are zero. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended and the resolution is agreed to. and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlelady from ohio rise? >> i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the one-minute dedicated to congressman ashley. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

the speaker pro tempore: members, take your conversations off the floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> madam speaker, i offer house resolution 1467 and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: house resolution

1467, resolved that the clerk of the house of representatives requests the senate to return to the house the bill h.r. 5136 entitled an act to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2011 for military activities of the department of defense, for military construction and for defense activities of the department of energy to prescribe military personnel strength for such fiscal years and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the resolution is adopted.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. all members remove their conversations from the floor. the house will be in order. the chair will entertain one-minute requests. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida rise? without objection. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you. madam speaker, i rise today to honor sergeant rodriguez of the key west police department. this dedicated officer has been named the 2009 key west police officer of the year. sergeant rodriguez has served our community proudly since he joined the department 10 years ppago. his commitment to keeping key west a safe place within which to live and visit has been

truly extraordinary. as a police officer of the year, sergeant rodriguez was specifically recognized for his tireless work to combat the negative influences of illicit drugs. this is an important and noble goal, madam speaker. and i know that the entire keys' community is proud of his selfless service. i thank sergeant rodriguez and all of his colleagues in the key west police department for all they have done and will continue to do for our wonderful monroe county-key west community. congratulations, sergeant rodriguez. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the house is not in order. will all members remove their conversations from the house floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

mr. diaz-balart: may mayer has logged more hours in the field and anchor desk than any other south florida journalist. he started in 1969. over the years, he has held numerous positions such as investigative and consumer reporter, crime reporter, business reporter, general assignment reporter and talk show co-host and served as anchor in the early evening newscast and midday newscast. he has been co-anchoring the morning show today in south florida since 1990. he is an extraordinary journalist. he retires this week from nbc 6 and our community will miss his professionalism and objectivity dearly. congratulations for a job well done, bob. the best to you and your family. the speaker pro tempore: the house is not in order.

members please remove your conversation from the house floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? mr. thompson: request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: madam speaker, i rise today to commend the gray mare society. they are over age 50 and still heading out on the trail together. when one of their number developed breast cancer they decided to do something to fight the disease. across the country, there are races and fundraisers, walks and other proposals, but the gray mare decided to do what is natural to them and ride and they came the ride to trail to the cure. they raised money for cumberland valley. the first ride was held on october 14, 2006. 77 riders from three states

brought their horses to pennsylvania for an eight-mile ride and raised $10,000. this year's ride will be held in the forest on saturday, september 25. the group has the support of the pennsylvania eqine council and look forward to another successful ride. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: most americans say president obama lacks a clear plan to deal with the oil spill, energy issues and job creation, according to a new poll. by a two-to-one margin, americans say the president doesn't have a clear plan to handle the oil spill. six in 10 say his response was

too slow and less than one-third have confidence in the president's ability to handle the crisis. four in 10 say the president has a clear plan for developing new sources of energy and only one-third say he has a clear plan to create jobs. but for some reason, cbs news downplayed the results of their own poll. monday, cbs evening news failed to even mention these findings and focused on americans' disapproval of b.p.'s handling of the oil spill. cbs should give americans all the facts, not conceal their own poll results to protect the president. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair will remind members of the gallery to refrain from expressions of approval or disapproval. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? mr. pence: ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revigse and extend my

remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pence: well, it's becoming more obvious every day to the american people. that this administration was slow to respond in the gulf. and the democrats still don't have a plan. they don't have a clear plan to contain the sea of oil in the gulf and remarkably here on capitol hill democrats don't even have a plan to contain the sea of red ink in washington, d.c. announcing this week, majority % leader steny hoyer confirmed the democrats' response to runaway federal spending is to not do a budget. failing to lead is not leadership. not doing a budget is not an answer. the democrats' refusal to write a budget is a shocking andcation of duty and a historic failure of leadership. there's been a lot of talk these days about governing philosophies here on capitol hill. their governing philosophy --

don't govern. this congress owes the american people a budget, a list of priorities and an outline of the hard choices that are necessary to put our fiscal house in order. no budget is no answer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house the following personal request. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. young of florida for yesterday and for today until 2:00 p.m. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: 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 june 30, mr. jones for june 30, mr. moran for june 25, 29 and 30, mr.

paulson for today and june 24. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into, the following members may be able to address the house for five minutes, ms. woolsey, mr. defazio, mrs. maloney, new york. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, and under a previous order of the house, the following members are recognized for five minutes each. ms. woolsey from california. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? mr. defazio: i ask to take her time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. defazio: the president has today been given a unique opportunity with the firing of

general mcchrystal. general mcchrystal was the principal author and advocate of the surge of u.s. forces in afghanistan. his theory was that it would be a clear hold and transfer, that is transfer to the afghan police who do not exist, the afghan security forces who are in a state of disarray and to the afghan government which does not exist meaningfully outside of the capital. he tested his theory in marja this spring. now, the u.s. and alied forces, they performed admirably with tremendous sacrifice and effort and they did in fact go into a very hostile area and they did in fact at least temporarily drive the taliban and other

dissident elements out or underground. then he said he was going to bring in government in a box. it was ready to come in. now, there wasn't, unfortunately, any government in a box. there's unbelievable corruption rife through the karzai regime at the national level, through the police and the security forces. they brought in some police who were not of the area, not of that tribe and that didn't work out too well. they brought in security forces who refused to do their mission and they brought in a few, again, government officials who had no local support and they have since left. and pretty much marja has devolved to what it was. even before he was fired, general mcchrystal admitted this was going to take a lot longer and be a lot harder than he

thought which means president obama's dictate of the beginning of withdrawal next year is a fantasy. that was part of the criticism that general mcchrystal and his allies at the pentagon put forward. so there's really a choice hoo here. to get into a very -- choice here. to get into a very long-term, very high-level engagement in afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year and tremendous sacrifice by our troops, on a strategy that has thus far not worked, or to rethink that strategy. perhaps more along the lines of vice president biden's ideas which were also derided by general mcchrystal and some of his colleagues. but actually what vice president biden said is, look, mostly this is an internal issue. it's an inter and intratribal fight. yes, there are some radical taliban and pakistani elements

and a very few al qaeda. how about we guarantee that we'll take care of any intervening forces, that is terrorist forces coming in from outside, in any number with a smaller troop presence and with our technology and we let the afghans work out their intertribal, intratribal conflicts that they've been carrying on over for 600 years and we encourage them to do that and adopt policies to help them meaningfully rebuild their country? instead general mcchrystal won the day. but now he's gone. now i understand that the president has said this does not mean a change in policy. i think that he should step back from that remark, consult again with all his best security advisors and the vice president and look at the results so far, find out what those critical comments were mentioned in that article, where basically the

pentagon is saying, hey, this is ppgoing to be years and years a a much bigger force and maybe there have -- there will have to be a second surge into afghanistan. sound like vietnam to anyone here? we prop up a government that has no relationship to the rest of the country with huge amounts of money and they have huge corruption and they don't have support in the countryside and that government falls, another one comes in, this echoes that failure. so, in the strongest terms possible, i would urge the president to reconsider, to reconvene his advisors now that general mcchrystal is gone and think very carefully about a much less expensive, much less troop-intensive strategy to bring about a better result in afghanistan. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. members of the gallery are reminded there will be no

gestures of approval or disapproval. for what purpose does -- mr. poe from texas -- mr. poe: request permission to address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. poe: madam speaker, sexual predators, sexual deviants, sexual criminals are the most despicable of all persons in our society. we can see maybe why somebody steels -- steals, maybe we can see why people use drugs, but we as a society do not understand nor should we why a person would sexually violate somebody else. you see, when a sex offender commits a crime against another person in many cases that person loses their dignity. the predator tries to destroyer their humanity, tries to destroy their soul. i spent a lot of time at the

courthouse, eight years prosecuting cases, saw a lot of those people. tried death penalty cases and spent 20 years on the bench hearing everything from stealing to killing. and during that time i saw a lot of these victims of sexual predators come to the courthouse. and many of them during that time seemed to have, after the crime was over, sort of lost their way. they tried, they tried to recover, they tried to recoup their dignity but they didn't. i even had victims after years after those cases were over with call me and try to get another bearing in their life. and some unfortunately even committed suicide based upon that sexual crime committed against them by some sexual predator. society needs to understand that. that these real people have real emotional problems. madam speaker, there's a rogue judge loose that is out of touch with victims and he seems to be a judge that is very sympathetic

to the criminal who commits sexual predator crimes. let me give you some examples. in the state of connecticut, that state passed a version of megan's law which requires sexual offenders to register after they're convicted. this federal judge said, eh, that's unconstitutional. because, as he said, quote, it stigmatizes the sex offenders. in other words, it hurts their little feelings that they have to register on a sexual database. seems to me that he was a criminal sympathizer. but, the united states supreme court unanimously overruled the federal judge and said his actions were wrong, they were in violation of the constitution and in poor judgment. same judge consistently reduued sentences of defendants who were connected of crimes regarding child pornography, and he made excuses for these offenders. he said, well, it's not really their fault, they had a bad childhood. i was on the bench a long time, i heard a lot of excuses and

this was was one of them. he said it wasn't their fault, they had an addiction. this one i liked the best, he said it's not really their fault because they had post traumatic stress because of the fact they were being prosecuted and people knew about it. well, yeah, of course. hopefully they had some kind of reaction that they were being -- or they felt like they were insulted by being prosecuted. it's kind of like those folks in california who killed their parents and then complained to the judge that they should get sympathy and compassion because they were now orphans and that's what the judge sort of says in these cases. and he also said in those type of cases he reduced the convictions of sex tourism. those are the guys on the internet who lure girls to have sex with them. he reduced those sentences saying they're generally law-abiding stens -- citizens. that's not all. this judge in the case of the roadside strangler. he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered eight women in

connecticut. he tried by a jury, the jury gives him the death penalty, yes, even in connecticut. and this was in 1987. finally the day of reckoning came in 2004, he's supposed to get executed and this federal judge intervenes in this case. and the judge excused the killer because he suffered from what the judge said, a disorder of sexual sadism. what is that? in other words, because of the perversion he should have a defense? of course that is not a legal defense in any court in the country. but the federal judge said he should be excused from that conduct. so the judge made up a defense for the individual, stayed the execution for a long time, in spite of the jury's verdict that the person should get the death penalty, in spite of the fact that michael ross said, if i didn't get caught by the police i would do it again. in spite of the fact that michael ross told the media that he should be executed for the sake of the families. the supreme court rightfully so overruled the judge, withdrew the stay and ordered michael

ross to be executed and he met his maker in 2005. and now this judge, -- judge is to be appointed to the federal court of appeals at the second appellate court. this judge lacks judgment. this judge doesn't follow the law. this judge is apparently biased in favor of sexual predators. this judge places his personal opinions above the law and this judge should be in the judge's hall of shame, not on the appellate court of the united states hearing cases. the senate should not confirm this person to be an appellate judge in the united states and that's just the way it is. i yield back. . >> i request to address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore:

without objection. mrs. maloney: at this time, there are over 27,000 workers employed by b.p. or its contractors and more than 2,000 federal employees directly involved in the massive cleanup operation now under way in the gulfport. at a hearing last week, another federal agency, the c.b.c. tried to assure congress it was doing all it could to keep its workers place and tracking surveillance data across the gulf coast states for health effects that may be related to the oil spill. this was good to hear. but a work shop held by the institute of medicine down in new orleans this week made one thing abun dantly clear. when there are many people engaged in a complex clean up effort of such unprecedented size over such a long time, the true danger levels for exposures simply are not known.

in a story in "usa today" put it and i quote, while health officials don't think long-term illnesses are likely, they never seen pollution of this scale and there are just too many unknowns to say for sure. the institute for medicine work shop participants noted that proper protective gear can help keep exposure at safe levels, but the problem comes when heat and humidity cause workers to remove their gear. the average daytime high temperatures in new orleans for the next two months is 91, very hot and very humid. now consider an assessment of b.p.'s overall attitude towards worker safety that was contained in a letter sent to b.p. by an on or abouta official back in may and i quote. the organizeal systems that b.p. has in place particularly those related to worker safety and health training, protective equipment and site monitoring

are not adequate for the current situation or the projected increase in cleanup operations. the letter noted that these are not isolated problems. they appear to be indicative of a general systemic failure on b.p.'s part to ensure the safety and health of those responding to this disaster. the unnoticeable risk of an environmental disaster of this scale with unforeseeable weather conditions and failures of b.p. in the recent past should raise great big red warning flags for osha for the centers for disease control. i'm writing osha to ensure that the workers have the proper protective gear such as rirptors in order to ensure their safety and protect their health.

this is the region of the country that was previously devastated by a natural disaster that was made worse by the bush administration's failure to respond with timely assistance and adequate safeguards. many lost their lives. the gulf coast is now under siege by a manmade disaster. far too many have already lost their livelihoods. the entire region is at risk for losing a way of life. no one should also lose their health simply because we failed to help them when more help was clearly needed. in migrate city of new york, we have witnessed firsthand the terrible price that can be paid over time by those who labor day after day in a toxic environment helping their city recover from a terrible blow on 9/11. i hope that this congress will do everything in its power to ensure that those who have asked to clean up this mess and cleaning up this mess are not asked to pay for their efforts

with the loss of their health. thank you, madam speaker. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. mr. jones of north carolina. mr. moran of kansas. mr. burton of indiana. mr. forbes from virginia. ms. ros-lehtinen from florida. mr. gohmert from texas. mr. paulsen from minnesota. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? without objection. mr. paulsen: i rise to remember an inspiring and patriotic american, master sergeant edward william cole.

edward embodies the love of this nation that has been critical to american success throughout our history and will serve as an example of dedication and service for generations to come. ed was born in the bronx, raised in the hell's kitchen neighborhood of manhattan and enlisted the moment he became eligible for service back in 1949. he served in korea where he was injured in battle and received a purple heart and despite being offered the opportunity to return home, he overcame painful reconstructive purgeries on both of his fight so he could continue to serve in the united states army. just as our nation has overcome many painful challenges, ed overcame his injuries and continued to serve with profound distinction and success. he joined the special forces and in 1961, became one of the very first 100 green berets. he used his success and

knowledge of the forces as an instructor for many years and seen as a natural leader and was careful to remain humble while being awarded badges and a come dations. following his distinct issued service he devoted himself to his wife and children and extended family and loved to fish with his grandchildren and skydived periodically, but these weren't the only freedoms. too often these days, congress is overly partisan and forgets to focus on issues of importance on getting things done and on service. now more than ever when we are facing as a country, great significant issues of national importance, we should absolutely remember the leadership of people like ed clowe and his devotion when he stated, i may not agree with every americans' opinion but i spent my life protecting the freedom they have to express it.

and now, madam speaker, as we approach the fourth of july holiday and consider our independence as a nation and a country, we must pay tribute to citizens like ed who have protected our sovreignty. we are a nation who speak honestly. but without the men and the women who bravely serve in our military, men and women like master sergeant clowe, none of our cherished freedoms wore exist today. i honor you and thank you for your service. i also thank the family that supported you and loved you throughout your distinct issued career. my hope is that today and each day in the future, we will be conscious of the dedication of the men and women in our armed forces and acknowledge the importance of remaining resilient and brave just as master sergeant clowe did throughout his entire life. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. pursuant to section 201-b of the international religious freedom act of 1998, 22 u.s.c. 6431 and the order of the house of january 6, 2009, the chair announces the speaker's appointment of the following members on the part of the house to the commission on international religious freedom . the clerk: ms. elizabeth progamow. and upon the recommendation of the minority leader, mr. ted vander immediate for a two year term ending may 14, 210 -- 2012. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from michigan, mr. dingell, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the

majority leader. mr. dingell: ding i ask unanimous consent on behalf of my colleagues that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. so ordered. mr. dingell: i rise today to honor a dear friend and a man many of us here admired greatly as president of u.a.w. i refer to a great citizen, a great patriot, a great leader of labor and wonderful human being. juan did not want to have any recognition of his labors on behalf of working men and women and on behalf of the people at this particular time. but i think he will forgive us

if we say a few things about the respect with which he has held and why that be so. for the last eight years, juan has led the u.a.w. as their president and he has done so through the most difficult times facing our nation or the union. through his hard work and dedication to his brothers and sisters of the u.a.w., we witnessed the auto industry to right itself and to begin to come out f the worst times which it has confronted in its history. it is interesting to note that as the head of one of the most democratic unions in the world, juan was able to lead the union -- in a way which saved the industry and which enabled the industry to have negotiations about give-backs and other

things, always difficult to solve to the rank and file. elected in 2002 as international president of the u.a.w., juan rose through the ranks beginning his career first as a member of the u.a.w. local 862 in 1964 and worked at ford's assembly plant as a repairman and attended indiana university southeast at night and the workers there first recognized juan's extraordinary qualities and elected him to represent them. he went to serve as regional three u.a.w. director and u.a.w. vice president. throughout his time in these roles, he fought relentlessly and tirelessly to ensure workers have the quality of life they deserve by making health care accessible and affordable to all, ensuring new

jobs in industry through manufacturing and advanced technology vehicles and addressing workers' rights provisions in fair trade agreements. he gave extraordinary leadership not just to the union and the industry, but to the country. as we have all known, juan does not back down from a challenge. during the most difficult times in the auto industry, he worked together with the business in a very close fashion to assure the survival of the industry and the companies which the u.a.w. had negotiated agreements with. he negotiated a new round of contracts with the big three, creating voluntary benefits associations to provide health care to retirees in the big three and to save huge amounts of money to the auto companies. and he was one of the leadership in determining the

government assistance would be needed. but in seeing to it that the union's voice was heard and that the auto industry was participated in very actively by the u.a.w. and by the members that he served. he once said of himself, we did what we had to do to save the industry. and now less than a year later, the auto industry is once again profitable and expanding production. in fact, chrysler is hiring again for the first time in 10 years. fortunately, cars from the big three and the members and unions work together are safe and reliable and during the highest quality ratings in the annual initial quality study, beating import brands by satisfying margins. it is the workers and members

and the leaders of u.a.w. who have worked so hard to ensure that through times of turmoil our domestic auto industry continues to produce the best and safest vehicles while increasing in extraordinary ways the productivity of the workplace. and at a time when union membership is at its lowest in years, he has fought relentlessly to make sure that workers who fought to unionize have done so. he has advocated for the employee free choice act, for legislation which will allow workers to decide if they want to use majority signup to form a union, protecting them from employer coercion. but he has gone well beyond the needs and the concerns of labor. he has worked for education, for health care, for clean and whole some environment, for the

health of our young and old and for the protection of the rights of americans. . i think our country agrees that these things are necessary and helpful. but we understand -- he understands as do many of his admirers that labor's responsibilities and duty goes far beyond the simple ken concerns of labor -- simple concerns of labor and go to see to it that this country is the best that we working together can make it be. ron and i and most of us here share the belief that the future success of the auto industry's going to be developed -- dependent on developing advanced batteries and electric and hybrid cars here at home and other technologies which will enable us to compete in the savagely competitive world marketplace. he is one who has supported training workers in these technologies not only to help the companies and the industry

but also to provide workers with continued job opportunities and he has been there through ebbs and flows and the one thing that you could always count on, ron -- on ron having was honesty, integrity and steadfastness. whether he was delivering good news or bad, he always dealt with the facts. it is because of his honesty and his dealings with everyone, his brothers and sisters, business management and labor join me tonight in praising and pointin- out that he has properly earned the trust, admiration and respect of all with whom he worked. ron once said, we don't accept the notion that america is a country where a privileged few can live well while the rest of us struggle to meet our daily expenses. we're going to fight for something better. ron, you have led a fight for

something better since the first day that you entered the labor movement. and i'm glad that i was able to be your friend and partner in many of those fights. i now will yield to my good friends from michigan and from elsewhere around the country who have desired to express, as do i, compliments for our dear friend, now retiring. i yield first to my dear friend, congressman kildee of michigan. mr. kildee: i rise today to commend ron gettelfinger and to wish him all the best on his retirement. since 1964, when ron in lieuville, kentucky, he began a lifetime of service that led him

to become the international president of the u.a.w. in 2002. as president, ron's leadership has helped guide the organization through some of the most difficult times the auto industry has faced. with his characteristic straight talk and common sense, he has worked with a broad range of stakeholders and has been willing to negotiate to try and find solutions to the recent downturn in the domestic industry and help protect our auto communities. this has helped lead to an american auto industry that is well positioned to once again be the economic engine that drives the american recovery. ron gettelfinger has been a tireless advocate for american workers and has fought every day to keep american manufacturing jobs from being shipped overseas.

i congratulate ron on his retirement and thank him for his years of advocacy on behalf of american workers. god bless you, ron, thank you for all you have done for the u.a.w., for all of you have done for this country -- you have done for this country. mr. dingell: madam speaker, i yield now to my distinguished friend from michigan, mr. mccotter. mr. mccotter: i thank the gentleman from michigan. i thank him for all of his guidance and advice in this institution. one of which is being that on these swampy, humid, hot days, a son of detroit can wear sere sucker to beat the heat. the other that i wish to thank him for is his constant reminder to us through his example that we work for the people who send

us here. and that in very difficult times it is crucial that we look past our perceived differences and be able to come together on behalf of the people who have entrusted us with office, to help solve problems for them. we in michigan went through this, where we saw an entire cherished way of life endangered and we united to come togethee to help solve that problem. the crisis has not passed, it continues to this day. but we are on the road to recovery. former president of the united auto workers, ron gettelfinger, is a man who understands positions of trust, a man who understands the need to do everything he can to honor that trust. as a democratically elected president of the united auto workers he did everything within

his power in an exceedingly difficult time to ensure the union's survival, to ensure the survival of the auto industry and to help ensure michigan's way of life as a manufacturing state and as a former arsenal of democracy. and i think that this is critical not only for us to remember in michigan as we go forward but an example that i hope is set for many others in this country and in this chamber , that in a great and good country we learn more and show our true measure not by being merely able to see the character of our allies but to see the character and virtues of our opponents. ron gettelfinger's integrity and devotion to the people who trusted him with his position is something that he would not talk

about because he is a humble, honest, hardworking man. it is left to us to do it for him and in some ways despite him. having been on the other side of mr. gettelfinger and at times being on the same side, i assure you it is more fun to be his ally than his opponent, but i will tell you this, that from this strange bed fellow i wish former u.a.w. president ron gettelfinger well in his future endeavors and i have no doubt that whatever the lord holds in store for him, mr. gettelfinger will be up to the challenge and our country will be the better for it. and i can truly say that i am honored to have known him and i am glad that he has done his duty to his union and our nation. i yield back. mr. dingell: i thank the gentleman and i yield now to the

distinguished gentlewoman from michigan, ms. kilpatrick. ms. kilpatrick: thank you and i thank the chairman for yielding. i rise in honor, respect and duty to give president ron gettelfinger all he deserves for his 30-plus years of hard work as an organizer, as a labor, and rising to the presidency of the united auto workers. congratulations, ron. congratulations for all the work you have done, for all the coalition building you have done, keeping our workers front and center, in good paying jobs, with benefits that they earned every day, building the best cars in america and around the world right through the workers of the united auto workers. we rise today to say, good to you, as you go into your retirement with your lovell wife and family, just know -- lovely wife and family, just know that we appreciate all that you have

done. just know that s workers and builders and all that is american that we might have a strong economy, that your commitment, your dedication to seeing that workers have adequate wages that workers have clean environments in which to work, that workers are able to earn a great day's pay for the work that they do for our economy and for our country, thank you, ron gettelfinger. many have come before you as president of the united auto workers, and you can bet you are right there with them having gived in service as long as you have. our most recent battle together was the health care debate. you, your leadership, your dedication, working with the leaders in the house and the senate, and the presidency, for the first time brings to our country a health care bill that will cover 95% of americans. we thank you for that. no longer will people be charged or not covered for pre-existing conditions. soon in september all young

people over the age of 21 will now be able to stay on their parents' healtt care until they're 26. as we know in our economy, many young people who graduate there from high school and then on to college aren't able to find work. so the health care bill will help them be accessible, be able to be covered. this health care bill and, ron gettelfinger, thank you for your hard work for getting us to this point, the not perfect but it's certainly better than the status quo. our status quo health care situation in our state is not sustainable. people getting dropped for no reason when they become ill, you stopped that, as we worked on this health care bill. thank you, ron gettelfinger. our seniors will now be able to have their wellness covered, that they will have preventive health covered. our seniors who now because of a medicare part d program that doesn't always cover their prescriptions as the prescriptions grow higher and higher, for the first time, mr.

gettelfinger, working with the coalition and our leaders here in thh house and senate and the presidency, will now have helped paying for their prescription medications. thank you, thank you for your leadership. fighting for workers, helping to put together finally a health care bill that we can all be proud of, being able to be that president that your men and women of the united workers -- auto workers, as well as all of us, have looked to for leadership, we thank you, ron. your mild manner, your smile and your strength, we shall never forget you. so enjoy your retirement, mr. president. you've earned it. and we promise, as we work here in the house of representatives, we will continue to ork as you have worked for all of these 30-plus years, to make sure that all americans, all americans have an opportunity to work in a clean environment, to receive adequate pay for a day's work, and, yes, have health care benefits to protect them and their family. enjoy your retirement, god bless

you, mr. president. mr. dingell: i thank the distinguished jo and now i yield to -- gentlewoman and now i yield to ms. edwards. ms. edwards: thank you. it's my pleasure to stand here with my good friend, congressman dingell, in honoring the incredible life and career and advocacy of ron gettelfinger, who retired just last week after a distinguished union career that began in 1964 when i was just a kid, but i'll tell you, for the benefits that all of us as americans and as workers have received for his good work with the united auto workers, we are all grateful. and you don't have to be from michigan to understand the contribution that mr. gettelfinger has made. he's been a fierce advocate on behalf of workers, he understood that his position as president of the united auto workers -- he needed to try to address the current needs of his workers as well as the future needs that

may come up. and in 2006 mr. gettelfinger pushed to renew america's grasp on technology and innovation. he called for renewal of america's industrial base through incentives to manufacture energy-saving advanced technology vehicles, right here in the united states. and as a member of the science and technology committee, i can assure you that there is a need for america and a desire for our work force to do exactly what mr. gettelfinger has called for, to be on the cutting edge of this kecktling -- technology, and he's been right there pushing all the time, for incentives in innovation. and this isn't new. mr. gettelfinger was one of the loudest voices and i was happy to sing in his choir for health care reform, for single parent health care reform, because he understood that health care accessibility and affordability is necessary, not just for the unionized and organized work force, but for all americans. and under his leadership, the

u.a.w. has continued its fight for fair trade agreements that provide provisions for workers' rights and environmental protections and the union has loudly criticized the corporate global chase for the lowest wage that creates a race to the bottom that no workers in any country can win. we have to continue ron gettelfinger's fight and we know that he's retiring, but we know that he's not down and we know that his influence will carry across this country as we really struggle for the working families of america and so it is with great honor that i stand here to pay tribute to our good friend, to a career of someone who has fought for workers, for equality and for justice and for quality of life. so ttank you, ron gettelfinger, for your service and for your career and with that i yield. . mr. dingell: i thank the distinguished gentlewoman and

yield to the chairman of the ways and means committee, mr. levin. mr. levin: ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. mr. speaker, i'm privileged to join with john dingell, a true champion of the automobile industry of this country for over 50 years. as we join together to honor ron get ell finger -- gettelfinger. he just retired and through a period of unprecedented difficulty, ron worked tirelessly on behalf of auto workers and helped the industry to be more competitive.

it's my privilege to pay tribute to you, ron, today. a proud auto worker, ron joined the u.a.w. in 1964 as a repairman. the workers at the plant elected him to represent them as committee person and bar beganing chair and president of local 852. his leadership and commitment to auto workers elevated him to the ford bargaining committee and head of region and u.a.w. president and in 2002, ron was elected president of the union and re-elected in 2006. his tenure as u.a.w. president saw exceptional challenges to understate it. the critics said neither the union nor the auto makers could

overcome. this was a period of painful job loss for tens of thousands of families. and during this difficult time, ron's dedication to working families never waned while he helped to keep the industry afloat. i'm proud to have been among those who worked with him during this period of great uncertainty. this was a collaborative effort and took risk. key leaders stepped up to the plate, led by the president and his administration and members of the house and senate. in the wake of immense challenge, the american automobile industry is emerging anew. exciting new vehicle technologies, growing consumer confidence and strong quality and safety ratings offer hope for the new prosperity for the

american auto industry and its workers. ron's commitment to the american auto industry and its workers has been unyielding over his career. mr. speaker, i ask my colleagues to join in congratulating ron, his wife judy, children and grandchildren on the occasion of his retirement from the union he loved so deeply, the u.a.w. i yield back. mr. dingell: i thank my good friend from michigan. i yield now to my distinguished friend from michigan, mr. schauer. mr. schauer: it's an honor to be here during this hour to talk about a man who has shaped our nation's economy and manufacturing and it's an honor to follow congressman levin, the chairman of the ways and

means committee who has been a fighter for jobs. ron -- i can best describe him in a couple of stories. and we are here to congratulate him on his retirement and his legacy with united auto workers. but with chairman dingell and a bipartisan delegation from the house of representatives visited the auto show, north american international auto show at the beginning of this year and met with the top leadership of ford, gm and chrysler. ron was right there. it was apparent as these companies have worked through a very challenging time, they had a true partnership, a true partnership in their workers.

the best workers in the world and their leader was there as each of the management leaders of ford, g.m. and chrysler talked about new technology and talked about their innovation and talked about retraining of their workers and talked about more efficient and cost efficient manufacturing processes. ron was there as they talked about their exciting new products made in the united states of america by american workers that ron led and represented, best products in the world, the best automobiles in the world. that's ron gettelfinger. another story, i represent a lot of auto workers and a lot of families that earn their

living from manufacturing. i have an auto assembly plant in my district. and this is i think the auto industry's most modern, efficient plant in the world. and that just a year and a half ago or so, that plant was down to just one shift, making cross-over vehicle, g.m.c. acadia, the buick enclave, saturn outlook, most fuel-efficient vehicle. they were down to one shift. and ron gettelfinger in partnership with general motors' management made some important decisions about that

plant, its products and the company. that plant, which is represented by u.a.w. local 602, brian fedline is their president is back to three shifts plus overtime and is making the chevy traverse, world-class vehicle and ron gettelfinger through his partnership with thinks auto company has put people to work. in fact, michigan, which is struggling with high unemployment overthe -- over the years saw 450 families move from tennessee to work in that plant and i thank ron gettelfinger and general motors for that. by the way, the buick version of this vehicle made in my district by u.a.w. local 602 workers is the number one

imported vehicle. what ron gettelfinger's work and crerp and his legacy means to me is a champion for manufacturing. and in this country, we must fight for manufacturing. it is a national security issue. this is the industry, the auto industry that built our middle class and that is part of ron's legacy. another is fair trade. and we must continue to fight for fair trade as ron gettelfinger did in his career to make sure that our best workers in the world, most innovative companies in the world have the chance to compete on a level playing field. ron gettelfinger fought for fair labor practices for his workers. he helped transform america's economy and retirees to ron gettelfinger were more than legacy costs as some consider

them. they are real people. so to ron gettelfinger, congratulations and thank you for your commitment to the united states of america for good jobs, middle class, for advanced manufacturing in an industry that is on its feet again. and bob king will be a very able new president. i wish him well, but i'm here today, chairman dingell, to thank ron gettelfinger for all he has done for the united states of america. thank you. mr. dingell: i thank my distinguished friend from michigan. i yield now to distinguished the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee. ms. jackson lee: thank you very

much, mr. chairman and to the speaker. whenever john dingell raises his voice to join in honoring a leader, you always have to take his affirmation as an honor of that leader. and so no one wants to be left out when it comes to honoring someone chairman dingell has designated as deserving that honor. but i come far away from michigan, down in texas, to be able to say that ron gettelfinger is an american hero, and america thanks him, because he understood the various assets of wealth.

he might have understood a family in new york or down in houston or maybe in alabama who is able to get that first american-made car, made by the men and women of the united states and in this instance, those who reside in michigan. buying a car was a big deal. and i thhink this president, th past president of the u.a.w. understood that and i'm grateful. that is why he fought for the men and women of the u.a.w. so i rise today to join in this special order to honor ron gettelfinger and to thank him for caring about america, for those families who work every day all the time to ensure that they might buy that first car, that family car, that they can load up a family of two, three, four, five or more in a car

that they knew would work, that had all the bells and whistles and had the investment of the hardering and hard working men and women of the u.a.w. we thank him for his work with organized labor and acknowledge him on the time of his retirement. there is no doubt that for his 40 years of service in the interest of the average american worker, he deserves the praiie of congress. he goode with something, i think, that i wholeheartedly agree with. it's important for americans to make things. and how proud we were that we could point to the american oil bill industry as being made by the hands of those who worked hard and made good and made good products. america has got to get back to making things and mr. gettelfinger who was involved

in the union and workers' activities since 1964, i believe understood that well, ever since he was elected to represent ford louisville assembly plant, bargaining chair and president, he has worked for the betterment of the average american worker. as u.a.w. improved their working conditions and, of course, the contractal conditions and agreements, others likewise benefited. his organizing and people skills are legendary, all of which made a symbol of the auto movement in the united states and icon. he first became member of the u.a.w. bargaining committee in 1997. and he has held several other management positions. under his position, they were able to lobby for fair trade

agreements, including provisions for workers' rights and environmental protections. he was a visionary with the voice as his mantra he criticized bills and toiled to keep american jobs here. he believed in america making things. i hope he will leave that legacy because we have to get back to making things. mr. speaker, this is the man who embodies the american spirit and symbolizes the importance of the average american worker to the success and way of life that we cherish. there is nothing wrong with working with your hands and having a decent living. he believed in better technology and more efficiency but didn't believe in undermining the american worker. we have been made stronger and only fitting that we honor former president of the u.a.w.

ron gettelfinger for his life's work and give him special praise on his retirement. again for these reasons, i rise in support of chairman dingell's special order and would only leave you to say this, he is a great american. we would do well to follow in the footsteps of this great american and learn that america is at her best when she can make things for the american people and people around the world. i yield back. . mr. dingell: i thank the distinguished gentlewoman from texas, and now i yield to mrs. dahlkemper. mrs. dahlkemper: i want to thank mr. dingell for hosting this special order so we can celebrate mr. ron gettelfinger. i came to congress with a promise of standing up for workers' rights, a day when mr. gettelfinger had when working

for the ford motor company. he enhanced a vision of organized labor. ron's eight years as president of the u.a.w. has ushered in a number of defining accomplishments for the american worker. he fought vigorously to assure worker protections in major trade agreements. while understanding that a reformed health care system will better serve america's work force and our entire country. ron's success is defined a willingness to work with industry and construct bipartisan agreements that achieve results, a strategy i admire and wish we would see more of here in congress. as we emerge from the worst recession, worst economic crisis since the great depression, ron's leadership has been stall wartwart. as americans see thousands of jobs overseas, ron made sure that good-paying jobs stayed here in the united states of america. at a time when workers' rights were in jeopardy, ron never thought to back down or make

concessions. that's real leadership. ron, on behalf of the working men and women of my district in western pennsylvania and all organized labor, thank you. you leave a wonderful legacy that's shaped a higher standard for the american worker. i wish you the very best in your days ahead. i'm proud to stand here with mr. dingell to honor you tonight. and i yield back. mr. dingell: i thank the distinguished gentlewoman and i yield now with a great deal of pleasure and respect to my great friend from new york, the honorable edolphus towns. mr. towns: thank you very much. i am delighted to come and participate in this special order this evening, to be here with the longest-serving member of the united states house of representatives, john dingell. we come tonight to say thank you to ron gettelfinger.

for 40 years of service to the u.a.w. and eight years as its president. so i rise in order to honor him tonight because of the outstanding job that ron was able to do. it is easy to admire ron by just looking back over his long career. from his early work as a chassis line repairman in 1964 at a lewisville assembly plant, to be elected to the top leadership post in 2002 where he became the face of one of the largest and most diverse unions in north america. he has shown a remarkable drive and work ethic that made him a role model as he fought for

health care and so many issues that improved the quality of life for so many. ron was not a selfish person. he felt that if i can help somebody then my living is not in vain. in addition to his work in the auto industry, he has had a positive effect on federal and state public policy. mr. gettelfinger is a hard working individual who has been an outspoken advocate for so many good causes. under his leadership, the u.a.w. also lobbied for new technologies and environmental standards, supporting smart policies for solid jobs. and, of course, clean air. these are issues that have been and continue to be very important to me and the people of the 10th congressional

district. ron was once quoted as saying, "we don't accept the notion that america is a country where a privileged few live while the rest of us struggle to meet our daily expenses." we're going to fight for something better, and i want you to know he did. and, of course, we look back tonight and we say, ron, we want to thank you, thank you for the outstanding job that you did on behalf of the u.a.w., thank you for the outstanding job that you have done on behalf of the people of this nation. we thank you for the leadership , and as a result, people throughout were able to see you as a role model. so i come tonight to say thank you, again, and we wish you god speed and we know that you'll

be out there doing some things in a positive way while continuing to improve the quality of life. on that note, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. mr. dingell: i want to thank my dear friend from new york for his kindness, his fine words and for his great patience. he's my dear friend. mr. speaker, i have the remarks of many of our other colleagues who will -- which will be inserted into the record paying tribute to our great friend, ron gettelfinger. i simply want to observe two things. first, we are saying goodbye tonight to a giant, a patriot, a wonderful human being, a man who cared about his fellow americans and who spent his lifetime making it the best he could for his fellow americans, especially members of the trade union movement. he was never afraid to give

leadership to causes that were of importance, and he never was afraid to speak the truth, including to work with me and with the companies to address problems that those companies had here in washington. and he was never afraid to tell the truth even to his own members when that was necessary to be done. i'm pleased to report that in his leaving of office he leaves behind him a great and respected trade union movement and a wonderful union in the u.a.w. and i'm pleased to report to my colleagues that his successor, the new president, bob king, will serve with great distinction and as a worthy successor in all aspects of that very important leadership responsibility. and i congratulate him and wish

him well. i also thank you, mr. speaker, for your patients. i yield back the balance of my time. -- for your patience. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: thank you, mr. chairman. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from new york, mr. akin, is designated for 60 minutes as the designee of the -- is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leadership.

mr. akin: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i appreciate a moment here to get our charts lined up and to talk about a subject that we've been talking about for sometime but which is very much on the hearts and minds oo the people of america, and that is the situation of jobs, the economy and the condition of our solvency as a nation. and the challenges to leadership and the way forward. now, in order to try to get a perspective on where we are, it's helpful to look back a

little bit and see where we've come from. and those of you perhaps have been paying a little attention to what's been going on over the last couple of years. there have been some changes, changes of a recession that's come, changes in terms of unemployment, people having trouble making their mortgage payments, people having trouble keeping or getting jobs. and also a sense that the economy is not all that it should be. and these things didn't happen just by accident. they were the result to a large degree of government policy. many of the problems that we're experiencing actually were caused by decisions that were made right here in this chamber. and some of those decisions now turn out to be not wise at all. i'd like o go back a number of years to part of what created this entire real estate bubble which then collapsed our economy and put us in the condition that we are now.

i hope to conclude with some very positive suggestions as to what we have to do to go forward. america is not in some place where we haven't been before. we're in the in over our head, although we're close to it. there are things we can do to mediate and to take care of some of the problems that has been created, but we must act decisively and we are going to have to act immediately. now, going back a little bit, it became popular over a couple of different administrations to allow people who couldn't really make their mortgage payments to get mortgages to buy houses. and so what we did wws we created a law that actually said to bankers and to people who are going to give people home loans that you have to give loans to people who can't afford to pay some of them or who may be a bad credit risk, would be a better way to state it. so we had these laws saying a certain percent of loans have to be given to people who have

bad credit risks. over a period of time what happened was those percentages were increased in president clinton's last year in office. they increased those percents up. in the meantime, the -- those percentages up. in the meantime, greenspan created a great deal of liquidity because of the recession in 2000, 2001. so what you had was this real estate bubble where a lot of people were putting money into houses, the housing prices were going up rapidly. everyone was flipping these home loans and making lots of money. as long as the music was playing, everyone was happy. when the music stopped there was not a lot of chairs for people to sit down in. this tremendous bubble that ended up bursting in the home mortgage area was not something that took everybody by surprise. many people took advantage of it. many people were hurt very badly by it. but it was not something that

people didn't understand was going on. in fact, on september 11 in 2003 which goes back quite a number of years now, president bush saw this coming. and so he is recorded here in "the new york times" -- not exactly a conservative oracle -- saying that the bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. what the president wanted was more authority to regulate freddie and fannie because he saw that freddie and fannie were out of control. but that's not an easy thing to do to control freddie and fannie. they were quasi-private agencies that were loaning money like mad to people that wanted to buy houses. the trouble was they had just lost a billion dollars here and there, so things weren't going quite right for freddie and fannie but freddie and fannie had ays to fight back. they had many, many lobbyists

in washington, d.c., and they gave lots of money away to senators and other political people. so the president is asking for authority to control freddie and fannie. the president got the bill through because republicans controlled the house at the time, got a bill through the house that went to the senate. but because the republicans did not have 60 votes in the senate, the bill was killed by the democrats in the senate. . in the men time the senate democrats disagreed and congressman frambing who is the one in -- congressman frank saw it differently. he said these two entities are not facing any kind of financial crisis. the more people exaggerate, the more pressure there is on these companies and less we will see in terms of affordable housing, so he did not want to regulate

freddie mac and fannie mae. he said they're just fine. this is the same article, "new york times," september 11, 2003. of course, as it turns out through the eye of history, we can look back and say, of course congressman frank is completely wrong. and president bush was right, we should have done something about freddie mac and fannie mae. you start to get this real estate collapse and mortgage problem. and so the economy starts to go down and a lot of people blamed president bush on it, but anyway the economy starts going down and it's because of this congressional policy of allowing these mortgages to be made to people who couldn't afford to pay. what happened was that wall street took them and chopped them up and packaged them in these mortgage-backed securities and sold them all over the world sm the whole crisis was compounded by the different ratings agencies like

standard ann poors and moody's. they were not a.a.a. but a lot of trouble waiting to happen. so the real estate crisis drug the financial market in trouble so they couldn't deal with the situation that occurred. following that, president obama's elected and the economy's going down. so he proposes a series of solutions and things that hopefully are going to make things better. and part of the solution was a whole lot of taxes and a whole lot of spending. and so his policies started out, first of all -- actually started out with the stimulus package. stimulus package with one of these things that was supposed to help us get some jobs. and he told us what we're going to do with the stimulus

package, it was originally $787 billion, but as it turned out, $800 billion in the stimulus package. here's what was said by the president about our stimulus plan. we'll likely save or create three million to four million job. 90% will be created by the private sector and 10%, public sector jobs. this looked like a pretty good deal. we were told if you don't pass it, what's goinn to happen, you may get 8% unemployment if you don't pass it. and so, because the democrats were totally in charge, we passed it. the republicans all voted no. we had seen this before. it was not even a legitimate stimulus package. it was a whole lot of big spending on giveaway government programs but wasn't going to do anything to improve the economy. we have a chance to see how that $800 billion went.

it paid pensions to states that had been irresponsible and not managed pensions properly. we have seen how it works. the private sector has lost nearly eight million jobs since 2008. the government has gained 656,000 jobs, mostly the census-type jobs. and there was very, very little job creation in the private sector. is it because republicans were such wizz arizona they could figure out it wasn't going to work? no. we know something about history. we would have hoped that the democrats might have learned from history from the days of f.d.r. who turned the recession into a great depression. these are the comments from an economist. little lord keynes, henry morgenthau and said we have

tried spending money and are spending more money than we ever did before. it doesn't work. i say after eight years of the administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, an enormous debt to boot. so much for the stimulus bill. it wasn't even good f.d.r. times -- you know, concrete and asphalt types of support. it was giveaways to states that had mismanaged their budgets. we could have learned and the republicans did know that the stimulus bill didn't work. we didn't vote for it. and what was the result? well, we should have learned from henry morgenthau because here's the result. this is when the stimulus bill was put in and it was projected that we're going to have unemployment going down. if you pass the stimulus bill, it's going to go down here.

if you don't pass it, it may get up to eight or nine. it dipped to 9.7. and if you look at the other graph -- i don't know if i have that graph here today, what you find is that the unemployment in the private sector has been going down and the government employment has been going up. so much for the first step of economic policies in the administration. now that was followed by all of these different nifty big tax increases. that says something's wrong when you have a recession and doing tax increases. and i'm joined in the chamber tonight by a fellow that is very aware of how these things interact and did a fantastic job for his district and i would like him to join me in our discussion, congressman scalise, please. mr. scalise: i thank my friend from missouri for leading tonight's discussion about the

economic problems that we're facing today in our country and of course as you showed those h comments from henry morgenthau who was the treasury secretary under f.d.r. who not only pointed out the problems of the massive spending back then, but really was kind of pressing because some of the things he talked about back then are still as relevant if not more today. because he predicted the problems, he discussed the problems of government spending and spending and borrowing and borrowing with no results. in fact with detrimental results because of the damage it's done and here we are today seeing the results of that same failed policy of history unfortunately repeating itself. and those who are running things right now, liberals not only in the white house but here in congress, have not learned the history. if you don't learn from history, then you are doomed to repeat it.

unfortunately, we have been trying to prevent history from repeating itself but we are seeing it right now. one thing that is happening, i represent southeast louisiana and we are battling this devastating oil -- mr. akin: maybe i should interrupt and recognize the gentleman, you have studied off on the oil spill situation and shown tremendous leadership there. and i'm very thankful for the fact that you have stepped into what appears to many americans and many conservative congressman as a leadership vacuum. you have really stepped in and i'm thankful for you doing that and i encourage you to make the connections here. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for his kind comments. i not only represent the people of my district and my state, but also to make sure that the president is meeting his responsibility under the law. and of course, under the law in this case with the oil pollution act, the president

hiffle self is responsible for directing the recovery and the responsible party, b.p. is responsible for paying. and b.p. ought to be paying, but the president is allowing b.p. to run the show on the ground in too many different areas, which is not his job. and now something that is adding insult to injury is that the president came out a few weeks ago with this ban, this moratorium on offshore drilling across the board. not focusing on finding out what went wrong on that rig, why the horizon exploded and we still continue to battle this oil today and many cases our local leaders told me just yesterday, our local leaders are spending more time fighting the federal government than fighting the oil, which is inexcuseable and it's still going on. mr. akin: could you hold that right there because you are something on something we ought to be exploring here tonight but we have an item of business and i'm going to yield to

congressman acurey. there was a rule that we are going to do. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? mr. arcuri: i send to the desk a privileged report on the committee of rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 1468, resolution providing for consideration of the bill, h.r. 5175, to amend the federal election campaign act of 1971 to proper hibt foreign influence in federal elections, to prohibit government contractors from making expenditures with respect to such elections and establish additional disclosure requirements with respect to spending in such elections and for other purposes.. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. the gentleman from missouri. mr. akin: i think we were just talking a little bit about the situation in the gulf that has gotten everybody's attention. my background's engineering,

gentleman, and my first reaction when there's a problem is how do you fix it. and what is puzzling me and made me pretty frustrated, it seems the administration is more in affixing blame than the problem. president bush took a whale of the beating after hurricane katrina because it took him two or three days after he had been rebuffed by the governor and mayor of louisiana there -- new orleans and took him a couple of days before they got going and our fema didn't respond very well, federal response was a bit weak in terms of the magnitude of the disaster. and yet by comparison, what we're dealing with here in the gulf is it took 50 days for the president to call ahead of b.p. he had the power, if i'm not mistaken, he had the power to

basically declare that a national emergency and get a team of people, fusion cell, get the top resources in america, pulled that together, process the different questions, sorted through the conflicting claims and started to put this thing together, put together a series of we're going to do this and this and this and that doesn't work, this is the backup plan. instead of 50 days, he calls the head of b.p. and just wants to reem the guy out. b.p. did a terrible job. but after the crisis started, it was the administration's problem to deal with, i didn't see fixing the problem. am i mistaken? i'm an outsider looking in. i'm up in missouri and we don't have too much coastline. mr. scalise: you and i have spoken about the problems on the ground and i appreciate your concern and the interest you have in trying to help us. i wish that the president had

that much interest in helping us in the day-to-day problems we're facing because the other day i was talking to one of the local fire chiefs who was there on the ground after katrina, who was there on the ground battling the oil and he said the level of government disfunction is higher today, more disfunction today than it was during katrina. in a case in point just happened yesterday, when the sand barrier plan that our governor and our entire congressional delegation fought for over three weeks to get the president to approve and last week when the president gave his address to the nation from the oval office, he bragged about the plan. yesterday, the federal government shut it down. mr. akin: wait. wait. wait. approved the sandbagging plan that we had been waiting to get approved and now shut down? mr. scalise: shut down yesterday by the federal

government. spoke to our governor's office and they said it was a federal agency that shut them down. i talked to the federal agency today and said we didn't shut them down. and they were shut down by the federal agency and again, this is a classic problem we have had every day. mr. akin: the federal agency said they didn't shut them down and in fact they weren't telling the truth and did shut them down. mr. scalise: whether the people in d.c. didn't know what their agents didn't know what they were doing but it is happening every single day. there are problems like this every single day. so you can't say it's miscommunication but a lack of leadership and the president under the law is responsible for that leadership and clearly he is not doing his job and not engaged. mr. akin: the vacuum of leadership, isn't it? mr. scalise: it's a vacuum of leadership because the law is clear that under the oil pollution act, when there is a spill the president is responsible for directing the recovery and the responsible

party, b.p., is responsible for writing the check. for allowing b.p. to make the decisions on the ground, yet, he is not doing his job, the president isn't doing his job under the law. if he doesn't like that law, he should try to repeal it but he ought to follow the law. mr. akin: i heard about this sand barrier thing. there are a lot of different ways you could try to mitigate the oil that's in the water. dispersements, hay in the water. one thing, you could dredge up a little sand bar which is flexible. pump it away a week later and that sand bar could protect these very delicate ecosystems along the edge of the water. they could trap the tar -- i mean the oil. . mr. speaker, i'm willing to yield about a minute or so to the gentleman if he had some

business of the house here. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. sherman: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman. i present a conference report to accompany h.r. 2194, the comprehensive iran sanctions accountability and divestment act of 2010 for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: to enhance united states diplomatic efforts with respect to iran, by expanding economic sanctions against iran. the speaker pro tempore: ordered printed. the gentleman may presume. mr. akin: thank you, mr. speaker. you know, some years ago, there's a place that had some good food in missouri. it was a truck stop-type places and it had a picture that was kind of a cute one. it had a beautiful john deere green wagon and had these two little kids dressed up in the

high bibbed blue and white striped overalways. one was pushing the wagon. it was stuck in a bump. he's looking back over his shoulder and the caption is "are you pulling or pushing back there?" and i got to think, poor governor jindal, you are trying to protect your environment, which is what the federal government is supposed to be demanding that we do, we have all these expensive bills to supposedly protect our environment. he says, let us build a simple sandbar and catch the oil on it and then take it away later and it takes the government a month to try to make a decision. the oil is already into all of these delicate ecosystems where the federal government is dithering around trying to make a decision. if i was governor of that state i would be jumping up and down mad. it's just a vacuum of leadership is what we've seen. and now you're saying the president said they could build

them and then they can't build them. there's no one in charge it seems like. >> and the gentleman's correct and not only the governor but the people throughout the gulf coast is jumping up mad because they're seeing this kind of dysfunction, this lack of leadership from the president every day in different ways and there's no reason for it. mr. scalise: when the president is giving speeches talking about how he's in charge and when something goes wrong nobody takes responsibility, nobody wants to be held accountable, yet nobody wants to help us solve the problem. you were talking about food and just monday i was in new orleans and ate at one of the great restaurants and was eating a shrimp po boy and the seafood is still great to eat. unfortunately, a lot of the seafood beds are closed right now. there are still seafood beds open. when you can find good seafood it's good to eat. and the shrimp was great. some of those seafood beds we were trying to protect. just weeks ago some of those seafood beds had no oil and today oil is starting to come

in and that's what this whole barrier plan is about, it's about protecting our marshes and estuaries, the pelican nesting areas. some of the other areas that hadn't been affected by oil we're trying to keep the oil out, and so we came up with a plan. unfortunately, the federal government didn't have a plan. so you would think that they would be working with us to help us implement our plan but in fact they've been fighting us. and it took us over three weeks to get the president to finally approve the governor's plan and he only approved 25% of it. he spent last hike in his national address -- last week in his national address like he approved the whole plan. there is a whole lot of seafood beds and marshes that haven't been protected. we were building up these barriers and then yesterday the federal government comes and shuts it down. again, this is something that we thought for over three weeks and the federal government finally permitted. they were so successfully, supposedly, that the president bragged about it on national tv and then yesterday they shut it

down quietly and we are not going to let this go by quietly. it's their job and they're not doing it. mr. akin: the question that raises my blood pressure is, it seems to me like president bush was accused for bringing hurricane katrina and yet we got the -- one of the biggest leadership vacuums in terms of this oil spill. every time you hear about something. there's also that moratorium that we're not going to drill any more oil wells at all. we are going to can sell every air flight in america cancel every air flight in america. there is enough cover-ups and different things that we don't know exactly what happened. but apparently the equipment, at least if it's functioning properly and it's been properly checked out should work. and so there's some human error involved clearly and possibly some equipment that was not properly inspected. so there's some problems, but that doesn't mean you shut every oil rig in the gulf down

while you're trying to figure out who did something wrong. and yet that -- we're looking at, isn't it over 100,000 jobs that we are going to all of a sudden disappear? mr. scalise: and that's exactly correct. and in fact, when the president came out with this ban, and he calls it a temporary pause, you're talking about about they do what the president said he wanted to do and that is for six months allowing no drilling in the gulf, ultimately those rigs, they're losing each of them is losing about $1 million a day and being lured by other countries, countries that want these valuable assets and the skilled workers that go with them. some people are starting to go to where zill and west africa. over the -- to brazil and west africa. over the next few weeks you'll see $6 billion, by last estimates, of federal revenues that will go away, but also the jobs. in louisiana alone it will be over 40,000 jobs that we will

lose. and so what happened was -- mr. akin: is that 40,000 jobs just in the oil industry alone? mr. scalise: just directly related to those rigs. of course, you have service industries. you have secondary spending that goes along that you can't even calculate it's so big but these are high-paying jobs. they are skilled jobs that will leave this country. some are already starting to. ultimately if you go back -- the president's trying to say this is a fight between safety and jobs. unfortunately, he probably or maybe hasn't even read the recommendations of his own scientists who came up with a report. they asked right after the explosion on the rig to have a panel of scientific experts that were assembled by the president and his secretary of interior to put together a report. and they asked for a 30-day report and sure enough this panel of scientists came back with this 30-day report to increase safety, to make sure you go and inspect every rig and the ones that are working

fine, like every one is, you allow them to do what they're doing. if there are any problems you find you address those problems. but you don't shut down an entire industry because one company didn't follow the rules. and in fact the federal regulator under president obama didn't enforce the laws that were on the books. so what the recommendation came back and said was, look at these safety guidelines we're giving you but don't shut the industry down. well, the president conveniently discarded, threw away the recommendations of his scientific panel after initially saying that the panel wanted the more tower yum. they apologized for -- wanted the moratorium. they apologized for that. a federal judge in new orleans said you cannot have this moratorium because it's not based on fact and it's not based on science. and it doesn't happen safety. in fact, it could decrease safety. yet, they still continue to ignore the fact that they're throwing away science and trumping it with politics. they're playing politics with

this decision. and they're still trying to ignore now a ruling of a federal judge and their own scientific experts to run out 40,000 jobs in louisiana to foreign countries and make us more dependent on foreign oil. mr. akin: just on what we talked about in 10 minutes tonight in terms of this leadership vacuum, we're seeing a threat to 40,000 jobs just in your state alone, 40,000. we're not talking about the barbers and the restaurateurs and other people supported by it, just 40,000 hard jobs being thrown by the drain when a panel of people who really have studied and know the industry simply say, look, go out to the different oil rigs. make sure they're inspected and up to speck because by the way, m. -- spec, because by the way, m.m.s., hasn't done that. make sure they're up to spec and then go ahead because there's nothing wrong. we've drilled thousands of

wells in water and they've worked fine. so just because one goes bad you don't shut the whole industry down. so we're threatening 40,000 jobs. in spite of what the panel recommended the president do. we're continuing to endanger the environment, which they're always screaming that they care so much about the environment. and yet they're the very ones preventing you from trying to protect the environment. and the thing that strikes me is, why do we put so much trust in the competence of the federal government? that's what's striking me. and that's part of the reason why i thought it was good to take off a little bit and talk about the gulf situation because we have this proposal now the president wants to use the fact that a company mismanaged their oil well and that he and his administration have made a complete mess of the management of that crisis to say now that we -- what we need to do is the federal government do this cap and tax bill which is more taxes, more

red tape and government regulation when the last government agencies didn't even do their job. and now he wants us to buy out more of that, not to mention the fact that we already passed this huge tax increase for health care. and now we're supposed to trust the federal government to take care of our own bodies. we took a look at what's it's doing down there in the gulf. i sure don't want the federal government tampering with my body. i'd end up with two left arms which is too terrible a fate for a conservative like me. mr. scalise: and if you look at what the president said in his speech last week, myself and many others were agered by the fact that he spent almost as much time trying to exploit this crisis to promote his cap and trade energy tax than he did talking about the oil spill and how we can battle the oil and keep it out of our marsh. and in fact, if he was just was doing his job and focusing on what his responsibility is under the law, then he actually would be focusing exclusively on helping us battle the oil instead of diverting and not

only blocking our attempts on the ground but then diverting it and exploiting it to talk about this cap and trade energy tax. but then you go into so many of the other things happening on the ground that is causing so much frustration for our local leaders who should be not only working with the government to battle the oil but they should be empowered. they should be given ideas from federal agencies. and, look, whether you're for bigger government or smaller government -- i'm for smaller government. right now we have the largest government in the history of our government. but whether you're for bigger government or smaller government, i think we should all expect competent government and clearly we're not getting that now. mr. akin: you know, the thing that strikes me, most of americans i know -- maybe because i'm an engineer and sees it that way -- but if you have this hole in the middle of the gulf and you're pouring this oil all over the place, the reaction of most people is, well, let's fix it. you know. let's get the job done. whether you believe in big government or little

government, what you want to do is americans have this can-do attitude. we have a problem, now we have to go in and fix it. we have to make sure we don't make those mistakes again and we're going to move forward. i don't like being negative. i like fixing problems. and i know you're the same kind of temperament. and we've been kind of complaining about the fact of a vacuum in leadership from the administration. and it's a vacuum that's evident in the gulf oil spill. it's evident in afghanistan. it's evident in a lot of policies. but let's -- let's stop for a minute. i don't want to be negative. i want to talk about, ok, let's say that we are president and we have this oil spill. what would -- what would be an appropriate response? my thinking is, i know the military has these things they call fusion cells. and it's a team of people that get together. it's a clearing-house for all kinds of information. you get the top resources all over america of what you need in different areas. you put a plan together. say this is our first attempt to stop this well up.

if this doesn't work we're going to this. that means we got to have this, this and this piece of equipment ready to go. it means we have to clear this and this with this agency. we have governor this, governor this, governor this asking for permission. we have to consider that, take a look at the law, move fast if we have to change the law or change some policy and we need to get back to them within 12 hours. and you have a whole team that is on top of it managing this thing. that's my sense of where we would be going. you have to be able to look at all of the data, get the right people in the loop and make decisions. we're not seeing any of that. mr. scalise: no. and another things that needs to happen is you need to have a real clear command structure on the ground where decisions are made quickly and decisively, and if things go wrong, there are people you can hold accountable to go fix them. and not to sit around and point finger, but to get things done. and the problem that we continue to have -- and we're over two months into this now. and there was no excuse for

these kinds of delays three, four days after the rig exploded. but especially two months later when everybody knows how important this is, how much national significance it has, not only for the 11 lives lost, for the environmental damage, but now for the economic and energy security issues that are being raised. you would think that this would be the number one priority of this president, and he would be focusing all of his resources. and when our local leaders have ideas like our local leaders have had ideas, then the federal government is right there working with them saying, how do we get this done today instead of three weeks gone by fighting with the federal government to get approval for things that should have been approved on day one if this was the top focus. and then whether the federal government is coming up with ideas. you know, i watched the movie "apollo 13" and it's an inspiring movie. it's a movie you watch if you want to get your juices boiling and you see what american ingenuity was all about. there was a case where the american spirit was alive and

well and in those nasa folks %% sat in that rom and said we're not -- road and said we're not leaving until we get our folks home safely. no is not going to be an answer and no excuse was going to be accepted. you don't have that same can-do spirit today by the federal bureaucrats who continue to block our attempts to protect our marsh, to keep the oil out of the seafood beds, to protect those pelicans and the other wildlife that are threatened every day. when we have ideas to protect them. and, again, if they got a better idea, wonderful. we'd love to hear them. unfortunately, not only do they have not any ideas to help them, but they're spending time blocking our attempts to save our marsh and there's no excuse for that. mr. akin: it's got to be terribly, terribly frustrating. my daughter was taking a biology class and did a paper on the whole oil spill and some of the different technologies for mitigating this really

raunchy oil that's floating around. one thing, there's a company that has, in barrels, it's a powder, like yeast, these little critters that will eat the oil. when they get done eating it, if there's no more oil, they die and other creatures can eat them and the whole thing cleans up the mess biologically, naturally. i don't know if that is a great solution but it seems to make a lot of sense. you've got people in the midwest, we've got plenty of straw and hay, there's even youtubes people are doing, put a bunch of straw in the water, all this very, very sticky oil clings to the straw, bring it in, burn it in an incinerator. americans have ideas how to do this. our government is standing around say, you can't do it. we don't like that idea either. the oil is piling up on the shores and we're just asking for some legitimate government. my friend, congressman broun,

from georgia, is here a medical doctor, also a guy with system strong ideas and common sense. it's a pleasure to have you. mr. broun: thank you, mr. akin, i appreciate you yielding me time you were talking about putting straw and hay in the oil, we can make electricity out of it. what better way to make electricity than that? before mr. scalise leaves, i think he knows what i'm fixing to tell the american people, madam speaker, we recently in fact just in the last day, sent a letter to the internal revenue service to ask them to give a special exemption for taxes on the money that all the people who are being harmed economically by this disastrous oil spill, won't have to pay tacks. what we're hearing is that --

on the money they get chsm is fair. we saw that happen, the internal revenue service was going to tax the recipients of money that they received in hurricane katrina. as you know in your own home city of new orleans. congress had to act to say to the internal revenue service, don't tax that money. i wrote to the internal revenue service and said, please, give a special exemption to all those businesses and individual who was been harmed. it's absolutely critical because these people have been out of work, many of them, for two months now. they're struggling just to make ends meet. it's absolutely critical and i hope the internal revenue service and this administration will immediately give a special exemption to all those people, the businesses, those individuals that are harmed. i hope that the american people will just have a tremendous outcry and have a heart for

those that are harmed and say to this fellow government, to the internal revenue service, don't tax these folks. i made an appeal to the internal revenue service, i hope you will join me in trying to get the internal revenue service to not tax these people who are already damaged and already hurt. it's not fair to those people. i want to say to my good friend from louisiana, we're fighting for folks do not knowledge louisiana but those in alabama, mississippi, florida, and all over the gulf coast, it may even affect people on the east coast, may affect -- may affect my home state of georgia. we're fighting for those folks and hopefully the administration will come forward to say, don't tax these benefits because they're not benefits. they're actually moneys to just try to help them get their lives back on track. that goes to the -- mr. akin: that goes to the same thing we're talking about. i don't like to be dumping on people for mismanaging

something but this is so outrageous. the only thing that could top the outrageousness of b.p. is the outrageousness of the administration to be sitting here two months after the situation without a clear cut plan. i would think the president would have some boards like this, he'd say, first thing we've got to do, this is like somebody in an automobile accident, they're bleeding. you're a doctor, dr. broun you stop the bleeding, first thing you do. so we have to stop the oil coming out of the flow of the ocean, we're going to do this, this, this, and this, in this order, we're putting together a team and plan to do that. here's the next thing. we got a situation with jobs down there congressman broun has an idea to help on the income tax side of it. congressman scalise has got a plan as to what to do with some sand berms to stop the oil from coming into the harbor. you put the team together to make decisions and deal with this.

so instead of fixing blame you fix the problem. all we've heard is the government getting in the way. my understanding is, private companies have more oil booms out there to collect oil than the federal government did. and that there are types of boom, i heard they're called fire booms, where they're a material that's more or less fireproof, corrals the oils, light the oil on fire they can burn the oil up before it drifts on shore and causes a lot of trouble. what is it, the government is just not -- the thing that drives me crazy, here's the example of the government totally failing and the gal of the administration to tush turn around and say we've got to pass a great big tax increase and we're going to give the federal government power to tell you you've got to put a 220 volt plug in your garage for your electric car and can't build a wing on your house without making sure the carbon footprint is right and we're

going to tax anybody every time you flip a light switch and we're going to try to pass this piece of trash bill and the excuse for this is the fact that we haven't dealt with the problem in the ocean. i just -- i don't understand how people can have such great, great faith in the federal government. it just blows my mind. of course, you know, gentlemen, the health care bill, every day that comes out we find out more and more problems. all things we were saying were going to happen, and it just -- it shows that the real objective here isn't health care at all. that's the ironic thing. this is not about -- this obama benchmark progress report, you know, here's the thing about jobs, is it going to help with jobs? no. it fail this is measurement, costs, today i want to lay out thh details of a plan that guarantees coverage for every american and brings down health care costs. he says it's going to bring

down health care costs? no. but the whole thing is a scam. all it does is businesses will dump their employees on the federal government and so why do we have so much trust the federal government should be entrusted with health care. you're a docttr. would you want to trust your body to the federal government when we've seen this record? >> mr. akin, you're exactly right. the american people get it, though this administration doesn't. that's the problem. -- mr. broun: whether it's the oil spill and the disaster going on there and their disastrous response to that, forcing obamacare through against the will of the american people, thall administration is showing the american people is its arrogance, its ignorance and its incompetence. that's exactly what the american people have seen. just on the oil spill the other day, i was talking to a fireman in my district, and he asked me about this oil disaster and the

poor response that this administration has shown. this working guy, just a guy trying to make a living and take care of his family and struggling to make ends meet, asked me if this administration was purposefully, purposefully not responding to this oil spill just so that they could force through their cap and trade? i call it tax and trade because the administration -- president obama himself said this was about revenue he had to have that revenue from this energy tax to pay for his health care plan, for obamacare. that's what we see over and other again. the american people get it. they understand it that this administration is bungling, the oil spill, obamacare, and you're talking about a budget, we're asking where is the budget back during the

obamacare debate, the leadership here in the house saiddthat they were going to deem and pass. deem and pass that sounds like a bad place in a spaghetti western where the bad guys set up to ambush the good guys. that's what was happening. now on a budget, we're saying we're not going to have a budget and that they're going to deem the budget so we're having another deem and pass by the leadership here in the hhuse to not even set forth a budget. and why? because democrats don't want to -- a lot of democrats, particularly the blue dog, don't want to vote for the massive costs being create,

incurred, tremendous debt already incurred by this administration and by this leader -- leadership in the house and senate. they're scared of what the american people will do in november. >> mr. akin: here's the democratic whip, congressman hoyer, saying, budget is the most basic responsibility of government. that's 2006. the most basic responsibility of governing is, what? the budget. then here's the guy in charge of the budget, congressman spratt if you can't budget, you can't govern. this is what they're saying in 2006. now we take a look at what's coming forward and we say, where's the budget? here's the hill pick this is up. skipping a budget resolution this year would be unprecedented. the house has never failed to pass an annual budget resolution since the current budget rules for put into place

in 1974, according to a congressional research service report. so since 1974 republicans and democrats have met in this chamber and every year, they put a budget together. some of them were a lot better than others, some were tighter, some tried to balance the budget but they always had a budget. didn't always get passed, didn't get taken care of the way it should, but they always had a budget. until when? until this year. why? why is it after our democrat leadership said it's absolutely essential to have a budget and they don't have one this year. why do you think that? mr. broun: before you take that down, you'd yield. the folks watching on c-span may wonder if congressional research service is some far-ought, right-wing group that might be trying to hammer the democrats and trying to castigate them in negative light but that's not so, is it?

mr. akin: the congressional research service is a bunch of professionals paid by the u.s. congress and try to be as objective as they can. they're not always right. but they at least are very, very good access to historical records and the history of the congress. the statement that the house has never failed to pass an annual budget resolution, that's historic fact. and so what we're seeing here is we're on uncharted ground, at least in 1974, there is no budget. why is there not a budget you made reference to it. here's the nasty little picture. we were told that george bush spent too much money, president bush. mr. broun: and he did. mr. akin: he did and in fact we voted no on some of what he wanted to spend money on. but his worst budget was when speaker pelosi was in charge of this congress right here. his worst deficit, $459 billion

in deficit that year. not proud of that people said bush spent too much money. here we come to the very first year of president obama and it's $1.4 trillion. three times the worst bush deficit. so if you had that followed by an even bigger deficit this year, yet unemployment at 9%, would you, if you were one of the democrats, want to pass a budget right now? i think they're running for cover. we have an expression in missouri, it's called hunker down. hunkee down like a toad in a hailstorm. it seems to me if i had anything to do with that level of deficit spending, i'd be hunkered down -- in fact, i think i would have resigned and gone to try to do something else with my time because this is totally destructive to our country. and we raised the country, is the objective to precipitate

such a crisis that they consolidate power in the federal government? at least it seems like to me the american people are going to say, oh, my goodness, you are going to have to create an awful good crisis for us to trust the federal government with the kind of quality of leadership that we've been seeing. mr. broun: if you would yield. mr. akin: i yield. mr. broun: one that wrote in his book -- and i am trying to learn about the progressives. there is another word for progressives -- socialist -- mr. akin: he was a communist? mr. broun: he was. mr. akin: and obama studied under him, right? mr. broun: that's what i understand. he dedicated the book "rules and radicals" to the first great radical, louis fer. -- lucifer.

mr. akin: satan, wonderful. did he have all of his bolts together? what was his problem? mr. broun: he rebeled, well, he rebeled against our creator, god, and was thrown out of heaven and we're having to fight all those spiritual wars today because of that. but the thing is what the -- what the progressives or radicals or socialists, whatever you want to call them, are trying to do are the proposal from people like him and others is that you totally destroy your enemy and then you building up a socialistic society out of that, and i've had person after person in my district, just working folks, not politicians, just working folks, say to me, paul, why is president obama trying to destroy the free enterprise system because that's what he's doing? i hear that over and over again.

from lower, middle-class working people to business men and women saying, why are we trying to destroy the free enterprise system? why are we getting this debt? and the people in my district is questioning this huge debt. what this chart shows is the deficits for each year. that doesn't reflect the debt that's accumulated. it would be an exponential number. mr. akin: an average guy on the street, say they're reading some newspaper headline over the last 18 mobts months. what's the impression they get -- 18 months. what's the impression they get? you have thii huge wall street bailout. you have banks getting billions of ddllars of taxpayers' tax money. that gets people excited and happy about that. so we're bailing out wall street, first of all. they have people that make the case that the economy was in very bad shape and that we had

to drop $700 billion -- we didn't vote for that. so we drop all this money into wall street. we bail out banks. we bail ut insurance companies and then the bailout people really get started which we predicted what happened if the federal government basically opens the door and we start bailing out government motors. i think it used to be called general motors before. and chrysler. and so we're doing that. and then we decide, hey, it would be great idea if we bail out the idea of college kids that wants to get loans. the government could take that over. and then the government is now in the process of collecting other things that it can own. of course, notably, 17% of the free side of the economy which used to be where you worked, doctor, in health care. so now the government's taken over 17% of the u.s. economy in the health care area. they're nibbling and just

salivating about taking over the energy business. and so if you're an average guy in the street and you start connecting the dots, which many people may not, but when you start to think about it, the government's taken over everything. and so it's not an odd thing for some taking a look at the headlines and looking back at the last 18 months to say, holy smokes, what's going on here. mr. broun: if the gentleman will yield? mr. akin: i yield. mr. broun: we've nationalized our country since the obama administration took over from the bush administration. we've nationalized more of our private economy under this administration than hugo chavez has in venezuela in the whole time the communist dictator, hugo chavez, has done there in his country down there in venezuela. mr. akin: i know america likes to win but i don't know if we want to do better than hugo chavez. that's not exactly where most americans would be going, i don't think. mr. broun: well, during the

bush administration, we had the tarp funds, the troubled assets relief program that the bush administration promoted actually through the secretary of the treasury, hank paulson, who came to us and said the sky was falling and we had to pass a tarp or the economy was going to crash. i voted against that. i was in favor of bailing out the incompetent wall street bankers for their malfeasance. i want to bail out main street. small business men and women. i want to bail out the small community banks. by getting the federal regulatory burden off of them. i think that the free marketplace, unincurvered by government regulation and taxes is the best way to control quality, quantity.

in health care services, as a doctor, or selling gasoline and automobile parts or appliances, like my dad did. or any other good or service, the best way to control it is through an open marketplace un incumbered by taxes and regulations. and the more taxes and relations we put on business and industry the higher the price goes, the worse the quality goes, it goes down and we have less of those things for the people who are consuming and we are going to see that in health care. i yield back. mr. akin: well, i appreciate , gentleman, your perspective on awful these things and i appreciate you sharing what your constituents tell you because it very much reflects what i hear when i go home. the question mark really is, what is the game plan of this administration? it seems that one thing you can say, whether it is the katrina

oil spill, whether it is the attempt to try to do the cap and tax or tax and trade or whatever you want to call it, a government takeover of energy is what i'd call it, whether you want to talk about socialized medicine, whether you want to talk about a whole series of different things, it seems like the pattern is that the every single thing the administration does is try to create an combimet class -- sblimet class, a victim class -- entitlement class, a victim class that is dependent on the federal government. if your body is physically dependent on the government to give you your health care, it makes you truly one of these dependent classes, and it seems like the government is trying to create all of us into a bunch of people totally dependent on the government. in fact, slaves to the government. and it reminds me, as we start approaching the fourth of july, how it was that the people of this country that said we don't really want the government to

be our master. we don't really believe in the philosophy that the government should provide everything for everybody. and i think the public is waking up to this. i'd be happy to yield you a minute if you'd like, gentleman. mr. broun: well, thank you. i appreciate you yielding back. we have about two more minutes left. i just wanted to say to add something to what you just said about being enslaved. my good friend, starr parker, who by the way is running for governor in california said she accepted jesus christ and our lord and savior and started looking at a lifestyle and started getting out of that welfare state she was in. she wrote a book called "uncle sam's plantation" which she described all that. and she's begun a great voice against this government largess, socialism, if you will, because she knows how it destroys families, it destroys communities, it destroys everything. and we are headed in a direction in this country where

freedom is being taken away from the american people. the american people need to stand up and say no to the steam rolling socialism and yes to freedom. let's stop all this government spending. let's stop all this bigger government and government takeover and let's put us back on the course of the constitution with limited government. that's what the tea party movement is all about. mr. akin: i really appreciate you mentioning star parker. she is a lot of fun. she's cute and she is very articulate. and she has just an amazing story about how the government tried to trap her into all of this welfare stuff and all the behaviors that would destroy her life. she came out of it through the power of jesus christ, started her own business. now the government gives her trouble while she's tried to run a business doing the right thing. the government is taking shots at her. she says, who's side are you on, government? you know, when i was doing the wrong stuff you were encouraging me. when i'm doing the right things you're giving me a hard time. what's the story here? as i said, i started with a

picture of that little green wagon and those two kids, one of them pulling and he other pushing. the guy looking over his shoulder saying, are you pushing or pulling back there? you know, it just seems like to me, is the government trying to help us or trying to destroy us? and it seems like every decision we've seen is more dependency on big government. thank you, doctor. it's a pleasure to join you and god bless america. mr. broun: thank you. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognnzes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes.

mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. it's an honor to be -- have the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the house of representatives. and pick up where my colleagues left off. they have given, i think, a good presentation over the last 60 minutes that covered a lot of important territory with regard to the budget and the spending. i think they made the point that since the rules of the house required a budget resolution this house has never before failed to pass a budget. and there are political reasons for that. i happen to see a quote over on the wall that i hadn't picked up before. it didn't occur to me. i'm sure it wasn't a republican, maaam speaker. it was a quote that generally speaking was this, until the deficit reduction commission would meet and produce a decision, we couldn't possibly pass a budget here in the house. and that would be -- oh, let me see, a week or two or so after

the election in november. imagine. congress can't do its work unless the president points a deficit commission -- appoints a deficit commission and that deficit commission couldn't possibly return a recommendation to this congress untillafter the people have spoken. it's amazing to me, madam speaker. the people have spoken. the people in this country have elected their representatives that serve on this side of the aisle over here on the majority and on this side of the aisle on the minority and we have a responsibility to step forward and bring a budget. and that budget needs to be the reflection of spending discipline and the spending priorities of the house of representatives. according to the constitution, all spending starts here. not in the senate. it starts here. and traditionally the house has received the president's budget, his budget recommendation. we have evaluated that budget in the process of moving a

budget resolution here in the house in a responsible fashion when the republicans were in charge, at least. i think in a less responsible fashion, but at least it got done before when democrats were in charge until now. but the spending has been so irresponsible that even the irresponsible overspending democrats don't have enough will to bring a budget to the floor and allow it to be debated and voted upon here on the floor of the house where the rules require us to do so because, why? because the president has appointed a deficit reduction commission after spending trillions of dollars irresponsibly and now he's put these brains to work to figure out how to solve an unsolvable problem. i know what that feels like, madam speaker. i remember going through the farm crisis in the 1980's. i remember when asset values were going in a downward spiral and opportunities for increasing revenue were also going in a downward spiral and

a customer base i had was doing what was happening to me. the bank was closed down by the fdic. all accounts were frozen. i had two pennies in my pocket, a payroll to meet, kids to feed, a business to run, bank loans to pay even though the bank was closed by the fdic. opened up the next monday by new owners. i know how that thing works. you step up to your responsibilities, but i sat at my desk with my legal pad and calculator trying to make it work. i know what it feels like when you feel like there's something wrong with your brain because you can't solve a problem. there's something wrong with the people's brain that are dealing with this problem. they can't present a budget to the congress because they created an intractable budget problem, not by getting caught

in an economic downward spiral exclusively but by going into a downward spiral where federal revenues are being reduced in proportion to the downward economic spiral while increasing the spending like they were in an upward economic spiral. these things are going in opposite directions. federal revenue going down, federal spending going up. the divergence of these two lines have gotten so far apart that even the people without a conscience toward balancing a budget and i mean the democrats in this congress, they're having trouble selling this idea to the blue dogs. blue dogs have been quiet, they're not as bold as they've been when i used to stand here and take lectures from them, they'd say we want to balance the budget. i voted for every balanced budget that's been offered on the floor of this house since i came here. i don't know why i wouldn't continue to do that. we're looking for a chance to

bring a balanced budget to the floor again, and we will. we will if we can break the mold here. but this house, led by the speaker, nancy pelosi, has so kowtowed to the president's priorities and tripled the number in -- it's $2.34 trillion of unnecessary spending. $2.34 trillion. and the president's budget, as he presented it, that's the only budget we've got to go with, no conscience to try to balance it, no conscience to try to limit it, today a baby born in america, their share of the national debt, might say that here's the i.o.u. that that little old baby when their footprint goes down on the birth certificate is $44,000. if we worry about the child, all the money it takes to

prvide health care and education and bring that child up to into responsible adulthood that will -- that little child that grows into responsible adulthood, we worry about them carrying a student loan debt that might be, oh, let's see, pick a number in the ballpark, it's no -- it's not a statistical number, a ballpark number, maybe $45,000 in student loans. we worry about that. i'd be happy to take that $40,000 loan and a guarantee of a college degree and think that child could pay that off. but for nothing, they don't get a college degree they don't get an education they just get access to citizenship of the united states of america for their $44,000 that's their share of the national debt. a little baby with ink on their foot stamped there on the birth certificate, there's one in this country we haven't seen,

but those we have seen, owe uncle sam $44,000. and, madam speaker, when that little child enters fifth grade, and i pick fifth grade thaws that's the budget cycle. we calculate our revenue screen and outgo over a period of time. we paw number on something like obamacare, what does that cost? that's over a 10-year period of time. from that period, 10 years from the time they're born they'll be starting fifth grade. they start fifth grade that little child that owes uncle sam $44,000 that was born today, owes uncle sam at that point, starting fifth grade, $88,000 under president obama's budget. doubles the individual national debt share just projecting the president's budget. that, madam speaker is what the

president's -- is with the president's own numbers. there isn't going to be a solution come out of the deficit commission because there's an intractable problem that's been created by irresponsible overspending and a myopic, wrong-headed view that john maynard keynes had the right idea when he came up with this cooked up theory back before the great depression began that if you wanted to recover from an economic downward trend, you would just take a lot of government money and borrow it from somewhere and dump it into the economy, give it to people and get them to spend it. that's the keynesian economic theory. government would put money into the hands of people, people would go spend the money, and spending that money would stimulate the economy. that's -- that was his plan. coming into the 1930's, when f.d.r. was elected, that's what they did. they overspent. they spent the country into more deficit than they had seen

before in borrowed money and put it into the economy and all kinds of programs, the w.p.a., the c.c.c.p. come to mind. it was nice to have the soup lines. but here's what i know. when government is putting out borrowed money to pay people to do something else that's in competition with the private sector or pay people not to work, it's awfully hard to recover economically because it takes the private sector to bring us out of this economy. so this white house now has taken a look at the model of the 18930's and the president of the united states' lesson, -- lesson, his takeaway from the whole lesson of the great depression was this. f.d.r. lost his nerve. this is what the president said, february 10, 2009, before our conference, 10 feet away from me, said, f.d.r. lost his nerve.

he should have speblet more money. if he'd spent more money, in the president's opinion this country would have come out of the great depression almost -- he didn't say this word, but before we got into the depths of it. f.d.r. lost his nerve, should have spent more money if he'd done that we wouldn't have had the depression that lasted a full decade and more he argued that because f.d.r. lost his nerve and failed to spend enough government money, what we had was, according to the president's words a recession wan depression and unemployment numbers that went up during that period of time instead of down. now, -- then he said along came world war ii, the greatest economic stimulus plan ever. i would even take issue with that statement. but i'll concede his point there and not make an argument because there's some basis for that statement. it's not completely offbase at all.

it's a different perspective i would emphasize but i would argue that sending this nation into debt and borrowing money an putting it into the hands of people, not in exchange for production but just in exchange sometimes for make work or doing something was not the right way to come out of a depression or a reseg. -- or a recession. what we need to do is increase productivity we need to get the private sector more competitive. he said everything but let the private sector get more competitive. but this keynesian economist on steroids which is our president has not made the same mistake he considered franklin delano roosevelt made. roosevelt lost his nerve, didn't spend enough money. the president hasn't lost his nerve he spent a lot more money than f.d.r. would have thought of spending he spent a lot more money than keynes would have thought of spending. keynes' argument was this -- i'll solve all the unemployment

in america for you, and here's how. we'll get a whole bunch of american cash. i'm paraphrasing, there's an exact quote that does take this message out. we'll get a bunch of american cash, american dollars, and i'll find an abandoned coal mine, we'll drill holes all over into that abandoned coal mine and stuff these holes full of cash. and then we'll haul garbage in there and fill that coal mine up with garbage. this is before the e.p.a. you might remember, and then we'll just turn the entrepreneurs loose to go in and dig up the money. people will dig up the money, there'll be a whole industry involved, almost like mining for gold, i'm adding embellishment here, i'm taking keynes' image and adding embellishment beyond. his idea was people would go dig up the money out of the holes in the abandoned coal mine and it would become an industry. they would probably need

equipment they would need shovels and there would be people indust reously digging through garbage. it wouldn't like gold where you had to go to the assay office. it reminds me of the movie called "magic christian" and the "magic christian" movie they wanted to emphasize there were a lot of greedy people in the world they fill this swimming pool full of sewage, garbage, junk that would be revolting to jump into. there's a scene where doctors and lawyers and professionals and probably gangsters and every character you can think of that they wanted to denigrate are diving into it. they filled it full of garbage and junk and sewage and then dumped a bunch of cash in there they had people diving into that, fighting other the cash that image in "the magic christian" is the same image, osimilar image produced by john maynard keynes but those things

don't produce an economy they don't produce wealth. we have to produce goods and services essential for the survival of humanity and essential to improve the productivity of human i -- humanity so there's a savings or disposable income of this so we can do what we enjoy doing. if an economy compresses down to the essentials, it will be a survivalist economy where our effort goes to staying alive. the next level is the level of productivity where our endeavor increases our productivity so we can be competitive and we can compile wealth and use that wealth to increase that productivity that increase ours standard of living and quality of life. if the survival component of the economy gets high enough, then there's disposable wealth for us to spend to enjoy life. like go to the ballgame, go on a vacation, take the kids

fishing, go to disney world, take the family out to washington, d.c. to see the monuments, go to the national archives and to arlington cemetery. those things, that's from disposable income that comes out, the recreational travel, the nonessential things that we spend money on and that creates another industry. as you chase those industries down, you'll chase them down to those components that are essential for the survival of homo sapiens on this planet. that's the real economy. that's the economy we have to stimulate, it's stimulated by low taxes, stimulated by the regulation and it's stimulated by entrepreneurs that understand the idea that they can invest some money or create an endeavor that will produce a profit for them that feeds their family and has -- builds up some capital that can be used to increase productivity so that the business can grow and they can hire employees and

people have jobs. that's the economy we're supposed to support. i think it's completely outside the understanding of the white house. i look around and i wonder who in the white house has actually signed the front side of a paycheck? who has had employees, who started a business? who's bought a business?%- who's maintained and expanded an existing business that's in the white house circumstance snl who thinks like a free enterprise capitalist or like an entrepreneur? is there anybody there that has an instinctive unctioning of what it's lake to start with something or maybe start with nothing and create jobs and wealth? that's what america has done. we've had the scenario that lets us do that. we had entrepreneurs. we had people with the dream that came to the united states because they knew this was the place where they could be allowed to succeed and no one could come and take away the fruit of their labor and their endeavor. that's been the american dream

and it's been the american guarantee, but now, now the white house can go in and order the terms of a bankruptcy for chrysler or general motors and direct that 17357b9% of the shares of general motors be handed over to the labor unions. the united auto workers. who didn't have skin in the game, except the potential for a future job. yes they had a benefits package out there. but their skin in the game wasn't conceded. they didn't concede a single point. maybe some outside claims on insurance that could come in later years. all of them at the table believed it would be replaced by obamacare anyway. they got handed 17 1/2% of general motors at the expense of the secured creditor the stockholders, bondholders that had the real thirst, the first

mortgage on the asset values of general motors taken out by the white house. never before in america have we seen a scenario like that. it was testified under oath by the treasurer of the state of indiana that in the case of chrysler though because ma white house went into the bankruptcy court and dictating terms going in and the terms that came out the other side after the hearings of the chapter 11 were exactly the terms dictated by the white house. the testimony that took place in the chapter 11 bankruptcy hearings there wasn't one jot or diddle that was changed as a result of the testimony because the white house dictated the terms. the obama administration were the only ones evaluating the assets of cries lever going into chapter 11 and was the only buyer on the other side? the white house. never before in a bankruptcy

court. you can't get justice out of a scenario of a chapter 11 bankruptcy court that allows the same entity that's setting the terms to be the entity that's buying. the white house is saying, here's what the value of chrysler is and here's what we're willing to pay and nobody else gets to be better and in the case of general motors, take these shares away from the shareholders, take the assets away from the secured bond holders and hand them over to the united auto workers so, what, so they can run the business of general motors for the people -- the benefit of the people affected by it. doesn't that sound good? doesn't it sound great, madam speaker? run a fortune 500 run by the people affected by it. where have i heard that language before? run a business for the benefit of the people affected by it. oh, yes. i know where i heard that

language before, madam speaker. i read it on the socialist website. you can go read it yourself. dsausa.org. they want to nationalize the fortune 500 companies, which would include general motors and chrysler. i don't know it it includes b.p. and i imagine they're in their sights today. and they say, we're not communists, we're socialists. we don't want to nationalize every business in america, we just want to nationalize the fortune 500 companies and a few others that catch our attention. and we want to manage them for the benefit of the people affected by them. that's a quote. manage them for the benefit of the people affected by them. closed quote. dsausa.org. the socialist website. who by the way tell us they don't have candidates on the socialist ticket if they're democrats or republicans,

libertarians, communists. they run as progressives. and they say the progressives are the legislative arm of the socialist. so i read this and i'm thinking, all right. but why would i take that seriously? why are they attaching themselves to the progressives in congress? so i research a little more and i find out there's a website for the progressives here in congress. raul grijalva. it's on a blue board with white letters presented by keith ellison. i go back and do a little research. i find out that the socialists were the ones that managed the progressives' website until 1999. yes.

they are married. they're joined together at the hip. they're siamese twins. the progressives here in congress are the siamese twins of the socialists of america. the socialists ran their website until they took a little heat in 1999 and they decided, the socialists running the progressives website was too obvious a link, so the progressives took over their own website and started to run it from there. but the socialists still have on their website the proud bond between them and the progressives in the united states congress. and the last time i looked at the list of progressives on the progressives website there was 77 members of congress that were listed and of these 77 members it would be obviously among the most liberal left-wing members of congress. but the people of america don't think of liberal left-wing democrats as socialists. they think of them of people

for a little more social justice but they don't think of them as socialists. but they would read the socialists website. i think that might be a pretty good description of what a pocialist is. what you read on the website that they want to nationalize the fortune 500 companies and then you can minimize your dsausa.org website and then go open up the progressive website and read on there what they want to do. well, let me see. they want to nationalize the energy industry in america. they want to nationalize the oil refinery in america. those would be statements written, stated by maxine waters of california and maurice hinchey of new york, respectively. i read those statements through the press. i hear them make them. and i go back and look at the progressive website. and it says on there proud member of progressive, put this in quotes, proud member of the progressive caucus, maxine

waters, maurice hinchey. and then i go over to the socialist website and i read on there, we want to nationalize the fortune 500 companies. we want to nationalize the energy industry. we want to nationalizz the oil refinery industry. you see the pattern here, madam speaker. what's on the socialist website is an agenda. is on the progressive members of congress's caucus agenda. and this agenda is being carried out by the white house and people are proudly advocating for these ideas while never admitting that they're a siamese twin of the socialist who brought this out, they've done so for a couple of decades or more, made this advocacy. and bernie sanders is the one member, senator bernie sanders of vermont is the one member of the progressive caucus, at least on the list, that's not in the house but he's down the hallway, straight down there in the senate, madam speaker, bernie. senator sanders. he's a self-avowed socialist.

i know of no one that's tried to rebut his statement that he is a socialist. he's a proud socialist united states senator. he remains, i believe, a member in good standing of the progressive caucus over here. bernie sanders advocates many of the things that are on the progressive website, and certainly they're tied together. i've explained how that works. he advocates many of the things that is on the socialist website. he's the highest profiled socialist in the united states of america, and no one has challenged his position that he's a socialist. that would be like someone saying steve king's not a republican, madam speaker. and so i take him at his word. senator sanders from vermont is a socialist. they've elected him. that's how it goes. i don't like it but that's how it goes. in fact, i don't dislike him. i just disagree with him

philosophically. but that's how it goes in america. so he's a pro grossive and a socialist and -- progressive and a socialist and we have 77 members progressives in this congress. are they socialists? i don't know if they all are. if you look at the voting records of president obama when he was in the united states senate serving with bernie sanders, it's clear that president obama voted to the left of socialist senator sanders of vermont consistently. to the left. so, madam speaker, the argument is not, what is the ideology of our president? it is, what is to the left of a socialist? that's the argument that's out - there. that's the thing we need to consider and contemplate. and i believe this, if you want to declare something not to be socialism, however it is socialism, you have to figure out how to redefine something to the american people. they're smart enough to know what words mean. they know what socialism is.

they know what irresponsible overspending is. they know when a president and a congress led by speaker pelosi and majority leader reid disagrees with the word of the american people. they understand that it's free enterprise that's driven the economy of this nation to success and economically has been the component that allowed for the united states of america to be the unchallenged greatest nation in the world. they understand that the bogged down -- the bogged down economies of managed economies, whether it was central planning in the soviet union that finally collapsed in 1991 or whether it is the unstimulating economy that has bogged down western europe for a long time, that the vitality in this american economy that keeps chugging along is rooted in the individual entrepreneurs that is the invisible hands that are

making decisions every day that turns this economy and makes it move. and we're not about to give up on free enterprise even though we have people that don't believe in it that own the gavels today. even though we have a president of the united states and a white house staff and a lot of a cabinet that don't understand or appreciate nor believe in free enterprise capitalism. and i doubt if there's anybody out there in the white house that can say, yes, i read "wealth of nations," i understand it, i understand the division of labor, i understand the comparative -- comparative advantage that adam smith wrote about. no, they understand karl marx but they don't understand adam smith. this is where we are. and it's why we have to push the reset button in november. this nation is resilient. we can come back from it. we have a lot of debt and deficit we have to pay off. we have a lowering national --

national image abroad. we have a military that took a sincere -- let me say -- a military that took a serious reset today. and i pray that it gets turned out for the best. i think that some of our tasks are very difficult, but finding our soul is going to be the most difficult one. america will produce and bring us to a greater level of greatness yet if we find our soul, if we redefine and identify the pillars of american exceptionalism and charter ourselves down that path that goes down the shiny hills of america that ronald reagan spoke of that we can see just beyond our horizons right now, madam speaker. so truthfully, i didn't come down here to talk about the things i just spoke of in the

last half-hour. there is a seg way into this. i -- segue into this. i mentioned obamacare issue and here's where we are. whether it was two months or three months ago today that obamacare passed, i think this is a monthly anniversary of the tragic day when this congress refused to use its common sense and refused to listen to the will of the people. somehow they seem to be shut up here in washington and couldn't -- that our constituents couldn't get to them. and they hammered through and forced fed an obamacare bill on the american people that today is the law of the land. and there was a cry that went out for almost a year from this country of the people that said i couldn't want my health care taken over and nationalized by the federal government. and bills that came in that 1,994 pages dropped on us last november, near the end of october. it actually might have been october 31.

i remember i came. it was on a thursday. 1,994 pages. we had a quick meeting a couple hours the bill is out. nobody is working with our side of the aisle. this is all drop in, wish on them, if you can, bring it as fast as you can, don't try to regroup their forces. we are going to bring this obamacare bill and try to bring it into law. well, a couple hours after it was elect tropically available, our -- electronically available, our very astute staff put together obamacare. and after that two hours they presented us in a period of about an hour of what they thought was in it in a quick cursory example. they broke it apart in titles and went through those titles and told us what they thought we had. i appreciate the work that was done. but we understood this. we had to kill the bill. we put all kinds of effort into that. people from every state came to this city to lend their voices in trying to kill obamacare

because they wanted to keep their freedom. i want to keep my freedom, and i joined with them. we came very, very close. november, december, right down to christmas eve when harry reid, the old scrooge, put the bitter pill out there on the floor of the senate and america was force fed that bitter pill that took away the liberty of the american people and nationaliied our skin and everything inside it. that passed the senate on christmas eve, and then it still had to face a cloture vote in the senate and the massachusetts delegation, the people from massachusetts, excuse me, rows up and said -- rose up and said they are going to do the impossible and they elected scott brown to the united states senate and said i will oppose obamacare and he