care, as well. later, we will discuss the recent story of the american woman who is accused of beating foreign terrorists. this is "washington journal." . .

the newspaper. this is in the "the wall street journal." obama to tap yellen as fed vice chair. he plans to nominate janet yellen as vice chairman of the federal reserve board, a person familiar with the matter said.

one of the economic article in "the wall street journal" this morning. economists credit fed for alleviating the crisis. this is in "usa today," an update on harry reid's wife and daughter.

both mrs. reid . lana are conscious and according to doctors, their injuries are non life threatening. in the article it goes on to say that jim manely said the nevada democrat went to hospital after being told about the incident, later returned to capitol hill for a meeting with white house chief of staff rahm emanuel and house speaker ned to pelosi on efforts to pass health care legislation. in "the new york times" this morning it looks at the kansas city school system and its decision to close 28 out of 61

schools.

the school board was dysfunctional for years, there was very poor governance for a long period of time and it was like a revolving door with superintendents. faced with a $50 million deficit in the $300 million budget, the district decided to close the schools. the plan also calls for the elimination of 700 out of 3000 jobs, including teaching positions. education experts praised the new schools superintendent, who was hired in april from the pueblo, colorado, district, for

pushing the change. ok, we want to hear from you. grade your public school system. first up is lisa, who is a parent in siclervilklerville, nw jersey. caller: first i would like to say harry reid and his family are in our prayers. i would regard as a de--- d minus, and the schools have gotten worse over the years. host: why do you think it is? caller: i did not know if the population has changed. a lot of renters and maybe the parents are not moving the school to the same standards they use to. i am not sure. host: philip in bowie, maryland,

a teacher. caller: there are so many dynamics to the reason why i would give the public school system probably in some instances a b for the good students indefinitely -- host: what do you teach? caller: i teach high school curriculum, kids in two categories. they are either teenagers who have become -- were generally emotionally challenged. the curriculum -- from grade level --

host: since you teach in a separate track, d believe there should be separate tracks for students? caller: well, yes. i taught at a private school and generally two years in the public school last two years. in those situations, to the private school that had separate situations, we were much more focused on education, what we were doing and achieving. in the public school setting, i noticed a dramatic difference in my attention span.

caller: holding that the smart kids from the dummy is because they are holding back the smart ones and that is not right. that is part of the problem. the other part of of the problem is i think some teachers -- not the last german, he seemed very nice -- but they don't seem to be very well educated themselves and they're getting too many school days off. my word, when i was going to school and my son was going to school, they never had as many days off as they do in the school system nowadays. host, why do you think schools have changed? caller: what the gentleman said previously -- base should separate the kids that they're unwilling to learn and have promise to go to college. they are held back because of

the kids that are attending -- they don't seem to care or think they will not get ahead, or whatever. they don't have parents supporting them. host: what a from kansas city, missouri. a. parents. we are talking about your school system. what do you think of the public schools and what you think of the plans to close 28 of 61 schools? caller: i would like to give the school district a grade of f. the kansas city school district received over -- i think $2 billion from the federal government and the late 1960's because of integration and discrimination, and that money was just completely wasted. take a look at the budget of $300 million for kansas city school district. there are 17,500 students. the average graduation rates is about 40%.

they are spending close to $17,500 per student and they are failing at the rate of about 60% in terms of getting these kids to graduate. the problem lies at the federal government and giving money -- fighting problems with money with no concept about how to really educate people. host: do you have kids currently in kansas city public schools? caller: i would never have a child in that district. i would put him in a private school. host: have you done so? caller: yes, i have. host: what does that cost you? caller: about $8,000. host: you are still paying property taxes, it is that how the public schools are funded? caller: i am still paying the property taxes. they were talking about increasing the property taxes and closing 26 schools is the

best thing that ever happened. host: what you think of dr. covington? caller: god bless the man. he is facing the problem and the best thing we can do is get rid of the administration. the only thing we can do is get parents involved with their children's education and imposed the disciplined leadership -- so the kids can think and steady and be prepared for the future. host: sandy, utah, a parent. what you think of your public school system? caller: over all in our state, i would give it a c. the reason is -- well, before the president came in they had almost every friday off and then the kids were leaving at 2:30 p.m., but really they were kind of straggling out at 1:30 p.m.. then they had so many holidays and snow days, they were just not going to school. but when i used to go to school,

we stayed until 4:00. and if you wanted extra activities or extra sports activities, you stayed one extra hour but there were buses to make sure you went home safely and you went to school monday through friday. and the teachers had time to take care of their grading and so forth. host: another teacher, kensington, connecticut. anne, do you teach in public school? caller: yes, i did teach. i am a retired teacher. i taught american history, grade 8. it was cut greater public schools in kensington, connecticut? where is it? caller: it is about 50 miles from hartford. geographically in the center of the state. i would rate my school system an a, and the biggest reason why is because of parent involvement.

if there were any problems, we detected them early and specials on it and parents were at the school. that is the biggest reason, parent involvement -- and our curriculum was excellent. the teachers already -- always had a say in the curriculum. and in writing curriculum. so, i raided my school system an a. host: would you say it is a wealthy community? caller: i would say it is upperclass. host: would that make a difference, do you think? caller: -- yes, because after a retired i started subbing, and because the peso well i it sold at an inner-city school and it was like night and day. there were enormous problems in the small inner city schools. you know, a lot of absenteeism, a lot of -- high rate of

pregnancies. and people coming in and out of the school. and in a situation like that, i felt so sorry for the teachers because it was so hard for them to get a handle on anything. the problems were just so insurmountable -- that specials were not able to keep up with the problem. teachers tried their best. it was very difficult. i blame the main reason -- a lot of people want to use teachers as scapegoats but really it is the parents. the parents should be more involved in their kids' education, and that is really the answer. if the parents were really not involved and -- you know, did you do your homework, and make sure kids did their homework, and they were at the school taking care of any problems that

had to be taken care of and get after their kids if they misbehaved, the school systems would be a lot better. host: let us leave it there. thank you, another teacher on the line. valerie is calling from kansas city, missouri. which is kind of our focus this morning. are you losing your job, first of all? caller: hopefully not. host: what do you teach and what do you think of the plan to shut some of the schools down? caller: i teach first grade and i'm part of one of the school's that are going to go. i grade our school district as a c. the only reason why i say that is because of the lack of parental support from home. it just like the other caller just said, they use the teachers as a scapegoat. because i'm a teacher and i work very hard. i'm at school at least almost 12 hours a day trying to prepare and make their education as best

as i can. so it is not always the teachers, it is the lack of help from home. host: can you give a specific example of students who you think need more help from home? caller: some of the students are absent a lot, and a lot of the students -- talking specifically about my class, they come in severely behind and it is hard to catch them up. if i am teaching first grade and they are not even at a kindergarten level. it is hard for me to make that type of growth in one year. host: what do you think of dr. covington? caller: i think he is on the right track. and i truly support the things that he has in place and he wants to do for our school district. host: what do you think private schools do differently than public schools that you think the kansas city public schools should do? caller: i know one thing, that they have the parental support. and they may have different

things set up where you have to have done certain things to even get into the schools. i know we cannot really do that in a public school, had a line where you have to know this and you have to do this before you are even accepted. and also, the behavior problems, too. i doubt they'd let students with severe behavior problems to be in the classroom in a private school. host: thank you for calling in. appreciate it. another teacher on the line, anne from bethesda, maryland, the washington suburbs. caller: thank you foresees it. host: grade montgomery county schools. caller: they actually are pretty great in montgomery county, but like all schools in the country, there are some substantial problems. my area of concern happens to be the issue of illegal drug use by kids. and someone else has already mentioned in this, but the need for parents to be involved. and not only at home, but they

need to be involved in school. we currently have a major epidemic in our country. the centers for disease control reported there are 3000 young people dying every month in this country, every single month. and 18 nations, including our own, has linked marijuana, which is the new high potency marijuana called spunk, they list dealing to depression, cycle does, and even schizophrenia. host: are you still teaching? caller: i teach seminars in various areas. a school-sponsored and sometimes and someone's home. host: did you teach at one time full time in the public schools? caller: yes, i did. host: what did you teach? caller: i taught second grade. at that age, there are not that many problems, except maybe for child behavior problems. as they get older, that average

age for beginning use is 11 -- that is where i teach. for instance, tomorrow i'm going to philadelphia to meet with a group of 50 or 60 families whose children have overdosed and are dead. the whole idea of what is going on -- with the help of the media and now promoting a false idea that marijuana is somehow madison and our current attorney general has apparently stated that he will not enforce the law against that, even though federal law controls in this illegal schedule one substance. we met just within the last month with the attorney general -- host got we got that point. let us back to the schools. very quickly. what he said to fall to say, well, montgomery county, maryland, is one of the wealthiest counties in the united states, so there is a lot of school funding and funding

helps. what do you say to folks who may not have that kind of funding? caller: i say go after your local government and tried to get it. that is exactly what the attorney general's staff -- we just don't have the resources. host: alright, we will leave it. another parent from kansas city, missouri. linda. what do you think of kansas city public schools? caller: i give them an f, an f, and an f. i am not going to say it is the kids here. it is the administration. we have gone through so many superintendents that did not fulfill their years that they fired, and they still got to keep their money. i think that was a shame. i took my kids out of public schools back in the 1980's and put them in private schools because that is when it was all starting to go downhill, i believe back in the 1980's.

host: why do you think it change? caller: i think of the 1980's they started segregating and closing -- not closing the inner schools but out south in the suburbs, where they were fixing up the schools and put in swimming pools in them, and they did that, too, and enter city, too, to bring the white kids in the inner city and then the black kids went out to a school in the suburbs. i had a sister in law that had six kids. each one of six kids went to different schools. not a school in their neighborhood, but to go white schools. that is when i took my kids out of public schools. it was just going down. it has been going downhill from then on. host: did you go to kansas city public school? caller: i went to kansas city public schools and it was nothing like that. we had no days off. we walked to school.

we did not have bus service. host: one final question. were you there in the days of segregation or had it been integrated? caller: i know, it had been integrated before i started school. caller: ok, all right. thank you for calling in this morning. a teacher on the line. kristin, oklahoma. what do you think about the public schools? caller: i give it about a c. the reason i do this, we are in a unique situation. we live next to a military base. and our kids pretty much -- we have kids coming in and out. kids from all over the nation. and they come from all different backgrounds. we get them from all different states. and there curriculum levels are all different. so if they are ahead, we have to catch up. if they are behind, we have to get them caught up. so it is different when you are

dealing with military children did you do not have a choice. you've got all different levels. host: what do you teach? caller: i teach fourth grade. host: are you a member of the union? caller: i am. host: why? caller: you have to be covered. you have to have all the resources available to you. you have to know what is out there and available. caller: -- host: is it a positive view -- thing in your view? caller: teaches do what they can do. we are stuck. we and no money, we have no resources. and i don't think parents realize that. myself, in particular, i spent all of my night and time dealing with other people's children and i cannot deal with my own children who are struggling in the public-school system as it is myself. host: lovelle, chickasaw, oklahoma.

caller: i getc minus. host:why? caller: a lot want to do is build more schools. we closed about three plants -- delta, hillsboro, and where i used to work, aero safety. all they want to do is build schools. i could see they want to build two schools now. but, you know -- it is just a mess. host: phoenix, arizona. beverly on the parents line. how were you? the caller: i am fine. host: my guess is you probably don't have kids in school anymore. caller: no, i have grandkids. my granddaughter just graduated college. but i had a great grandbaby this year. host of you do?

caller: they all live in kansas city and they are going to be going to those public schools. host: ok. caller: but when my husband died in the late 1960's, i had to go to work and i was a single parents in the kansas city district. and this district they are talking about is downtown, one of the poorest, and at the time i lived there, it had 500 students in one school. and it was not a safe school district at that time even dared -- even. it was very poor. host: if you had kids in school today, where would you send them? caller: where i sent them then. i send my kids -- it was hard to do. i had to go to work. but i send my kids to parochial school even though i was not catholic.

where you are wrong here, peter, is unique to take our ranking in the most richest countries -- as we are 19th out of the 20 top industrial countries. that is where the problem is. it is not something that can be solved -- you have to take those top five schools -- host: all right, beverly. good to hear from you. we have atweet -- a tweet from a 16-year-old republican. gerald is apparent from illinois.

how are your public schools? caller: i went to school in east, and it is better for me to rank those schools. the east st. louis, and it is better for me to bring those schools. d-. host: what would you change about the schools? caller: to educate our kids towards the -- i think the dropout rate is so high in east st. loius because none of the problems that have to deal with when they get home is being addressed at school. and so they learn about christopher columbus or whatever, and when they go home their mother is on drugs or whatever. host: do you have kids in public school right now? caller: yes, i do. not public school, but day care.

they are still in day care. host: are you going to send her or him to public or private school? caller: i think it will be public school because the public schools in belleville -- host: y. the think they are good? what is the difference? caller: probably the tax base, much more funding. host: finally, chris from baltimore, maryland. a teacher. what do you teach? caller: high-school science. host: do you teach in the baltimore public schools? caller: i used to teach in baltimore public schools and now i teach in pg county, outside of d.c. host: the you teach in the public schools? caller: that is correct. host: prince george's county. caller: now i greatest a d. there is a little improvement

but there is a major concern about the lack of funding, especially in schools that are very large like myself. i currently teach about 190 kids on a daily basis and i am expected to do so with about $200 of funding for this school year, which i actually gave way to one of my fellow teachers so he could act to buy equipment he needed for one of his classes. they said the funding is there, but by the time it trickle-down to the classroom is actually almost non existent. it is almost an abomination to watch how some of money is wasted, especially in my own county where in the last three years i watched them change the freshman curriculum, spending millions of dollars, and it was here today and gone tomorrow. it is unfortunate. if we did not step back and take a look and have serious reform, education is the foundation of the country. i know -- it rebuild in the

walls and patching the roof and the banking system and everything else needed to the economy, but once the foundation slips out, we are done. it is over. host: thank you for everyone who called in. we did not get through the very many but i it -- newspapers, and i apologize for that. but this was interesting and something a little different. a final tweet -- that is from jan ness. up next is representative bob goodlatte who serves on the judiciary committee and agricultural committee. he has revived interest in the balanced budget amendment. and we are going to talk to him about that in just a minute. as regular viewers of congress know, the balanced budget amendment has been around for a long time. in fact, here is from the

1990's, senators rudman and gramm. >> there are two possible crises we face, according to an economist to you want to talk to, somewhere between now and probably 1997. one will be an artificial crisis caused by the passage of the balanced budget amendment. i say artificial because unless the courts enforce it, which is doubtful, it probably would not result in a balanced budget. what it would do -- it would point out what we are talking about today. if it were in effect tomorrow and we were to do would by next tuesday it would be 12% across- the-board on every program, including social security and medicaid, and 12% increase of every tax. that would balance the budget this year. obviously that is beyond the pale in one year. people would realize it. it would precipitate an office addresses which in my view would not be very salutary in terms of education. the real crisis we are all trying to avoid is when you folks never did much reporting on. i would say that some in event

of reporters and newspapers and television networks ought to talk to some central bankers long as all this money. >> our sadness is we were one vote short of changing the history of the united states of america. the good news is no defeat is final. and we are going to be back, and the american people are going to have an opportunity to communicate to the president into the six democrats who shifted their vote. in the meantime, we still have a job to do. we don't have a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, but we are committed to cutting government spending and reducing the deficit. we are committed to trying to do what we can in law, even though we can't get the 67 votes. host: congressman bob goodlatte is on your screen. for some reason, the balanced budget amendment has come back into play in congress. why is that? guest: i think it is because the american people are demanding

attention on these enormous federal deficits and the accumulating national debt, probably the biggest threat to the economic security of our country and to the future of our children and grandchildren. quite frankly, if these huge deficits continue on the path where they are now where there is no foresight whatsoever for a balanced budget, that inflation, higher interest rates, and so on are on the horizon. host: this has been talked about for 40 or 50 years in the congress. why has it never been able to pass even when republicans had control? guest: it actually has been going back to the founding of our country. thomas jefferson, who was not among those writing the constitution, he was ambassador to france at the time, said afterwards his biggest regret about the constitution -- of course, it is a wonderful document -- was there was not a limitation on the ability for the federal government to borrow money. so this is not a new discussion, but it is one that requires a

constitutional amendment, which is requiring two-thirds vote in the house, a two-thirds vote in a hat -- senate, and three- quarters of the state legislators have to ratify it. i noticed you just had a former senator phil gramm on the air, and he was lamenting the fact that the senate came up one vote short back in 1995 when we have the contract with america. the house passed it. the house has passed a few times beginning -- but the senate came one vote short. i think that is one of the more regrettable moments in american history. had that one vote been there, i think that our country would be on a different path today. host: what efforts are you expending to get it passed? guest: i'm working hard to coast the -- sign up co-sponsors from both parties. we have a new task force, a caucus that was just formed around this legislation, introduced it on the first day of the congress, house joint

resolution no. 1, balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution. congressman mike kaufman and jim marshall formed a bipartisan caucus to help in the rate of movement -- in the recruitment. we already have 176 co-sponsors, a lot more republicans than democrats and we will focus on bringing with democrats on board. it requires a 290 vote, two- thirds majority, to pass it. host: congressman goodlatte, walk us through -- if there was a balanced budget amendment, how would something like health care reform, which would cost money, or any other money program, get passed? would be tax increases, cuts in other areas? guest: this would require a balanced budget within five years. initially wanted passes and is ratified by the states, there would be five years to bring the

balanced budget into effect. so legislation that calls for massive new federal government spending like the health care reform bill on the table today would probably not be considered in its current form. instead, the kind of reform i think most americans want which would be incremental reforms of things like -- a lot of people buy insurance across state lines, medical liability reform, a lot of people forming into large pools to get the competitive rates large corporations get off -- those kinds of things would be examined first because of the fact they did not cost taxpayers any money. where is the president's bill -- there is a great debate about the cost -- but many believe it will cost $200 billion a year at a time we are already projected next year to spend $1.60 trillion more than we would take on an ravenous. so, the congress would be forced to set priorities that they don't and have not done, regardless of who has been president and who is in control

of congress. the priorities that need to be set have not been set. members of congress say -- we will do it all, and then they will kick the can down the road. but that can is being kicked at our children and grandchildren. host: the iraq war began in 2003. 800 or $900 billion later, how would that have been funded? guest: well, the amendment allows for an exception in time of war and an exception when there is a super majority vote, a 60% vote in time of national emergency. so, the issue there would be was there a time of war since there was no declaration? i would argue there would have had to of been a declaration of war in those circumstances -- would have had to have been a declaration of war. and but downturn last year, but congress could have voted -- and the downturn last year, and the congress could have voted, that

is one year the budget would not be in balance. but quite frankly, over the last 50 years, the budget has been dallas four times. the late 1990's when you had a republican congress and a democratic president. and i think -- and i think most americans think -- it should be the other way around. in the last 50 years there might have been four occasions when a national emergency or time of war called for the budget to be out of balance and then in all the other times of good economic growth, the budget should have been in balance. it will be a matter of great sacrifice on the part of the government, just like families and businesses and local and state governments have all had to tighten their belts. in some instances, quite severely, because of the economic downturn. that same kind of structure should be imposed upon the federal government. and it will be a difficult thing to do, no doubt about it. host: besides tightening the

belt of the government side, would you advocate tax increases to get to a balanced budget? guest: i would not advocate tax increases. we have grown the size of the federal government enormously. the average american -- not talking about the wealthy americans -- the average american today spends more than 40% of their income on taxes at all levels of government -- federal, state, and local. when you consider they have to take the other 60% for all the basic necessities -- food, clothing, shelter, health care, education -- that is a tremendous burden to carry, with an additional 40% going to taxes. i would be looking at spending cuts of all times to accomplish this. host: let us hear from the viewers. the numbers -- congressman bob goodlatte, republican from virginia, is our

guest. michigan, independent line. caller: good morning, congressman. first of all, the health care bill is budget neutral. you know, we are not drawing cash from the treasury to support the health care bill. second comment -- the crown achievement of the republican party in the 1990's, the impeachment of a bill clinton. then we have the bush and eight years of bush and the republicans controlling the congress and the white house and you spent us into oblivion. now we have to pull a rabbit out of power had with the stimulus package which got us back even. right now jobs are picking up in michigan. guest: first of all, let us look at the so-called budget neutrality of the health care bill. this is a bill that provides for six years of health care benefits with 10 years of tax increases and cuts in the medicare program, $500 billion

in cuts in the medicare program. unless nobody gets sick for the next four years, he can't say that this is a budget which will bill when for four years of the next 10-year cycle that they are going to be collecting taxes on and cutting medicare programs on, you will not be providing any benefits. no one believes that. secondly and, medicare, which is a major government program, is growing now had a dramatic rate, both in terms of the increase in cost of health care and in terms of the number of people becoming eligible because of baby boomers, those born after world war ii, start retiring this year. and we are going to have to reform the medicare program, but the savings that come from that reform are going to have to go to make the program worked for a far larger number of people. so to try to take the money out of that program and put it into a new federal government spending program is simply not right. those are just the two major

points of many others that most people believe make this health care bill highly unlikely budget neutral proposition. host: yolanda, miami beach. democrat. caller: my problem is traditionally would have always been talking about the republicans. -- the republicans have always been talking about the democrats be in tax and spend whereas the republicans have traditionally been borrow and spend. in my opinion, i will pay any day higher taxes so that people can get health care whereas my paying high your taxes because the rich are not paying taxes and essentially we all will have to pay for the taxes they are not paying. guest: the most important thing to talk about with regard to the

balanced budget amendment is in order to accomplish it has to be bad for -- bipartisan and it has to be a great national debate about what the priorities should be. certainly part of that debate would be how much spending do you cut, how much the increase in taxes. as i indicated earlier, my strong priority would be for cutting government spending because i think the skies and -- size and scope of the federal government and the areas it has gotten into relative to what had been the tradition of responsibility of state and local governments has grown far far too much. but this is a requirement that would simply say that congress has to set priorities, like 49 out of 50 state governments do, including my home state of virginia where, in richmond, they have agreed to battle each year about what their priorities going to be. will they cut spending, will they raise taxes? but each year they balance that budget. and as a result, while the states are in fiscal stress

right now, their problems are really very minuscule compared to the enormous problem of a national debt that now is approaching $13 trillion. and the public portion of that debt, in other words, money borrowed by the government from individuals and businesses and foreign countries and so on, that portion of the debt is expected to triple in the next 10 years. it is simply unsustainable. it is going to cause us to face hyperinflation or extraordinarily high interest rates which will have damaging effects to people of all backgrounds, but particularly people on fixed incomes and lower incomes, they will be dramatically hurt. so it is very, very important we bring fiscal responsibility to washington and i think the balanced budget amendment is one of the best tools to accomplish that. host: leaving her assessment of republicans as borrow and spend is fair? guest: i think anyone who

criticizes overall actions of the congress, whether democrats are in control or republicans and control -- saying that we have spent too much money and grown the size of the federal government is a good criticism. each congress -- i vote for the tightest budget offered, and i have done that in the recent congress as controlled by democrats, i did it in the previous congress as controlled by republicans. and each congress we would get me behalf of the republicans and none of the democrats to vote for these very tight budgets, no where near the 218 votes needed to pass the legislation. in part because people could make the decision to kick the can down the road. and so, congress is controlled by both part -- congress's controlled by both parties have barrault tremendous amounts of money but it has taken a dramatic turn for the worse in the last few years. before two years ago, the highest deficit we had run in a given year was about $450

billion. which is a staggering amount of money. but in last year's budget it was $1.20 trillion and this year it is expected $1.40 trillion and next year the budget offered by the president projects $1.60 trillion and at no time in the 10-year horizon, as far out as a project, doesn't get the low $800 billion. almost double the highest it has 74 in our history. that is simply unsustainable. this is one of, i think, several tools needed -- disciplines needed in the congress, no matter who is in charge, to force them to make these priority decisions. host: todd, michigan. independent line. you are on the with tom goodlatte. caller: whenever a republican gets out there he says, well, the majority of the people want this and the majority of the people want that. yet the majority of the people voted for a democratic house,

and democratic center -- senate and president. so, i don't understand your logic. number two, your party has always been for the rich. if you had your way you would not have paid my unemployment, which will run out in two weeks and i still have not got a job because of your policies sent all of our jobs overseas. some might question for you is, when do you guys develop a conscience and commit suicide? guest: well, that as a friendly comment on your part. let me just say that the fact of the matter is when it comes to the future of our country, i think those who are concerned about the fact that families and businesses and governments of any level can't continue year after year after year to spend more money than they take in is the party that is looking out for the people. but a balanced budget amendment to the constitution will not take place, and it certainly did not get passed through the house of representatives, without strong bipartisan support.

that is why i am very pleased to have a number of democrats who joined in cosponsoring this constitutional amendment. we are going to need a lot more and we think we are going to get a lot more because more and more people across the country are waking up to this reality. with regard to what the priorities are of the country, it is up to each elected representatives to listen to their constituents and make a decision based upon that fact. and i think that people are hearing from their constituents now like they never had before. when i asked my constituents what the number one party is for the federal government, by overwhelming margins they say out of control government spending. if jobs are also very much a party. health care reform is a priority and should be a priority of the number one answer i get is concern that the federal government is fighting off way more than it can chew and we need to change that. host: cheryl is a republican from shipments burke, pennsylvania. caller: thank you for accepting

my call. my question is for your guests. i understand he said on the agriculture commitee. my question is, i understand blanche lincoln has a family farm in arizona and she has gotten tons of subsidies from the agriculture committee in the government. that got me looking into the farmers in our old community. and i understand that most of them have got and more in subsidies that i make a year. they don't really hire very many people because these farms are inherited by their parents and we continue to -- they consented to receive millions of dollars. host: what is your question or point? caller: if they cut the subsidies to farmers, which, when the subsidies were first set up we needed the subsidies in the 1970's but now --

farm subsidies, yes. we spend millions of dollars on farm subsidies. guest: and that is a very good point. in the last farm bill that was just written, the subsidies for larger farms were curtailed, not enough, in my opinion, but we made some progress in that regard. a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution would again force the congress to review all of these programs and decide which one are our highest priorities. i have no doubt that we would in necessity -- there would be of necessity is significant curtailment. i represent the shenandoah valley of virginia, the largest agricultural producing area of va. it is an area where livestock is the primary agricultural livelihood. it does not receive the kind of subsidies that a number of the crop programs receive around the country. we are much more free-market oriented. and my constituents are much

more accepting of the idea that agriculture should be free market oriented and we need to move much more rapidly in that direction then we have. host: balanced budget amendment. does it say that the budget process, the budget making process in a capitol hill is broken or needs to be reformed? guest: i think it doesn't need to be reformed. because it is a constitution -- i -- idoes -- i think it doesn't need to be reformed. -- does need to reform. what the president submits to the congress each year is not something adopted and then sent back to his signature. the budget is simply handled by the congress. we asked for and i think the law requires the president to submit a budget. this would require the president to submit a balanced budget, but the congress, which has the

constitutional responsibility, has to adopt a balanced budget. it just like 49 of the 50 state legislatures go through and do each year. and so their problem, when they have an economic downturn, is basically a one-your problem. they have to figure out how to balance the budget to get to next year. if the economy grows, the pressure on the state government eases off. but with the federal government, because we piled up the debt year after year after year, if interest rates spike up, we are going to see a dramatic increase in the amount of money the government is going to have to either borrow or cut in other areas or increase taxes in order to meet that huge obligation because the government cannot afford to default on this huge amount of money. interest rates have been low in recent times. when they go up again, that portion of the federal government that has to be devoted to paying the interest on the debt is going to go up pretty dramatically pared -- dramatically.

host: there have been base closing provisions of that has taken some responsibility from congress. does congress not have the discipline to make the funding choices without this amended -- amendment? would this act as a base closing commission? guest: i will talk about that. there is an idea before congress that desert -- deserves careful examination. it does make congress set priorities. they have not set priorities. we will do what we are able to based on revenues coming in and we will worry about that next year and next year. and next year never comes. so this is, i think, a long term very constructive told the congress should put in place and should put in place as soon as possible. in terms as -- of re- calibrating, there is a proposal by congressman frank wolf of virginia, the state commission, that would establish a bipartisan commission that

would examine government spending, government taxes, the entitlement programs and how they operate, make a replica -- recommendation back to the congress and the congress, like me brac commission would be forced to have an up and down vote. i think to do that long term would be an abdication of congress's responsibilities, but to do it once, have the reset button and do this. calibration and have a decision on what the commission recommends would be a good day -- way to start the process of having a balanced budget every year. host: milwaukee, robert, a democrat. you are on with rob goodlatte. caller: good morning, representative goodlatte. it seems like the republican party, a kind of reminds the of the taliban where upon everything that you want you have to -- you are fighting against the norm. the party of yes, yes, yes

during the bush administration -- yes do they cheney energy program, yes to the wars, yes to the big prescription drug program and then we lost all of those jobs at the end of the bush administration, 727 or some like that among and then they blame barack obama for everything that occurred during the bush administration. guest: first of all, the massive job losses due coincide with the end of the bush administration and the beginning of the democratic majority in congress which, of course, was in the majority for the last two years of that administration and have now been in power for three years and virtually all of the job losses have come during that time. if your suggestion is that republicans are to blame, i would reject that. if your suggestion is that there is bipartisan blame to be had -- i mean, i voted against the tarp

legislation, but that was something -- and that was something by president bush and his secretary of treasury and i think there were mistakes made in the bush administration, absolutely, and mistakes made by republican congresses, but the solution has to be a bipartisan one and the first thing to do is develop a tool that requires the congress, no matter who is in charge, republican or democrat, that they have to set priorities and make decisions about what the limited resources of this government and of the taxpayers are going to be devoted to. that, to me, is the first step toward avoiding a future disaster that will wreak havoc upon everybody in this country, no matter what their political affiliation might be. host: chris tweets in -- guest: well, and this amendment does not take a tax increase is off the table. i am just simply expressing my preference that when i vote on a

budget i will be voting on a budget that looks at the enormous size of the federal government and looks at the fact that the growth in government spending has just been off the chart compared to what families in, have grown and, quite frankly, the growth in the percentage of what the average american family has to spend on taxes at all levels has grown as well. so, the idea that we can have an unlimited path of tax increases to address society's problems and still have families able to take care of their basic needs is a faulty assumption, in my opinion. host: carl, independent line. springfield, missouri. caller: i have a few comments on the budget. when president reagan assumed office, the government had gone to the point where they have a balanced budget. first year in office we actually had a surplus. the 10-year projection showed a

$6 trillion surplus and at the end of 2010 -- guest: you mean president bush. caller: i mean bush. i have a comment about prisoner reagan next. and at the end of 2010 the public debt was down to zero, so the only thing the government would really know was the social security, medicare, railroad retirement -- host: you are going to lead to get to your question -- going to have to get to your question. caller: what happened was the big tax cuts and the wars is responsible for the current deficits. you guys like to pretend it is due to spending, and it is not. host: we got the point, thank you. guest: it takes a lot of spending to spend on the military operations that took place. the point that i would make is

that when you make these decisions, you ought to bear in mind there is a limited amount of resources and whether you are in favor of spending more on military and defense or whether spending more on health care, you have to first set down and figure out how many resources you have available to accomplish these goals. many people do remember that the 1990's when republicans first got the majority in congress, the confrontation they had with president clinton. we had a government shutdown at that time. and the result of that was that the president reached accommodation with the republicans about the rate of increase in government spending and that, coupled with a strong, growing economy, resulted in a balanced budget at the end of the 1990's and into the year 2000. that generated $500 billion in surplus that was used today down a portion of the public portion

of the national debt. then during the early years of the 2000's, we have the 9/11 attack, which knocked one trillion dollars out of our economy. we had a recession and we did have the beginning of the wars in afghanistan and then in iraq. my concern was that after we got those things addressed and the tax cuts that president bush and congress put into effect started to the economy growing, we did not take those resources and use them to provide for a title -- tighter budget. .

i don't agree with how can you spend for groceries, whatever you said, because they got $150,000 after tax for annual income and think they can afford that stumble the last thing is cuts, my mom's on medicare and social security. she paid in to get that stuff, so did my father. i think it they should at least be able to get some of that back. host: first of all, i don't believe i said that balanced budget amendment wouldn't work. i said it would be very difficult and require a lot of sacrifice on the part of the government. if i even intimated such a thing, i want to make it very

clear that not only do i think it would work, but that it's absolutely essential for our government to continue to work in an effective fashion, because you simply cannot continue year after year after year to borrow an unbelievable large sum of money more than you take in. if i might, let me give an example of this. i've spoke ton high school classes in my district, and i've asked them how much is a trillion dollars, almost a trillion dollars on stimulus, the healthcare bill, the president says it costs a trillion dollars, republicans and others say it costs a lot more than that. the deficit for next year, $1.6 trillion. this year, $1.4 trillion, last year, $1.2 trillion. how much is a trillion delarks i asked them that question. they know who's responsible for paying about t back. they're going to have to be responsible for that, future generations, and it's a shame we might leave them with that kind of burden. i said let me give you a starting point. if you had a stack of thousand

dollar bills just four inches high, freshly printed, tighting packed, four inches high, you'd have a million delamples how high would that stack of bills have to be to total a trillion dollars? and they had no idea. one young lady said it would be about 12 inches, a young man said no, way more than, that it would be about 20 feet tall. and i said, well, a billion dollars is 1,000 times a million dollars, and a trillion is 1,000 times a billion, or a million times a million dollars. so we've gone in just a few decades from talking about deaf sets in the millions of dollars to deficits in the billions of dollars, and now in the trillions of dollars, and yet over that same period of time, we've seen a situation where we're now talking about trillions and a trillion being a million times a million or a million times four inches. a stack of thousand dollar bills, which represents just one of these massive spending endeavors, would be four

million inches high, or 63 miles high, $1,000 bills, stacked up right up into outer space. people need to understand that the expectations that the federal government can step in and meet all of their needs is one that is fast coming to a close, and we need to impose upon the congress the discipline to make the priorities that haven't been -- those decisions that haven't been made in the recent past. host: congressman bob goodlatte, republican virginia, the sixth district, thank you. a little less than an hour left in "washington journal." coming up next, victims homan of the politico to talk healthcare.

>> the term filibuster has been used a lot lately, especially in relation to the healthcare debate. a panel today will discuss whether it's still a mainstay of the senate or an outdated procedure. that panel will be led by congressional scholar norm ornstein of the american enterprise institute and feature robert dove. live coverage this morning at 8:30 eastern on c-span2. sunday, your chance to talk to karl rove live on book tv starting at 10:00 eastern. the former senior advisor to president bush and current fox news contributor will take your phone calls, emails, and tweets on his new memoir, "courage and consequence." on afterwards, former defense secretary and senator bill cohen and wife janet on race relations in america. they're interviewed by congressman john lewis. and all this weekend, live coverage of this year's tucson festival of books. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org and get

the latest updates on twitter. >> obama and his social stick ideas of the gun running the car companies and banks and deciding salaries, this is a life lesson in congress right now for conservatives. >> sunday, michelle easton, founder and president of the clare booth -- booth lose policy institute sunday night on c-span's "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: james homan is the congressional reporter for the "politico" and he's a new face here on the "washington journal." welcome. >> glad to be here. host: give us an update on where the congress stands on healthcare legislation. guest: they're still working out the details, still trying to figure out the legislative language, and they're still trying to get to 216 votes in the house, which is the magic number they need to pass legislation. they don't know when they're going to be able to do it. they hope in the next week or two. the deadlines keep getting

squishier, but speaker pelosi is working her caucus as hard as she can, and she's trying to win over some people who still have a lot of doubts. host: such snazz guest: the most prominent group is the caucus, you can call them of about 12 democrats that are very concerned about the abortion language in the senate bill and have said that they won't vote for it unless they know that there's changes, there's some dispute about whether there's actually federal funding for abortion or not. but the reality is some people won't vote for the bill as it stands now from the senate. last night, steny highwayer told a few reporters that he thinks the house can still pass the health bill without those abortion democrats. but looking at the numbers, they're going to be really hard press and had find support somewhere else if they don't get those votes. host: what's the effect of the senate parliamentarian saying that president obama needs to sign the senate bill, and how does that play out?

let's put the numbers on the screen, because we're talking healthcare, so go ahead and start dialing in. guest: what happens is the parliamentarians' decisions, if it's true, it came from republicans leaking it out and some democrats were saying it's not quite right. host: your competitor this morning -- sorry about that -- senator conrad, chairman of the budget committee, told leagues about the ruling thursday afternoon, according to a democratic source. guest: right. and i think that democrats privately sort of thought that what they wanted to do through the parliamentarian was a little bit of a stretch, but it didn't work out. what's it mean is the house now needs to really trust the senate democrats in one chamber, they have to rely on harry reid to follow through and to whip enough of his members to support some of the fixes and taking out the so-called cornhusker kickback and other problems that they have after they've voted to enact the senate bill. so this puts a big onus on a

lot of wavering democrats to take their chances, vote for a bill they don't like, and hope that later harry reid comes back and is able to get enough members together to make the changes they want. host: so let's say this process goes forward. what happens? the president signs the past senate bill that passed on christmas eve, correct? then what? guest: then the senate takes up a side car bill through the reconciliation process, or the simple majority process, where they would make the fixes through the first bill that was already enacted. and then it would go to the president. host: where's the house plan? guest: the house would have to still vote for that bill. host: the hide car stpwhill guest: the side car bill. scommoip that's where we stand right now. guest: yes. host: another issue, and host: we dont throw you for a loop here, but senator chris dodd is pushing ahead with financial reform. how significant is it? >> it's pretty significant. there's some republicans who are saying it's a go full bore

on health and air that's really going to make it hard to move forward in a bipartisan way on financial regulatory reform and that it could mess up the agenda. we don't know how long healthcare would take. there's really no longer a firm deadline. but the fact that he decided to move ahead without corker from tennessee shows that he was really exasperated by the inability to reach consensus on a reform package. host: and so, senator corker has completely dropped out of negotiations? guest: he hasn't. dodd says they're still talking and that he still wants to work with republicans, but that he wasn't satisfied with the process, so he's going move ahead on his own for now. it's hard to tell how much of this is a gambit to try to get the republicans talking and negotiating again and how much of it is really a desire just to move forward and get a bill passed. host: how long have you been with the "politico"? guest: two months now. host: from where? guest: i was at the "washington post" before. host: doing what? moip i was on the metro staff covering public transit and the virginia sushes.

moip when did you graduate from stanford? guest: in 2009. host: there you go. guest james hohmann, "politico." democrat from ohio, you're first up. caller: good morning. being from ohio, given the paper trail out here, i just turned 54, and over the years, i've seen a lot of borrowing from, tapping into, and almost stealing from social security. before they talk about cutting the funding for social security, has anybody looked into -- if all these payments have been made back to social security from all the borrowing? guest: well, happy birthday. social security is really not been a part of the healthcare debate. they've tried to stay as far away from that as possible, and there are many people who are concerned that a lot of money has been sent from the social security trust fund and that there are long-term structural problems. social security is a major entitlement, and when you

project the national debt going forward, a big part of the hole and from social security payments that will go out. host: sam, kentucky, republican line. please go ahead with your question. caller: good morning, y'all. i hope you can help me with this, because there's a lot of back and forth on this. let me give you an example. if myself buy an insurance policy that covers sort of a certain type of cancer let's say brain cancer, then i can say that i am fine -- buying coverage for this particular cancer. now, what i want to know is this senate bill, as it stands right now, you know, they're talking about the abortion thing, federal money for abortion or not. if money is subsidized to buy a policy that covers abortion, does that mean that the

government is or -- the way it stands now -- that the government is paying for abortions? because that's the way i understand it is. i would like to know if it is or is not. guest: well, that's a point of debate. speaker of the house nancy pelosi insists there is no federal funding for abortion in the bill, but there's some this group of 12 moderate democrats who are pro-life, led by bart stupak from michigan, who insist that has it is, that insurance companies, when there's federal subsidies for insurance, and those insurance plans cover elective abortions, then that essentially is tantamount to federal funding for abortions. so there is a back and forth, but whether or not it is or isn't, those democrats aren't going to go along as long as the current language stands. host: with one of our frequent tweeters has sent this in to you. wait, if this guy is smart enough to have graduated from stanford, why did he go into journalism?

guest: i don't know. we'll see. i love being here on the hill, and it's such an important time in our nation's history. as these ears of consequence are being talked about and to really have a front seat to watch these very serious and important exchanges over the country's future. host: what have you learned about the hill? in these month that is you've been working at "politico"? guest: the prosms i've learned a lot about the way that the capitol works. just like when president obama got to washington and realize would that it's harder to move legislation forward than he thought, i've sort of seen the same thing. it's easy to look watching at home as i often did growing up, think, why can't they just pass this ledge sflation but the institutions are such that there are a lot of burdens and obstacles that exist, and the founding fathers put them there. and when you're actually working in the capitol, you can see every day the house and the senate in action or inaction

and understand why. host: kenneth in virginia, independent line. you're on with james hohmann of the "politico." caller: good morning. i'd like to ask a question about how the progress works. this morning you were talking about the reconciliation or the nuclear. senator byrd was the one that passed this through the senate for the super majority. but way i read the constitution, it's going to be just a straight up and down, you know, 100 people decided in half in the vice president, who's president of the senate would come in and make the decision by his 51 votes. so how did they bypass the constitution to get to have the super majority? how did bob byrd and the senate do that?

guest: well, the constitution doesn't specify that you need a majority in the senate. the idea actually that the founding fathers had is that sthrshed be more constraints in the upper house and that that was going to be the chamber of reason that stopts more hot headed house, which was going to be directly democratically elected. byrd create the sect sill asian process that i think you're referring to as a way to pass budget relief in the late 1970's and then ronald reagan used the reconciliation process. the filibuster, the 60 votes that they talk about a lot dates back a long time, and it's involved in a lot of ways, but it's not necessarily super constitutional. and byrd himself created reconciliation, supported reasonable cause sill asian, in fixing the healthcare bill, and he's, in fact, coming under attack today from the chamber of commerce who says that he

gets some special deals in this healthcare tpwhail they're talking about. host: senator reid sent senator mccobble a letter yesterday -- which, by the way, if up to the read this letter, it's on the front page of our website, c-span.org, and it's about the reconciliation process. what's the nub of the letter? guest: reid says it's time to pass healthcare. we're going to get this done, we're for the rules, we're doing what republicans have done time and time again. host: using the sfloss guest: using the process, because republicans are saying democrats are abusing the process in trying to jam this through, but reid makes a lot of very valid points that republicans abused this process over and over with tax cuts, with the creation of cobra, where r stands for reconciliation and a stands for act. reid is basically saying, hey, stand barks you've done it, now let us do it.

host: next call for mr. hohmann comes from wheaton, pennsylvania. caller: hello, good morning. my question today is, why don't senator pelosi -- host: what's your question? caller: why don't the speaker of the house and president give people that don't support their agenda? guest: the democrats are eager to keep their majority, and speaker pelosi and majority leader reid and president obama are very eager to keep the democrats who they've got in office, and that's why they're rallying around someone like blanch lincoln, probably the most vulnerable democratic senator who's in arkansas and is now facing a primary challenge from her left flank in the democratic primary, but the establishment is ral seaing

around senator lincoln, and that's because they want the votes and they want the members who are here to stay. host: will democrats in the senate fall off the healthcare? will they get to 51? guest: we'll see. i think that they will get to 51 with the reconciliation process. they couldn't get back to 60. they're going to lose -- you can sort of play out who's going to peel off, and there may be some frustrating and some promises to get to 5, is but they'll be able to get to 51 i think. host: and when do you foresee the next movement in congress on healthcare? guest: possibly i think they still are trying to have a vote at the end of next week, that may get pushed back. democratic members, after the house caucus meeting yesterday, said that they were unhappy because there weren't enough details, and there's not flushed out legislative language, and they're telling people that they may want them to vote on it next week. we're still waiting for a hard congressional budget office number, so it may get pushed

back. but right now, i think the leadership is hoping the end of next week. host: so we're still waiting for the c.b.o.? what about president obama signing the actual legislation? what about that issue? where does that fall? guest: originally, he hopes march 18 would sort of be when it could get to the president, but he's backed off of that yesterday in his briefing. i'm not sure they have a set date. i think they still want to sign it. host: next call comes from indianapolis. lincoln on our republican line, hi. caller: i'm going to start off with some comments. this government health plan, the government health plan i was told could be the cause some of job losses for like medicare, united healthcare, med sexade that, and my question is, what do the -- what does the government health

plan include? guest: well, what i was just trying to get out is that democrats still don't necessarily know. the leadership has sort of worked out a compromise behind closed doors about what exactly they're going to do, but we still haven't seen final language, so we don't know exactly what the final bill would look like. host: let's move to one other topic. here's the front page of "politico." ethics panel gets massa back. g.o.p. loses bid for inquiry in massa case. what's the status? guest: what happened was, after eric massa resigned, the ethics committee thought that it would end its investigation because he's no longer a member and they no longer had jurisdiction. but john painer, the republican leader, thinks that the ethics committee should investigate the process of who knew what and when they knew it and what the leadership did or didn't do

to deal with rumors that were moving around the capitol that massa had been doing inappropriate things with staffers and young staffers of other -- host: a la mark foley in 10 minutes. guest: you couldn't go 10 minutes yesterday without making the mark foley an al jeefment after foley left the congress, democrats, with republican support, continued the ethics investigation and looked at what role leadership played or dent play in dealing with rumors. guest: so there was a vote yesterday 402-1, what did that do? it sent it back to the ethics committee. guest: asking them to study just that. guest: i didn't track him down yesterday. host: what he wants the issue of student loans and healthcare? in the senate, they're talking about student loan provisions,

one of president obama's big priorities but putting it in the bill so it can realize budget savings so that they can say, hey, look at our bill, there's net savings by using this reconciliation process. there are some who have class ties to the lending industry who are balking at that, and there's support for it, but it could end up causes canning more problems next week as they try to bring it up for a vote. host: who came up with that vehicle? guest: kent conrad was pushing it pretty hard and a few other people are talking about it. host: henry, hot springs, arkansas, please go ahead with your question. caller: thank you. instead of cutting a billion dollars from medicare, i suggest they should put -- at least he moved equipment to a hospital. that's causing the hospitals or the medicare plans four, five, six times that as all that

equipment costs. we should see billions of dollars in that. guest: that hasn't been part of the debate and discussion. i think that there's a lot of desire on both sides to look for areas where they can realize us savings. i think some people will tell you that there are different advantages, tax advantages in others that make leasing equipment sensical, but i think that that could be one thing that people look at to try and save money on healthcare costs. host: vero beach, florida, curtis, democrat. caller: hey, peter, how you doing, sir? i have done a position paper and the position paper is to eliminate all insurance companies. and the purpose of the objective is to utilize the let

johns that are currently exist in our country. are and you have the structure already set up there. you can add another agency. you can call it the divisional health services, whatever you want to call it. advertised for employees. you've got about three million people that are working in the health service occupation. host: hey, curtis, can you get to the nub of your question? caller: yeah. i want to know why the federal government cannot add another program on and eliminate

insurance company to move forward. guest: early on, i think that there were some more liberal members of congress who wanted to move at least in that direction. the public option is really dead in healthcare. there are some people who are still pushing for it and talking about, it but it's really not going to happen this go-round. they're just trying to pass a combrenssive bill that's much more scaled back from that. so you're not going see that nths in this process. host: last call from indiana. larry, republican. caller: good morning, guys. just got one question, we hear a lot of talk about this and everything. there's actually two questions. how often are they accurate and have you ever met with president obama this year?

guest: the head of the c.b.o. is very well respected. during the white house healthcare summit, republicans and democrats were both heaping praise on the c.b.o., and i think it was chuck grassley who compared it to god. the c.b.o. has some very smart, nonpartisan budget analysts in their report. they also have a lot of nuance and caveats. i think a lot of times people focus on the top-line number, but that really is a rough estimate. and because we're talking about remaking the healthcare system, the c.b.o. is the first to acknowledge that there's a wide range that could go in either direction. i'm not sure whether there are direct meetings with obama, but i am sure that top c.b.o. people have met with top white house budget people. host: james hohmann has been our guest for the last hour, thank you. coming up, half-hour left in the "washington journal," and we're going to turn to terrorism and home-grown terrorism.

>> sunday, carl involve at 10:00 eastern. the former senior advisor to president bush and current fox news credibility for will take your phone calls, emails, and tweets on his new memoir, "courage and consequence." on afterwards, former defense secretary and senator bill cohen and wife janet on race relations in america. they're interviewed by congressman john lewis. and that you will weekend, live coverage of this year's few san festival of books. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org and get the latest book tv updates on twitter. >> obama and his socialistic idea of the government rung the car companies and banks and deciding salaries, this is a life lesson in congress right

now for conservatives. >> sunday, michelle easton on her work to promote conserve stive women in leadership roles, sunday night on "q&a." >> we provide people a free tool whereby they can share information with anyone, anywhere, at any time. a way more than 400 million users online, it's the fastest growing website in the world. facebook, public policy director tim sparapani saturday on "the communicators" on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: steve emerson is the executive director of the investigative project on terrorism. mr. emerson, if you could start by telling us what that is. guest: it's an organization i founded in 1995 to track the activities, investigate the operations of radical islammist groups on american soil and their ties to international

terrorism overseas. it followed the production and broadcast can of a documentary that i had done in 1994 for pbs called "jihad in america." the investigative project on terrorism, now 15 years old, has amassed a repository of close to five million documents , 50,000 hours of reported video and audio of radical islammist groups gathering conference, as well as many other types of data. host: why did you start this project in 1995 or start 9 documentary in 1994? guest: good question. i had been a reporter for cnn in 1993. and right after the first world trade center bombing in february of 1993, cnn asked me to do a documentary on the roots of that bombing. i already had some prior knowledge of the extent to which radical islammist groups had morphed from being

anti-soviet jihad groups in the u.s. to being anti-american groups, like hamas, like islammist jihad. i proposed back to cnn that we do a documentary about how the radical groups had morphed into legitimate groups under false names. so hell has no fury like a journalist scorned. i quit, i took my documentary to public television. they gave me some seed money. i ratesed the rest of the money, and i did documentary called "jihad in america" that had a lot of video of undercover radical islammist gatherings in the united states from boston to california calling for jihad. and after the film was done, i realized that there was nobody tracking these groups. the f.b.i. wasn't tracking these groups. they were all below the radar screen. and if they weren't doing

anything illegal except calling for the death to america, there was nothing that they were doing that was violating the law. so i formed this organization to track them, and we see now that many of the groups were formed out of the muslim brotherhood, which was an organization that was created in 1920's in egypt that believes in the imposition of the code of islammist law. host: how long have you known about colleen larose? guest: i've known about her a little bit before it was announced in the papers that she had been arrested. it was only disclosed this past week that she had been arrested and charged with, i think, seven counts, including one count of material support, another count of conspiracy and murder, another count of false documentation and lying to the f.b.i. aim sort of plugged in to a

number of other groups that tracked islamist, radical islamist activity on the internet. host: so did you know about jihad jane? had you been tracking her at all? guest: we had not been tracking her. we've known about her and some other names of people that are quite open and amazingly open on the internet in terms of soliciting support. some of them could be fake names, designed by law enforcement to illicit would-be jihadists. others are real. so we've tracked or at least followed some of those names. host: and there's an article this morning in the "los angeles times" that says internet making it easier to become a terrorist. do you agree with that and how so? guest: i think it's true. i think that it's the reverse of the global village. you can bring in the actual ability to communicate with any terrorist overseas right into

your living room, to your computer. you can raise money by offering to become a jihadist. the internet really has made this instan tains ability to raise funds, recruit, become part of a conspiracy without ever leaving your home. of course, at some point, if you're going become an active jihaddist and carry out an act of terrorism, you're going to have to leave your home as jihad jane did when she traveled once to ireland and once to sweden to track the activities of the swedish cartoonist who she volunteered to help assassinate. host: has home-grown terrorism grown in the u.s.? guest: good question. absolutely. there's no doubt that home grown terrorism not affiliated -- i mean, there's home hand terrorists, ones that are directed externally by al

qaeda, others, like the most recent arrest of the man who was going to blow up himself on the new york city subway system, or others like daniel boyd out of north carolina or jihad jane who are not affiliated at all with external groups, but become mobilized and radicalized in the united states. in 2009, there were 15 successful or unsuccessful terrorist attacks by jihadists. nine of the 15 were carried out by non-al qaeda, home-grown terrorists, the largest number we've seen since 9/11. so we're definitely seeing a rise in home-grown islamist terrorism. people that are not affiliated, but get radicalized either through the internet, through local mosques, through videos, or through charismatic jihadists who prevail upon them to carry out acts of terrorism.

scommoip in fact, eugene robinson, in his column in "the washington post," says forget about plain jane and says that any efforts to profile airline passengers, for instance, would be failures, and colleen larose is an example. guest: well, one thing he's right about is definitely having an american passport is definitely key to being able to travel overseas without engendering the same suspicious as you would engender if the a yemene se or other passport. i will say this, still 95% of the home grown jihadists still fit a certain type of profile. and while jihad jane did not because she was white, a white convert, 46 years old, she escaped that stereotype, but the other ones did not. and so profiling, which is a

law enforcement technique that's gotten a dirty term, but used all the time, you look for the common denominator. so the common denominator last year of the 15, let's say holm grown spots were male between the ages of 19 and 36 and muslim. and that would be sort of a law enforcement profile. you would obviously include other factors such as the visit overeast, whether they went to gaza, whether they went to nigeria, whether they came from nigeria, whether they went to yemen. you don't want to use only racial profiling as a means, but you want to include that criteria to help give you more insight into who might be a jihadist. host: steve emerson is our guest, director of the investigative project on terrorism. called have been up. st. louis, missouri, pat, republican, hi. caller: good morning.

mr. emerson, i've seen you many times, and i admire your work and your dedication to bringing this out to the open, because i think too many americans just assume if you're islamic, you follow the islamic religion, you're peaceful like christianity or any other religion. but there's a component of it that doesn't promote peace. and i think it's important that people realize this, and i think a lot of us do, but because of political correctness, society we live in, we can't voice our opinions. and early one time you were talking about how the f.b.i. was handstrung and could not get into mosques to investigate some of the imams who preach this hate. i think anybody in this country who preaches heat, destruction of america, or killing of innocents should be kicked out if they're not american citizens. guest: well, i tell you, the fact is that preaching hate and, let's say, calling for death to america or death to jews or death to christians,

that is protected speech. that's not something that's actionable by the f.b.i. so, in fact, that's one of the reasons why my organization, the investigative project on terrorism, was created, so we could track the rhetoric, the extremist hate rhetoric coming out of various islamic leaders, but the f.b.i. could not track, could not use, could not correct because it was protected speech. the f.b.i. can only get involved if there's a conspiracy to carry out acts of violence. and it's my belief that we need to track some of the statements made by some radical leaders in order to show that they're not as peaceful as they would be portrayed in the regular american media when they make statements that were against terrorism, but behind closed doors, they make other statements that are totally contrary to that message. host: how much of your work is done on the computer? all of it? guest: no, no, we're

operational. i'd say we collect a lot of material from the internet, and we do a lot of analysis on the computer, but to be honest with you, the real material, the heart and soul of the material we collect is done through undercover operations in which we send people in to actually tape record or video record islamic radicals making speeches calling for death to america or support for terrorism. there's a need for going into the field. you can't avoid that. of course, you can buy videos and audio on the internet, but generally speaking, those living in america, especially some of the savvy militants, and i'm not including the entire islamic community. i'm talking about islamic militants. they're savvy enough to know they shouldn't be putting out stuff that's radical on the internet. they do, however, say things

behind closed doors. in fact, just yesterday in the virginia house of delegates there was an imam who convened the opening of the virginia state delegates assembly. he was reported by us as calling for the bombing of power plants and other bombings in israel and also in 2004 he made a statement at a mosque, where he is an imam, saying that islam will reign supreme. we felt that was important to get out, because he was being portrayed as this wonderful, peace technical foul, interfaith dialogue, but in fact, he had made radical statements, including defending a known islamic terrorist. host: do you work with law enforcement? guest: yes, we do. we are not -- we have no financial ties to them. we're totally supported by the american public. we don't take a dime of money from the government, but we do work with law enforcement

agencies. host: when you say the american public, you mean by donations, not tax dollars? guest: donations, absolutely. host: landover maryland, tony, i understand pnt line. please go ahead with your comments for steve emerson. caller: i do have a comment. i ask you don't cut me off, because this is a very important topic. let me just say, the whole entire campaign of terrorism, every action that was taken in the name of terrorism has been based on blatant lies. let me just make that clear. every single action. do your own research sense you're researching things, research that. every action on terrorism has been based on lies. every time before this campaign on terrorism, before a terrorist act was committed, they always have some kind of practice. it happened on 9/11 when they had the practice of garbage for it to actually happen, that's why they couldn't respond. host: tony, given that you think that this is based on lies, why do you think that that process happens?

guest: because this is a part of new world order to incriminate american citizens to make the entire american citizens distant. you have that law passed to say the president can assassinate any american citizen for any good reason. you also have a law -- host: all right, tony, we're going to leave it there. we got the idea. guest: well, let me just say this. this is a conspiracy quefment i reject it entirely in the same way that i would reject the notion that members of the ku klux klan were arrested because they were put up to it in some type of fabricated way. there's absolutely no question whatsoever that terrorism exists. it's not limited necessarily to radical is lamists. there are known ku klux klanners. but in the last 10 years, 95% of the terrorism carried out against the united states has been carried out by radical is lamists, and they haven't been

manufacturered or anything. they do it because they believe the u.s. deserves to be punished for a variety of reasons. host: do you worry about your safety? guest: that's an interesting question. i experience a major problem back around a decade ago, actually a little bit more than that when i was subject to an assassination plot. and now i live under false cover in the washington, d.c., area. and i sort of -- i watch my back. we frequently get tips from law enforcement that our names have been heard on wire tap by terrorists. so we're careful. but it hasn't detered us. host: next call for steve emerson, new york, noel, republican, hi. caller: how you zphoog i've been an airline pilot for years and years, and the one thing i do know is that el al, you never hear about them having a

problem. of all the people that should have it, they don't. the reason? they profile like it's going out of style. boy, rock on with the profiling. i think it's a great idea. this country sticks its head in the sand and it doesn't want to acknowledge the obvious, which is that profiling works. and until we start getting that through our heads, we're going to have more and prisoner problems and it's just going to continue, and that's the way it is. thanks. guest: after the christmas day would-be bomber plot, there was a lot of discussion, which i participated in, about profiling and what i called for is smart profiling, that is, you don't just pick somebody out because they're muslim, but because of religious identity, but you include that factor into a larger mix of information, such ads visas, such as where they were coming from, such as the school they may have graduated from, such

as any other factors in the database. so you have a large database to include on which you can make your judgment about who gets the visa and who gets secondary treatment at an airport and you even get the airline ticket. that's what the watch lists are all about. the question is how much data do you include? you include religious factors into that mix to help you make that decision. doesn't always work, because we see with jihad jane, she walked around without showing that she had converted to islam, she would never have been included. however, there may have been more information about her conversations on the internet with known jihadists that would have helped somebody make a decision, let's not allow her to -- let's not allow her to make a trip to sweden in order to carry out the assassination

of a swedish cartoonist. host: do you think it would be politically feasible to include religion on a passport? or in the passport information? guest: no, no. i don't think so. host: but that's what you would like to see, you said. guest: no, no, no. i'm not saying that i want to see religion included on the passport. i'm saying that if we know someone's religious tendencies in a database, then we can include that into a mixture of how we decide information on which we decide whether someone gets secondary inspection. but i do not believe you should include religion on the passport. host: do you think that american passports should be harder to get? guest: well, if you're an american and then you marry somebody from nigeria, your spouse then gets an american passport. and in fact, with jihad jane, she offered to marry someone

from africa apparently who was going to be a participant in the conspiracy to carry out the assassination t. he would have gotten an american passport. so should we tighten up some of the regulations? yeah, i think we should probably tighten up some of the scrutiny of those who are getting passports. host: next call for steve emerson, david, new york city, democrat. caller: good morning, gentlemen. how you doing? i'm having a problem with the way that white americans are classifying terrorists, because, you know, i'm a history buff, and i realize that this land was stolen from the native pool. they were terrorized by the americans, christian americans. and then we had the african people who live here today and they're being terrorized on a regular basis by people like the gentleman, timothy mcveigh, skin heads, ku klux klansmen,

and actually police officers in america. i live in new york. and there was a gentleman who was shot over 50 times by police because he was standing on his stoop. this doesn't happen in any other country but america. so when i hear white males talk about profiling people who are terrorists and then you give examples, i say why isn't it that the gentleman who flew the plane into the i.r.s. building isn't classified as a terrorist when, in fact, he is? host: david, we got the point. mr. emerson? guest: i don't think one negates the other. no doubt i believe that the person who flew the plane into the office building should have been classified as a terrorist. but it doesn't mean that we should not classify radical islamist, the fort hood shooter. in fact, surprisingly so, the obama administration wouldn't allow the patriot act to be applied to the fort hood

prosecution, which is really stymied prosecutors. they're not charging him with terrorism, and i believe that act, in which he killed 13 individuals at fort hood, was predicated on his belief that radical islam mandated him to do so and that was an act of islamist terrorism. host: sasha, you think jihad jane needs to go to gitmo? mr. emerson? guest: i'm sorry? host: do you think jihad jane needs to go to gitmo? guest: no, i do not believe she needs to go to gitmo. i think that the evidence that they've collected so far, retreevering all the email messages, her itinerary, her passport, her computer provides a substantial enough evidence to convict her in a civilian court. host: how sophisticated was her operation? guest: very unsophisticated, let's just say. there are people following her long before i was following or

even got information about what she was doing, number one. and number two, ship didn't hide at all her wishes and her desires to carry out jihad, to recruit money for jihad, to recruit men and females for jihad. carrying out an act of terrorism overeast. i mean, it was blatant. she only hoped the avalanche of so many people on the internet would have hidden her identity and make it more difficult to retrieve her as a known terrorist, but she certainly was not sophisticated at all. host: next call for steve emerson, flip in tarrytown, will you please will you, independent. caller: it's not so much with what this man says, it's what he does not say that expose the real agenda. what he does not say is documents show that the homeland security was set up

begins americans. what he does not say is reports show that they were set up against americans. guest: where are the leaked documents coming from? caller: well, the reports are coming from police chiefs -- host: what is that? caller: they leaked them out that shows that the whole theme is set up, in homeland security was set up not for jihadists, not for the muslims, but for against the americans. guest: no, i disagree. homeland was set up to protect the homeland. it doesn't make a distinction between white supremists or jihadists. that's number one. number two, and this is the point i should have said before, there are two types of jihad that we track. one is the violent jihad, those that carry out violence here in the united states, and the other is the self jihad, which

is the jihad by which radicals insinuate themselves, infiltrate and penetrate u.s. government institutions, academia, journalism. and that i know that sounds conspiratorial, but based on documents we have posted on our website and came out during the hamas trial in 2008, it was revealed that there was a muslim brotherhood plan starting as early as 1991 to basically have a civilizational jihad process in the u.s. to infiltrate institutions of power to create a situation in which radical muslims would have much more power politically without having to carry out violence. host: have you been accused of being a conspiratorialist in the past? guest: i've been aculesd of many things. that may be one of them. so i don't make judgments on the basis of theories or

concoctions or presumptions. i base it on documents. so the documents that we have, which were released during the holyland case, show a plan to establish a state. they show a radical islamist muslim brotherhood plan in the united states. not all of it's been realized, but we'll be coming out with a documentary in the next couple of months that will reveal the documents and will have enter views with f.b.i. officials and are muslims who will talk about the stealth jihad and how they penetrate or tried to penetrate institutions of power in the u.s. again, i'm not a conspiratorialist. i deal with the facts and we have a website set up which will have the documents in black and white for anyone to scrutinize. host: after 9/11, there was a professor, i think it was southern florida university, what's his status? guest: he was a professor of engineering at the university of south florida in tampa.

i profiled him, or at least i interviewed him in my documentary in 1994, and concluded that he was head of the islamist jihad in the united states. after 9/11, he was indicted. a trial was held, and the trial -- in the trial, half of the charges that he was acquitted on, the other half it was a hung jury. he ultimately pled guilty to one count of material support. he served his time, and now he's being held under house arrest in virginia for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating islamist terrorist ties in the northern virginia area. host: why in virginia? guest: because there is an organization called the islamist international institute of islamist thought that has a whole labyrinth of islamist charities in which the department of homeland security issued an affidavit back in 2002 saying that they were

supporters of radical islamist terrorism, including al qaeda and hamas, and so this grand jury was convened in order to examine and investigate the ties between this group in northern virginia and other radical islamist groups such as the group headed by him in florida, when was islamist jihad. host: huntington beach, florida, republican line. you're on with steve emerson. go ahead. caller: what about groups that say death to arabs? you shouldn't even have the position you have. you are very anti-semitic. i'm of middle eastern descent. i am semitic. you are semitic, ok? and i'll tell you about the trial. khalid scheck mohammed, they don't want to try him in new york because he'll tell the truth. the motivation behind neil was for our support of israel and the oppression of the palestinians. and if you knew -- and you know what our money is doing over

there. guest: some of the conspiratorials are coming out. khalid sheik mohammed was part of 9/11. he was the mastermind. they carried it out because they wanted to destroy or at least hurt the united states. and again, my agenda here is to root out the radicalism that affects the united states, either by terrorism or through legal insurgency. look, i could have had an operation that looked at all types of terrorism, e.t.a., animal rights terrorists, echo terrorists, japanese red army. i don't have the funds to do that, and there are other groups that do, you know, southern policy law center looks at the ku klux klan. so we decided to created a group that looks at radical jihadists. we've done a fairly good job. in one goes to our website, which i have to mention it, it's www.investigativeproject.org. scommoip we've been putting it up on the screen.

steve emerson is the executive director of the investigative project on terrorism. mr. emerson, we have three or four very sincere callers who you labeled or could be labeled conspiratorial. what do you say to them? they were very sincere in their beliefs. guest: let me give you an example of the problem. after 9/11, i spoke at a law school, and at the law school, i was being heckled. i didn't know what to do because of the speakers, you're heckled, so you can't speech. so i took my speech, ripped it in half. i got everybody's attention, and i said, how many here believe that osama bin laden carried out 9/11? and half of the thousand people raised their hand. and then i said how many believe that israel and the c.i.a. carried out 9/11? and the other 500 raised their hands. what do you do with that? i'm never going to get behind

their reality that 9/11 was a conspiracy by the c.i.a. and so i'm stuck with that, ok? i have to work around that. i can try to convince them. i can present facts and everything. but for somebody who's stouk a conspiracy, nothing i do can change their mind. host: steve emerson, thank you for being on the "washington journal." house is coming in at 9:00 a.m. this morning. so we're going to go over there, just to let you know that nancy pelosi will hold her weekly press conference at 11:00 a.m. that will probably focus on healthcare. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] .

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room,

washington, d.c., march 12, 2010. i hereby appoint the honorable donna f. edwards to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin. chaplain coughlin: for the members of congress and all those scattereded around the world who scattered around the world -- scattered around the world who have been your ambassador, we call on peace today. almighty, receive them in your love and continue to call them out of darkness into light, out of ignorance to the knowledge of your glorious name, and bring hope to your people. open human hearts to know you and you alone as the most high the holey one whose dwelling is wrapped in mystery and beyond

our imagining. you alone flatten the arrogance , frustrate the designs of the godless, raise up the lonely and humble the self-righteous. you are the benefactor of all the blessed and the savior of all humanity. so be of help to all in peril or in crisis, be a strength for the sick and the weak and counsel those who are afraid. gift us in the world with peace, lord, now and forever. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house her approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. >> madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? >> madam speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, i demand a vote on the speaker's approval of the journal.

the speaker pro tempore: the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the journal stands approved. mr. pallone: madam speaker, i would ask for the yeas and nays . the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will please rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on the question are postponed. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from maine, congresswoman pingree. ms. pingree: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair will he want taint up to five requests for -- the chair will entertain up to five requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from maine seek recognition? ms. pingree: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. pingree: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to urge my colleagues to come together and finally pass a health care reform bill that provides americans with stability, affordability and coverage they so deserve. we must act now. we absolutely cannot wait any longer. over the last year we saw what happens when you give pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and special interests time to spend millions of dollars on ad campaigns that spread misinformation, fear and confusion. in my home state of maine, our largest insurer, anthem, used this time to demand a 23% rate hike on individuals, and they weren't alone. last year profits for the five biggest insurance companies

rose by 56% over the year before. enough is enough. americans are counting on us. they sent us here to work hard and make difficult choices. entrusting us to represent them with integrity and to set aside partisanship and pettiness to do what's best for the american people and i look forward to say their trust was not misplaced. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: madam speaker, this week it was announced that the unemployment rate in my home state reached a tragic new high, at 12.6%. statewide, 172,400 people have lost their jobs since the end of 2007. in this crisis, the administration has irresponsibleably announced that march 18 is -- irresponsibly announced that march 18 is the deadline for a

job takeover that has over 100 new mandates on individuals and private businesses, trillions in new government spending, squeezing medicare, forces employers to cancel health care coverage and forces people into government-run health care plans. more taxes, borrowing and spending is not the way to reform health care in america. nfib warns that 1.6 million americans will be killed. we should work on a step-by-step approach to lowering health care costs. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. mcdermott: madam speaker, republicans have talked so much about the need for tort reform you'd think that lawyers single handedly were responsible for america's skyrocketing health care costs. but a new report for public

citizen found that the value of malpractice settlements is the lowest it's been since 1999 and that for five consecutive years the number of malpractice settlements has actually dropped. and, of course, the health care costs have gone down, right? no, absolutely not. health care spending increased 83% between 2000 and 2009 while malpractice payments fell 8% during the same period. blaming our health care crisis on litigation costs is simply baloney. andty hope my republican friends can find another theme song for their attempt to derail what the american people want and that is health care that is guaranteed and will not bankrupt them. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired.

for what purpose does the gentlewoman from kansas rise? ms. jenkins: to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. jenkins: i rise to recognize the university of kansas men's basketball program and to congratulate them on a tremendous accomplishment. yesterday, the jayhawks defeated texas tech to pick up their 2,000th victory. the only other schools to reach this milestone are the university of kentucky and north carolina, and it should be noted that the basketball arenas at both of those schools are named after native kansans and former kansas basketball players. from james naismith, the inventor of basketball, to galen. k.u. is a proven perennial power in college basketball. this year the jayhawks will compete for their sixth national championship. in commemoration of this accomplishment, i ask my congressional colleagues in the congress to join me in a hardy

rough talk jayhawk, go k.u. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? mr. hall: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. hall: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to talk about the nation's unemployment problem. there are people in my district and all of our districts who are struggling. they want to work, they know how to work. many of them are highly skilled and have great ideas, but they cannot find a job. it is our job, madam speaker, to help them. in the 19th district of new york last saturday i sponsored two jobs fairs that helped hundreds of people to connect with resources and people who can help them. among them was a 65-year-old george mernese of sparrow bush. george retired last year from a career in manufacturing, but he still wants and needs to work. he has an idea for packaging do-it-yourself solar panel kits.

last weekend he connects with people who thinks they can help him. this is not a time to do nothing. it is our time to lead. thank you very much, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from nebraska rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. offshore energy development is an important step to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, putting our economy back on track. in 2008, by ending the decade's long ban on offshore drilling, we got 15 cubic feet of natural gas. the obama administration instituted and extended public comment period, therefore, delaying progress. despite public support for increased offshore drilling, secretary interior salazar recently stated the obama administration will now wait

until 2012 to put a new plan in place. in means the administration's initial six-month delay has turned into a three-year moratorium on new offshore exploration. with the potential to create 1.2 million jobs and add $8 trillion to our economy, it is irresponsible to continue to ignore the economic potential these areas hold. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey rise? mr. pallone: to address the house for one minute, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. pallone: thank you, madam speaker. we need health care reform now and failure to act is not an option. doing nothing on health care reform doesn't mean that nothing happens. people will continue to lose coverage to pay more in premiums, to be banned for pre-existing conditions, to have caps on coverage and other discriminatory practices. by doing nothing for eight years, the republicans essentially endorsed these things things. and it isn't a choice, madam speaker, between the reform

plan that we have or nothing. the real option is how everything will continue to get worse. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: madam speaker, yesterday an armed mexican military helicopter was spotted and photographed over a residential area a mile inside the territorial boundary of the united states. texas sheriff, ziggy gonzalez, of zapata county, said the mexican navy helicopter was not the first incursion by the mexican military onto the u.s. side of the rio graunda river. there is a vy -- grande river. there is a violent war going on. eight mexican journalists have been kidnapped. numerous individuals killed in old west shootouts. and the violence and corruption has spilled over to the u.s. side. the cartels had even infiltrated u.s. law enforcement agencies on the

border resulting in 400 corruption cases being filed. the border has become a corrupt, violent area, and now the mexican military crosses our border with unknown intentions. the united states cannot allow the border to be a war zone for murder, mayhem, violence, drugs and corruption. and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. smith: madam speaker, yesterday, "the new york times" "the washington post" and "the los angeles times" each featured president obama's trip to missouri to promote his health care plan. combined, the three articles featured 16 quotes from individuals who support the administration's plan compared to just two quotes from those opposing it. this is a high level of bias considering that most americans

oppose the health care proposal. and about 2/3 of americans want congress to start over and get it right. the national media continued to be an unpaid public relations firm for this administration's health care scheme. to restore their credibility, the national media should give americans the facts on health care, not just the administration's opinions. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from mape seek recognition? ms. pingree: i call up house resolution 1168 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 172, house resolution 1168. resolved that upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h.r. 3650, to

establish national harmful algal bloom and hypoxia program, to address harmful blooms and hypoxia and provide for the development and implementation of comprehensive regional action plans to reduce harmful algaal blooms and hypoxia, all points of order against consideration of the bill are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. in -- the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in part a of the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution shall be considered as adopted. the bill as amended shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions of the bill as amended are waived. the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill as amended and on any amendment thereto to final passage without any intervening motion except one. one hour of debate equally

divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on science and technology. two, the amendment printed in part b of the report of the committee on rules if offered by representative flake of arizona or his designee which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for you division of the question. and three, one motion to recommit with or without instructions. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from maine is recognized for one hour. ms. pingree: thank you, madam speaker. for the purpose of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. dreier. all time yielded during consideration of this rule is for debate only. i ask unanimous consent that

all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. pingree: thank you, madam speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. pingree: madam speaker, the resolution provides for consideration of h.r. 3650, the harmful algael blooms and hypoxia research and controlment act of 2009 under a structured rule. the resolution waives all points of order against consideration of the bill except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. the resolution provides one hour of debate on the bill. the resolution provides that in lieu of the amendment in the nay a substitute recommended by the science committee the amendment in the nature of the substitute printed in rules committee report shall be considered as adopted. the bill as amended shall be considered as read. the rule waives all points of order against the bill as amended. the resolution makes in order the amendment printed by the

rules committee report if offered by representative flake or a designee. the resolution waives all points of order against the amendment except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. the resolution provides for one motion to recommit with or without instructions. madam speaker, harmful algael blooms are a growing problem along u.s. coasts and the impact almost every coastal district. some algae-like red tide produce toxins that shut down shellfish beds to local harvesters. severe red tide can affect the local economy. people can't go in the water. seafood isn't bought and sold. and stores ahone tells along the coast are empty. overs the past three decades harmful algae have begun to bloom with greater intensity. this is one of the most

quoastal challenges facing the nation. we know it grows by a number of factors, light, water temperature, salinity, new treeant availability. but the factors that drive outbreaks like red tide are not understood as well. additional efforts are needed to monitor control, prevent, and mitigate these outbreaks. a professors at the university of mape has done research that shows that the blooms start offshore are blown toward shore by easterly winds. this sounds simple enough, yet in the field of red tide research this was groundbreaking work. addressing them on a national level requires a coordinated approach that involves the number of federal agencies. including the e.p.a. and noaa. the underlying bill oversees the development and implementation of regional research and action plans to help coastal managers understand and deal with the outbreaks. new england and maine in particular have been especially hard hit by outbreaks. severe red tide events occurred in four of the last five years

causing tens of millions of dollars in lost income to shellfish harvesters. the shellfish industry is vital to the maine economy, madam speaker. over 2,000 harvesters and dealers depend directly on access to healthy shellfish beds to make their living and support their families. maine's department of marine resources estimates total annual economic value of the shellfish industry is about $50 million. last spring and summer the shellfish industry in maine was shut down because of severe red tide blooms. at its peak it was nearly 100 times the federally mandated quarantine level and closed 97% of the state's shellfish beds and 100% of the offshore beds in federal waters. many shellfish harvesters were stuck in the land for months with nowhere to go. this all occurred during the peak of the tourist season and the results were devastating. coastal families rely on the income to generate during the short summer months to carry

them through maine's long, cold winters. and the timing could not have been worse for these hardworking harvesters. not only were they missing out on the best time to sell their products, but they have no way of knowing when it would be ok to return to the mud flats. the uncertainty made it impossible to know to look for other employment or see if the neck week -- next week would bring clear water. according to a recent noaa report, the syst that cause the red tide are at some of the highest levels measured. 60% higher than what was observed in the sediments prior to the historic red tide in 2005. while red tide in maine is a coastal issue, they are increasingly occurring in our inland lakes and rivers. blue green algae blooms and some midwest lakes and great lakes have killed dozens of dogs and poisoned people all over the region. frequently these fresh water algae blooms are caused by a combination of drought and

fertilizer runoff. these outbreaks lead to rashes, sore throats, and other health concerns. this bill helps address algal -- algaal blooms in lakes as well. i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of this important bill and i'm glad senator snowe from maine is the leader on this issue. i look forward to continue to work with her to improve the economic health of our coastal communities. this bill will help with shellfish harvesters in every coastal community by improving our knowledge and ability to project red tide blooms. we need a national strategy to provide for development of regional action plans to provow -- reduce the outbreaks. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the rule and underlying bill. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. dreier: thank you for remembering california, madam speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. i ask unanimous consent to

revise and extend my remarks. madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. dreier: let me begin by expressing my appreciation of my rules committee colleague, the distinguished gentlewoman from from north hache for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. as i said yield myself such time as i may consume. madam speaker, i sat and listened attentively as my colleague talked about the challenge of dealing with algael blooms and hypoxia research. i'm reminded as i mentioned in the rules committee yesterday afternoon of the rather famous vice presidential debate that took place in 1992. vice presidential debates, madam speaker, are not terribly memorable. but in 1992, for those who are old enough to remember, we saw three top tier presidential

candidates. george h.w. bush was running for re-election, and bill clinton was the democratic nominee, and h. ross perot was running as an independent candidate. in that vice presidential debate we saw vice president gore, vice president quail at that point, challenger al gore who went on to become vice president, and this totally unknown figure, admiral james stockdale, a great man i was privileged to know. the famous line that came from that debate, madam speaker, was from not vice president quayle or vice president to be gore but from admiral stockdale who looked into the camera and said, i'm sure you're asking who am i and why am i here? and that term went on to be used throughout the decade plus in our vernacular. i was reminded of that as we look at what it is we are doing right here, madam speaker.

one can't help but ask, who am i and why are we here? and i would like to, having listened to the very thoughtful statement on the alagel blooms and hypoxia research from my friend from north haven, i would like to yield to her to see if she could give us a really good description of why it is that we are here at this moment at 9:25, friday morning, when this was a measure that had been considered under suspension of the rules and we have mid afternoon yesterday completed the work. i know many of our colleagues have gone into their districts. i would like to yield to my colleague and ask her to provide us a clear, clear definition as to exactly why it is we are here. miss pin dwree: i appreciate my colleague -- ms. pingree: , i appreciate my colleague yielding and i

appreciate his thoughtful comments. i can only answer for the residents of my home state who are deeply concerned about the red tide, the economic impact in our community. and the importance of passing this legislation. mr. dreier: madam speaker, let me reclaim my time and say that we had an emergency, an emergency rules committee meeting yesterday to bring this measure up. i understand the importance of dealing with algael blooms and hypoxia research, but in my state of california we have many counties, madam speaker, that tragically have an unemployment rate that is in excess of 20%. we have a nationwide unemployment rate that is hovering right around 10%. 9.7%. it's been around 10% for seven months. and we know that millions and millions of americans have lost

their homes and many more continue to face either the threat of foreclosure or years of upside-down mortgages. our deficit is $1.4 trillion, $1.4 trillion and we all know that our national debt has exceeded $12 trillion. and credit remains very scarce. we hear regularly the cry from both sides of the aisle for working families and small business owners who depend on a robust financial services system. we have serious, very serious issues as a nation that the american people expect us to deal with aggressively and responsibly. and i would argue, madam speaker, that while we are considering the algael blooms and hypoxia research measure, under an emergency structure that was put forth by the rules committee, i'm not in any way

diminishing its importance, but i think these issues that i just mentioned are what are on the minds much americans all across this country. job creation and economic growth. so what is it that we do in response to the economic crisis that we are facing in the united states of america? it is, as i said, the harmful algael blooms and hypoxia research. i yield to my colleague to say why it is that we are really here because of the fact that we were promised transparency. you don't need a really, really good pair of reading glasses to know exactly why it is that we are here. we are here very simply because the democratic leadership is doing everything that it possibly can to twist arms and line up votes for what is,

based on public opinion polling and three elections that have within held within the last couple months in virginia, new jersey, and massachusetts they are twisting arms to try and pass a very, very, very unpopular and i believe outrageous, horrible measure that would see us have the federal government take control of 1/6 of our nation's economy. . and, madam speaker, the most recent maneuver that they were considering to ram this thing through was something that's been doubled the slaughter solution. many media outlets have tried to explain to the american people what exactly the slaughter solution would be. most explanations have left listeners more confused and outraged than when they started. madam speaker, it is a twisted and contorted process that can make anyone's head spin, but

this is it in a nutshell. madam speaker, the slaughter solution is an end-run around a vote in the house of representatives on the health care bill. as the health care process is moved forward, the substance of what the democratic majority is trying to accomplish has become ever more unpopular. the result is that they simply do not have the votes to pass a bill that can get to the president for his signature. we all know that. within the last 20 minutes, the president -- the last 30 minutes, i guess now, the president announced that he was delaying his trip to indonesia and australia. and we know that they are doing everything within their power to try and twist arms and encourage people to vote for something that is extraordinarily unpopular and i believe would be devastating for our nation's economy. so madam speaker, what is it that you do if you don't have the votes?

what is it that you do? do you start over and work for a bipartisan solution which is what the american people want? this is not a partisan issue on our part. we're saying, let's take the commonsense approach that the american people have said we should take, a step-by-step approach. so is that the message that has come through? do you listen, do you listen, as many of us have, to what the american people are saying through town hall meetings and other forum and incorporate their ideas into this quest that we all share of trying to drive health care costs down so that we can increase the access to health insurance for our fellow americans? apparently the answer to every single one of those, madam speaker, is no. for this democratic majority when you don't have the votes you simply come up with a scheme to avoid a vote

altogether, which is what the slaughter solution is. the so-called sluiter solution would allow the house to wait for -- the so-called slaughter solution would allow the house to wait for the senate. when the fix is passed by the senate, the bill would magically be deemed passed by the house without ever having a transparent up or down vote on the original bill. and let's remind ourselves of a new direction for america, the document that then minority leader nancy pelosi put forward promising transparency, disclosure, accountability, the kind of openness that we all aspire to but tragically has deteriorated over the past three years. the approach that we have with the slaughter solution is a hopelessly cynical attempt to completely up end the democratic process.

but it also, madam speaker, i believe creates the potential for a backfire. for months the democratic majority has blamed the senate for their own inability to provide leadership and decisive action on the pressing challenges that we face. and now they want to put the fate of their convoluted plan and the ability of the senate to pass a clean fix-it bill. madam speaker, the senate has disappointed my democratic colleagues yet again. we got the report just yesterday that seemed to undermine the slaughter solution. it appears that the senate parliamentarian will insist on a senate health care reform bill before he will recognize the fix-it bill as reconciliation. meaning that reconciliation can only be utilized to deal with existing law. that means that if the democrats won't take a straight up or down vote on the bill, their only option is the light

version of the slaughter solution, having the bill deemed as passed by the rule and sending the senate bill to the president for his signature. now, that's what the lawyers call, madam speaker, a distinction without a difference. the reality is that a vote on the rule will be a vote on the senate health care bill, complete with all of the special interest provisions that it contains. the cornhusker kickback, gatorade, the louisiana purchase, these kinds of things that we have heard about. and then all sorts of hidden items in there that some friends of mine have been discussing to me like promises that there wouldn't be a middle-class tax increase. and what does the measure do? it slashes f.s.a.'s, flexible savings accounts, which have been utilized by people trying to address their health care needs and by doing what they do in this bill, it will be a slap at the taxpayers of this country who are middle-income

wage earners. their problem didn't end there. there will be, madam speaker, challenges to some proposed fixes, and, therefore, changes to the senate package. and then there is the question of federal funding of abortion. if this cannot be banned through reconciliation, would the slaughter solution be further expanded to implement a fix on that issue as well? how would that fix make its way through the united states senate? now, madam speaker, with serious unanswered questions like these, why would any member of this house take the bait and support the slaughter solution even in its light version by deeming a measure passed with passage of a rule? there's a high probability that house democrats will be forced into taking the tough votes

they tried so hard to avoid. after putting themselves on record as supporting an end run around a real transparent vote. in the end, madam speaker, rank and file democrats will be making themselves all the more vulnerable for having supported their leadership's egregious tactics. the slaughter solution is bad policy, bad process and bad politics. the fact that the democratic leadership is pursuing this option is exposing its unwillingness to abandon the most fundamental element of legislating, the most fundamental element of being a deliberative body is a transparent up or down vote. and they're doing that, madam speaker, in order to achieve what everyone recognizes based on public opinion polling. i don't make my decisions based on public opinion polling. i make my decisions based on what is right.

but it happens that public opinion overwhelmingly has pointed to this as a very, very, very unpopular, unpopular proposal. today, they are hiding, as i have just had an exchange with my colleague from north haven on, they're hiding behind blooming algae as they twist arms and try to work their back room deals. but, madam speaker, your leadership cannot hide forever. if the democratic majority proceeds with its plan to ram through their health care bill without actually holding a vote, it's going to take more than algae to protect them from the american public's outrage. and with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentlewoman from maine is recognized. ms. pingree: thank you, madam speaker. i had no idea that we were here to debate health care this morning, but i appreciate the gentleman, my friend from

california, bringing up -- mr. dreier: will the gentlewoman yield? ms. pingree: not yet. i'd like to make a couple of points and the gentleman has plenty of time. ms. pingree: i was happy to yield under my -- mr. dreier: i was happy to yield under my time. ms. pingree: i appreciate that. this bill could have been done under suspension. as i understand my colleague voted no when this bill originally came to the floor which is why we are back here again today to pass what is a relatively simple piece of legislation but very important in coastal districts like mine. and, yes, we do have a disagreement on health care legislation. and i wish that your caucus was doing what my caucus is doing right now and that is going through the health care legislation that we hope to bring to this floor soon line by line to make sure that we are confident that this is excellent legislation to move forward the cause of health care reform, something which he and i don't agree on. i support very strongly, and i am looking forward to the debate that we will have on

this floor about that health care legislation, and i am thrilled with the year and a half that i have spent here and the number of hours that committees and members on both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats, have put in crafting health care legislation. now, we may not agree on the final product, and that will come down to a vote, and you're right, it will depend on making sure we have enough votes on this -- on each side of the aisle. i am glad that everyone feels confident about that vote. you know, it's interesting. i, as you know, am a freshman. i was not here in previous years where you were, but when you talk about arm twisting and getting votes, i am reminded of the story that i have heard about passing the prescription drug legislation and what it took for the other party in the middle of the night with a vote open for many hours to pass a piece of legislation that i have to say from my perch as a

former state legislator, from the state where the cost of prescription drugs is crippling health care costs for many of our senior citizens, i was shocked to see what that final piece of legislation came to be. and i am thrilled that our health care legislation that i believe will be on this floor soon will fix some of the problems in there. i'm sorry to say not all, but i remember hearing about that legislation. was it two hours, was it three hours in the middle of the night, where people were convinced to change their vote, to get their vote, where everyone minute counted to get their vote, and that was the legislation that left us with this tremendous doughnut hole which senior citizens talk to me about every day. that's the public opinion -- mr. dreier: will the gentlewoman yield? ms. pingree: i will not yield. it's not a public opinion poll. it's senior citizens who come up to me and say, do you see what it costs me to buy my prescription drugs? do you see what happens when i get in the doughnut hole?

they ask me, how could the republican party pass in the middle night, twisting arms for every vote, how could they pass a piece of legislation that didn't allow us to negotiate with the pharmaceutical manufacturers for the price of prescription drugs? i can tell you in my home state of maine, this was an issue for years. when i first got elected in 1992 to my state legislature, senior citizens came up to me and said, you see what it cost me to buy my prescription drugs, and then every year it got worse and worse and worse. as the pharmaceutical manufacturers, some of the wealthiest corporations, multinational corporations in the country, was able to sell their drugs at the highest prices in the world to senior citizens in america. knows people had to pay cash for those drugs. those people had to decide whether they put heating oil in their tank to keep warm, whether to put food on the table. but when the republicans could have changed the law like they do in canada, like they do in virtually every other country in the world, what they could have done what they are always telling us, be like a good

business. you know, i own a small business. i wouldn't think of buying something that i didn't negotiate for. well, that's what that bill said. it said we won't negotiate. in fact, we will give them the sweetheart deal. we will say to our senior citizens, you know what, we are going to pay the highest prices in the world so there will be no cost savings. these are the same republicans who tell us now that there isn't enough cost savings in our health care bill. they use it as an excuse. but that was what was done in the dark of the night three hours holding open a debate to say, you know how i first found out about this? i got on a bus with senior citizens from the state of maine. let me tell you how it works. we stopped in betterford, maine and then go to portland, maine. we drive all the way up to the canadian border. no, i will not yield. we go all the way to mr. dreier: i didn't ask you to yield. ms. pingree: well, you had that look. we go to a duly licensed physician so they can rewrite their prescriptions and go

across the border legally. this is a bus load of senior citizens. we go to that canadian drugstore and they buy their prescriptions. i want to tell you about one person i sat next to on one of the many bus trips. i sat next to a person who had to take a wonderful drug that we are glad we have for breast cancer but me take 30 pills a month. at that point i think it cost them about $150 a month for their 30 pills. but when we got across the canadian border, it was $12.35. that was highway robbery in my opinion. you know why that was? because the canadian government, just like every other western nation, requires that they -- that they negotiate for the best price possible mr. dreier: will the gentlewoman yield, madam speaker? ms. pingree: not quite. i'm almost done. they negotiate for the best price possible. as far as i'm concerned, that's what should have been in that prescription drug plan that was decided in the middle of the night when arms were twisted to get every last vote. that's what should be closing

the doughnut hole, lowering prescription drug prices in the health care bill that we will debate soon. as far as i'm concerned, i am thrilled that members of my caucus are here today to go through line by line to make sure that we're getting the best possible health care plan we can get. and i will say it's not going to be everything i want in a health care plan. i come from the state of maine. they think single payer, our doctors think that single payer ought to be the thing in maine. that's what i think. i'm anxious to make sure that we get the best possible compromise. i would be thrilled if some of the members of your caucus would vote for that bill. mr. dreier: madam speaker, would the gentlewoman yield? ms. pingree: i will not yield my time right now but i will reserve the balance of my time and turn it back to you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume and i'd like to yield to my colleague to engage in a colloquy, if i might, so we might have a discussion. i find it very interesting,

very interesting, madam speaker, that she talked about that amazing drug that is used for breast cancer. . and the difference in cost between canada and the united states of america. there is an important reason for that, madam speaker, and that is the fact that we want to make sure that there are more amazing drugs created. there are many very serious ailments that exist out there today. one of the things that we have as our great comparative advantage here in the united states of america is that we are the center for research and innovation. unfortunately we have had to shoulder the financial burden for that research so that that woman, riding on the bus, with my friend from north haven, was able to have a drug that would never have been developed had

it not been for the kind of innovation that exists here in the united states of america. i would like to yield to my friend to see if she would recognize that the innovation and creativity that exists in the united states of america is what allowed that friend of hers on the bus to have it. i yield whatever amount of time my friend consumes from my time. ms. pingree: thank you so much for yielding your time and allowing me to address this topic. even though we are here to address this algae blooms, i appreciate the chance to go back and forth on this important topic. mr. dreier: i'm very grateful we are here to address an issue that is of concern to the american people. with all due respect to the importance of algal blooms and hypoxia research, i believe what we are talking about today is much more important. the thing that we should be talking about is not something that happened five years ago. which frankly many, many seniors are benefiting from, but what we should talk about is what is about to happen and what is happening behind closed

doors throughout this capitol at this moment. i'm happy to further yield to my friend. ms. pingree: thank you. just to answer your point, i, too, think it's essential we continue our research and development here in this country. frankly much of it is done around the world on research and development. but i don't think that negotiating for a better price, that lowering the prices to our senior citizens, would cost us research and development. mr. dreier: reclaiming my time. just to say to my friend, she's right. she's right, madam speaker. there are other parts of the world where research and innovation is taking place. but it all pails, it pales in comparison to the kind of research and development that takes place here in the united states. i would like to ask my colleague, madam speaker, if she would support making permanent the research and development tax credit so that we could have the kind of incentive for our pharmaceutical industry and others out there who are creating these innovative new ideas to deal with alzheimer's and cancer and diabetes and

other ailments that exist. madam speaker, would she be supportive of the notion of our pursuing that kind of incentive to deal with these problems that can play a role in driving costs down? ms. pingree: first, i would prefer to answer you on my own time because it seems to me when you yield me your time you usually answer for me. i would rather wait -- mr. dreier: i'm happy to yield to my friend. i asked a question. i would welcome your answer. ms. pingree: i have to say i'm unprepared to answer your question about the research and development tax credit for the pharmaceutical industry. i know i have industries in my state that benefit from that tax credit. before i say yes or know about the solution you are proposing. mr. dreier: madam speaker -- mr. pingree: i don't think you are letting me finish. mr. dreier: i'm happy to yield to my friend further. she's chosen to say she doesn't know whether or not she would support making permanent the research and development tax credit when we all know that

that would play a critical role in driving costs down for our seniors and others. madam speaker, the fact of the matter is we are here at this juncture dealing with a measure that may be important to some, but this measure was considered, as i said, under an emergency structure upstairs in the rules committee. i asked the question, when the president made his decision to delay his trip to indonesia and australia from march 18 to march 21 or 22, was that so he could deal with the emergency in signing legislation dealing with algal blooms and hypoxia research? i don't think so. but that's the measure, as my friend said, she wanted to discuss here on the house floor today when in fact we know, we know that arm twisting is taking place and to liken the structure that is taking place today with what happened five years ago is preposterous.

it is true, it is true that under the rules of the house that vote may have been left opened. and as a byproduct of that we have seen literally billions and billions of seniors have access to affordable prescription drugs. madam speaker, i have to say that that pales in comparison to this unprecedented and outrageous structure that is being utilized, that is being utilized to ram down the throats of the american people something that they don't want. with that, madam speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentlewoman from maine is recognized. ms. pingree: thank you. i'll just say a couple more things. again, i'm thrilled that the president has decided to focus all of his energy on health care. i think that the people of this country have waited long enough for health care reform. and i am anxious to see it come to this floor. i am anxious to see it -- bring

it to final passage. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. -- does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. dreier: of course i do, madam speaker. thank you very much for recognizing me. let me say that as we have looked -- i was just reminded by my staff, madam speaker, that -- i have a couple of articles that were handed to me here today, about this process issue. and i regularly argue that process is substance. i'm not talking, by the way, about algal blooms or hypoxia research. i'm talking about this convoluted process known as the slaughter solution. for some strange reason the democratic leadership has said that regardless of what the

senate is going to do, we are going to proceed with taking our action here when reconciliation itself is a senate process. and it was designed, as we all know, it's called budget reconciliation. put into place in the 1974 budget and empowerment act. it was put into place by senator byrd and the goal of providing an opportunity for reconciliation, budget reconciliation was so there could be an opportunity to deal with tax increases or spending cuts. i will say the last time we dealt with meaningful spending cuts under this kind of structure was when we tried to tackle the issue of entitlement reform. we were able to bring about a very, very modest $40 billion reduction. i think that we need to work harder on that. we need to utilize that process in doing it.

but what we are seeing right now and these reports that are out there, the confusion that exists in this house and certainly with the american people who are just casual observers of this, is that this is not what we were promised, madam speaker. it's not what we were promised. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. ms. pingree: i'll continue to reserve. mr. dreier: madam speaker, i would inquire of my colleague if she has -- ms. pingree: i have no other speakers. mr. dreier: madam speaker, i urge my colleagues, i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule. madam speaker, if we are going to consider this measure itself, it could have been -- it looks like my friend from

texas is here and would like to be recognized. i'm happy to yield to my friend. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. i appreciate so much the points my friend from california has been making. here there have been discussion about the health care and why the house want to take that over for the american people. it really is highlighted by something i ran into just this morning at the white house. we know from the prior hearings that were held that apparently the social secretary had a meeting with people with security at the white house and decided to change protocol so she wouldn't be there. so some people got waived in that shouldn't have gotten waived in -- waved in and as a result what has happened now when members of congress used to be -- it used to be if you gave 24 hours' notice with a

social security, date of birth, all that kind of thing you could get six people into the white house at 8:00, 7:45, something like that the next morning. well, now that -- this white house, that was changed. they want 48 hours. ok, fine. as a result of the incompetent handling over letting people into the white house that shouldn't have been not by the secret service, not by the armed guards there, now they have doubled the number of guards that are out there. they now make both members of congress and those people who are obviously law-abidinging -- law-abiding and have had their security double checked and checked, and not one smudge on their record, now they have to go clear down, a block away, to 15th street and go through security there. the member of congress like today in the rain, has to go down a block and then go through security there with double the number of guards and then come up and go through security again and go through guards again. all because -- not because

secret service messed up or the armed guards that are now doubled in number, but because somebody in the white house staff screwed up. now they are deciding to punish members of congress and law-abiding citizens that normally just get in. the point here is, that this is a circus over there. nobody seems to know what's going on. and when accountability was demanded and the social secretary was requested by members of congress to come testify, they said we are not going to let you come testify. the same thing happened on the auto task force. could you have them at least come tell us what their secret meetings, these czars and all that -- we are not going to be accountable. it is a circus going on over there. and now the people of the circus want to be in charge of your health care. good grief. it's time to say, we don't want clowns in charge of something important as our health care. i don't even want them in

charge of algae blooms. with that, i appreciate the time. mr. dreier: i thank the gentleman for his very thoughtful remarks. let me just close, i know my colleague is prepared to do the same, by making a couple of comments. i began by pointing to the fact that in california we have a number of counties with an unemployment rate in excess of 20%. in part of the area i represent in suburban los angeles, we have unemployment in excess of 14%. we have obviously tremendous numbers of home foreclosures, small businesspeople are unable to gain back sess to credit, and i believe -- access to credit, and i believe we can get our economy growing boldly, strongly, and dynamically with a bipartisan, and i underscore that term bipartisan, madam speaker, by utilizing the john f. kennedy, ronald reagan approach with marginal tax rate

reduction, which during the 1960's under john f. kennedy and the 1980's under ronald reagan stimulated economic growth by reducing marge until tax -- marginal tax rates and doubled the flow of revenues to the federal treasury. everyone is decrying the $1.4 trillion deficit and the $12 trillion debt that we have today. and what is it we are doing? we are sitting here with discussion about algae blooms and hypoxia research, and we are witnessing arm twisting to see the federal government take control of 1/6 of our economy while the american people want us to focus on job creation and economic growth. we can be doing that, madam speaker, if we can refocus our attention to where it is that the american people want us to be. and i urge a no vote on this rule. rule. with t