims who came across, originally from the netherlands to england and to america by way of stopping in england, this is 1620, part of the pilgrims' compact, these are their words, quote, in the name

of god, amen, having undertaken for the glory of god an advancement of the christian faith and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of virginia to, by these presents, solemnly in the name of god and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politic. that was the pilgrims on the mayflower, november 11, 1620. i've had people, i've met from harvard university, who are not familiar with their history and the fact that harvard university, september 26, 1642, this was part of their code, it was part of their handbook, quote, harvard university, let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies his to no

kind and jesus christ which is eternal life and therefore to lay christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. and seeing the lord only gives wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer and secret to steek it of him. proverbs 2: 3, unquote. that's harvard university at its founding back in the year around 1642. and george washington's own personal prayer book which he read from daily, this is one of the entries in that prayer book of -- that was in washington's possession when he passed away. oh, most glorious god and jesus christ, i acknowledge and confess my faults in the weak performances of my duties to

this day. i call on thee for parredness and forgiveness of sins but so carelessly that my prayers become my sin and stand in need of pardon. i have heard thigh holy word but with such deadness of spirit that i've been uh-uh profitable and -- i'm sorry, forgetful herer. let me -- hearer. let me live according to those holy rules which thou has this day, according to those holy rules which thou has this day prescribed, direct me to the true object, gee suft christ, the way, the truth and the life, bless oh, lord all the people of this land. that's george washington's prayer book. here's a quoast -- quote from thomas jefferson. as we know who wrote basically the declaration of independence at the urging of john adams and it was jefferson who was the

third president after john adams. jefferson in 1782 and for those who visit washington this is inscribed inside the jefferson memorial, jefferson said, can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis and conviction in the minds of people that their liberties are the gift of god? jeb diea morris, who is called the father of american geography, also father of samuel morris, folks who know history know who that is. on april 25, 1799, jebediah morris said, whenever the pillars of christianity shall be overthrown, our present republic forms of government and all the blessings which grow from them must fall with them.

james madison, the fourth president, march 4, 1815, in his thanksgiving day proclamation said, no people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the goodness of the great disposer of events and of the destiny of nations than the people of the united states. his kind providence originally conducted them to one of the best portions of the dwelling place allotted for the great family of the human race. he protected and cherished them under all the difficulties and trials to which they were exposed in their early days. under his fostering care, their habits, their sentiments and their pursuits prepared them for a transition in due time to a state of independence and self-government. then john quincy adams, who was the son of john adams, john

quincy adams was the sixth president. some think he may have been the smartest president, there's no way to know. but he was a brilliant man, the youngest diplomat ever appointed to the america when he was 11 years of age. he knew all the founders, he was -- his father, john adams, allowed him to accompany him to so many events and things he knew the founders, he knew the founding and john quincy adams in 1821, on july 4 said, the highest glory of the american rev luge was this, it connected -- revolution was this, it connected in one bond the principles of the civil government with the principles of christianity. from the day of the declaration, they, the american people, were bound by the laws of god which they all and by the laws of the gospel which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.

noah webster, 1833, said, quote, the moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. all the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the bible, unquote. alexis de tocqueville said, 1835, there is no country in the world, where the christian influence retains so great an influence over the souls of men than in america and there can be no greater proof of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. again, john quincy adams, he was defeated in 1828 for a second term by andrew jackson,

then in 1830, he believed it was god's call for him to run for congress, run for the house of representatives, after being vn president. he was elected and served for 17 years in the house of representatives, just down the hall in statuary hall. it was john quincy adams who was retained to represent the africans who were aboard the amistad in their case before the supreme court. anthony hopkins did a wonderful job of portraying john quincy adams in the movie "amistad" but i think in the movie, his closing argument was 10 to 12 minutes, whereas in real life, it spilled into a third day. john quincy adams, 1837, after he'd been in the house six years he said, is it not that the declaration of independence

first organized the social compact on the foundation of the redeemer's mission on earth, that it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of christianity. all of these people believed, people in america will be able to worship the way they choose or do not choose because the nation was founded upon christian precepts that allowed that freedom as no other nation in the history of mankind. andrew jackson, 1845, this was just a few weeks before his death and of course people that know jackson know that he was quite a rounder and he had quite a life. but again, as he was just a few weeks before his death, he knew he was going to meet his maker, and drew jackson said these -- andrew jackson said these words. sir, i'm in the hands of a

merciful god. i have full confidence in his goodness and mercy. the bible is true. i tried to conform to its spirit as near as possible. upon that sacred volume i rest my hope for eternal salvation through the merits and blood of our blessed lord and savior, jesus christ. that was andrew jackson, just a few weeks before his death, may 29, 1845. daniel webster consider -- daniel webster, considered the greatest orator of all time in this country, served in the house, served in the senate, thought perhaps he might be president one day, but he urged a compromise which cost him the election, whether he was right or wrong he believed if we didn't have the compromise of 1850, then the nation was doomed. that there'd be a civil war in 1850 from which the nation may

not survive. so he did a very selfless thing and stood up and urged the compromise of 1850, knowing that he would loos his base, but he believed it was to save the country. that's daniel webster. he said in 1852, if we in our posterity shall be true to the christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of god and shall respect his commandments, we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country. but if we in our prosperity neglect religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory

in profound on security. daniel webster, 1852. now, the senate judiciary committee in 1853 stated this, as a committee. we are a christian people. not because the law demands it, nor to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities from choice and education. in a land thus universally christian what is to be expected, what desired, but that we pay due regard to christianity. senate judiciary committee, january 19, 1853. abraham lincoln, our 16th president, february 11, 1861, said this. unless the great god who assisted washington shall be with me and aid me, i must fail. but if the same omniscient mind

and mighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, i shall not fail. let us all pray that the god of our fours -- of our fathers may not fore sake us now. abraham lincoln, february 11, 1861. we can skip over to the president's inaugural address, 1865, again abraham lincoln. he said, both -- talking about both sides of the civil war, he north and the south he said, both read the same bible and pray to the same god and each invokes his aid against the other. the prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been answered fully. the almighty has his own purposes. quote, woe unto the world because of offenses for if it must needs be that offenses

come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. lincoln in that same inaugural address, said he -- he went on and said, if we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which, and he knew it was an offense he knew it to his soul that slavery was an offense and that it would be difficult for god to ever bless america as long as slavery existed and christian christian people in this country did not treat their brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. so lincoln goes on in that address, and you can feel the analysis that he did as he went back and forth with it himself, trying to fig qur out how a just and mighty god could allow this type of injustice. so lincoln goes on and he says, if we shall suppose that

american slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of god must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time he now wills to remove and gives to both north and south this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we deserve therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living god ascribe to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty surge of -- scourge of war may speedily pass away yet if god wills it continue until all the wealth found by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said 3,000 years ago, so it must still be said. quote, the judgments of the

lord are true and righteous all together, unquote. lincoln went on with -- went on, with malice toward none work charity toward all, with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for them who have borne the battle for his widow and his orphan to all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. abraham lincoln, 1865. edward everett, the massachusetts governor, also served as u.s. secretary of state, u.s. senator, he spoke immediately before lincoln's gettysburg address. he said this. all the distinctive features and superiority of our republican institutions, and he wasn't talking about the republican party, he was

talking about the nation, this is considered a republic. he said, the spirit of our republican institutions are derived from the teachings of scripture. william surde was u.s. senator, governor of new york, secretary of state under lincoln. he was interesting, lincoln had such a diverse cabinet, many of them didn't like each other, didn't like him, yet he took all of that information together and made executive decisions. but william seward said, quote, i know not how long a republican government can flourish among the great people who have not the bible, but this i do know -- that the existing government of this country never could have had existence but for the bible and further, i do in my conscience believe that if at every decade of years a copy of the bible could be found in every family in the land, its republic

institutions should be perpetuated. 1862. andrew johnson. 1862, he was vice president. he said, let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the cross and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times and let us gather around it and scribe for our motto, liberty and union, one and inseparable, now and forever and exchange christ first, our country next. u.s. grant, the 18th president, 1876, said this, quote, hold fast to the bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. ride its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your lives. to the influence of this book we are indebted to all the purposes made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future. in reading these quotes, i

think it's important for people to know, i'm not trying to push my religion on anyone else, but i think it is imperative that we at least know where the founders were. where the heart was of those who provided for this incredible government, the incredible nation we have that i believe is the greatest in the history of man kind. this was in the case of church of the holy trinity versus the united states and the opinion, february 29, 1892, supreme court said, our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon an and embody the teachings of the redeemer of mankind. it is impossible that it should be otherwise and to this extent, our civilization and our institutions are emphatically christian. this is a religious people. this is historically true from

the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there's a single voice making this affirmation. we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truths. these and many other matters which might be noticed at a volume of unofficial declarations to the mas of organic utterances that this is a christian nation. that was the supreme court, their opinion urk church of the holy trinity versus the united states in 1892. theodore roosevelt, 1917, our 26th president, said, quote, this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their christian duties is a community on the rapid downgrade. warren g. harding, our 29th president, 1920, said, it is my conviction that the fundamental trouble with the people of the united states is that they have gotten too far away from the

almighty god. calvin coolidge, our 30th president, 1923, said, the foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. franklin d. roosevelt, october 6, 1935. he said, quote, we cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the place the bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the republic. where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its reseptember -- precepts we have obtained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity. again, franklin roosevelt, 1935. 1943. president hoover and the joint state -- in a joint statement with former first ladies, mrs. coolidge, mrs. roosevelt, mrs.

taft, mrs. harrison and mrs. cleveland gave this statement, quote, the whole inspiration for our civiluation springs from the teachings of christ and the lessons of the prophets. to read the bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of american life. harry truman, our 33rd president, 1952, said this, quote, the basis of our pill of rights comes from the teachings we get from exodus and st. matthew from isaiah and st. paul. i don't think we emphasize that enough these days. if we don't have a proper fundamental moral background we will end up with a government that does mot believe in rights for anyone but the state. profound. that was harry truman, 1952. charles malic was our ambassador to the united nations from lebanon and the president of the u.n. general assembly in 1958, made this statement, 1958,

whoever tries to concede the american word without taking full account of the suffering and love and salvation of christ is only dreaming. i know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and cynics, but whenever these honored -- whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of america is at its best and highest christian. that was the u.n. ambassador and president of the u.n. general assembly in 1958. ronald reagan, our 40th president, 1984, said the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and openmindedness. question, isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? they refuse to tolerate its

importance in our lives, unquote. ronald reagan, 1984. now, i point out these quotes from our history, could read volumes and volumes of quotes basically along the same lines. not trying to push christian religion on anyone, but just so that people understand where we came from. it's incredible the amount of ignorance on the basis of this nation. the foundation of this nation. let me go to some of our founders directly. sam adams, he was called back at that time by those who knew and knew well the father of the american revolution. samuel adams was a signer of the declaration of independence. in the will of samuel adams, he says this, i recommend my soul

to that almighty being who gave it and my body i commit to the dust, relying upon the merits of jesus christ for a pardon of all my since. that was the father of the american revolutionary --, samuel adams -- revolution, samuel adams. in a letter from charles carol to charles wateren, charles carol was a signer of the declaration of independence, one of the 56, he said, on the mercy of my redeemer i rely for salvation and on his merits, not on the works i've done in obedience to his precepts. william curbing wag the first associate justice appointed by george washington to the supreme court. william in his will said, sensible of mortality but being of sound mind, after recommending my soul to almighty god through the merits of my redeemer and my body to the earth. john dickinson was also a signer

of the constitution, in his will he said, rendering thanks to my creator for my existence and station among his works, for my country enlightened by the gospel and enjoying freedom and for all his other kindnesses, to him i resign myself, humbly confiding in his goodness and mercy through jesus christ for the events of eternity. again, john dickinson, signing of the declaration of independence. john hancock, we know signed the declaration larger than anyone else. president of the continental congress in 1776 when the declaration of independence was signed and made public. in his will he said, i, john hancock, being advanced in years and being of perfect mind and memory thanks be given to god, therefore calling to mind the mortality of my body and knowing it is appointed for all men once to die, hebrews 9:27, do make

and ordain this my last will and testament. first of all i give and recommend my soul into the hands of god that gave it. and my body i recommend to the earth. nothing doubting but at the general resurrection i shall receive the same again for the -- by the mercy and power of god. again that was john hancock. patrick henry, the governor of virginia, a patriot, made that stirring speech think a gave on the road roo in fifth grade -- that i gave on the radio in the fifth grade, made this statement, this is all the inheritance i can give to my new family, that was in his will, the religion of christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed. john jay played such an important role in this nation's founding and in negotiations of treaties, helping negotiate the treaty of paris, so many others, but he was also the first chief

justice of the u.s. supreme court. in his will chief justice john jay said, unto him who is the author of giver of all good i render sincere and humble thanks for the men who follow in inherited blessings and especially for our redemption and salvation by his beloved son. he's been pleased to bless me with excellent parents, with a virtual white house wife and with worthy children. his protection is a-- has accompanied me through many eventful years, faithfully employed in the service of my country. his providence has not only conducted me to this tranquil situation, but also given me abundant reason to be contented and thankful. blessed be his holy name, john jay. daniel st. thomas-jennifer was a signer of the constitution. in his will he said in the name of god amen i daniel st. thomas-jennifer of this -- of disposing mind and memory

commend my soul to my blessed redeemer. henry knox, revolutionary war general, extremely important in the success of the american revolution, said in his will, first i think it proper to express my unshaken opinion of the immortality of my soul, of mind and to dedicate and devote the same to the supreme head of the universe, to that great and tremendous jehovah who created the rules and systems in number infinite. to this awfully sublime being do i put my spirit. john langdon was a signer of the constitution, of the -- back in 1787. he also said, in the name of god, amen, i john langdon, considering the certainly -- i, john langdon, considering the uncertainty of lie and that is appointed to all men to die do

make and ordain and publish this my last will and testament. john mortgagen, signer of the declaration of -- moreton, signer of the declaration of independence, said his will with the awful reverence to the great almighty god, i, john moreton, being sick and weak in body but sound of mind and memory thanks be given to almighty god for the same, for all his mercies and favors and considering the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the times thereof, due for the settling of such temp of state as it please god to bless me with in this life. there's so many others. just one after another. these same type of things, signers of independence, declaration of independence, signers of the constitution, jonathan trumble said this, in his will, principally and first of all i bequeath my soul to god the creator and giver thereof embody the earth. nothing doubting but that i shall receive the same again at the general resurrection through

the power of almighty god, believing and hoping for eternal life through the merits of my dear exhausted -- exalted redeemer, jesus christ. he painted the paintings out here in our rotunda. one of the things that has run throughout this nation, you go back to the constitution, these were the founders that i've been quoting, those who were able to come together and have a declaration of independence, who sought as benjamin franklin said god's help in the war of the revolution and who sought him in the difficult trying times after the articles of confederation were passed. and who they sought as benjamin franklin pointed out in those great words i read in 1787 when they finally -- after which they were finally able to come together with a constitution.

but, as we know from our history, the constitution was not afforded to all people as it should have been. they said, these founders that i've read, that they were christians and yet as christians they should have recognized that we could not expect god to bless america while we were treating our brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage. martin luther king came along after the civil war, abraham lincoln, as i've read, made clear his beliefs in the almighty and his grace and mercy and justice and that's why he pushed for an end of slavery. but even still it took dr. martin luther king jr. and those who worked with him to bring about civil rights and an vokse of the supreme constitution that we hold so dear to all people. it doesn't require everyone

receive equal things, it requires equal opportunity. but i would remind my friends that martin luther king jr. was an ordained christian minister. he said in his letter from birmingham jail, but more basically i'm in birmingham because injustice is here. just as the profits of the -- prophets of the eighth century b.c. left their villages and carried, thus said the lord, far beyond the boundaries of their home towns and justice as -- just as the apostle paul left his village and carried the gospel of jesus christ to the four corners of the greekow roman world, so i am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own hometown. like paul, i must constantly respond to macedonian call for aid. that was in 1963. profound words, martin luther

king. one of his quotes in 1963, from birmingham jail, whenever the christians entered the town, the people in power became disturbed and sought to convict christians for being disturbers of the peace and outside agitators. but the christians pressed on and the conviction that they were a colony of heaven called to obey god rather than man, called small in number, they were big in commitment. they were too god intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated. powerful, powerful words, martin luther king. well, in -- i think it's worth noting also, we have an original copy of the treaty of paris, 1783, located in the department of state in a glass case. i didn't realize how that started until i saw that copy there.

but it made sense once i saw it, in big bold letters at the top of the treaty of paris, this is the one that was negotiated in paris, 1783, after sir to get england to sign on a athletey indicating they would -- treaty indicating they would observe the united states' right to exist as an independent nation. it starts out big block bold letters, in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity. when i first saw that i thought, i wonder why it started like that. and then you realize, you're asking the nation of england to sign a treaty and pledging not -- no not to ever attack or fail to recognize its right to exist independently of england. what do you get them to swear under that is so important and so manifest that they would not dare go back on their word? well, they decided at that time

it was to start with the words, in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity. those who are familiar with the war of 1812 and 1814, we're up here on jenkins hill where the capitol was built and the british proceeded across, burning every public building, proceeded to the capitol, set fire down the hall in stat wear hall, then went down and set fire to the senate inn and went to the white house and set fire there. the white house was terribly damaged inside. the capitol by all rights should have, with the intensity of the fire and the things, the munitions that were spread to make the fire get more hot, this building should have collapsed and fallen in on itself, but it didn't. because a rain came and put out the fire. as the british troops were preparing to leave, a conversation was noted between the british admiral, and by the

way, the next day there was such a huge straight line wind, some thought it was tornadic, but most believed it was straight line wind, was so intense, blew their cannons off their mounts, some credited the wipped with killing soldiers, but but the british admiral and washington lady talking about the storm, the admiral exclaimed, great, god, madam, is this the kind of storm you're accustomed? the lady answered, no, sir, this is a special interposition of providence to drive our enemies from our city. the weather drove them out, the american soldiers were not able to. . and the white house nativity scene, it's italian made in the late 1700's and been in exhibit

in the white house since 1967. in 1999, a design for the new display was designed by a nearby -- elements found in the 1700's. but that is a little bit about where the nativity scene. but as far as the history of the white house christmas tree, in 1889, the tradition of placing an indoor decorated tree began on christmas morning during the presidency of benjamin harrison. the first lady created a tree when she hung electric lights on the white house tree, which was introduced into the white house in 1891.

there is so much history with our founding. franklin roosevelt, december 24, christmas eve, 1934, said this is the second year i have joined with you on this happy occasion, then as now, with millions of others we sell bait the happy observeance of christmas. the year toward which we looked then with anticipation and hope has past. roosevelt goes on, we have seen fulfilled many things that a year ago were only hopes. our human rights thus goes on from anticipation and hope to fulfillment. we are entitled to new hopes and new anticipation. he goes on and he says, just across the street is the house occupied 100 years ago, the house the people of the country

have built for their president. from its windows, i see the monuments to this man of courage, it is an inspiration to me as it should be to all americans. let us make the spirit of christmas of 1934 that of courage and unity. it is the way to greater happiness and well-being. that is an important part of what the maker of christmas would have it mean. in this sense, roosevelt says, the scripture add mondayishes us to be strong and fear not, dwell together in unity. he said, i wish you one and all, here and everywhere, a very merry christmas, franklin roosevelt. i have a number of other speeches that he gave on christmas. time will not allow me to read ail of those. i will go to 1962, john f. kennedy, when i said, ladies and

gentlemen, members of the clearing, with the lighting of this tree which is an old ceremony in washington, one which has been the important responsibility of the presidents of the united states, we initiate in a formal way the christmas season. we mark the festival of christmas which is the most sacred day, the mostage of christmas, the message of peace has been the guiding star of our endeavors. this morning, i had a meeting at the white house which included some of our representatives from countries as africa and asia returning to to their posts forever the christmas holidays. i was struck by the fact that in far-off continentses, muslims, buddhists, hindus and christians

pause to celebrate the birthday of the prince of peace. there could be no more striking proof that christian is the universal holiday of men. it is the day when all of us dedicate our thoughts to others. a reminder that mercy and compassion are the enduring virtues which all show by acts that is more blessed to give than to receive. he goes on to talk about the christmas spirit. and as my time goes short here, i want to finish with a speech ronald reagan gave, his christmas message in 1988. he said, the themes of christmas and of coming home for the holidays have long been intertwined in song and story. there is a lesson in this, because christmas celebrates the coming of the savior, who is born without a home.

there was no room at the in for the wholly family. mary and joseph found but the root shelter of a stable. there was born the king of kings, the prince of peace. and an event on which history would turn. jesus would given without a home, during his public ministry, when he said the foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the son of man has no where to lay his head. ronald reagan goes on, our redeemer was reminding us from then on we would never lack a home in him. like the shepards, the lord appeared on the first christmas day. we can always say, let us now go even on to bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass which the lord has made

known on to us us. as we come home with gladness to family and friends this christmas, let us also remember our neighbors who cannot go home themselves. our compassion and concerns this christmas and all year long will mean much to the hospitalized, the homeless, the orphanned and will lead us on our way to the joy and peace of bethlehem and the christ child who bids us, come. for it is only in finding and living the eternal meaning of the nativity that we can truly be happy, truly at peace, truly home. merry christmas. god bless you. ronald reagan. mr. speaker, with that wish from reagan, i do now hereby move

that we adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will accept the motion to adjourn. mr. gohmert: pursuant to section 11-b of house resolution 976, i move now that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. accordingly, pursuant to section 11-b of house resolution 976, the house stands adjourned until 6:00 p.m. on december 19, 2009 unless the conditions specified in section 11-c of that resolution are met, in which case the house shall stand

>> now an assessment of the past year and the house by speaker nancy pelosi. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> good evening. this is the end of an event full day for us and which we finished the work of this session of congress and a positive way. we started the year with the president of the united states action now to create jobs and create -- turned our economy are around it, jobs for the 21st century, health care for all americans, climate change policy that would take us in a new direction. at this end of this session, we have accomplished all of that, and our recovery package, and our budget, in passage of health

care, education and climate change bills to make main street the job activity in our country. -- we passed legislation led by barney frank just last week. wheat ended on a note of job creation. i want to congratulate all of those in congress who are present here. i want to acknowledge mr. reuthoyer, mr. larson, mr. mill, ms. delauro, but they and other members were part of bringing together this important and obsession for us. i just want to say this. when we began this year, i think

it is important to note, when we began this year, the first month of the year, this economy lost 740,000 jobs. because of our recovery package and the leadership of president barack obama, in this last month, the economy lost 11,000 jobs. 740 a year ago, 11,000 last month. we do not want to lose any jobs. we're going on the path of creating a net gain of creating new jobs. in that same period, the stock market went up over 3,000 points, from the day president obama took office where the market was about 7000, to now over 10,000. economists tell us a lot of that change relates to our recovery package and other fiscally sound

measures taken by congress. and i think it is important to note what has happened to the gdp. think of this. we have stimulated the economy to grow. in the first quarter, of this year, as a result of the failed economic policies of the previous administration, we were down -6.4%. the gdp growth or lack thereof was -6.4%. in november 24, 2009 estimate, we are up 2.8%, a swing of 9.2%. -- and our gdp. we are proud of this. are we satisfied? no. much more needs to be done. our president has said we will measure our success by progress is being made by working

families. until we can create many more jobs than have them reach their fulfillment and had health care for all americans, until we have jobs for the 21st century and to enable people to succeed, which is what our legislation will do and we look forward to it being signed by the president, we will not be satisfied. but we are pleased with the progress we are making here as reflected in the allies of the american people. much more needs to be done. i want to acknowledge tremendous leadership in this session of congress. the first session we have had with a democratic president and the majority in both houses. my partner, the house democratic leader, congressman steny hoyer. >> thank you very much, madam speaker. we came to congress in january confronted with the worst

economy in 75 years. we had already made some tough votes at the request of president bush to stabilize the economy. i am very proud of our speaker, of our leadership and of our members. -- who made it very tough decisions throughout the course of this session to respond to the economic crisis, to stabilize our economy. as the speaker pointed out, 741,000 jobs lost in the last year of the bush and administration. all does it -- 11,000 jobs lost last month. that is progress but not success. success will be measured by a growth in jobs, the addition of jobs. more people having the opportunity to work and support themselves and their families. we also confronted the challenge of energy independence

for this country. and global warming. we also have addressed the issue of literally millions and millions of americans, almost 50 million americans without health care. all of these were tough issues for us to confront it, but in the course of the campaign, obama said we would address them. the congress said we would address them, and we have. today, as the speaker says, we end on a continuing effort to create jobs and invest in growing the economy. it was a good day. it has been a good session. there is more work to be done, and we intend to do it. thank you very much. >> now, the man who counts the votes and has been largely

responsible for our victories for the american people, we are very proud of our house democratic whip jim clyburn of south carolina. >> thank you very much. this year began with a moment for the ages -- the swearing in of the first african american president in the united states. a milestone in which all americans could take pride. president obama took office alongside some other auspicious historical milestones. most notably, the worst economic crisis since the great depression. what a difference a year has made. this congress, along sign the

president, had incredible obstacles to surmount. we have taken them on the one at a time. we passed the recovery act, which has saved up to 1.6 million jobs. this fall, as the speaker mentioned, we saw the gdp go from a decline of 6.4% up to a rise of 2.8%. that is the biggest economic turnaround in 29 years. the house passed a clean energy jobs bill. without creating an additional debt. that will create millions of jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce pollution causing climate change. we have seen, in the month of

october, an increase of 10% in the sale of existing homes. and an increase of over 6% in the sales of new homes. and we are on the brink of sending the president landmark legislation that will provide quality, affordable health care for all americans. we are very proud of the accomplishments of getting this country back on the right track. and i just want to say to the speaker, i live in a house with four women. but let me tell you something. i have never seen a woman like this one. in this vote we just took, i looked at her with doubt on my face and in my eyes, and she

gave me that steely look, and said, let's call the vote. i sweat this one out, madam speaker. thank you so much for being so silly. -- so steally. ely. with that, i will yield to the chair of this caucus, chairman lawson. [applause] >> let me echo the sentiments of steny hoyer and jim clyburn. we are fortunate to be led by such a capable leader in nancy pelosi. i know that every member of this leadership agrees with that. but our members are so grateful for her work. she never asks from anyone that she does not do a 10-fold herself. at this time, for our country,

with a historical precedent, it is great we have a historic speaker who continues to speak on behalf of the people of this country. it is an honor for us to serve with her and continue to roll up our sleeves on behalf of the american people and get the job done. we are restless. we know there is much more to be done. but we have the appetite for it. we have someone who has the will, the dedication, the grace and the ability to accomplish that. that is why we follow her lead. merry christmas. feliz navidad. kwanza. happy chanakuk to everyone. >> a person with so much talent who wears two hats, the assistant to the speaker and

chair of the democratic national campaign committee, a person who knows policies so well, understands the politics and promotes the people for us -- >> thank you. from the very first days of this year, this congress, under the leadership of speaker nancy pelosi, working with our new president, focused on getting the economy turned around. and that has continued to be our focus throughout the year. we said yes to putting us on a path towards economic recovery. things have begun to stabilize and we will keep working to we turn the corner. we did make many tough decisions. being in congress is about making choices. while we were saying yes to getting the economy turned around, unfortunately, beginning with the first vote on economic recovery, to a person, our republican colleagues said no.

in saying no to turning around the economy, they have been saying yes to a number of special interests in this town. just last week, we had an historic vote on holding wall street accountable. democrats voted yes, to saying we will no longer are allowed big bets and bad bets on wall street to leave the taxpayers holding the bag. are republicans colleagues voted with the special interests. not that long ago, we had another big vote on higher education. chairman miller led the way and saying, we will make sure our scholarship funds, pell grants and loans, go directly to students. we will take out the big banks, the middle man. once again, republicans voted for the big banks, which meant less money to students if they had gotten their way. energy policy.

speakers soon to be off to copenhagen and led the way on a vote here to say we need to invest in clean energy for jobs at home and for our national security. democrats voted yes, republican colleagues voted with the big oil companies and practices of the past. on health care reform. we have been working to make sure that we no longer allow american citizens to be held hostage to bad decisions by insurance companies. we want to prohibit people from being barred by insurance coverage by pre-existing conditions. we want to provide stability and more coverage. when you looked at the republican alternative after they finally got around to it, it was written by the insurance companies. while they said no to getting the economy moving, they said yes to all special interests that used to run this town for

the previous eight years. we say, yes to getting the economy moving again and no to the special interests. i want to thank our speaker and this great team here for keeping us a very focused on the public interest, rather than doing the bidding of the special interests. thank you. he is not here. it is my great pleasure to turn it over to chairman miller to has been at the center of so many of these accomplishments. >> 21. thank you. we are encouraged by, as many people are, by the positive signs we see in the economy. we are warned every day and have been for a considerable period of time that unemployment can continue to drag this economy down. the joblessness in this country -- tonight we take another step, as my colleagues have said, to

attack the unemployment in this country and provide jobs. we have seen from recovery act, that we were successful in creating construction jobs. in helping out local governments. every day, we say commentators on the market value that if construction jobs are not restored and local government is not able to weather the storm, we can create another wave of unemployment and we cannot get the kind of growth we need this legislation, designed by the democratic caucus, put together by dave obey, is an effort to do that. we believe we can build on the success we have had in the recovery program. none of this is easy. none of this year has been easy, but it has been wildly successful. maybe that is the reason why the speaker was the third runner-up

and in person of the year. >> let me just say this. mr. miller is chair of education and labor and our policy committee. he has been a major force in shaping and jobs initiative. our mastrestro in the jobs bill has been chairman obey, especially when he is dealing with all the variables of dealing with the united states senate. he has the idealism and the ideas. he has the integrity, and he has the institutional memory and the temperament. i would not go that far. we are in the business of hyperbole, but i would not go that far. temperament aside, a great leader. chairman obey.

>> i had an old friend in wisconsin and a by the name of herbie. at moments like this, he would say, is getting deep in here. i want to say thank you to the harry truman of the democratic party, are speaker. we would not have had this package without her. we would not have passed without her. and on virtually every issue known to the country over the past year, we would not even have been in the ball game without her. she is one of the most incredibly determined and conscience-ridden persons i have ever known. and i thank god every day that she has the steel and the determination to lead this caucus, which can sometimes be a very difficult problem. american samoa no, i am not a touchy-feely person. -- as you know, i am not a

techy-feely person. that is my staffer laughing. that is terrible. [laughter] but we all have to ask why we came here. why did we run for this job in the first place? i think that famous religious leader john wesley summed up when he said this -- to all the good you can, by all the means you can get, and all the ways you can, and all the places you can, that all the times you can to all the people you can as long as it ever you can. that is the job of every single member of congress. and i am proud that today that we have 217 of them who met that responsibility. having a job as central to a

dignified life. the work ethic is central to america. when we do not do everything possible to see to it that every willing person in america has a decent and dignified job, we are failing to do our duty to live up to the religious values this country is supposed to have. and we are failing to do our public duty. i am proud we had enough people in the house tonight who met that duty. >> next we are going to hear from the chair of the steering committee of the house democratic congresaucus. rosa de lauro. for every issue from food safety to tax credits to job security to our national defense, she is,

when you are in battle, you want her on your side. we are proud of her leadership. >> thank you very much. in honor to be here with my colleagues on an unbelievable day, an unbelievable outcome. we are truly honored to serve with speaker pelosi. i will tell you why for a second. and that is, she is driven by a core set of values that say to her -- do the right tihng. hing. she couples that with the spine of steel which is reflected, those values are reflected in the legislation that gets passed. no more reflected, the central core of values and of doing the right thing, more demonstrated

by the votes today. my colleagues have mentioned the year. i echo what has happened in the house of representatives this year. extraordinary legislation in terms of people's lives. but just today, take just a day -- there is a recognition and a drive to say to the people of this great nation -- we know you're on your knees. we know you lost your job. we know you cannot feed your kids. we know you lost a chunk of that child tax credit which gave the ability to take care of your kids. we know what your losses prepar is. we walk in your shoes. because you can count on, you can rely on this house of representatives to pass

legislation that can do something to not give you everything that you need, but give you that help when the challenges are so overwhelming and the challenges for people in this country are so overwhelming today, that the speaker and this house tonight voted to say, we understand. we are there. it is not enough, but we are coming back. we are coming back in january. and you can count on us, because we believe that is our moral responsibility to make sure that you and your family is and, particularly, your children -- when people cannot feed their kids, they need our help. that is what is happening today. and this speaker and his

leadership and his democratic caucus tonight said, we understand. thank you, madam speaker, for your work. >> thank you very much. all of the things that my colleagues mentioned, i subscribe to. we are all very proud of our members for their courage and dedication. it is important to note that the package we passed today is one of fiscal soundness. whether you are talking about food stamps are unemployment insurance for those who lost their jobs, everyone of these investments brings a bigger return to the economy. inject demand into the economy, creating further jobs. they are job-creators. the rest of the legislation, to make sure our teachers are not laid off, our fire fighters, are police, those meeting health needs of our people, all of that is important because it is about the services they provide. the safety of our community and

the education of our children. they are about jobs and -- to create consumers and consumers are the lifeblood of our economy. in addition to that, we have a major investment in infrastructure. the leadership of chairman oberstar and other. we have a major investment in creating paying jobs here in america. i would come back to what the president said -- the measure of success is the progress made by america's working families. today we have fans that cause. yes, sir? >> why were so many of your members reluctant to vote? >> every vote was a heavy lift. every bill is a heavy lift. we were pleased -- a few members were not present. so we had to reach out to other folks.

we had a couple absences this evening. for reasons that are beyond our control, we had to take up the debt -- today. having this bill following that, was a heavy lift. the reason we were doing that is because this bill is paid for by tarp funds. that money would simply go away december 31. that made it clear that the focus on jobs, that we all share, on100%, needed to be addressed now, because the funding for our fiscal soundness, we believe the creation of jobs reduces the deficit. in the creation of jobs, we want to make sure our initiatives are paid for. >> [inaudible] >> i am very excited that i can go to copenhagen, because until

we had all of our work done, we were never sure about that. as you may know, the issue of climate change and energy the flagship issue of my speakership. when i became speaker, i established a select committee, chaired by chairman markey, to take us to a place that recognized that it is in our national security interest to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. it is a health issue to reduce emissions. it is an economic issue to invest in innovation to create green jobs and the number one in technological innovation. it is a moral issue if you believe that this planet is scottgod's and we have a moral responsibility to pass it on to future generations in tact. even when president bush was president, we passed a strong

energy bill which he signed into law. many of our initiatives could not be paid for until we had president barack obama who believe, as did we, that this was important, that the investments in science and innovation that would make this possible were important. when i go to copenhagen, the world are low play is to present, with the president of finland and the president of liberia, presenting the role of women and addressing the climate crisis. as consumers, as producers of food, with some emphasis on agriculture and how we have to respect the issues that relate to agriculture as we go forward. we will be there to applaud

the presentation of president obama who will make us all very proud in presenting the priority of addressing the climate crisis. that will represent real change from previous administrations who, either denied it was happening, or that human behavior had any impact on that. . we have a bipartisan delegation. we will leave as soon as we are finished here. >> last week you indicated you thought it would be relatively quick to conference of health care bill and the senate. now the senate has indicated they are. to drop the medicare by in, how quickly do think that you can negotiate -- >> >> if i used the word quick, then i was tasty. i said it was possible to do and a timely fashion. we have not seen the senate bill. -- i was hasty.

i anticipate they will pass their bill before christmas. >> without a public option and without the medicare by in, how have the of a lift is it for you to get some liberal members to support this? >> every vote here has been heavy lift. our magic number is to win. perhaps our colleagues would like to address how they see, how heavy are left it will be. let me say this. we will have a bill. it will be great. it will represent real change in terms of reforming the insurance industry in terms of ending discrimination because of pre-existing conditions. that list of reforms. in terms of a strong exchange in which the cost of health care can go down for individuals and for businesses and their coverage can be increased.

we will subject what we do to the same criteria that i subjected are built and that is affordability for the middle class, security for our seniors, closing the doughnut hole, responsibility to our children, not getting one dime to the deficit, reducing the deficit, and to have accountability of insurance companies. i am sure we will find common ground. >> do -- "the wall street journal" came out today that said that 55% of all americans say we are headed in the wrong direction. 45% are against the health care bill. for the first time in two years, democrats have a negative. if this is the year -- how come your message is not resident with the american people? >> when we have the bills

accomplish, then we can talk about what they do. when you're in the process of legislating, as others have compared it to various other processes, but we had our responsibility to the american people. we had a plan -- recovery, a budget that would be a blueprint for the future, corporate accountability, the bill from barney frank. we have finished our work. we have kept it with a bill to take into the next session about jobs. we feel proud about the work we have done. but it is work that we have been doing. now, as these bills are finished and go to the president's desk, we can message them to the american people. we have to have a product in order to present it. we feel very responsible in order that we have taken this. -- about doing our work and

taking our message to the american people. we feel confident about it. thank you very much. merry christmas. happy hanukkah. for some families, it is all of the above. we wish you all well. i want to say how proud i am of our members, our leadership that has worked as a team for their courage and their commitment to the american people. thank you, all. >> the united nations climate change conference in denmark today heard from heads of states and from delegates representing developing countries. president obama will address the conference on friday when participants hope to reach a climate change agreement. this part of the conference is 40 minutes.

>> he was not an imposing figure. he was not a giant of his time. he emerged as the nominee at a time when the party was populated by big figures. >> 'manifest destiny," biography of james capel. the life and times of our 11th president -- jame k. polk. sunday. >> the climate change conference in denmark today heard from heads of state and representatives from developing countries. president obama will address the conference on friday when participants hope to reach a climate change agreement. this part of the conference is 40 minutes. >> so, once again, i still think, i still hope -- hope is

green. that the future presence of so many heads of states of government in copenhagen will pave the way for a successful outcome. never before have so many world leaders gather together to discuss a topic of such global importance as climate change. your presence here makes one simple point -- we are, indeed, one planet. we share the same fate. and we are all in this together. on behalf of the conference, i would therefore like to thank everyone of you for joining us today. we will now begin hearing the national statements for the joint high level segment of our

conference. we will begin with statements delivered on behalf of groups. with this, i will invite our first speaker to address the conference. it gives me great pleasure to welcome to the conference of his excellency mr. naife ali naife, from sudan, who will speak on behalf of the group of 77 in china. you have the floor. >[speaking foreign language] >> mr. chairman, excellencies, and some states and governments, his ex elite --

excellency the prominent minister of denmark -- prime minister of denmark, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. mr. chairman, sudan is honored to make this statement on behalf of the group of 77 and china. let me at the outset congratulate you on your election as president of the 50th session of the conference. -- the 15th session on that -- of the conference -- -- a meeting of the parties to the kyoto protocol. let me also express to the people and the government of denmark our thanks and appreciation for their hospitality and for hosting of this historical event in the

beautiful city of copenhagen. mr. chairman, two years ago and bally, all parties agreed to adopt the results of the awd-kb in copenhagen at this session of the conference. -- of all parties serving as a meeting of the parties to the kyoto protocol. and thereby set up the negotiation process. in this regard, the group has been working towards achieving that called mandated of the nwd- kp which specifically focuses on the legal requirements to define the second period under the kyoto protocol. a line -- the second commitment period, must inscribe ambitious,

quantified emission reduction targets for developed countries beyond 2012. and a more efficient and effective set of rules in order to enable developed countries, parties, to take the lead in significantly contributes to the minimization of impact of climate change. however, we have seen that developed countries, party to the kyoto protocol, seek to dismantle the protocol itself in favor of a single undertaking, allied comprehensively, but which is in reality, much weaker and will effectively undermine -- the convention and

its kyoto protocol. to this end, we have seen continual delays in our work, exemplified by the fact that the head of the new gkp has not met a single deadline to reach the conclusions on emission reduction, which we are agreed to -- only a year ago. i think it is clear that these efforts are intended to undermine and reinterpreted the convention itself. in particular, it's foundational principles of equality,, and by

differentiated responsibilities, and respective capabilities. mr. chairman, let us be clear that the group of 77 and china regards the convention, together with the kyoto protocol and all --as a comprehensive undertaking of the international community to address the global challenge of climate change. in this regard, this group wishes to stress the need to maintain a two-track outcome that the kyoto protocol is an essential instrument, which presents the means to enable developed countries to meet their legal commitments under article 42 of the convention to

reduce emissions. mr. chairman, for the sake of the well-being of our planet, and its people, the group of 77 and china insists that a second commitment period on to the kyoto protocol must be established beyond 2012 as a basis for comparable emission reduction, commitments among all developed country parties. we will oppose an agreement in copenhagen which results in kyoto protocol being superseded or made redundant. the second commitment period under the kyoto protocol is a minimal requirement for the group, without which agreement in copenhagen would not be possible. mr. president, in bali, we also

agreed to launch a comprehensive process to enable full, affective and sustained implementation of the convention through long-term cooperative action. -- now up to and beyond 2012. in order to reach an agreed out, and adopt a decision at this session of the conference of parties. mr. chairman, we have now reached the 15th session. and a group of 77 and china is ready to fulfill his mandate. however, the group's intensive efforts to engage constructively in this process were seriously hampered by complicated and multilayered

process these of consultations imposed upon us at the beginning of this second week of this session. mr. chairman, we try to understand the objective of this exercise, which we suppose was meant to generate the political will to ride at the meaningful conclusion of this conference -- to all arrive at meaningful conclusion, we feel there is lack of transparency in the way the decisions were being made to hold this high-level consultations and the identification of issues to be discussed in these consultations left much to be desired. many of the g-77 delegations in china, many of them have limited capacities, and would not be -- could not be representative -- represented in all the meetings,

all of which are of great importance to the group. despite this development, the group continued to engage in a different drafting groups and informal groups that continued until the early morning hours. we made some progress. but this process remains on certain in the light -- uncertain in the light of other discussions. mr.ñr chairman, we still keep te hope that we could reach a balanced outcome of all the elements of the bali action plan. and we continue to engage constructively in the negotiations in order to reach an agreeable outcome for this session. developing countries have the most to lose.

there are no concrete results of our discussions -- if there are no concrete results. particularly in the kyoto protocol, if the kyoto protocol is undermined or dismantled. we therefore, are the most concerned that we do all arrive at the successful outcome of cop 15. mr. chairman, the group of 77 and china considers our shared vision a science-based in founded on the principal provisions of the convention, in particular, the principles of equality and comment by differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities -- comment but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. it must reflect the historical

-- of developed countries, for cumin-induced climate change. -- for human-induced climate change. [unintelligible] and establish the conditions needed for a fair and just sharing of the atmospheric resources. mr. chairman, our shared vision, including a long-term global goal for emission reductions, is to enhance the fall, effective and sustained implementation of the convention, in a balanced and comprehensive manner by addressing mitigation, adaptation, development and transfer of financing, and capacity-building in an integrated way. it must ensure that there is an

inclusive, fair and equitable outcome that fully respects and supports the right to development and to survival of developing countries. it recognizes and promotes the right to survival and development. for present and future generations, as a light -- a right of all countries and people. and that social and economic development and poverty eradication of are the fairest and overriding priorities of the countries. mr. chairman, the group of 77 and china calls for a comprehensive policy. guidance on adaptation effective -- a new, additional, scale-up, long-term financial --

to enable the developing countries to address mid to long-term adaptations. mr. chairman, we are also concerned by the way mitigation has been dealt with in copenhagen. issues under the action plan -- which deals with the mitigation by countries, have essentially stopped moving. this creates a lack of balance at the heart of the negotiation process. we cannot have a copenhagen outcome without sufficient treatment of the mitigation and that particular paragraph. we want a positive result in all aspects of the action plan. we support