orced her, got custody of the children and moved to another state. lisa started abusing drugs, first it was alcohol, then it was everything else. she couldn't quite handle the fact that she was a victim of crime even though the perpetrator is away. and not too long after this crime was committed, i received a phone call from lisa's mother, and she told me that lisa had taken her life. and she left a note, madam speaker, that i still have in my office today across the street. and the note reads, i'm tired of running from luke johnson in my nightmares. she she got the death penalty for being the victim of sexual assault and we would hope that victims could handle it, move on and cope, but that's not the world we operate in, because they are real people.

and we as a nation need to be sensitive of victims of sexual assault. it's the most unusual crime in our culture. we can sort of see why people commit theft. we can see sometimes why people get mad and in a rage might even commit a murder, but there is no logic -- logical reason why anybody would commit the crime of sexual assault against another person unless it's an attempt to steal the very soul of that person. and that's what criminals are trying to do when they commit this crime. that is why it is such a horrible crime. and we as a culture must be concerned about it. and so this resolution helps bring that to the public forum that sexual assault awareness month is something that we should be, as a people, concerned about, because victims have rights, too. the same constitution that protects defendants protects

victims of crime. and has been said before, we aren't judged by the way we treat the rich, the famous, the powerful, we are judged by the way we treat the innocent, the weak, the victims of crime. that's how we as a people will be judged. i commend the gentlelady from wisconsin for sponsoring this resolution and i urge its adoption and i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back, the gentlelady is recognized. ms. baldwin: i want to thank my co-sponsor of this legislation for putting a name, a story, a face on this consequential matter. lisa, carrie, from our respective states, represent many other victims and survivors alike. and it speaks to the importance of this resolution. i commend the gentleman for his

advocacy and ask for support of this resolution and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 1259? those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: madam speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass house resolution 1208. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution

1208, resolution supporting the goals of world intellectual property day. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. baldwin, and the gentleman from texas, mr. smith, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: thank you, madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. baldwin: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. baldwin: house resolution 1208 supports the goals of world intellectual property day and recognizes the importance of protecting intellectual property. it brings attention to the impact that intellectual property has in our daily lives, educates us on how intellectual property protection promotes creativities and innovation and

celebrates its contributions to society. the theme for world intellectual property day this year is innovation, linking the world. the focus is to educate us on how innovation technologies have created an interlinked and global society. yesterday, we celebrated the 10th annual world intellectual property day. this day was selected because on april 26, 1970, the united nations established the world intellectual property organizations, -- organization, known as wipo. it works to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world and yesterday was their 40th anniversary. this resolution con gladge rates the world intellectual property organization for buildinged awareness of the value of intellectual property. this resolution also celebrates the contributions of innovators throughout the world and

reminds us of the importance of protecting intellectual property rights. protecting intellectual property rights is key to maintaining incentives for the development of innovative solutions to meet today's global challenges and so we must continue to fight against piracy and counterfeiting of intellectual property. piracy damages our national economy and the world economy. it results in lost jobs and stifles innovation. i would like to thank congressman adam smith for introducing this resolution and would also like to acknowledge the strong bipartisan support of members of the intellectual property caucus. i urge my colleagues to support this important resolution and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady reserves. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. smith: i yield as much time as he might consume to the gentleman from north carolina,

a senior member of the judiciary committee and senior member of the intellectual property committee. mr. coble: madam speaker, intellectual property has been described as the cornerstone, or one of the cornerstones of america's economic future. i think that is an accurate description. h.res. 1208 supports the goals of world intellectual property day, which falls on april 26 every year, which this year also happened to fall on the 40th anniversary of the world intellectual property organization. commonly known as wipo. wipo has grown to 184 member states and its new director general issued a statement honoring world intellectual property day, which pledged to ensure that the intellectual property system continues to serve its most fundamental purpose of encouraging innovation and creativity that

the benefits of the system are accessible to all, helping to bring the world closer. robust and effective laws combine with effective enforcement are absolutely necessary to meet the general's global ambitions. according to the department of commerce, intellectual property -intensive industries employ nearly 18 million workers, account for nearly 50% of all u.s. exports, and represent 40% of the country's grolte in the united states. -- of the country's growth in the united states. it's estimated that the u.s. intellectual property is worth between $5 trillion and $5.5 trillion. the credit for this success belongs to our great innovators and for our robust intellectual property law which is have enabled innovation to flourish

in america. expanding similar intellectual property protections throughout the world is in my opinion, madam speaker, everyone's best interest. in this regard, wipo plays a very important and it is my hope that the general will make every effort to help others realize the significance of intellectual property rights and work to help implement and enforce robust law which is ensure that intellectual property will flourish everywhere. i urge support of h.r. 1208 and i yield back my time to the gentleman from texas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman -- the gentlelady from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from washington, mr. smith, the author of the resolution before us. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes.

mr. smith: thank you, madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: i rise in strong support of house resolution 1208. i would like to thank chairman conyers and his staff for bringing the resolution to the floor and for the the kindly remarks of the gentleman, mr. coble. i would like to thank others, the gentlewoman from california, mrs. bono mack and the gentleman from north carolina, mr. coble, who have joined me in sponsoring this resolution. this commemorates world intellectual property day. each year since 2001, world i.p. day has been held in observance of the world intellectual property organization by the united nations. world intellectual property day calls attention to the importance of i.p. for our nation and the international economy. it recognizes the contributions made by artists, innovators and other creative minds that

enrich us in many ways. around my district in washington state i'm able to observe daily the critically important role-played by intellectual innovation and intellectual innovation -- and creativity. we are fortunate to have a robust intellectual economy from large corporations to hundreds of smaller and medium sized businesses. they create hundreds of thousands of jobs and create billions in economic activity. each relies on innovation and respect for intellectual property to remain successful and internationally competitive. similarly, in states and localities throughout america, employers in i.p. are important to the economy. it drives research and development investment, creates

new products and services to make us more globally competitive. for intellectual property to work, it has to be protected. people have to know that they will get the value of their inventions and of their brainpower. we must protect intellectual property to grow jobs here in the u.s. it's critical. i'm proud to recognize intellectual property day and i ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution to recognize world intellectual property day and the role that intellectual property plays in our nation. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: madam speaker, the purpose of house resolution 1208 is to congratulate the world intellectual property oorgnyization for its work and to support the goals of world intellectual property day this day includes teaching the importance of intellectual property as a tool for

economic, social, and cultural development. wipo is considered the most important international organization for the promotion of intellectual property. among other responsibilities, it has other treaties that protect intellectual property. nine years ago, wipo member states commemorated the founding of the organization by having world intellectual property day. april 26, 1970, is the day in which wipo was created. this resolution commemorates the creation of wipo. in addition, it contains background information on the extent to which intellectual property generates jobs, sales, and exports for the united states while contrasting these with the problems related to piracy and anti-counterfeiting. i support this resolution and

urge its adoption and i will yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: i ask my colleagues to support this resolution and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 1208? those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from wisconsin seek recognition? ms. baldwin: i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3808. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 3808 a bill to require any federal or state court to recognize any notarization made by any a notary licensed by any state

other than the state where the court is located when it affects interstate commerce. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. baldwin, and the gentleman from texas, mr. smith, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. baldwin: and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. baldwin: thank you, madam speaker. h.r. 3808, the interstate recognition of notizations act of 2009 requires all federal and state courts to recognize documents lawfully noterized in any state of the union, when interstate commerce is involved. an identical version of this bill passed the house in 2007. a noteary public has the

professional expertise to verify the identity of the signatory to a document and ensure that it was willingly signed. notary publics a critical first line of defense against fraud. although notearyization services are for the same purpose in all states, there are laws and also varying technical formalities. that makes it difficult for a state to recognize an out of state notarization. some states dictate that ink sales must be used while others require embossers. some states require very specific language in the acknowledgment certificate and thus the language used in other states may not be acceptable. such technical differences between state law hinder the recognition of documents that were lawfully know tarized in the state in which the

notarization was performed and this can cause unnecessary delays that impact important legal rights and interstate commerce. the fact that some states do not recognize documents lawfully notarized in other states also presents a constitutional issue. the u.s. constitution requires that each state give full faith and credit to the public acts records and judicial proceedings of every other state. the 21st century affords advances in transportation and telecommunications that have expanded the ability of individuals and business to conduct their affairs across state boundaries. the laws governing notarization should not be permitted to continue encom-- encome bering their ability to do so. by giving those laws recognition, harmonizing them, h.r. 3808 will bring those laws within the spirit of the

constitution's vision and bring much-needed relief from antiquated formalities. i urge my colleagues to support this legislation and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from texas. mr. smith: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: madam speaker, at the outset i want to thank the sponsor of the bill, representative aderholt, for his persistence and patience. this is the third time the full house has considered his bill to streamline the use of notarized documents across state lines. and i hope this will be the last followed by the senate and then enactment. madam speaker, i'd like to ask unanimous consent that the rest of my statement be made a part of the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: and i'd like to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from alabama, mr. aderholt, as well. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from alabama is recognized. mr. adler: thank you, madam speaker. i appreciate the -- mr.

aderholt: i appreciate the speaker on this legislation. without it this legislation, we would not be here today where we are. one of the -- one other person who has been very supportive and who brought this attention to -- brought this to my attention several years ago is my friend mike turner from birming hamas. we've worked together on this to try to resolve this issue through the united states congress and so here we are as mentioned, the third time to try to resolve this. there is no say in third time's a charm and i'm hopeful today that saying holded true. as my colleagues who serve on the judiciary committee are well aware, today marks the third time that the house of representatives has brought up and hopefully will pass this bill. the key, of course, lies with our friends in the other chamber. so i look forward to working with our colleagues in the senate and getting the bill moved through that chamber as well.

i was first made aware of this problem from mike turner when i was first elected to congress back in 1997. here we are in 2010, the issue is still not resolved. this is an issue of great frustration to people who deal with notaries on a daily basis. several years ago the house judiciary committee worked with supporters on this issue to find a satisfactory solution to the problem of the recognition of notarizations across state lines in march, 2006, the subcommittee on courts, internet and intellectual property heard from several witnesses who all agreed that this is an ongoing and difficult problem for interstate commerce. to businesses and individuals engaged in businesses across state lines, this is a matter of -- this is a matter long overdue. in a nut shell, as it has been stated, h.r. 3808 will expedite interstate commerce so that court documents and other

notarized documents will be fully recognized from one state to another. today states can refuse to acknowledge the integrity of notarized documents from one state to another. this legislation, 3808, will streamline the interstate, commerce and legal transactions consistent with the guarantees of the state's rights that are called for in the full faith and credit clause of the united states constitution. this legislation preserves the right of -- right to states to set standards and regular late notaries while reducing the burden on the average citizen who has to use our court systems. currently, as the law stands today, each state is responsible for regulating its notaries. typically an individual will pay a fee, they'll submit an application and they'll take an oath of office. some states require that applicants enroll in educational courses to pass exams and also obtain a notary bond.

nothing in this legislation will change those steps. please note, we're not trying to mandate how states regulate notaries which they appoint. the bill will not preclude the challenge of notarized documents. i want to stress this is no way frying to mandate what a state should do or what a state should not do. it simply allows there to be more free flow of commerce between states and particularly when you're talking about the regulation of notaries themselves. again, i want to thank the chairman and also the ranking member for the support of this legislation and allow us to move forward and i would urge my colleagues that when this legislation is brought for a vote they would support it under suspension of the ruleless. thank you. -- rules. thank you. i yield back the balance of my time. mr. smith: i yield back the balance of my time as well. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: i urge my colleagues to pass h.r. 3808 and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3808. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 1033 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 1033, resolution expressing support for designation of april, 2010, as national autism awareness month and supporting efforts to devote new resources to research into the causes and treatment of autism and to

improve training and support for individuals with autism and those who care for individuals with autism. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. doyle, and mr. pit, will each control 20 minutes. mr. doyle: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. doyle: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. doyle: thank you. madam speaker, i rise today in strong support of house resolution 1033. this resolution expresses support for the designation of this month, the month of april, as national autism awareness month. autism spectrum disorders are a group of developmental disabilities that affect an estimated one in 100 children

nationwide. a.s.d.'s or autism is typically diagnosed within the first three years of life. autism occurs in all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. however, we know that autism affects each person and certain groups differently. people withs a berger's syndrome typically do not have difficulty with language or intellectual disability. others with autism have more notable language delays and social challenges, among other symptoms. this form of autism is referred to as autistic disorder or classic autism. and autism is at least four times more likely to be diagnosed in boys than in girls. we have made important progress in research on autism within the past few years and i and dozens of members of congress who annually seek and obtain billions of dollars for autism funding know that there remains much to learn about the risk factors and causes of this group of conditions.

we must also continue to raise awareness regard rarding the signs and symptoms of autism. today's resolution gives us an opportunity to do just that. this awareness raising is particularly important since early intervention has shown to improve a child's development. this resolution recognizes and commends parents and relatives for their dedication in caring for children with autism. it supports the investment of resources into research that will help improve our understanding of autism and promote early intervention and treatment. it also recognizes the importance of appropriately trained educators to respond to students with special needs. those are the reasons why my friend chris smith and i as founders and co-chair of the congressional autism caucus introduced h.r. 2413, the autism treatment acceleration act. that bill will reinforce our country's work to identify the causes of autism, by improving the coordination of our

government's efforts and it establishes a national network of autism research in order to strengthen linkages between research and service initiatives at the federal, regional, state and local levels and facilitate the translation of research on autism into services and treatments that will improve the quality of life for individuals with autism and their families. a national data repository will be created to share emerging data, findings and treatment models. this resolution on the floor today mentions the needs of adults with autism and our bipartisan bill, 2413, actually creates an adult services demonstration project to provide an array of services to adults with autism spectrum disorders, including post secondary education, vocational and self-advocacy skills, employment, residential services, supports in housing, nutrition, health and wellness, recreational and social activities and transportation

and personal safety. and i'm proud that our bill will also create a national training initiative on autism and a technical assistance center to develop and he can papped -- expand interdisciplinary training and continuing education on the disorders. we ask all the members of the house, including this resolution sponsors, to join us and co-sponsor h.r. 2813, a meaningful bill. i want to commend representative reichert, the sponsor of this resolution, for his work on this resolution at a time when so much needs to be done for children and adults with autism. madam speaker, i would also like to note that the committee on education and labor received the secondary referral for this resolution. the committee agreed to waive the opportunity to exercise its jurisdiction in the interest of advancing this resolution. i want to say thank you to chairman miller for allowing this resolution to be brought to the floor as quickly as

possible. i urge my colleagues to support this resolution. madam speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: thank you, madam speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. pitts: thank you, madam speaker. i rise in support of house resolution 1033, the national autism awareness month. and i'm pleased to join the gentleman from pennsylvania, the co-chair of the autism caucus, and the other -- on behalf of the other co-chair of the autism caucus, the gentleman from njcaa, mr. smith, as well as the gentleman from washington, mr. reichert, the prime sponsor, and mr. bachus of alabama and mr. gerlach from pennsylvania who are the other sponsors of this resolution. the resolution as was stated acknowledges april as national autism awareness month.

and supports the research efforts for the causes and treatment of autism. and i would like to recognize the efforts of those who have gone through the appropriate training and who provide support to individuals with autism. i would also like to recognize the parents, the relatives, the friends of those with autism, for their sacrifices and dedication, especially for absorbing many times the significant cost for specialized education and support services. some of estimates that one in every 110 children in the united states is affected by a disorder on the autism spectrum. once diagnosed, early intervention is important to improve outcomes of those with autism. it can reduce the level of funding and services needed to treat people with autism

spectrum disorder later in life. continued research to identify the root causes of autism and support for the training of care givers and teachers that work with children with autism will ensure that people with autism will continue to be important and productive members of society. i would like to thank especially the author of the resolution mr. david reichert of washington, for his leadership in raise augusttism awareness and commend the efforts of those who care for individuals with autism. i encourage all my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania. >> i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentlelady from pennsylvania, mrs. dahlkemper. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized.

mrs. dahlkemper: i'd like to express support for this resolution. there are an estimated 1.5 million americans living with autism which affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. autism prevalence is on the rise and now occurs in one in every 110 births in the united states. we need to take action to address the causes of autism now and provide support to individuals and families affected by the disorder. autism awareness month is an important advocacy tool for those affected by autism and those affected by aspergers to raise awareness for the similar but distinct conditions. autism is different from autism in that it is less severe. those with aspergers often have above average intelligence and

want social interaction but their disorder is a barrier. they can share their talents and be productive, engaged members of our community. i am proud to offer my support to autism awareness month and urge my colleagues to support not only this resolution but individuals and families affected by autism ands a pergers throughout -- and aspergers throughout our country. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania. >> at this time, i yield five minutes to the co-chair of the autism caucus, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. smith. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized. mr. smith: i rise in strong support of h.res. 1033, a resolution designating april, 2010, as national autism awareness month. i thank my colleagues, mr. reichert, mr. gerlach, and i especially want to mank mike doyle and mr. pitts for their

work on this resolution and this important issue. this resolution serves an important function of increasing awareness of the 1.5 million individuals live wugasme -- autism spectrum disorder and the extreme dedication and efforts of their families in providing the best possible care and environment for their children, grandchildren, and brothers and sisters. i want to especially note that the parents and grandparents of children with autism have earned our enormous respect. i know many families with autism. it can be a very harrowing ordeal, yet they do it with such class and such love and dedication to their children. the concerns of the parents are validated in the community and have since been found to be true nationwide in terms of numbers. i would point out, i've been involved in autism since 1981, in my first term. i'll never forget visiting eden institute in princeton which does tremendous breakthrough research and work with autism

children and young adults, but frankly, for me, it wasn't until 1998, when two parents, bernie and bobbie gallagher from bricktown, new jersey, came to me after hours and said, we'd like you to sit down and look over the evidence and data we've accumulated because it is our belief that there's a spike a prevalent spike in autism in brick. we brought in all the players, c.d.c., the n.i.h. folks, public health experts, and we put together a study to find out what was or is the trigger that was seemingly causing this huge spike in autistic children in one particular town in the state of new jersey. to our shock and dismay, as this was going on we discovered that there was a prevalent spike, for sure, but it was most likely throughout the rest of new jersey and probably, it

was highly suggested, throughout the entire country of the united states. and so we put together a piece of legislation to establish what we called centers of excellence to look at, to apply the best principles and prevalent techniques to determine what is causing this and how many children are now being affected by autism. and to our shock and dismay, again we discovered that the united states didn't have a one in 10,000 prevalence, which is what the expectations were, was when i was elected in 1981, but that it was much higher. at that point, it was put at one out of every 150 children. unfortunately, as the prevalence -- as the centers of excellence were funded, the legislation passed, i'll never forget, congressman mike bilirakis was kind enough to accept our legislation as title 1 of the children's health act,

designed to help children, title 1 not only put more money into c.d.c. but also the national institutes of health which then was very much underfunding this effort to try to help autistic children. just for the record, we were spending $287,000 per year on autism at c.d.c. as my colleagues know, that's not even rounding error. that falls off the table at some bureaucracies. that number has gone off significantly, it's about $15 million, and now we do have a critical mass of money working very synergistcally with local health departments over at the national institutes of health as well as on these prevalence efforts to find out what is the parameters of this development of disability because you can't combat something unless you know the who, what, when, where, and why of it. that's what we're trying to do. in early 2000, mr. doyle and i launched the autism caucus.

we have tried throughout these years to be very supportive of every legislative effort, including the cure autism efforts of the past several years, and the key has been more money for research, more money for early childhood intervention, trying to deal with the issue of what happens after a child reaches adulthood and seems to me that every dollar we spend early on means we'll have a higher functioning autistic child, now young adult, who can get a job, become gainfully employed and become as independent as humanly possible. every dollar spent on autism is a dollar well spent. we also scoovered over the years, and i have found this in my travels to places like nigeria and mr. doyle and i have entered into a compact with friends in northern ireland in wales and in scotland, where they have an autism problem, but this is a global phenomenon. i ask for an additional minute

to conclude. mr. pitts: i yield the gentleman an additional two minutes. mr. smith: we need to do more. i introduced a bill that would provide small grant money to pledging nongovernmental organizations throughout the world. i was in nigeria and met up with a small nongovernmental organization, it was like it was david versus goliath, trying to get the government there to realize they have an autism problem, estimated to be one million children in nigeria alone. no one knows the exact number but many have come to that number. what is the trig her too much vaccines given at one time in the mega dosing that comes today and a little children can't -- and a little child can't metabolize and deal with it? we need to continue doing -- leave nothing stone unturned

for our children and young adults who have autism. in finding what is the trigger or the multiple triggers. finally, again, i want to thank bobby and billie gallagher who came forward with a stack of paper and said, please will you take this up. i took it up, i've been joined and worked closely with friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle so we can cure autism now and the sooner the better. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. mr. pitts: thank you. i'd like to say i deeply appreciate my friend chris smith's efforts on behalf of all those with autism. madam speaker, at this time i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. towns. mr. towns: the gentleman is recognized. mr. towns: thank you very much. let me for yielding time to me and i want to commend the

members of the autism caucus for the outstanding work they're doing and also i hope that this resolution will bring about awareness and support for autism. let me just say that we know that more research is needed and i think that any way we can make it possible for people to focus on it and to understand how important this additional resources are, i think it makes a whole lot of sense. i want to commend my colleagues for the outstanding work they've done to bring us to this point and i'm hoping that as a result of this, we will get more memberings, of course, involved and of course more people involved in this issue because there's still a lot of unanswered questions and i think that any time we can create a situation where people will focus on it, then i think that answers will be coming forth. i want to commend my colleagues for this effort and i look forward to working with them

because this is a very serious problem, one that should not be ignored, one that we really should spend time on making certain that we get the word out and to get the kind of research we need to have in order to bring about a solution. on that note, i yield back. >> madam speaker we reserve the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: at this time, i yield three minutes to one of the co-sponsors of the resolution, the gentleman from alabama, mr. baucus. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. bachus: as a parent myself i know that there's nothing more important than the well being of a child to a parent. when there's a change in a child's behavior, the parents or grandparents notice that something is wrong, they are the first to notice and they're also the first to want answers. often those answers are that the child has autism or is on

the autism spectrum. i also join in commending motorcycle doyle and chris smith for their long labors on this issue and would like to associate myself with the remarks of mr. towns and others. autism has always been a challenging diagnosis. there's an increased instance of autism spectrum disorder. it's quite a phenomenon. as of yet it hasn't been really explained. it is something that children and families and siblings will have to deal with for their entire lives. there are two very important things that we now know about autism. the first is that awareness is critical and so i commend mr. reichert and mr. gerlach along

with mr. pitts and the other speakers today. and that is what makes the designation of april as national autism awareness month so significant. the sooner that an autism spectrum disorder is identified, the sooner a child can receive specialized treatment. second thing we know is that early intervention programs can make an exceptional difference in the quality of life for these precious children. this has been proven not just by studies but by personal stories told by individual families. they've seen their young people literally blossom in front of their eyes as a result of early treatment. the birmingham area, from which i hail, has an innovative center called mitchell's place. it's named for the son of the two founders, the meislers. it's a model for autism services not just in alabama

but for the entire country. mitchell's place combines the latest in developmental and behavioral research with a structured, caring environment. when you walk through the doors of the center, which is bright and nurturing, you can feel the love for the children and they respond. there are many promising developments to report to families living with autism. recently congressman mike doyle, chairman of the autism council and i, hosted a briefing where we heard from the director of the national institutes of health, dr. thomas enzel. he told us about excite regular search progressing in a number of areas. expert researchers are studying causes, early intervention approaches, and even potential cures. in my states, thanks to the efforts of a state representative, we have an autism task force coordinating our state resources. we patterned that after pennsylvania, congressman gerlach.

in conclusion, it's an honor to speak on behalf of this resolution of the children and parents and grandparents and loved ones of those with autism. it's a pleasure to work with many members of congress who care so deeply about this issue, including the lead co-sponsors, congressman reichert and gerlach. along with mr. pitts from pennsylvania and mr. smith and mr. doyle. today's resolution has -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. bachus: can i have an additional 15 seconds? mr. pitts: yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds. mr. bachus: if it encourages parents to be more attentive to the symptoms of autism and get early treatment for the children, we will have done a great service for their families. thank you. pitts pit i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman -- mr. pitts: i reserve the balance

of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. doyle: how many speakers do you have? mr. pitts: we have pun speaker. mr. doyle: we continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: i yield to mr. gerlach. gerger madam speaker, i rise today to -- gerlgerl madam speaker, i rise -- mr. gerlacher: i rise today that thank my colleagues for joining in support of this resolution to recognize april, 2010, as the national autism awareness month. the centers for disease control and prevention released a report on the prevalence of autism. this report concluded that autism affects an estimated one out of every 110 children in the united states, including one in 70 boys. this means that autism is more common in childhood cancer, june of nile diabetes and pediatric aids combined. autism is believed to cost more than $90 billion a year to

treat. earlier this month the pennsylvania department of public welfare released its pennsylvania autism census which conducted a county by county census on the number of individuals suffering from autism. the total number of individuals with autism in the commonwealth is estimated to be over 25,000 including 3,500 adults with the disorder. despite the prevalence of autism and its impact on individuals, families and our nation's health care system, there's still much more learned about how best to diagnose and treat this disorder. that's why our resolution supports devoting resources to researching the root causes of autism and identifying the best treatments and programs to help individuals with the disorder because autism affects the entire family, not just the child with the disorder, our resolution also commends the parents and relatives of children with autism for their dedication in providing for their special needs while. there's no single cause known for autism, i believe we should focus our attention on increased awareness and funding for autism research.

our resolution is an important step in achieving our goal of searching for better treatments and hopefully one day a cure. please join me and my colleagues in supporting this resolution and i thank the support demonstrated here on the floor and i yield back. thank you, madam speaker. mr. pitts: madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. doyle: madam speaker, i hope that the house will unanimously approve house resolution 1033 as amended and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 1033 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. without objection, the title is amended.

the chair will entertain requests for one hint minute speeches -- one-minute speeches. for what purpose does -- >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into the following members may be permitted to address this house, revise and extend their remarks and include therein extraneous material. myself, mr. poe, for may 4, mr. jones for may 4, mr. lincoln diaz-balart for today, mr. bilbray for today, mr. moran for may 4. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislation -- legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into, the following

members may be permitted to address the house for five minutes, to revise and extend their remarks and include therein extraneous material. mr. towns of new york for five minutes, mr. wol -- ms. woolsey of california for five minutes, mr. davis of illinois for five minutes, mr. mr. -- ms. kaptur of ohio, five minutes, and mr. defazio of oregon for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, and previous order of the house, the following members are recognized for five minutes each. mr. towns of new york. is recognized. mr. towns: madam speaker, i rise today to recognize boys and girls high school in brooklyn, new york. the boys basketball team last month won the new york city public school athletic league,

psal city champ, city championship. they're referred to as the high, as it is effectively known in brooklyn, has a long history of athletic excellence. i'm not standing here recognizing the high boys basketball team only because it wonity first psal championship in 31 years. or because it has several players who college scouts are seriously recruiting. all of that is noteworthy and i think it's just great that that has occurred, but i also stand here because of the coach, roof lovelace. the coach of the high's basketball team. she is the first woman in the history of the psal to take a male team to the championship and win. mrs. lovelace did not do it alone. she did not shoot or dribble a ball or even get fouled.

whether she provided the leadership to take them all the way, mrs. lovelace starred in basketball at the high, played both at hill better junior college and seaten hall. as coach she won 377 times and lost only 108 games. during her 15-year tenure, coach love and the team have been featured in documentaries on espn, nbc and cbs. coach love would not have had the opportunity to lead a male team to a basketball championship without congress' efforts to pass title 9 in 1972. this signature piece of legislation opened the doors for women like ruth lovelace to participate in organized sports.

again i applaud the boys and girls high school boys basketball team for having a winning season and making the residents of the 10th congressional district of brooklyn, my fellow brooklynites so proud. i would just like to ender the names of these -- enter the names of these great athletes into our congressional record because they're not only great athletes, they're also great scholars, they're also great gentlemen and i think that that within itself is something that we should recognize today. i'd like to recognize jonathan arroyo, dominique bastik, ralph cologne, he will roadway truck flood, anthony hemingway, leroy eyesler, christopher lock hart, brown, jamal map, siquan pettis, jeff neverson, josey reyes, anton slaughter, calvin

sterling, michael tailor, jerry white, brandon williams and let me just recognize the coaches. first i want to recognize the athletic director, sheila shell, then head coach again, ruth lovelace, and her assistant coaches, he will measure med mondayson and gene carol for the outstanding job that they've done on behalf of these young people who i know will go on to college and to make all of us proud. so it's my honor and my pleasure to say to the boys and girls high school, we are so proud of you and what you've done to bring back the pride to brooklyn that we rightfully deserve. congratulations, boys and girls high school. on that note, madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas rise? ms. jackson lee: madam speaker, i ask to place in the record a collection on a vote regarding roll call vote 226 on passage of

h.r. 5146 providing that members of congress shall not receive a cost of living adjustment in pay during fiscal year 2011. madam speaker, i'd like to state for the record that i support the denial of a cost of living adjustment for members and ask unanimous consent that my statement be placed in the appropriate place in the record. the statement is that the correct vote for that roll call vote number 226 would have been aye instead of nay. i would have voted nay -- excuse me, i voted nay and i would have voted aye. providing that members of congress shall not receive a cost of living adjustment in pay during fiscal year 2011 and i'd ask again that my corrected vote, the vote of aye, to support no cost of living increase be placed in the appropriate place in the record and i also want to state finally that congresswoman jackson lee opposes the cost of living adjustment for members of congress and as stated appropriately in h.r. 5146.

i ask unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman's statement will be included in the record. the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bill. the clerk: senate 3253, an act to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the small business act and the small business investment act of 1958 and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: mr. poe of texas. the gentleman is recognized. mr. poe: thank you, madam speaker. i bring you news from the third front. the third front is the border that the united states has with mexico. almost 2,000 miles long. the first front, of course, is

the battle in iraq. the second is the one in afghanistan. the third front is the violence that occurs on our southern border with our neighbors in mexico. tonight i'd like to talk about one specific group and that's our border patrol agents had who are doing a noble job on the border -- southern border with mexico. some people don't realize this, but our border patrol, madam speaker, are under constant attack. daily attack. and it's from people that are coming in the united states illegally. the border patrol officers have -- assaults against them have increased up to 60% more than last year. just in the tucson area, assaults against board par petroleum agents in the first two months of this year have increased 300% from last year. over 108 border patrol agents in a two-month period have been

assaulted in the tucson area. let me show you a photograph, madam speaker, i'm not sure you can see this. let me hold it up. this is a border patrol vehicle. it's a pickup truck. but you can see that there is mesh steel across portions of this border patrol veeth vehicle. the border patrol calls this vehicle and others like it a war wagen. now why would they have this mesh steel across their windows, across the front wind shield, on the roof, protecting the lights, the red lights? why would they have this? well, it's to protect themselves. you see, when these border patrol vehicles go up and down the u.s. border with mexico those people who want to come in the united states illegally are waiting for them in different parts of the border on our side, right on the border, and throw rocks at our border patrols and that's how many of the assaults have occurred against our border patrol agents in recent years.

so thus they have to build these war wagons, something that you might want to see in afghanistan or iraq, to protect themselves from those who enter the united states illegally because they're constantly throwing rocks at them to divert the attention of our border patrol. the rocks are a weapon of choice by those who want to come into the united states illegally and who confront our border patrol. and the not just the weapons of choice by them. our cartels, of course, the drug cartels, they use other weapons. a little more fire power. border patrol is outmanned, outgunned and outfinanced by the vicious border cartels who bring drugs into the united states and make money off of the illegal use of narcotics in bringing those drugs into the united states. now finally we've started hearing something about what's taking place on the border. it's because of the people in arizona, that's where tucson

is, that's where assaults on border patrol agents have increased 200% in two months, they have so desperately taken matters into their own hands and made it illegal to be in the united states if you don't have a passport or legal document. they allow police officers, when they have reasonable suspicion, arrest somebody illegal in the united states. in other words if they catch them doing some other crime, they check if they're legal. that's because the federal government who is supposed to protect the citizens from people who throw rocks at our border patrol, for example, it's the federal government ice job to do that. but we're too busy we honored all the assistant principalses in the united states. that's an important piece of legislation we passed today,

yet we're honoring assistant principals and naming post offices when we ought to be securing the borders of the united states. we secure the borders of foreign countries better than our own border. we secure the border of afghanistan and iraq and third world countries, but not our own borders. so we leave our border patrol agents to protect themselves as they patrol. i asked a highway patrolman down in -- on the board over texas what it is like after dark on the border? he said it gets western he said the kidnapping and murders take place down there because the drug cartels are trying to get into the united states. our p border patrol agents are doing as good as job as we'll let them do and we need to help them. several governors in the border

states have asked that the president send the national guard down there. that's probably a good idea. let's send the national guard to the border, secure the border and make sure our border patrol agents and our sovereignty are protected. 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 gentlelady from california rise? ms. woolsey: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks and speak for five minutes, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. woolsey: we have no greater obligation as a congress and a nation than to look after the americans who selflessly and patriotcally volunteered themselves into harm's way in iraq, afghanistan, and around the world. when they come home wheelchair bound or with missing limbs or a traumatic brain injury, they deserve nothing less than the very best treatment and care. often that care is provided not

by health care professionals at a hospital but by spouses, parents, other family members or a loved one that isn't even next of kin. many of these wonderful folks are already living on a tight budget. they're likely to be caring for young children or aging parents and often they have jobs they can't afford to lose. i fought to give these families the support they need. i introduced the first ever expansion of the family and medical leave act which provided americans with six months' of un-- six months of unpaid leave -- unpaid, it should be paid -- to take care of wounded service members and their families. last week a bipartisan majority in the house took important new steps by passing the care givers and veterans omnibus health services act. this would ease the enormous

burden falling on those whose loved ones return from war with a severe injury. it provides tools and training so they can be better care givers. when they accompany a veteran on medical visits, their lodging would be paid for. they would be eligible for a monthly stipend as well as health care benefits of their own. when the stress becomes too great, which of course it does, counseling and respite care would be available. the bill also makes huge strides in recognizing the unique challenges faced by women who wear the uniform. it includes treatment for sexual trauma, which affects a staggering number of servicewomen. there's a child care pilot program so when women veterans -- so that women veterans can get the care they need without sacrificing the care of their children.

also, for the first time ever, there's neonatal care for the infants of returning soldiers giving birth. er wish i zrnt to vote for that bill last week because i wish -- i wish i didn't have to vote for that bill last week because i wish that bill hadn't been necessary in the first place. the best way to support the men and women in the military, i believe, would be to not send them to fight in unnecessary wars in the first place. the tragedy is all the more poignant, mr. speaker, because these injuries are being sustained in conflicts that are doing little or nothing to advance our national security interests. i can't help but think how many military families would have been spared the struggle if we had taken a smart security approach to fighting terrorism. if we had doubled down on humanitarian aid rather than resorting to aggression,

invasion, and occupation. but as fiercely as i am in opposition to these two wars, i will never turn my back on the men and women who have been asked to fight them. in fact, the more skeptical you are about iraq and afghanistan, the greater you should be in your obligation to our troops on the front lines. there's one big solution to the strain on our veterans health care system and family care givers. that would be reverse the disastrous policy that has create -- that is creating more wounded combat veterans every single day. so mr. speaker, i can think of no better way to honor our soldiers than to end these wars and to bring all of them home and bring them home now. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. mr. jones of north carolina.

for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> to address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. diaz-balart: mr. speaker, the ladies in white are a group of wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of cuban political prisoners. the group came together after the arrests of 75 cuban dissidents in april, 2003, 75 cuban political prisoners who, seven years ago, joined the thousands of others who are imprisoned in cuba because of their political beliefs or for crimes that are only crimes in a country brutally oppressed by a totalitarian regime of gangsters, by gangsters, and for gangsters, because that's what the castro brothers are, gangsters. fidel castro has been a gangster since he was a juvenile delinquent he became a communist to give ideological clothing to his gangsterism. raul castro came to gangsterism

via marches in leninism after his brother sent him then-check slow vocka where he -- then-czechoslovakia. they are both experienced and ruthless practitioners in the most brutal forms of gangsterism. the ladies in white experience their tactics every single day. the castros' state security apparatus pays and trains thugs to strike heart in the -- fear in the hearts of the people of cuba. they harass, intimidate, insult, spit upon, and engage in violence against unarmed dissidents and other independent civil society members in cuba. those spectacles are known as acts of' re-pudeuation. the international press calls

these thugs civilian government supporters, but that doesn't change their true nature. no, they're not plain clothed government supporters. they're plain clothed thugs of cuban state security. on recent sundays, the ladies in white have gone to church, as every sunday to pray for their family members who are political prisoners and the thugs have become more violent. protected by uniformed state security agents, the plain clothed thugs have spat upon and committed acts of violence against the women. i hereby submit for the record the names of 96 ladies in white who have been actively demanding the release of cuba's political prisoners in recent months. i also submit for the record a letter sent today by representatives of the ladies in white outside of cuba,

blanca reyes and yolanda, asking international leaders for support of the ladies in whites' struggle in cuba. this last sunday, the ladies in white were surrounded and subjected to seven hours of violence and grotesque sexual gestures, loud constant screams of communist chants and violence for seven hour the day before yesterday. subjected to the well-planned tactics, which are part of the training of the plain clothes state security agents of the castros' gangster regime. but the ladies in white continue to stand tall. like the political prisoners they defend, the ladies in white represent the true cuba. they embody the decency,

patriotism and love of the real cuba, not the grotesque perverted hatred and envy of the gangsters of cuba. today my thoughts and prayers of limitless solidarity are with the ladies in white. >> mr. davis of illinois. the speaker pro tempore: mr. davis of illinois. mr. moran from kansas. ms. kaptur of ohio. mr. burton of indiana. mr. defazio of oregon. mr. forbes from virginia. ms. ros-lehtinen of florida. mr. bilbray of california. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from california, mr. royce is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

mr. royce: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, as we watch the senate move on legislation yet again toward a cloture vote on senator dodd's legislation, i think it's worth noting some of the concerns that many of us have, and that many economists have, with the dodd-frank approach on the legislation. i begin with focusing on a past occurrence, the rescue of investment bank bear stearns in the spring of 2008. the federal government has committed trillions of taxpayer dollars to institutions like fannie mae, freddie mac, a.i.g., citigroup, and bank of

america, out of fear that the demise of any of these too-big-to-fail institutions would strig arer a systemic crisis and collapse of the global financial system. for my own part, i make the observation that i thought -- i voted against those bailouts with the presumption that if we moved to enhance bankruptcy, it would be preferable to setting up a system which would bring the moral hazard and the eventual evolution into a system where the federal government was guaranteeing institutions that were too big to fail. but that is currently the concern i have about this legislation. even though the public has rejected this approach to financial regulation, the

bailouts we have seen, and if off town hall meetings, i guarantee you'll sense the rejection of the dodd-frank approach. still, this approach, endorsed by the administration, would guarantee that the bailout authority remains a powerful tool in the government's arsenal. now the president is hoping to use the tactic employed in the health care debate by dismissing legitimate concerns with rhetoric, but not with facts. . that may make for a good sound bilet, but it's not accurate. well, actually, actually, it is

accurate. and let us look at the bailout fund in the house-passed bill. on the house side, h.r. 4173, subsection 1609, it provides authority for the government to borrow up to $200 billion that can be used by the government for its bailout actions. in the senate bill, senate bill 3217, subsection 210, it creates a special $50 combillion fund to solve big financial institutions, to resolve those institutions when they fail. behind that fund is the ability to issue government debt, in other words to issue taxpayer obligations. it is no wonder why our colleague on the other side of the aisle from california, mr. sherman, recently said of the dodd bill, there are serious problems with the dodd bill.

the dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. that's something wall street desperately wants, but doesn't dare ask for. the bill contains permanent, unlimited bailout authority, unquote, as my colleague on the other side of the aisle mentioned. and i agree with his assessment. there's another piece of this in the broad expansion of open bank assistance authority granted to the fdic. the house bill, section 1109, provides the fdic authority to avoid or mitigate adverse effects on systemic financial conditions or stability by guaranteeing obligations of solvent financial institutions. the fdic's guarantees can be up to $500 billion and may be expanded an additional $500

billion from congress. that is $500 billion to solvent companies. this is not the death panel that chairman frank so often claims. this is not an enhanced bankruptcy process or expedited bankruptcy that the administration wants people to believe. it is a codification of the current ad hoc approach to bailouts, as mr. sherman has noted in the past. this amounts to tarp on steroids. we are handing over the keys to the treasury to unelected bureaucrats. if tarp was any indicator, regulators will always err on the side of dolling out too many dollars. if the letter of the law allows for them to guarantee $500 billion of debt for solvent companies, they will do that.

and this is simply the wrong approach. regulatory discretion armed with a large pool of taxpayer money will inevitably lead to political abuse. under the dodd-frank approach, government will determine which firms are too big to fail and which are too small to save. under this bill, the government will determine which creditors and which counterparents of a failed firm should be bailed out and those that should not. and government will dismantle a healthy institution that they believe may pose a risk under the wording of the legislation. this type of power will lead to a hyper political environment. subject activity will replace objectivity and the rules of the

road that have been the corner stone of our capital markets. we need to expand the bankruptcy process and the clearly defined rules of the road that come with it and we need to take out the ability for political manipulation in the process. there are other concerns that i have with the approach in this legislation in the dodd-frank approach. and one of the concerns i have is that it fails to address one of the major root causes of the crisis. it is important to remember that one of the root causes of the crisis was in the junk mortgage market, subprime. federal government policies were responsible for the buildup of these loans. there were 27 million subprime loans in our economy in 2008 before the financial crisis.

that's about half of all mortgages. 12 million of those were held or guaranteed by fannie mae and freddie mac, the government-sponsored enterprises. 5.4 billion of f.h.a. and 2 million of the largest banks in order to get approval for mergers and expansions. one of the other factors, of course, is in -- in the economic contraction that we faced was the fact that the fed set negative real interest rates, in other words, they set the interest rates when measured against inflation at a negative sum and when our federal reserve put that in place for four years running, it was followed by

central banks in europe that did the same thing. so central banks all over the world for four years set those interest rates at a negative rate. virtually every economist will tell you that this played a significant role in the crisis. and we're not looking at the fact that we have not addressed this issue either. because, in essence, the fed and the central banks threw fuel on the fire. these ungeorge bushly low rates incentivize -- unusually low rates incentivized to take excessive risks and they exacerbate the normal business cycle. dr. frederick high at explained this on how this causes booms

and bufts in the cycle. and freddie mac and fannie mae and the easy money policy at the fed were central to the housing boom and bus and they are left unaddressed in the dodd-frank approach. when you add things like excessive leverage and the overreliance on the failed rating agencies, you have a recipe for disaster. and i will add that the fed came to the congress and suggested to us in 2004 and 2005 that there was risk, systemic risk with freddie mac and fannie mae. and they asked for an amendment that would allow them as regulators to deleverage these portfolios that were being built up in freddie mac and fannie mae. the leveraging was in excess of

100 to 1. these institutions -- it was congress that gave them the wherewithal to do this and prevented the regulators from going in and forcing these institutions, these government-sponsored enterprises to deleverage the size of these portfolios. you can imagine the reaction from at the fed when we turned a deaf ear in congress. as a matter of fact, i want to point out that in the senate, we had legislation from senator hagel written by the fed that would allow that authority to regulate for systemic risk, to give the regulators the ability to deleverage these portfolios. that bill went out of committee, but senator chris dodd opposed it on the floor, opposed it

coming to the floor. and as a consequence, the bill never came up, although it passed committee, it never came up in the senate. on this side of the house, the house of representatives, we -- there was a bill that came to the floor and i put in an amendment that chuck hagel put in. the amendment that i introduced was written by the federal reserve in an attempt to give them the ability to regulate for systemic risk at freddie mac and fannie mae because they had warned, had warned that the consequences we faced was a systemic economic collapse. and certainly, that's exactly where this collapse began. it was in the house -- housing market, with the collapse of freddie mac and fannie mae. a loss of $1 trillion. one other thing that is missing on the senate side that gives me pause in terms of the way this is approached.

let me make the point that the fdic has no experience with these types of institutions. as i have said before, i have opposed the bailouts. i, instead, wanted to see a system devised. we have companies, major firms go bankrupt in the united states, airlines, railroads. these are handled, these are handled by an expedited bankruptcy process through the courts. and that's what i wanted to see beefed up. but let's go to the senate bill. a major premise upon which the resolution authority was based is the notion that the fdic uses a similar tool to unwind small commercial banks. in fact, last week before the financial services committee, secretary geithner again reiterated this point. but this is like comparing apples and oranges and i will

share with you why. the fdic is lick which dating very simple institutions made up of insured deposits and made up of small, straightforward loans. in fact, 98% of the liability of banks and thrifts unwind by the fdic in the last two years were insured deposits. this is in stark contrast to the nondeposit-taking institutions likely to be covered under the resolution authority which is going to end up creating this permanent bailout authority. and i would just give you some examples from the past. take lehman brothers and a.i.g., none of these firms had insured depositors or depositors of any kind and their complex assets and liabilities didn't look like the simple small loans and residential and commercial mortgages that the fdic deals

with. the sheer size of these institution trump anything that the fdic has touched. at $639 billion, lehman was 10 times bigger than the largest bank and a.i.g. over $1 trillion in assets. there is another problem. since nearly all of the liabilities that banks and thrifts unwind by the fdic are insured deposits, there is a strong presumption of government backing behind these two -- too big to fail institutions. and by applying this model to the largest of our financial institutions, the legislation will signal that the government-provided safety net goes over to a wider portion of our market and what does that mean to the large col petors, to the smaller firms? suddenly, they face a

differential in their borrowing costs that are -- that can reach up to 100 basis points. 78 basis points cost. that's the cost that small institutions have currently that is higher than the borrowing costs of institutions that face this implied government bailout or have been been bailed out by the government. you saw it with respect to the government-sponsored enterprises. how much lower their costs of borrowing was and how they were able to overleverage and how on top of all of this, they could put their competitors out of business because people presumed that the government was behind these institutions. these are some of my concerns. but i know that these concerns are shared by a colleague of mine on the committee, mr. scott

garrett. and mr. speaker, if i could do so, at this time, i would like to yield my time to the chair with the understanding that you might yield to mr. garrett. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy january 6, 2009, the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for 42 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. . mr. garrett rhett: i thank the chair and i thank the gentleman from -- mr. gare et: i thank the -- mr. garrett: i thank the gentleman from california and the chair.

this is something that members on both sides of the aisle agree something needs to be done we need to do so in a thoughtful manner where we do no more harm than good. president obama and other democrats claim republicans are doing the bidding of wall street banks and oppose all financial services reform. you hear that over and over again from commentators on tv and you've got to say you find it laughable on a number of different levels. first of all, it's the democrat's bills that have institutionalized permanent bailouts and too big to fail. it's no wonder that the democrats have received such strong fundraising support from the titans of wall street. as i stand here, i'm not sure i have the numbers before me, but rater -- later on, i may. i can think off the top of my head, those numbers are something around $15 million from the various titans of wall street, as they put it, to the

president's campaign in the last cycle, i think the number i saw just the other day in the most recent numbers out for the 2008 cycle for congress is $2.9 million from the various wall street firms and banks going to the majority party, the democrat party in the last election. twice as much as was going to republicans. maybe to yost -- it's no wonder they have received such strong support from them, from wall street, that they would put in a bill that would see to it wall street is taken care of by perpetuating bailouts at taxpayer expense. not only do republicans support real financial service reform, the house republicans were the first ones actually to come forward with a comprehensive reform plan to actually -- that actually ends too big to fail. it ends bailouts and we also

don't succumb to the democrats' urge to take yet another vast portion of our economy with government overreach and intrusion and bullying in private businesses. think about theasm reason i point out that republicans came out with a proposal earlier than the majority party, earlier than the white house, earlier than the treasury, i remember being in this chamber, talking on this floor early in 2009, january and february and march, saying that we need to do -- to attack this problem on wall street, attack the morass we're finding out our country, we need to get reform done, treasury is telling us, we'll have something next week, we'll have something next week. week after week passed. finally, we ended our waiting for them and we put our minds together and listened to the american public we listened to the experts, we listened to the people who had skin in the game and those people who didn't have skin in the game, we listened to people who were

involved with this and those who would be hurt by the wrong actions being taken. we took that advice and come up with a republican solution to the proposal and actually had it done before the white house ever even came up with their white paper they presented at the white house. i remember going to that presentation where the president came out and said, here's my solution, here's my problem, didn't take a single question from anyone in the audience, laid it out and left the stable. that's how it's been ever since. left the stage and has not listened to what the american public and those involve have had to say about their plan. before i go to the republican plan, i would like to remind our colleagues over that the senate on the other side that they will likely be asked to vote on the obama-dodd-frank plan and will be likely to vote on it again soon. they did earlier this week, at least a cloture vote, i guess they'll do it again today if they haven't already, and the way it's coming down in the

press reports is that harry reid sees it as a win-win for them to put vote after vote after vote, last vote, of course, republicans stood together saying that they would vote no on any bill that would perpetuate bailouts at taxpayer expense and that was a good thing we hope they stand firm on that there's a whole host of reasons in addition to that why both republicans and democrats should vote against that 1,300 page permanent bailout bill. let me di gress for a moment of that issue, 1,300 page, we are just now learning about the ramifications, unintended and otherwise, of the health care bill. that 2,000-page bill or more that no one read on this floor and understood the ancillary portions of it and yet passed in the house, passed in the senate, came back to the house again and passed overwhelmingly after a lot of arm twisting by the white house and others to get the votes they needed.

you could see during the debate in the health care bill that when particular questions were raised on particular portions of the bill there was no one on the other side of the aisle who could honestly say, i've read through the entire bill, several thousand pages, always ancillary references to it and have a complete understanding of it. now the -- yet that bill passed and now we're seeing that -- the problems from it. this administration said the actual cost of health care, president obama said he would lower it, it will actually go up other a 10-year period of time he also said no one would lose the health care plan? what happened because they didn't read the bill? because they didn't read the bill they find out that about half of all those senior citizens on the advantage program on medicare will be losing their plans. that's the ramifications when you try to rush something through without reading and understanding it and now back to the point we have here in

the senate, 1,300-something-odd plus bill, didn't have the opportunity of vetting and hearing from various witnesses and experts, that, too, senator reid is trying to push through this week against all odds, without truly understanding what they're doing over there. the bill they're attempting to work on and move quickly without that understanding codifies the bailout and it does so in large part by creating a permanent $50 billion bailout fund, which, i should add, can be endlessly reloaded. make a point on that we're going to set up $50 billion fund, $50 billion bailout, future bank losses and what have you, if the next day they need that $50 billion and it goes down, then the next day after that, they can go right back to that money and try to raise it back up again and go to another $50 billion.

$50 billion is really a place holder for 50, 100, 150 2,00, 250, on and on and on it could go, bailing out, bailing institutions, so-called too big to fail institutions and potentially also indirectly put the american taxpayer on the hook. take a look at a.i.g. what was the number with we saw on a.i.g., around $80 billion or so. here's the seminal question, we put this to secretary geithner and i don't think we got a satisfactory answer for him. had you had the dodd bill in place prior to a.i.g., would the outcome have been any different? there you need about $80 billion. all from the american taxpayer. here they say, we'll have $50 billion. that's obviously not enough.

in the short-term, where will they get that money? the bill, the senate democrat obecause maff-dodd-frak bill says you can go to the federal government, they can basically, i guess, front-end load that money to facilities so they can load it to a.i.g. next time or another lehman in the future. the american taxpayer at that point in time is on the hook for however much money they want to lend out without basically any limits. other portions of the bill that are problematic besides creating a permanent $50 billion bailout fund which would be endlessly reloaded, paid for by taxing financial firms to pay for other firms' failures. if off local community bank in your community, you have to ask them, what do you think about the fact that potentially, depending on your size, you could be held liable for the

egregious mistakes and failures of these huge titans of wall street who make absurd investments and investment decisions? i think most of your local community banks who potentially could be on the hook would say, this is nothing good for us or for our local community because any time you put a tax on something it hurts the businesses in that community. another major point with the bill is it expands the implied government guarantee for the largest firm. along the point i was making here. the biggest firms in wall street are going to be able to say, thank goodness, thank goodness we made these contributions to those people this washington who are now supporting this legislation of the dodd-frank-obama bill because now we know who our friends are and of course on the other side of the aisle they're supporting this legislation who will allow for their perpetual bailout.

another problem is it continues to put taxpayers on the hook for billions if not trillions of dollars for bailed out failed banks. i say trillions because there's nothing in that 1,300 pages of legislation that's sitting in the senate right now that senator reid wants them to push right through, there's nothing in that bill that would say, american taxpayer, your liability to the big banks in new york and around the country is going to be limited at this much, this much, or this much. there's no limit. it could go up to billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of dollars potentially. if you think trillions are out of sight as far as potential, all we have to do is look at g.s.e.'s, fannie mae and freddie mac and where's the limit to the potential loss to the american people there?

i think it was around $387 billion or $389 billion that they've scored that it will cost taxpayers over the next 10 years coming out of treasury, which means out of our profits. there's a potential there with several trillions of dollars of potential losses on their books that we could all americans be eventually liable for. so trillions are not out of the question when you're talking about such mammoth institutions in trading as we've seen here. to continue with the problems of the senate health -- the senate financial service so-call red form bill senator reid is trying to push through the senate as we speak without anyone understanding or reading it, the bill continues the pattern of government overreach that we have seen throughout the obama administration. with the democrats controlling here in the house. it also continues the pattern of government picking winners

and losers. and political bullying. and deciding just who it is will succeed in this country and who it is that is going to fail rather than through the private market and rather than through the rule of law and the rule of the bankruptcy code. did we ever think we'd come to the day that it would be a politician who would decide, i think that business over there should do well and thrive and succeed, as opposed to this bill over here. i don't have much favor for them for one reason or another, maybe they're not a friend of mine politically or otherwise. and the politicians say that can go into the dust and not succeed. did we think we'd get to the day when it would be washington and washington politicians and bureaucrats who would say, i'm going to pick that one as a winner and decide that one is a loser. that's basically in essence what we find in the 1,300-page bill senator reid would like to see passed without any

discussion or debate or amendments or improvements on because it allows the bureaucrats of various federal agencies, these appointed and unelected individuals to make those basically life and death decisions for industry and life and death decisions for businesses as well. did we ever think we'd get to the point where those decisions are not made by the market because this business actually did do a better job in deciding how it would grow, how it would invest, what sort of services would provide? that's how the free market has ever thought -- always thought businesses should thrive. if this business decides they make poor investment decisions, for customer service, poor decisions generally on how they're running, then the market should say that's the business that will fail. we're going to throw that aside now with this piece of legislation and say the market forces are not going to be it. what people decide on situations, who should win and who should lose are not going to be the pre-eminent decision on the basis anymore.

instead it's politicians and bureaucrats. a sad day that the founding fathers never thought we'd get to. another problem with the senate bill that -- the frank dodd bill harry reid is trying to push through without debate or understanding of the entire bill is that the bill will restrict access to credit for families and small businesses and may credit more expensive and less available -- and make credit more expensive and less available. a recent study points out that a portion of the bill, the consumer financial protection agency, something they want to create as a brand new agency here in washington as if we don't have enough agencies already in washington, a recent study points out that the c.f.p.a. will increase the cost of interest rates consumers pay by at least 160 basis points that means if you have a 6% loan you could have gotten today, once the bill passes, it

will increase by 160 p basis point, so now it's 7.6%. . right now when people are looking for a car loan or mortgage for the house or home equity loan, one of the first things they do when they sit down with their bankeror open up the paper to see the vailt of interest rates is see how much are those interest rates and you want the very best interest rate you can get because every percentage point higher means less money in your pocket at the end of the day and more money in the bankers' pockets. well, this bill, outside studies have said that when you start looking for those car loans, student loans, commercial loans, mortgages for your house and

mortgages for commercial property, under this bill, because they're adding these new impediments to the access of credit, you will see your credit go up by a point and a half. that can mean a lot of money, out of your pocket and mine, every time you take a loan. is that something we really want to do during this economic trouble that we find ourselves in right now? i have small businesses that come to me, owners of small businesses, who say i can't get credit as it is. i have a good credit rating. i have a good credit position. i have been paying my bills on time. when i go out to get a loan, i can't get it. and the rates out there aren't wra i want them to be but maybe i can afford them. here we are going to have the senate try to pass a bill that will say to an individual who is

already struggling to get a loan or struggling to pay his current interest, you know, the next time you get that loan, the rates were here but now a point and a half higher just because we are creating a new agency in washington with no other real effect except to make the credit availability less than it is now. another huge problem with the bill that's before us in the senate that already passed the house and potentially will come back to the house for another vote when unfortunately gets out of the senate, the will will cost jobs, and at a time when the focus in this congress should be just the opposite. you know, the one main goal that we should be able to work on across the aisles in this house is how to create more jobs all across this country, all 50 states. i know the average rate for

unemployment in this country is shy of 10%. but boy, you talk to different folks in different parts of the country, you know the unemployment rate is higher than that, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% higher in certain portions of this country than the national average. you talk to those people where the long-term unemployment rate is 15% and ask them what is the most important thing congress should be doing. help get me a job. turn the economy around so i can start supporting my family again. what are we doing? what i'm doing is trying to create jobs. what is congress, the senate, the democrat majority doing? they are trying to pass a bill in the senate that will cost the creation of jobs just at a time when we should be making more. remember i mentioned the study

earlier saying that if we pass the senate bill out of the senate today, tomorrow, this week, next week, as i mentioned before, your credit costs will go up. the study also found the number of jobs will be impacted in this country as well and here's what they found. the consumer financial protection agency which is a provision in that bill will reduce net new jobs by 4.3%. let repeat. if the senate bill were to pass and the new cfpa were to be created, you would reduce net new jobs in the economy by 4.3%. pass the senate bill, number of jobs go down by 4.3%. there is another provision in the bill without getting into the weeds, as they say, portion of the bill says the derivatives

and systemic-risk portion of the bill, a whole portion separate from the cfpa that tries to issue and regulate the derivatives and the republicans did put in language to try to address derivatives and make sure there is more transparency and accountability. but the way they are doing it in the senate, that section will also likely reduce jobs as well, according to outside experts. why is that? hard to get into that, but just understand this, if you create higher costs for the end users, higher costs for credit otherwise for people who use the markets as they are currently configured in an honest, transparent and open way, if you require businesses to say well, instead of taking this $100,000

that i was going to use to buy new equipment, new truck, manufacturing equipment or -- instead of taking this $1 million to build a new plant, hire new employees, i'm going to have to use that over here because of all the new rules and regulations that the senate wants to impose on us businesses. i'm going to have to put it over here because of these new derivative requirements. i can't use it to buy a new truck or equipment or new building, i will have to set it aside. what happens to job creation in that business if they can't buy the new truck, can't hire a new driver or not being able to hire people to run the new equipment and if he can't build or buy a new plant, he can't hire people

to work in that factory or business as well because this legislation will basically shift that money, job creation dollars from that practical good use for the economy over here to let's say not a job-creating use. another problem of the overall legislation that the senate is trying to pass as we speak. there's a time when americans are pleading with the political leaders to stop government overreach in the economy and in their lives. this bill doesn't listen to americans. the senate bill will basically greatly expand government agencies to regulate now another huge segment of the economy, including nonfinancial institutions, things like retail stores, layaway plans and manufacturers that insure against their risk. all these areas had absolutely nothing to do to the economic problems that the country finds

itself in today, ok? but all of a sudden, because there's an opportunity to grow government, grow government agencies, create new programs at the expense of the taxpayers, the president's chief of staff said and i para phrase, don't let any good crisis go to waste. instead of dealing with the crisis over here, we are going to create all new agencies over here to regulate all different aspects of the economy that were not part of the problem and that's what this legislation that is about to be considered in the senate -- that is what senator reid would like to pass through without debate and transparency. at a time when americans are pleading with leaders to stop the government overreach, this bill expands the authority to regulate huge segments of the economy including nonfinancial institutions, such as stores. it also allows government

bureaucrats to take over and actually close the firm -- the government for the first time is going to say, besides picking winners and losers which i pointed out before which is a tremendous overreach of government authorities for bureaucrats in washington, new york or some other place designated by the washington bureaucrats to say, well, we think your business should win and your business should lose. besides picking winners and losers, the senate bill goes further. it allows government bureaucrats to take over and close a firm. well, you say, whatever reason, hopefully not political, but whatever reason, these bureaucrats will say i think that firm over there is one i think the government agency now should take over. isn't that really too much power in the hands of the government? and doesn't it open up our economy to government bullying

rather than the way it should be? it should be that a firm's success or ultimate failure should be decided by the free market, decided by the people of the country whether they think this company is providing the service they like and this company is not providing, that's the way it has been for 200-plus years and now we are going to change that and allow bureaucrats to say, you win, you lose, we're going to take over you, not take over you, provide you with a bailout, you, you will have to do it on your own and the citizens will have to pay a price on all of this. you will see your interest rates go up. if you think this doesn't impact on you, you will not be able to find a job. it's going to impact upon all of us if we were to pass this failed bill over in the senate. now, several portions of the bill also are handouts to three

things. the trial bar. why is that? because it will increase lawsuits, benefit lawyers, but drive up costs for everybody else. nothing against lawyers by any means. trial lawyers as well. do we really need another piece of legislation that will basically increase the number of lawsuits in this country? don't we have enough lawsuits going on? do we need to set up a structure that is done in such a way that most of the experts looking at it are saying yes, the number of lawsuits are going to increase because there is so much a.m. big youth out there? the federal reserve should be less powerful. and isn't there a consensus right now? we saw bipartisan support that the amount of control and authority and power of the federal reserve -- i thought there was growing consensus in this country that the federal

reserve should be raped in. at a time -- raineded -- reined in. the senate bill expands the federal regulatory powers despite the fact that the board has a proven track record of failing to identify systemic risk before they occur and its overeagerness to pay taxpayer money without accountability. eefer eagerness to put taxpayer money at risk without any accountability. any time we try to get that accountability, i should add, what do we get? we get pushback from the federal reserve, pushback, whether it's a republican or democrat idea to put in additional levels of accountability and transparency. so despite that, the senate bill

is going to say we're go being to give them more and greater power and control. given the extraordinary government interventions into private firms, it seems the tram ming of the rule of law, i'm very uncomfortable with any of these new sweeping powers. the auto industry is a clear example of that. it goes back to what i was saying before. federal bureaucrats saying, this company wins, this company loses and we will use the taxpayer money to prop them up and keep them going. i didn't want to go into the weeds, but the derivatives portion of the bill, derivatives, a lot of them have been described in different ways, insurance policies are such -- without going into the details of how they actually operate, remember this, take

away from my remarks on derivatives. none of the experts that came before the committee, those who use them, those who didn't use them, those involved with them, those not involved with them, academics and the like, no one said that the problems we find ourselves in today was because of the structure or the makeup of derivatives thepses -- themselves. no. most said was the fact that you had trading in derivatives without adequate transparency like in the a.i.g. situation. and then similarly with the a.i.g. situation, you have a situation where the regulators who were charged with knowing what they're doing, having the authority to do so failed to live up to their obligation to monitor the very entities that they are supposed giving oversight to. isn't it ironic that we see in the senate that the very same

failed regulators are going to get bigger and broader powers. . what does the senate bill do? it sets up, i guess the word would be clumsy, regulatory regime over all derivative users. that's a huge portion of the economy. the average person, i don't use derivatives. average small businesses say, i don't use derivatives. but that small business begins to look one step behind its daily activities, it may find that the source of its credit does use derivatives that industry has particular products they manufacture, maybe people that work there don't recognize it, but check with the c.f.o., chief financial officer, you'll find out they do use derivatives to

protect themselves, just like other companies use risk management as mechanisms to protect other portions of their business system of they are used. they are a huge portion of the economy. here we have a senate bill saying, we're going to fool around with this and set up this two-tyred s.e.c. -- two-tiered s.e.c. regulatory regime and in a way, it will be rife for litigation and confusion, to say the least. and in all this, there'll be some truly new, heavy-handed government mandates, new heavy-handed mandates and they're like lig to have -- likely to have major unintended consequences. to make it more difficult for companies to hedge their risks. a lot of businesses may not recognize how impacts upon them , but the companies they have to deal with, if they can't hedge their risks properly,

they will be at -- find themselves at odds with being able to prosper and do as well next year as they have in the past. so when the senate bill tries to do this, what it's doing is adding huge new costs to risk mlingt. what will that do? it will needlessly tie up companies' money that could be used to create jobs. it goes back to the analogy before if off company that says, we have x number of dollars in the bank to use for new expansion or growth that money may be tied up over here through all the new regulation and otherwise in capital and margin requirements and the like. if they can't have it over here to grow the company and create new jobs and new benefits for their employees because it's now tied up, who hurts? who pays the price? it is the employees. it is the economy. it is the economy that business finds itself in. now to all that, truly terrible legislation that we see in the

senate that senator reid is trying to push through, without a true committee process where we could really get into the weeds and find out what's in the 1,300-plus pages and find out the consequence, intended and otherwise, the republicans do have a comprehensive substitute that's received unanimous support from the party and those here who have worked on it and also significant support from those players both involved with the discussion, academics and otherwise. it is really also the truly bipartisan plan that's out there. because whether our republican or democrat, i think most in this country agree, one theme, no more bailouts. so it's bipartisan in the theme, it's bipartisan in the merits, it's bipartisan in the actual language. the central theme is no more bailouts. our plan depends on expedited bankruptcy rather than a

government-run bailout fund. it provides -- let me give you four points that are in it. it provides comprehensive transparency among the major traders in the derivatives market setting up that new reag regulatory regime i mentioned. it allows for important new protection without separating consumer protection from what we call prue ten rble regulation like we saw with fannie and freddie. that means you're not going to say there's somebody sitting over here looking over a institution saying, i think you should do this to be safe and sound and somebody over here in a totally different silo, different agency, saying, i think you should have a consumer product that work this is way or works that way and if they're working at cross-purposes which one prevails? at the end of the day, the consumer is the one that hurts. additionally a third point, the republican plan reins in the

fed, instead of giving it new powers. the democrat majority plan says hey, fed, you've done such a wonderful job with monetary policy, you've done a wonderful job in the federal reserve with regard to being able to see the calamities down the road, i say, of course, all that tongue in cheek, we say, we're going to make you larger and more expansive and grow in power. not for the republicans, not for most americans. most americans want us to rein in the feds, and that's what the republican bill will do, giving it less power than it has now. the republican plan responsibly deals with fannie and freddie, one of the biggest culprits of the entire process. the obama-dodd-frank bill does nothing with regard to fannie and freddie. think about this number right now. you hear about the money spent

over the last year or so out of taxpayer pockets, whether it goes to aut toe industry or a.i.g. or bear stearns, you name it. all those billions and billions of dollars went out the door, you know which bailout really trumps all those combined? it would be the g.s.e.'s, fannie mae and freddie mac, where i mentioned earlier this evening the number is close to $400 billion already projected to cost the taxpayer over the next 10 years. the president's plan, the dodd-frank plan, silent on trying to do anything about that. not only silent about doing anything on it, not only are they silent about doing anything about that, but silent on putting any limits to it. it's money coming out of your pocket and my pocket to bail out these institutions. remember, finally, it was

largely government that got us into this situation, we find -- into this situation we find ourselves in in the first place. it was the implosion of fannie and freddie that create sod many problems we see across the economic spectrum as we see it today. it was also the easy money policy of the fed, the errors made over time there. it was the misplaced incentives and down right requirements in the housing and finance sector basically encouraged or forced firms to lebbed to borrowers that shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place. government regulators that didn't do their jobs on the -- and the democrats would like to further empower and provide a false sense of security to hamper the free market. it was all those problems that brought us to the situation that we find ourselves in today. none of those problems are addressed either at all or in the correct manner in the legislation we see in the

senate right now. now is the time we have the opportunity to do right for the american public. now is the time we have an opportunity to do right for the economy. now is the time we have an opportunity to create new jobs, new expansions in the economy, to make the economy of tomorrow better for businesses, for small community banks, small communities across this country, for families as well. but we can only do that if we work in a truly bipartisan manner to go through the process and begin the discussion on what the root causes of these problems were to come up with a no bailout philosophy and approach that addresses the g.s.e.'s, fannie mae and fred tee macthat reins in the excessive powers of the federal reserve and addresses other concerns of job creation and other concerns i've addressed this evening. if we do that, we'll be successful for this generation and generations to come.

i look forward to actually being here for that pint in time, i look forward to hearing from the other side of the aisle and hearing from the senate that the bill they are pushing right now, the dodd-frank-obama bill is being pulled and no longer going to force the vote but instead they're willing to open up a true, honest dialogue to get the job done. when that time comes, i'll be willing to work with them to accomplish that. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman -- the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for a motion. mr. garrett: i move that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question son the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. those opposed, no. the ayes have it.

a recent major example being the joint exercise held last october. our work together on missile defense technology is ongoing and the united states will continue to ensure that israel maintains its military edge. again, i thank our guest for being with us today and i invite

him for a few remarks before we take a couple of questions. >> thank you, secretary gates. i'm always glad to be here. thank you for your hospital and the interesting important exchanges we could have, the special relationship between israel and the united states is unbreakable, built on mutual respect and shared values. this is manifested by the unmatched support and cooperation that the israeli missile defense shays with the united states military department of defense. in my conversation with secretary gates we evaluated the security challenges of the united states and israel face. i should tell you we feel that we are living the focal points of the challenges that the free world is facing now.

violent extremism accompanied which the proliferation of nuclear military technologies and rogue and failed states. and the way that the individual cannot choose its parents, nations colt choose its neighbors. we are living in a tough neighborhood but we are there to stay and we will never sway or blink at the challenges and we are glad to be supported by the american defense establishment of the american administration. it is keeping the outpost of these values. these threats not only to israeli security but to the entire region's security and the very and considerable world

order. the purpose of my meetings with secretary gates and administration officials is to provide a response to all the challenges and threats and to stress the strengthening of the ideas in our right to express my sincere gratitude to congress and president obama for american support for the security of the state of israel. thank you very much. >> question for both of you. secretary gates, do you think that the united states has adequate planning and strategy in place to deal with a nuclear iran? and are you satisfied with the current united states' approach to that threat or should it move to more active consideration of a military strike? >> i'm very satisfied with the

planning process, both within this building and in the interagency. we spend a lot of time on iran and we'll continue to do so. >> i think that the effort of the iranians to turn nuclear is a major challenge not just to israel but to any world order. if they are allowed to turn nuclear, it will be the end of any nonproliferation regime that can change the landscape not just of the middle east. so we think they should be blocked. and i think that the time is clearly at this stage, time for sanctions and diplomacy which sanctions should be effective and limited in time.

so we will be able to judge what kind of results stem from the sanctions. >> are you satisfied with the current united states' response? >> the united states is doing the right thing. the united states is the only power that can mobilize so many members of the international community and the u.n. and probably the europeans to establish the most effective possible sanctions regime. but, of course, only time will tell towards what extent they are really effective. >> secretary gates, could you just explain why do you this

vullner built now the possibility because this administration would like to portray business as usual with the israeli government where the general perception is it's not business as usual between united states and israel and happy to get both of you to understand that this is the real perception of the pentagon, like general petraeus suggested that united states is paying the price with life of american soldiers when israel is not reaching peace with the palestinians. >> we know your frustration in the absence of such meetings in the past, so we tried to correct it. >> never too late for a good idea. >> and i think we are working

together to face the same challenges and we feel that we contribute and the americans are clearly sending their youngsters to the toughest corners of the middle east to fight the same failing states and terrorism. and i believe that we will benefit by doing the right thing. >> let me just address the second point that you made. first of all, general petraeus did not say that the lack of progress in the peace process is costing american lives. and no one in this department in or out of uniform believes that. what we do believe is that heretofore, the lack of peace

process has provided political ammunition to our adversaries in the middle east and in the region and that progress in this arena will enable us not only to perhaps get others to support the peace process, but also support us in our efforts to try and impose effective sanctions against iran. phil? >> what is the transfer to hezbollah that folks are concerned with? was it scuds? >> we feel that the backing of hezbollah in a damaging way and that they convey to the hezbollah weapons system that can turn the very delicate

balance in lebanon and weapons systems including rockets or missiles considered to be a threat to the stability of the region. we do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in lebanon or with syria but we are watching closely these investments and think they do not contribute to the stability in the region. >> i would say from our vantage point syria and iran are providing hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever increasing capability. and we are at a point now where

hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world. and this is obviously de stabilizing for the whole region, so we are watching it very carefully. >> can you comment what are the incidents about israel talking with turkey where the information is shifting to syria . >> we are moving towards full democracy in all our neighborhoods so we start with freedom and we move towards freedom of all other -- i don't think that we have to comment about neighboring countries.

israel is strong and self-confident and i believe israel is so strong that in spite of the neighborhood, there is no weak for those who cannot protect themselves. we are strong enough to be able to afford a daring attempt at negotiating with all our neighbors in order to put an end for the need of these dealings against each other. we have to focus from provisional strength and self-confidence, to focus on how to change reality from its very foundations and turn into effective and conclusive, sincere negotiations with the palestinians and later on with the rest of our neighbors.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> c-span, our public affairs content is available on twation, radio and online and connect with us on twitter, facebook and youtube and sign up for our scheduled alert emails at c-span.org. >> president obama went to iowa today and visited three counties in southeast iowa where the unemployment rate is at or near 10% and held this town hall event. [cheers and applause] >> hello everybody.

good to see you. [cheers and applause] >> good to see you. thank you so much everybody. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. everybody have a seat. it is good to be back in ottumwa! [cheers and applause] >> i missed you guys. >> there are a couple of special folks that i make sure that i acknowledge. used to be your governor, now your secretary, tom vilsack is in the house. [cheers and applause] >> your attorney general, tom miller is in the house. [applause] >> the mayor of ottumwa.

[applause] >> and college president, our host. [cheers and applause] >> jim was bragging about the ball team here. [laughter] >> all right. we can go out there and shoot a little bit. he seems very confident. well, it is wonderful to see all of you and thanks for the wonderful welcome. before i begin, i just want to briefly mention the continued resilience of folks up in the cedar rapids area in the wake of the floods that devastated the region a few years back. it has taken a long time to clean up after that. but i promised that my administration would be a committed partner in their

recovery. that's why yesterday, we announced $38 million in grants for rebuilding and recovery efforts and we'll continue to stand with the people of iowa going forward. [cheers and applause] >> now, -- >> i love you! >> i love you, too. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> it is just good to be back in iowa. if it weren't for iowa, i wouldn't be president. [cheers and applause] >> i believe that. >> it is great to be back in ottumwa. we had great times and i have to admit that the last time i arrived, i didn't use a helicopter. [laughter] >> we were in a little van. and my legs were all cramped up.

but it's a great honor to be here. having said that, one of the toughest parts about it, you don't get out as much as you're used to. you are in a bubble. don't get me very wrong, it is a nice bubble. the white house is a great place to work. i live above the store. [laughter] >> it's an easy commute. i see my girls off to school every morning and no matter how late i'm working, i can have dinner with my girls at night. and that's a great thing. [applause] >> but it does mean i just can't walk around and visit folks and run into them at the grocery store as easily as i used to. and so you lose something. and you remember, it wasn't that long ago, i was driving around in a van or a bus introducing

myself to people and shaking hands and only to hear them say as i walked away, who was that guy again? [laughter] >> how do you say his name? [laughter] >> it's nice to be back in iowa, but nice to be back among the american people. earlier today, i visited the seaman's wind power project in fort mad ison. and i chatted with workers and we checked out the work that they are doing to stake america's claim on a clean energy future and iowa's claim on a clean future. and if anybody has seen these blades for these wind turbines that iowa is a leader in, they are being manufactured, state of

the art factory and now they have 600 people working there and looking to expand even further and gives you a sense of what can happen when you've got a combination of terrific state government, because tom vilsack was the one who originally brought them in. [applause] >> you've got a federal government that's giving tax credits and tax incentives for wind energy and clean nurg. and then you have a energy. and then you have a community willing to work and do what it takes and that is the future we want to promote. i stopped by a small food producer in mount pls. a young woman who -- pleasant. a young woman who isn't more than 25. her parents at a farm, she came back home and planting fruits

and vegetables and got a small loan and she started to participate in the farmers' market and hooking up with the local department store and pretty soon she's going to be with the schools. and so we are getting fresh produce to market. she is starting to make money. and you're seeing that kind of entrepreneurship all across the state and all across the country. and these visits are reminders that when you get out into the heartland and you talk to folks, there's a lot to learn from rural america, because it's towns like this that gives america its heartbeat. towns like this where working men and women build the american dream with their bear hands. [applause] -- bare hands. farmers who get up before dawn, shop keepers who hang the sign

every morning, entrepreneurs turn that idea into a reality. and that's a dream shared by every american. a chance to make a good living, to raise a healthy and secure family and leave our children with even more opportunity than we had. but, look, the fact is, we have gone through a tough time. and i know we have gone through a tough time here in ottumwa. even though our economy is growing again. even though our markets have rebounded. our businesses are being able to create jobs. but everybody knows there is a lot of recovery that we still have to do. and i hear the stories in the letters i get every night. some of you know, i take 10 letters out of the 40,000 or so we get and i read them every night. and recently i received a letter from a young woman in a town that's smaller than ottumwa and

she said, our family has been able to make it through past financial hardship by sticking together and waiting patiently for things to get better, but i'm really starting to worry. i don't know how much longer i can deal with the guilt of putting additional financial strain on my family by trying to be the first of us to attend and graduate college. and she closed by writing, it's not your job to respond to me or even read my letter. but i wrote her back and said, that is my job. [laughter] >> because her story is just like the story a lot of folks out here have. that's why i asked you for the job in the first place, iowa, because i was hearing too many stories like that. think about that. a young woman feeling guilty about going to college. she's thinking maybe i need to drop out and work because my family is going through tough

times. that's not the way it's supposed to be. she is supposed to take pride in going to college, because she knows it will give her the opportunity to create a great life for herself and help folks that are less fortunate, reach back and bring them along. that's the dream that generations of americans have worked for. and even before this last crisis, it felt like it was slipping away a little bit. folks like you are living up to your responsibilities and then you got people in washington and wall street who aren't living up to theirs. and the reason that so many of you joined our campaign was you believed that we had it within our reach to change the way things were working, to stand up to the special interests, make sure that the agenda in washington was yours and to keep the american dream alive for our time and for all time. so before i take your questions, i want to speak plainly about

what we have been doing to keep faith with that promise. when i took office, the first thing we had to do was mount and aggressive response to the worst economic crisis we have seen since the great depression because we didn't want a second great depression. let's face it. some of the steps we took were unpopular. i didn't like them. no one wanted to fix the financial system. that isn't what i ran on. i ran on on making sure we regulated the financial system, but i didn't run on making sure it collapsed. but i wanted to make sure that some of the things were the right things to do so the situation didn't get worst. and one of those steps was called the recovery act. and here's what it did. first of all, 1/3 of it was tax cuts. we cut taxes for small businesses -- [applause]

>> when you hear the recovery act, 1/3 went to tax cuts for small businesses, first-time home buyers. maybe you have gotten that $8,000 credit. for students and parents paying for college. [applause] >> and we cut taxes for 95% of working americans, 1.1 million working families here in iowa, because that's what i told you i would do during the campaign. we passed 25 different tax cuts last year to help folks make ends meet in the tough economy. and that put more demand into the economy which meant people had money to spend on basic necessities which kept businesses open and prevented it from slipping it into a depression. when you hear folks hollering about their taxes, i'm

sympathetic. but we've cut taxes, 25 of them. so that's the 1/3 of the recovery act. another 1/3, we extended unemployment benefits and making cobra cheaper. [applause] >> i can't tell you how many people i have talked to, it's tough enough losing your job. it's a lot tougher losing your job and the cobra payments, the payments when you were on the job, are more than you can ever afford. you lose your health care at the same time you are losing your job. cobra subsidized 65% of those costs and a lot of people were able to keep their health care and through unemployment benefits keep the lights on until they were able to get back on their feet. we kept teachers and police

officers on the job including right here in iowa. if you talk to any governor, they will tell you they would have had to make huge layoffs if we didn't provide help. here's the last 1/3, putting back people back to work. that wind blade plant we went to, they benefited from clean energy tax credits that we gave them. they would not have been able to expand and hire those additional 200 people if we hadn't provided tax credits. all across america, we invested in rebuilding roads, hospitals, laying broadband lines, creating and harnessing the clean energy of tomorrow. so it was that recovery act that helped that wind turbine plant boost output. the recovery act is funding the ottumwa job corps center, offering jobs to hundreds of students.

[applause] >> now, sometimes you've got people who were concretics of what we did, but they'll show up at the ribbon cuttings. [laughter] >> i want to make clear here what we did, because people try to score political points by attacking the recovery act. that's what they're attacking. that wind turbine plant or wind blade plant, the job corps center, keeping teachers on the job, the most progressive tax cut in our history, relief for laid-off workers, investment in your community, 2.5 million americans went to work today. and we are going to keep working by ever means necessary because of job acceleration. a job is more than a pay check. anybody who has been out of work and by the way, i have been out of work.

knows that feeling when you're out of work, it's not just because you are worried about paying the bills, but because the job is about meeting won's responsibilities and taking care of one's family, the satisfaction at the end of a hard day's work, sense of purpose and pride that every american deserves. that's what we need to restore. that's been our priority in the short-term, to get our economy running, getting businesses hiring again, and we are making some progress. not as fast as i'd like, but the trends are good. here's the thing though, folks, the challenge did not just begin a year and a half ago with this crisis. it's certainly didn't start in ottumwa a year and a half ago. we have seen manufacturing and folks struggling to get by, middle-class folks who have been swimming against the current because they were hit with an economic tidal wave. for decades, our schools have

been failing too many of our kids. for decades, our dependence on foreign oil threatened our economic and national security. for decades, families have been struggling with out-of-control health care. for a decade, deficits were unseptemberbly large. because 10 years ago, we actually had a surplus. [cheers and applause] >> year after year, washington focuses on the next election rather than on the next generation. and i'm here to tell you that we cannot afford that kind of politics or go back to that kind of an economy. we've got to rebuild a new foundation for our future. [applause] >> we need to expand opportunity to every corner of main street so that young folks who are here in ottumwa don't feel like they

have to go someplace else to have a decent life. [applause] >> we need to make sure that we put wind at the backs of working men and women and create conditions where if they work hard, they can get ahead. that's why we are making the biggest investment in clean energy in our history, creating middle-class jobs in middle america, jobs that harness the wind, sun and biofuels and won't be set offshore. we are working with states to raise standards in our schools so our young people can compete in the 21st century economy and i'm proud of the young people who are here at this community college who are here doing great work. [cheers and applause] >> by the way, that's why we took on the special interests. we finally reformed the student loan system so it works for students and not bankers. [cheers and applause]

>> saves us tens of billions of dollars and re-investing that money where it should have gone in the first place, to your education, making college affordable and community colleges just like this one. and we are proud to do it. [applause] >> that is why we finally passed health reform in america. [cheers and applause] >> you know, i'm proud of it. [cheers and applause] >> i'm proud of it. [cheers and applause] >> i want you to know right

before i came here, we were in mount pleasant. vilsack's old stomping grounds and we went to jerry. and i had some pie. [laughter] >> it was very good. [laughter] >> and so we talked to some of the patrons there and on the way out, a young woman named janice came up to me and wanted an autograph and i signed and we started talking about her circumstances and she's a home maker. her husband is self-employed, mechanic, i think she said it was. and she was trying -- she was so eager to get health care going, she said, you know, i know it takes a few years to get this thing started up, but we need help now because our premiums just went up $700 per month. and that's who reform was for.

so here's what's going to happen this year. seniors are going to get help paying for their prescription drugs this year. millions of small business owners, including farmers, will be eligible for tax credits to help insure their employees this year. [applause] >> parents of children with pre-existing conditions will finally be able to purchase the coverage that they need. [cheers and applause] >> this year. insurance companies won't be able to drop you when you get sick, this year. [cheers and applause] >> by the way, if you are a young person here, you will be able to stay on your parents' policy until you are 26, starting this year. [cheers and applause]

>> and in a couple of years, after we set the whole thing up, millions of families and small business owners, they will have more choice, more competition and going to be able to purchase quality, affordable care and get a better deal because they are going to be part of a big pool. the reason that it's cheap for federal employees, for example, to get good health insurance is because there are millions of federal employees. so they have a lot of bar beganning power. now individuals and small businesses are going to be able to buy into that same kind of pool. by the way, members of congress will be members of it, too, so you know it's a good deal, because they wouldn't have voted for it if they thought it was going to be a bad deal. [applause] >> one last point about health care reform. this represents the biggest deficit reduction plan since the 1990's. now, there has been a lot of talk about deficits lately, and rightly so. these numbers keep me up at

night. but it is ironic that some of the people who are the loudest are the ones who took a surplus 10 years ago and left $1.3 trillion deficit on my desk when i took office. [cheers and applause] >> i don't know where they were over the last 10 years, why they weren't protesting and all that, and that's fine. i'm the president. the buck stops with me. and we did have to add short-term to the deficit to deal with the economic crisis. all that unemployment benefits, cobra extensions, et cetera, that costs money. but we have also taken real concrete steps to address the long-term deficits over our future. last point i want to make. we are engaged in a debate right

now on the need for wall street reform, reform that protects consumers, holds them accountable and end taxpayer bailouts once and for all. [applause] >> it's precisely because we didn't have commonsense rules on wall street that some of these firms could take these huge risks, irresponsible risks, that hurt every sector of the economy as far away as ottumwa, you were impacted. people on wall street, some of them forgot that behind every dollar traded, leveraged or derivative created, here on main street, people were looking to buy a house, open up a business or save for retirement and you can't take irresponsible risks like that. so that's why we need reform. today for the second time in 24 hours, senate republicans

unanimously blocked efforts to even begin debating reform. i'm not asking them to vote for the bill. i just want to let them debate it. and you know the senate rules are complicated. they won't even let it get on the floor to be debated. it's one thing to oppose reform, but to oppose just even talking about reform in front of the american people and having a legitimate debate, that's not right. [applause] >> the american people deserve an honest debate on this bill. it's been two years since the financial crisis became clear. i have been talking about it since 2007 before the crisis. i said we needed better rules on wall street. and you shouldn't have to wait one more day for some of the strongest consumer protections ever. and i'm not going to let this effort fall victim to industry lobbyists who want to weaken it,

water it down, kill it, stomp on it, whatever else, we can't let another crisis like this happen again and we can't have such a short memory that they convince us that we don't need to change the status quo on wall street. [cheers and applause] >> now, washington acts like this is a political game. i want people to spend more time in ottumwa, because if more folks spend more time out here, they will see that inaction, obstruction costs people.

they'll see that you don't care which party comes out on top politically in any of this stuff. you just want us to live up to our responsibilities like you do. [applause] >> you don't care whether it's a republican plan or democratic plan. that's what our administration has been trying to do. now, we haven't been perfect, that's for sure. michelle could have warned you i'm not perfect. [laughter] >> but what i want you to know is that every single thing we are trying to accomplish, every policy we put in place, every day i go to work, it's about restoring a sense of security for the middle class and renewing the dream for people like you because you are the ones who inspired me to run. whether you support me or not, it's towns like yours that i have spent time thinking about. it's that young lady in that

letter i'm working for. you put your trust in me, i don't intend to let you down and if we can work together, i know we will come through these difficult times and we will emerge stronger and more secure and rewrite that next great chapter in american history. so thank you, ottumwa. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> i'm going to take your questions and hold that cute little babe right there. he is just a little precious peach. all right, there are no rules other than just raise your hand. i'll try to call on as many as i can. we will go girl, boy, girl, boy,

so it's fair and hopefully -- and young people in the audience with microfeens, so wait until it gets to you so everybody can hear your question. and don't mind introducing yourself, that will be helpful as well. there is a gentleman right there at the corner. yes, sir. >> yes, sir. thank you so much for all your efforts on health care and wish you ever success on the reforms we need on wall street. i'm a californiaian -- i live in california. >> what are you doing here in ottumwa. >> there is a special lady here who has my heart called veronica butler. i run a small business and sell manufacturing equipment and do leasing on that equipment. and i'm real concerned t -- seems like we continue to lose manufacturing jobs overseas and

there is a drain on that. and we also -- we tried to arrange for financing. our shops, small machine shops that are every day working guys that are trying to make a living are now in a situation that their credit is challenged. >> these are your suppliers? >> some of the suppliers and some of the customers i'm trying to provide equipment to. >> i got you. >> they pulled on their own personal wealth to keep their businesses opened. they lost people. they need to hire people. they are going to banks and some of them have been in business less than three years and just impossible for them now to arrange and buy equipment. so we need help. >> well, let me respond to both questions. look, we have been losing manufacturing for a while. there's no doubt about that. i think it's important to recognize that a lot of attention is placed on

manufacturing moving overseas. but actually, the majority of manufacturing jobs that have been lost had to do with automation and technology. you know, if you go to a steel mill today, it takes one person what it used to take 10 people to do. and that's true in a lot of industries. so some of the reduction in the number of people working in manufacturing is similar to what happened in agriculture. things just got very efficient. in fact, one of the problems we're having right now in terms of having jobs rebound even after the economy has rebounded is the fact that a lot of businesses learn to become more efficient and so they're thinking we can make the same of product with fewer workers, which is a challenge for us. which is why new industries are so important.

america, we have been at our best by coming up with the next thing, the new idea, because we are never going to compete overseas when it comes to low wages. even if chinese wages go up, folks will move to bangladesh and if their wages go up -- mexico is losing jobs to china. and on down the line. that's not where we want to compete. we want to compete in innovation, a highly educated workforce, creativity, high-end products. now, here's the good news actually. we still have a very strong manufacturing base in this country and that wind blade farm was an example of the kinds of new manufacturing that we can put in place. but we've got to invest in them. that's point number one. point number two, we have to make sure our trade arrangements

with other countries are fair, because, frankly 20 years ago, 30 years ago, i think the attitude was, you know what? we can open up our markets and they don't have to open theirs and maybe they'll send us toys and a few other things, but it's no big deal. well, those days are over. china has grown rapidly and it can compete very effectively, which means that when i'm meeting with the chinese president, i've got to make sure that their trade is resip row indicating, their trade policies resip row indicate what ours do. that means that agricultural products from iowa, they have to have full access to the market. it means they can't steal our intellectual property. it means they can't have a bunch of barriers where getting

through customs is so hard that american companies give up. and this is one of the reasons why my administration has called for a doubling of u.s. exports. i don't want to close off trade with other countries, i want to open those countries, because that's where the growth is and we can sell our products and we have a competitive advantage, but we have to keep on pushing and be tough in our negotiations and that's something that is going to be a top priority. that's on the trade side. on the financing side, one of the biggest problems we still have in our economy, we made sure that the financial system didn't collapse but a lot of banks have pulled back and have pulled back especially from small businesses. so everywhere i go, i talk to small business owners who say, you know, we are starting to get orders now, but i can't get a credit line from my bank. and sadly, actually, the smaller banks in some ways which service a lot of small businesses in

service communities like ottumwa are just as bad off and may not have taken any kind of federal help but they are still trying to deal with their balance shees, deal with malls or mortgages that have gone south, bad loans on their books, they feel they are not in a position to lend. we are trying to use the s.b.a., small business administration. we have doubled s.b.a. loans to small businesses. we are now -- we have told congress what we've like to do, it turns out all those big banks are actually now paying back the money that we gave them. it is very good, with interest, by the way. [applause] >> they have already paid back the majority of it, but my attitude is, i want them to pay back every dime and that's why