willson who's from the youngstown area, i invite him to come talk to us. which will which will thank you for convening this discussion. i appreciate both of my colleagues from the california area and say that i represent the ohio river valley area that runs from youngstown down through stevenville, athens, marietta, athens, on down. so it's all along the ohio wriver where we have had for many years and generations, steel workers and people that have helped to move this economy and our country forward. but by july 17 over 11,000 people in the state of ohio will lose their unemployment benefits. this is due to the senate's inaction to extend unemployment benefits which contribute to the important everyday expenses like paying your mortgage, health care bills, utility bills and cost of food when there isn't a paycheck coming in.

. i believe it's important we continue to support unemployment insurance. on july 1, i was proud to vote in favor of the house-passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits for millions of american families. this six months of extension of benefits will not only help families looking for work but it's a proven fact it will boost our economy also. in a recent "washington post"/abc news poll more than six in 10 americans support congressional action to extend unemployment benefits for jobless workers. and the "washington post" agrees stating in a recent article that passing the extension of unemployment insurance is both the right thing to do and the fiscally prudent thing to do. i would like to quote the "washington post" editorial.

drawing -- drawing the deficit line at additional unemployment benefits is shortsighted because, if anything, the economy could benefit from more stimulus spending, not less. unemployment benefits, which are most apt to be immediately plowed back into the economy are about the most stimulus form of spending, extending them sensibly and decent. unemployment benefits are an essential lifeline. the senate needs to extend them. in fact, the analysis from the nonpartisan congressional budget office suggests that extending unemployment benefits is one of the most cost effective and fast acting ways to stimulate our economy. it's not just the c.b.o. many economists agree by extending these benefits decrease the changes of slipping back into a double-bip

recession. i have here from the chief economist at moody's to senator john mccain who says for every dollar that is invested in unemployment insurance, $161 is pumped back in to the american economy. i hope everyone can see the need for extending the unemployment benefits and get the people in the senate do the right thing and pass unemployment. mr. garamendi: thank you very much for the view from the greater ohio valley. you and i were chatting off the floor and you raised another point and i would like the two of us to talk about this for a second. we are faced with a choice. first of all, this is unemployment insurance. this has been a program in which over time, employers pay into a fund for insurance if their

workers become unemployed. because of the downturn in the economy, the federal government has had to backstop that insurance program. presumably we get the economy going. it will be refunded at the state level. but with regard to the individuals involved here, if -- their unemployment insurance has run out. they have not received a check now i think for the last two weeks. if this is not extended, what happens to them? will will what will happen is they will -- mr. wilson: what will happen is they will go down to the welfare level and i think it is the biggest part of cruelty and secondly, i believe the states are scraping by with not having the proper funding that they need. to push this down to the state level would be catastrophic. mr. garamendi: and a person who was receiving insurance is now going to be on welfare. >> mr. wilson: that's correct.

mr. garamendi: i know what happened in this house. the democrats almost universally voted for this. we were able to get 29 republicans to vote for this unemployment insurance program and only 29 republicans did so. we were able to pass it. 153 republicans voted no. so what's the sense of all this that raises the question in my mind because as we go through these bills that have been passed from this house signed into law, the republicans universally vote no on these jobs bill and unemployment insurance. i don't quite get it. we were talking about the homeowners and the first-time home buyers' tax relief for small businesses, emergency relief for american families, that bill passed here with only 7% of the republicans voting yes, 93% voting no. even on student aid, we're

talking about men and women that want to go back to school, that want to be able to continue their education. one of the most important ways to stimulate the future economy is to have a well educated work force. in that case, that particular piece of legislation that passed this house would have increased the pell grants so that kids and adults could afford to go to school. what did the republicans do? not one republican voted for student aid to help students continue in school. i'm curious what's going on here. i noticed that my colleague from connecticut has arrived here, john larson. tell us what's going on in connecticut. mr. larson: let me thank the gentleman for organizing this special order hour and i associate myself with the

remarks of the the gentleman from ohio and join with you -- well, frankly out of frustration in terms of the kind of opposition that we're seeing in the united states senate on an issue that's so important to people who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves in a situation where they are unemployed. i think during this bush recession, as we per servered through the bush wars and financial collapse that unemployment has hit this country hard. when america loses, $17 trillion in wealth and assets from march of 2007 to february of 2009, then you begin to see why americans are so frustrated with

the circumstances. and while this administration under barack obama has created six million new jobs, the frustration remains amongst the american people. and in the midst of all of this, to deny unemployment benefits to those who are most in need, especially as the gentleman from ohio has pointed out, when we know that for every dollar we send in unemployment benefits creates $1.61 in the economy because the need is there to spend. franklin roosevelt said it best about our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they are frozen in the ice of their own in difference. frozen in the ice of their

indifference to people who are without work. frozen in their icy indifference between the need to invest in america and make things here in america and put this country back to work. frozen in an indifference that has them preoccupied politically and obsessed with blocking every item on the obama agenda, even if it means providing unemployment to those who need it, even if it means providing health care to those who have had their policies rescinded or found themselves in a situation because of a pre-existing condition where they were denied coverage. this is the kind of thing that has frustrated americans. i'm proud to be associated with the gentlemen who have come to this floor to speak out on behalf of their constituents, speak out on behalf of an administration and point down the hall where they need to come

and work more than 314 bills that have passed the house of representatives, have gone unattended to down in the united states senate. and most importantly, including unemployment benefits. stay in over the weekend. do your work. put america back to work. provide those with the benefits that need them so we can keep this economy going and so we can restore the faith in the american people in their government. i thank the gentleman from california for organizing this important hour on this very timely and important issue. and thank the gentleman from ohio for joining him. mr. garamendi: mr. larson, thanks very much. you brought a great deal of passion. i know it's in your heart and you see this problem in your own district among friends and others who are there. i'm going to go through and i want to turn back to my

colleague from ohio and california in a moment. i said there were seven pieces of legislation that have been passed and signed into law and i'm going to go through them quickly because in their own way, each one of these has created economic growth and jobs here in california, in ohio and in other states across the nation. i mentioned the american recovery and reinvestment act. we talked about the worker home ownership and business assistance act, first-time buyers. mr. larson talked briefly about insurance reform, the way in which the insurance system discriminates against women and people who have pre-existing conditions. that insurance reform was embodied in the health reform act that passed this floor and not one republican voted for it. there will be a day of reckonning when someone says, my 23-year-old daughter can stay on my insurance because the democrats and president obama passed the health insurance

reform act. student aid. we talked about that a moment ago. extremely important, so kids and adults can go on to school and stay there and improve their skills and as the economy is coming back, will be able to get a job. this one i found to be personally very upsetting because my old clunker did not qualify. i did not register it in california. and by the time you passed this, i wasn't here. it wasn't registered and i couldn't get rid of my clunker, but 700,000 cars were sold as a result of the clunker program and it did help american automobile manufacturing. i know a lot of people say toyota got more than its share and it did, but a lot of that was collas that were manufactured in california. we talked about the hire act.

and incidentally, 95% of the republicans voted against the cash for clunkers law. the hiring incentives to restore employment act created 300,000 jobs, created. not some wish list, but created 300,000 jobs and billions of dollars in infrastructure across the united states, streets, roads, sanitation facilities, cut taxes for businesses that hire new workers that had been unemployed and crack down on offshore -- this one i love -- i'm going to come back to this one. again, 97% of the republicans voted against that program. 300,000 jobs. what are you guys doing? we need to put people to work. and most of the republican leadership eventually did become law and many, many republicans voted against this one, which was the credit card holders'

bill of rights. which one of us has not been ripped off by a credit card scam or scheme. i got more than i would like to say in my pocket. gives us a little bit of an equal footing on that. here's seven bills providing the opportunity to get reasonable credit, hire people, cash for clunkers, education, health care and other kinds of stimulus. democrats on this side took it upon themselves to shoulder the burden to pass the legislation necessary to put people to work. and my final point before i turn back to my colleagues is that the argument that i keep hearing is, it will raise the deficit. yes. but we ought to understand where the deficit really came from. and we'll go through that. the deficit was really created as a result of three things. keep in mind that when clinton

left office, this nation was in a surplus. we were running a surplus over -- half a trillion dollars. george w. bush came in and did three things that created, as he left office for the next 10 years, an $11 billion deficit. one, he started two wars, iraq and afghanistan, and didn't pay for them within the first time in american history. secondly, he started medicare part d, the drug benefit, just under $700 billion to $800 billion, not paid for. and thirdly, the great recession, with the financial collapse. those three things added up beginning the day that clinton took office. he was handed a $1,3,00

000, 000. $11 trillion deficit. we have to put people to work and the question i always ask, do you want tax takers, welfare recipients who cannot get a job, cannot get unemployment insurance or do you want taxpayers? the democratic house has voted consistently to put people to work so they could become taxpayers. . ms. sanchez. ms. sanchez: when the democrats look at what we can do, if we are going to spend money, we should spend money to invest in america. there are four major things in economics 101 or any other book you read on economics that will tell you how to increase the productivity and the innovation of a nation because that is how

we compete by increasing the productivity of americans. the first is you have to have an educated work force. so some of the bills that my colleagues mentioned are about education, education, education. mr. garamendi: excuse me if i might, there is some house business that needs to be attended to, and i noticed our colleague arriving from the rules committee to take care of some house business. excuse the interruption, please. i yield. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? mr. arcuri: i thank the gentleman. madam speaker, i send to the desk a privileged report from the committee on rules for filing under the rules. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 1517, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h.r. 5114, to extend the authorization for the national flood insurance program, to identify priorities essential to reform an ongoing stable functioning of the program, and for other purposes.

the speaker pro tempore: it will be referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. mr. arcuri: thank you, madam chair. ms. sanchez: as i was saying -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. garamendi: please continue. ms. sanchez: as i was saying, there are four basic things you need to do to increase the productivity of your people, first is to educate your people. we have been putting money into that, including the g.i. bill that we passed over a year ago. health. if your workers aren't healthy, they can't go to work. so the health care reform, incredibly important. transportation, how do you move people and goods? that was part of the recovery act when we said let's build high-speed rail, when we said, let's put in systems of water and sanitation that work for our people. and number four, communication. investing in innovation and communication for our people in broadband that we've been

putting across our nation. so that is the way we increase the productivity of our people. and i have to say that on this side, on the democratic side, even though people had been saying that we have been deficit spending, i say to them, anytime you can invest in the american people, the american people will pay you back four or five or 10-fold on that investment. so i am again proud to stand here with you and talk about the accomplishments of this congress. mr. garamendi: let's turn to ohio and we'll continue on with the story of the jobs and what it means in our local districts. mr. wilson: thank you. in addition to supporting those that are out of work with unemployment benefits, we need to support small business so that they can create more job opportunities for our work force.

why aren't small business hiring? on n.p.r. this morning, one small business owner said it's clear as anyone can say. small business are not hiring because they don't have to. they need to create an economic environment -- we need to create an economic environment that makes it necessary for small business to hire. as we all know, 68% of the new jobs come from small business. most americans get their first job at a small business. i know i did. and the small business on main street are the ones that lead our economic comeback. but the big business is on wall street. so what can we do here in congress to help small business? access to credit is one of small businesss' biggest challenges. for small firms to play their job creation role, they need the right tools to work with. and without the access to capital, small business have a tough time staying afloat.

according to the s.b.a., without access to affordable credit, small enterprises are twice as likely to fail. compared to businesses that can find credit. they must be able to access capital to be able to get their new venture off the ground or expand their operations. given how tight credit market are, that's a challenge that every business in every community is encountering. that's why congress has taken steps to address these problems. legislation that congress passed in february strengthen the s.b.a. lending programs and made them even more useable for small business. this important new law does a number of things to help small business. it provides interest-free loans of $35,000 given that shot in the arm, the immediate cash to cover existing business obligations. it makes it easier for small business owners to get small business s.b.a. loans, that is, cutting away much of the red tape.

so many people have stayed afrom s.b.a. because of the red tape. that has been cut back significantly or eliminated in many cases. this will reduce the cost of loans. it helps small firms raise equity and capital. in total, the new law will generate $21 billion in new lending and investment for small business. these programs when paired with existing programs at the small business administration will help businesses to continue in -- to lead us back to prosperity. i support the small business lending act. it will have investment capital in community and smaller banks. the more the participating banks increase their total loans to small business the more favorable the terms become. and finally, i also support the small business jobs tax relief act. it's a companion measure to

small business lending fund that will help small business grow and create new jobs through, number one, 100% exclusive of small business capital gains. small business penalty relief and increased deductions for startup expenditures. again, i'd like to thank congressman garamendi for convening this hour and find the solutions for the problems we have in ohio. mr. garamendi: i want to thank you for mentioning creating small businesses. you also referred to two bills that passed this house, h.r. 5297, which was the small business lending program and it did all the things you said. there's actually $30 billion in that that would be available to community banks to deliver loans to small businesses. $30 billion made available to them.

there's also a requirement that those funs that they have 10 years to pay back those funds. it would go on the books at the bank as a loan but would be the long-term loan. i'm told by the small businesses in our area that they're able to get $1 million of capital, which this provided up to $30 billion to small banks, if they could get $1 million of capital, they could get $10 million -- they could make $10 billion in loans. that bill passed this house with 98% of the republicans voting no. now, i don't know how many times i sat here on the floor and listened to our colleagues on the republican side of the aisle talk about their support for small businesses, but here where they had a concrete chance to help, community banks and small businesses, 98% of them voted no. you mentioned the small business tax incentive program. $3.5 billion of tax incentives for small businesses to

specifically help small businesses weather the storm. it also granted a tax relief from penalties that they may have had from mistakes that were made in the past. again, a bill specifically designed to help small businesses. 97% of our republican colleagues voted no on that. so don't come to the floor and say you're for small businesses when you had a chance to vote for legislation that would specifically help small businesses. there's another one that just came to me. this has been -- we actually passed it. it's a good bill. it's important for many reasons, but i got a phone call last saturday from a friend who was a home builder in california. he built many homes, high-quality homes, was deeply involved in making those homes as green as possible, large energy conservation in solar and the like. he said, john, you've got to

make sure that the home star programs that provide an incentive for homeowners to upgrade their home so that they can install triple-paned windows, insulation, they're really important because it gives the homeowner a chance to reduce their annual energy bill. whether it's heating in the winter or air conditioning in the summer. and he said, besides that, it's my new business. it's my new business. i'm not building homes for a while because of the market in the area which he was working, but he said i'm going to existing homes and giving them a chance to make their homes energy efficient. i can make some money. they'll make some money. there's other programs that are out there that provides additional assistance such as tax credits, and i want to come to that in a few moments.

so when that bill was on the floor, what happened? where do you stand? do you stand with homeowners and small businesses such as i just described or are you standing for wall street? well, let's find out. 93% of the republicans on this floor voted against the home as far energy program. i don't get it. i don't get it. we're saving energy, helping us consume less energy, giving people an opportunity to work and homeowners an opportunity to reduce their energy bill. i don't know what that means in ohio, but i do know what it means in california. it's a chance for a small contractor to change his business model and to move in a direction that's good for him, good for the homeowner and good for america. mr. wilson: i believe we've seen examples of this back in my district in ohio, also. we've seen a roofing company that we just visited last week and they've come up with a new

type of roof that is a green roof. it actually has vegetation growing on it. not only keeps the inside of the building cooler, but it's much more pleasant to look at. and another option they had was a white roof instead of a second, and i was amazed with that white roof, congressman, you can hold your hand out like this and just feel the heat reflecting back off that roof versus going into the building. and these are the type of energy efficiencies that remember' going to have to look at as we move forward -- that we're going to have to look at as we move forward. mr. garamendi: and these are the jobs that don't require a ph.d. people can take these jobs that are working on the line in a manufacturing industry or working in the housing industry. they may already have some skills that are available to them. but there's an enormous, enormous potential here. and the other pieces of legislation provide for a tax credit to the homeowner to put

in these systems. so we need to really move along on these kinds of things. i'm going to just run through another series of bills that are very important to us, i believe. again, these are jobs for main street act. it creates jobs for firefighters, for teachers and to rebuild highways and the like, extending health care benefits for those who had lost their insurance because of the downturn. something as sensible as keeping teachers employed, something as sensible as making sure that firefighters are still there. yes, it's the federal government helping local governments. it's true. and it is a deficit issue, but what if we don't have teachers, what if there are teachers being laid off and the classroom size goes from 20 to 30? what about the next generation's ability to compete internationally, their opportunities are stifled? that's not a what if. that's my daughter's classroom.

she's a teacher, first grade. she's gone from 20 to 30. the economy's down, the state of california's in financial trouble, the federal government has the ability to help here. keep people employed, teachers in this case, others in schools, and more important of all, make the most fundamental investment which is the investment in the education of our children. . mr. wilson: we are trying more than ever to get the reading programs going as best we can and what we found out is when a child can read and comprehend, the science and math scores go up and the discipline problems go down. so the education and the development and work that we have going on in the state of ohio, something that our governor has been very firm about is not giving up the fight for a better education for our

children. mr. garamendi: these things are critically important. one more bill that i want to take up before i turn to what we can do next is a bill that dealt with the fundamental reason that the american economy crashed in 2007-2008 and that was the meltdown of wall street. the extraordinary greed, the games that were being played, the gamble that was being made with our money by wall street led to the collapse. the housing industry, the sub-prime mortgage, the derivatives, all of those games being played on wall street. for more than a year, almost two years now, this house, the democrats, have fought to rein in wall street, to force wall street to operate with rigorous rules that hold them accountable and responsible. we finally succeeded late last

year to past the wall street reform act. it went over to the senate. it took nine minutes to gestate a bill. the bill came to this floor and we added a few provisions to the -- the bill came to the floor and passed with provision that is were added during the conference committee. a good bill. it does rein in wall street and does set clear rules. makes it impossible for a bank to fail and for taxpayers to bail out a big bank. there are things in it that went beyond that, providing opportunities for small banks, some of the additional benefit to small banks. they were given a bank so the heavy duty regulations were not imposed on the small banks. where do you stand? do you stand to rein in wall street and finally bring to heal the bankers that brought this

nation' -- nation's economy to its knees. do you stand with that kind of regulation or do you stand with the wall street bankers and say, trust us. we'll never do it again? the democrats in this house carried the burden of reining in wall street, setting in place the regulations, setting in place the rules of the road going forward. hopefully preventing and i think will prevent the kind of meltdown that we had. our colleagues on the republican side, through a person, voted no when it came time to discipline wall street. they voted no when it came time to discipline wall street. you know where you stand when you vote here in this house, in this case, do you stand with the

regulation of wall street or let them continue doing what they did? it's clear where we stood as democrats. now, charlie -- excuse me, representative wilson, would you like to add to that? mr. wilson: yes, i would. thank you. i believe the other thing that needs to be said here, too, is that democrats stood strong with financial reform by making sure that we never get in the position where the taxpayers have to bail out a bank again. there's no such thing as too big to fail anymore. there are further amounts i would like to have seen done, but in order to get it through, we had to lighten up some of the -- mr. garamendi: a compromise. mr. wilson: that being said, i truly believe we have taken the risk away from the taxpayers having to pay for the really

reckless gambling and things that went on with the derivatives and how they accounted for them and how they were being able to be manipulated and really oversight is now on wall street and it needed to be there all along. i truly believed we would not have had the meltdown we had in the first place. it is there now and will continue to help us in the future. mr. garamendi: i was back in the district and somebody said, well, it's kind of like an nfl football game and i said what do you mean by that? he said you used to play play in the university of california but you decided to go in the peace corps. he said this wall street bunch before your reform, it was like an nfl football game without any rules and the referees were sent into the locker room. and you can kind of imagine what the outcome would be, wild chaos

and mayhem. the regulators during the bush period stepped out of the room and the rules were not there to prevent the kinds of excesses. if there were rules, no one obeyed them. let's move to the future here. what are we going to do next? in the financial reform -- wall street reform, there was a provision and in another bill we passed earlier, there was a provision that was extraordinarily important to the american worker. in existing law today and for the last couple of decades, there has been a tax break for corporations who offshored jobs, a tax break that literally gives a tax reduction when an american corporation sends jobs offshore. you go, well, excuse me. did i hear what you said, congressman? you did hear what i said. what i said is in the law there is a tax break for sending jobs

offshore. we have twice passed on this floor legislation that would end that tax break and annually restore to the american treasury $14.5 billion. that now sits in the pockets of corporations that have offshored american jobs. must stop. it's got to be over. the republicans voted with the corporations to keep that tax break in place. i'm not there. and i suspect you're not there either, mr.âwilson. so we need to make sure that that bill that's sitting over there in the senate where the power of one senator can simply stop everything that it has busted loose and comes back so that american corporations no longer get a tax break when they send american jobs overseas. issue one. secondly, this one really drives me crazy, because this is solar

in california. we have that in california. in 1978, i passed a law as a california state senator that gave a tax break for the solar industry. first in the nation. and it started the solar industry. it started the wind turbine industry in california. right now, we are spending about $5 billion a year on buses, spend billions of dollars supporting the solar industry with tax credits and the wind industry. we need, in my view, a law that says if it's our tax money, then it will be made in america. it will be used to buy american-made buses, trains, light rail. it will be used to pay for solar pan panels and tax credits on the homes of americans. made in america is our tax money

and with the mind mills or wind turbines. in my district, we have two of the biggest wind farm areas in the nation. we've got the montezuma hills and altamonte in san joaquin county. many of the new turbines that are being put up are made overseas and made in china. and i'm going, wait a minute. you are -- we're giving them a tax credit, those companies that own these machines, we are giving them a tax credit to buy turbines that are made where? china? no way, no how. there ought to be a law and i believe this democratic party and this floor is going to put such a law together. i think we've got about 10 minutes left and i noticed a colleague from the midwest

arrived. congresswoman kaptur, thanks for joining us. we have had conversations about jobs and i know your part of the country -- used to be manufacturing center one and the two of you can debate that. but let's talk about these kinds of things, how do we restore american manufacturing? ms. kaptur: i thank you so much. you are from the state of california, four times as large as ours, maybe five, 53 million people, we have 11 million people in ohio. but we are a state that has had to grow our way forward, to build our way forward for so many generations. we really aren't federally dependent in the sense that we don't have gigantic bases, but we have wright-patterson air force base, but the rest of ohio has to either mine and congressman wilson comes from a part of our state that supplies so much of the coal that is shipped to our region and

others. we either have to grow in regions like mine. i represent a major agricultural region that abuts lake erie's southern shore or we have to manufacture. we don't have any choice. we have to create wealth, basically. and what's been happening for many decades, we are amassing million dollar trade deficits every year, which means that all that spending benefits someplace else. 10% of the goods that are exported from china go to one company, wal-mart, they are a bazaar for chinese goods. and we look at the pictures you have there, vehicles and wind turbines. i was through a part of my district where they are putting up wind turbines and we are the solar capital of the midwest, toledo.

one of three centers on the continent. we built that off of our glass industry. and it is a new age for us. in fact, the largest solar field in ohio was dedicated recently and i have bases in my district, smaller bases like the f-16 fighter wing and 983rd engineering battalion and camp perry. so we are trying to move our region into the new energy era. it's tough. we are such on an unleveled global playing field. there is no question that unless we reduce that trade deficit and stop outsourcing our jobs to china, mexico and every other place in the world, we aren't going to be able to create a strong middle class and maintain the middle class. i commend you for doing this special order tonight. we know our future lies in wealth creation and has to come

from places like ohio that have to pull themselves up with their boot straps. mr. garamendi: thank you so much, congresswoman kaptur. the heart and soul of america's manufacturing sector was the midwest. ohio, at one point, was the strongest part of america's manufacturing economy. i know it can be restored and right here in this area with the rolling stock of america's transportation system, with the new technologies, ether they are wind or turbine. if we use our tax money to support these industries, rather than to support industries that are located in china or other countries. we can then provide the kind of strength that will return to america once again in the manufacturing sector. we're nearly out of time and this has been a great discussion. i want to turn for a few moments to another colleague from california. we do think we are the biggest part of the american economy and big part happens to be where

congresswoman watson lives, which is the entertainment industries. congresswoman watson -- i think we're out of time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. garamendi: thank you. i yield back what remains of our time, which is none. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from missouri, mr. akin, is recognized for 60 minutes, as the designee of the minority leader.

mr. akin: thank you, madam chair. it's a treat to join you this evening and talk about things that are of great significance to our country and to every individual citizen that lives in america. i thought that as we got into the subject of where things are in jobs and the economy tonight, might start by introducing it in a different way than we sometimes do here on the floor. and what i'm going to be talking about tonight really is the fact that there is this fundamental difference between republicans and democrats and most of the fighting and argument comes really in the answer to just one question. it's kind of a really simple thing. and the question is this --

what should the federal government do? that's what really divides us. that's what really makes all the people here in this chamber disagree with each other and sometimes scream and yell but at least respectfully disagree with each other because we have a fundamentally different idea of what the federal government should do. that's a huge part of what we discuss, and, of course, the more that the federal government is going to do it is going to cost more, and the more that it costs the more regulations and all that you have, the more laws that are passed. and inevitably, as the government does more people have less freedom. there is sort of a question, you know, what should the federal government do? so we're going to be talking in a way about that tonight because it is the question of politics essentially. and, of course, the democrat position is -- it's almost like the law of gravity that wherever there is a problem the answer always is more taxes and more government. the government should fix that

problem. that's what they think. and the republicans will say, well, we want less taxes and less government. we are going to talk about that. we are going to talk about a theoretical question that i used to ask interns. we had an intern program. these are students that are in college, just about to graduate from college. and i'd ask them this question and that is, is it possible for the government to steal? can the government steal from people? and you see they get these quizzical or puzzled look on their faces, can the government steal? what had does that mean? they say, well, i guess it's impossible because the government can do anything they want and therefore the government can't steal. therefore, if you come to the conclusion that the government can't steal that means that the government owns everything, you really believe that. many are taught that in school as they get older. as they start to work for a

living, they don't want the government to compensate it. anyway, we are going to be talking about the conditions in our country and where we are, why is it that we have problem with jobs, why is the economy flat on its back, why do we have the sense that things are not well in america. and there are some answers to those questions. it's not complicated. we simply look to the people that have gone before us and see what those are. and i'm joined here this evening by a new member of congress, a young man that shows tremendous promise and is joining us here on the floor tonight from georgia. georgia seems to produce. it's a good state for growing congressmen. my good friend, congressman graves, is joining us on the floor here tonight from the state of georgia. we are here early enough that it may be even some of your constituents will have a chance to say, hey, there's my guy, we sent him to congress, he's

doing a great job. welcome, congressman. and we are going to get into things in just a minute. i'd go back a little bit to how this economic problem came to be. of course, history continues to go along, but if i had to pick a point -- this is kind of an interesting one. this is september 11 but it's not 2001. it's 2003. two years after the attack on new york city. september 11, 2003, this is "the new york times," not exactly a conservative oracle, is reporting some news. this is the news. it it says that the bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis nearly a decade ago. it goes on to say under the plan disclosed by the -- in the congressional hearing today, a new agency would be within the treasury department to assume supervision of fannie mae and freddie mac. why? because they just lost about $1

billion, and they weren't running their house very well. now, freddie and fannie are not government organizations. they're qusi government -- quasi-government. and when they started doing thing, the assumption was the federal government would come and bail them out. so freddie and fannie are getting -- this is 2003. real estate market's booming. president bush says, watch out, freddie and fannie are getting in trouble. i need more authority as president to control fannie and freddie. paying many lobbyists up here on the hill dishing out hundreds and hundreds of bills. this is freddie and fannie, they're starting to get in trouble. president bush says we got to regulate them. now, the democrats, on the other hand, the guy who is now in charge of taking care of regulating freddie and fannie because he's in the majority now.

this is congressman frank, the democrat. he says these two entities, freddie and fannie, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. 20/20 hindsight we say obviously you are wrong. i'm sure he'd admit he's wrong. they were facing fanl crisis. and as they start to crash and collapse we start to see the recession that's upon us. that was a piece of it. now, freddie and fannie, their whole concept was that we're going to require banks to make loans to people who really can't afford to pay the loans. now, how that's compassionate i'm not so sure because i wouldn't want to be in debt to some loan from my home that i couldn't afford to pay the mortgage payments on. but many people were encouraged to take loans out in houses because they're going up in value so fast during those years. you go ahead and take a loan, postpone paying any interest payment, five years later turn the house over, you doubled your money. it it sounded good for a while

until the music stopped and then you didn't have a chair to sit in. so we have the beginning of this financial problem that was based on liberal social policy that said banks have to loan money to people that can't afford to pay those mortgages and we'll just sort of sweep it under the carpet. then as the economy crashes what happens? well, we go back to the same old mistake we made in the past. unfortunately, with the stimulus bill, the democrats didn't learn from their mistakes. i wish they would learn from other democrats. they may not want to learn from republicans, but at least learn from other democrats. this guy, henry morgue -- morguenthal, he worked with roosevelt. -- morgenthau, he worked with roosevelt. if government spends enough money it will make the economy do really well and so they

tried it for eight years. this was his report to congress. he says, we have tried spending money. we're spending more than we've ever spent before. and it does not work. i wish they heard those words, it does not work. i say after eight years of the administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot. we haven't learned going back even to f.d.r.'s treasury. this was keynesian economics. it says if the government hires a whole lot of people, spend a lot of money it will make the economy ok. but the trouble is it doesn't work. i'd like to ask my good friend from georgia now and, congressman graves, if you'd just join us, let's talk a little bit about this whole situation because i don't want to just be critical of the democrats. i will be critical of them not because i don't like them it's

because they're wrong. their economics are wrong. they're hurting the american public. people are out of jobs. what we need to do is say this is not the right way to do it. we need to have good solution. we need to offer something constructive. let's talk about that. mr. graves: great to joint you tonight on this discussion. i think it's the number one discussion going on across america right now and that's our economy, how is it going to get back on track? we've seen 16, 17 failed months of economic policy coming out of washington, d.c. as i spent time on the recess and had the opportunity, 31 individual times speak to various groups on those 12 days i can tell you the economy is on the top of the minds. mr. akin: it sounds like the people of georgia got their money out of the congressman. 31 separate meetings. i wouldn't want to be your car. mr. graves: it's the number one topic on the minds of north georgians of how to get this economy back on track. what astonished georgians sotched, just a few days before

july 4, the day of independence, the day of celebrating independence from tyranny and bondage of years ago, four days before that, 167 billion dollars of indebtedness was created on one day here because of the federal government. one, six and seven with nine zeros behind it. a phenomenal amount. nearly $1,500 per person here in the united states. mr. akin: $167 billion of indebtedness just up to the time of just before the fourth of july? mr. graves: just on one day. mr. akin: one day. mr. graves: june 30 of this year alone which was, what, more than the deficit of 2006 altogether, and you look at the state budget of the state of georgia. the annual budget is about $17 billion today. so almost 10 times the budget of the state of georgia for an entire year was borrowed in one day here for the federal government. mr. akin: wow. that's a lot of borrowing.

mr. graves: so georgians want to know how we're going to get back on track. so i spent part of my time this week on what i call my economic advisory tour. i said we were going to tear down the walls that we see here in washington where washington is not listening to the constituents. instead, we're going to open up communication. instead of washington pushing down ideas on job creation on the private sector, why don't we get the ideas from the business leaders themselves, the risk takers, the entrepreneurs, the ones that have the vision and dreams themselves? we came up with a simple formula. we're not that far away. in fact, we have in america 17 million americans without a job. 27 million businesses all throughout the nation. and we know all those businesses want to expand, succeed, have a profit because we believe profit is a good word here in the republican caucus. but you have 17 million people unemployed. you have 27 million businesses. so the formula is simple. it's just one business out of every three would hire one

person in the next 12 months, unemployment would be cut in half. mr. akin: that's great. all you have to do is just create one job per every three businesses and there's no more unemployment. mr. graves: we didn't say if government would hire one more person. we said the private sector. so the question comes down to this and this would probably be a great discussion tonight is why. why are businesses in north georgia and all across this nation saying, you know what, i'm not going to hire somebody right now even though i want to. i want to expand my business. i want to see my profits grow, my sales increase. i want to invest in capital, but i'm not right now. mr. akin: not going to do it. hey, i'd really like to pick up because you said there are people sitting around having dinner in america. in fact, i'm hungry myself. i'd look forward to having some chow. they are talking about the same things we are talking about here tonight. we talked about one solution which was the government takes $800 billion. that's what the democrats did

with their stimulus bill. they said if you don't pass the stimulus bill, you know what's going to happen, we might get unemployment as high as 8% if you don't pass this stimulus bill. the republicans didn't vote for it but they pushed it through anyway. spent $800 billion. and it really wasn't even good old f.d.r., quote, stimulus. it wasn't concrete to build hydroplants or roads. it was basically one taking from one state, like in the state of -- i don't know about georgia but missouri we're fairly conservative. we have a balanced budget. we're not overspending. and yet you got illinois or california that are overspending on the pensions of a lot of teachers and things so they take money away from our states. i assume georgia is probably a little bit more cautious fiscally. they take money away from our constituents and send them to the other states where the governments have been out of control spending. mr. graves: on the -- mr. akin: old socialism bill. anyway, they take this $800

billion and here's what happened. they are putting people back to work. look what happens to employment in the private sector. it's this white line. so 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, you see the -- there's unemployment. and yet if you take a look at the red line, that's the federal government. it's hiring all right. instead of -- instead of letting the businesses keep some of their money and hire people, instead they're hiring government workers. and that's -- so that's how it works. mr. graves: if i remember right, about 700,000 temporary workers for census gathering which most have been laid off. mr. akin: really the government can't stimulate the economy. it's silly. all the government does is take money and spends it. if you hire a government employee, does that create a job? the answer is no because for every two government -- every one government employee you have two jobs you've lost from the private sector because

you're sucking money out of the private sector. and so when you have the government spending a lot you take jobs away. that's what's going on. that's why the jobs are going. mr. graves: if i could expound on it because you brought up an interesting point because what i started to understand just from talking from business owners is the labor pool is a zero hundred sum game. you're either in the private sector or government sector, one or the other. so as the government sector expands you're actually drawing intellectual capital and wealth out of the private sector altogether and expanding the governmental sector. so the inverse of that, if we want to shift some intellectual capital and wealth back to the private sector we must shrink the governmental sector. mr. akin: it's one of those things that's sort of inevitable law and you just can't let the government continue to grow and grow and grow because eventually it takes over everything like a cancer. .

mr. graves: let's assume government is the solution. why don't we make everyone a government employee. mr. akin: don't you give people ideas here in d.c. mr. graves: they say that's the solution. why don't we do that for everyone? mr. akin: obviously, that doesn't work, does it? mr. graves: you're right. so the answer is then, the private sector. mr. akin: this is what was promised with the government bailout, that we are going to bail out -- do the stimulus bill, $800 billion. and if you do the stimulus bill, these are the numbers that the administration and the democrats have said this is what's going to happen unemployment. it's going to go down. if you don't pass the bill, this is what's going to happen. we did pass the bill and that's what happened. obviously, their economics doesn't work. but they don't understand the fact that -- where have we gone?

here's the picture. this is the nasty secret. they used to say that george bush spent too much money. those are the blue years, george bush. and here was a bush year, but when speaker pelosi was in charge of congress. if you give bush credit when pelosi was in congress, congresswoman pelosi, then this would be his worst year, which is about $460 billion worth of deficit. that's his worst year. the next year, 2009, was when president obama and the democrats ran everything. take a look at this jump. my goodness, three times worst deficit than the republicans had run under bush and bush was spending too much money. and i agree with spending too much money. and next year, 2010, it's even worst. mr. graves: go back to your other graph and talk about growth of employment or the

growth of unemployment today, you would see it correlates with that deficit spending. mr. akin: spend more money, look what happens. start to lose jobs. is that logical? you know, i was talking to a bunch of people as i went around my district. people think economics is way too complicated. i said it's not complicated. just picture you running a lemonade stand and if you want a little business, if it's a machine shop or whatever it is, you want to make some jobs. what you want is, you got to allow the guy that owns it to make enough profit from it so he'll add another wing on it. and he's going to sell tea mixed with demon aid and peach -- lemonade and as he expands his business, he hires more people.

but in order to let him do that, first of all, he has to keep enough of his profit to invest it back into his business. it isn't complicated. don't make economics so hard. i'm sure you are talking to your constituents. my constituents are nodding their heads up and down. isn't that complicated. first thing that's going to kill jobs is excessive taxation. it's a killer to jobs. where does the government get all its money? taxation. did you talk about that back in georgia? mr. graves: i know he we are moving to solutions. easy to look back and i guess bash the policies of the last several months, but what's important right now is looking for leadership. there has been a lack of leadership coming out of washington for some time. the nation is looking for leadership, vision, a plan. and what we have discovered, it's about certainty in the marketplace. when the marketplace has a little bit of certainty about

what's going to happen, that creates confidence. there is no confidence in the business marketplace. your first point about excessive taxation. one thing that is certain, because of inaction right here in congress because of the democratic leadership, taxes will go up this january in 011. capital gains will rise and dividend tax will rise. every income tax bracket will rise. the death tax will rise. marriage penalty will rise. if we want to bring competence back to the marketplace, we make those tax cuts permanent, don't you think? mr. akin: you are hitting a couple of different points in this chart. the first one i'm talking about is excessive taxation, but taxation also creates an economic uncertainty. and if you got that lemonade stand and don't know what's going on, you think a tornado is coming or a tornado coming from washington or whatever it is, what you're going to do is hunk irdo.

in missouri, we use the word hunker down. i don't know if there is a verb to hunker. mr. graves: it is a favorite bulldog statement. mr. akin: as a businessman, you are going to be cautious and conservative and not hire a bunch of people. let's look at these job killers, excessive taxation. let's look at what's coming down the pike. this is the largest tax increase in history unless congress is going to act to deal with this. for married people, the standard deduction decreases if you're married. and then if you are a parent, the tax credit will be cut in half from 1,000 to $500. if you die and have an estate, you pay nothing. next year, if you die, 55% tax on it. small businessman, gotten to be 80 years old and your business is doing good, a farm, 1,000

acres with big pieces of equipment, worth $10 million and you up and die this year and you pass that farm on to your son and he runs it, no problem. next year, same thing happens, you got the nice farm, got it all set up, you die. the government says, hey, taps your son on the shoulder, i need 55%. he says wait a minute. if i take half the land of the farm, then it doesn't make the thing work economically. i can't run the farm on half the land and half the equipment. if i have to sell 55% of it, you are going to put me out of business. they say, you don't understand, you owe the i.r.s. 55% of the cost of that farm. so that small business closes down next year because of this policy, because what are we doing? largest tax increase in history. look at some of these tax increases. if you are paying 10%, you will be paying 15% next year.

those paying 25% which be paying 28%. those paying 28% will go to 31%, 33% will go to 36%. 35% will pay 39.6%. all these things going up. mr. graves: we heard a lot about hope and change. taxes were not going to go up on the middle class. but if i look at your charts, it's clear that the taxes are going to go up on not just the middle class, but every class. everyone will pay taxes regardless of where they are in the economic spectrum. and as a result, businesses will not hire as many individuals because their taxes are going to go up. and if businesses aren't hiring, unemployment continues to rise. unemployment continues to rise, it impacts everyone. again, we are back in this crazy cycle.

mr. akin: basically what you're saying is, let's say you don't make hardly any money at all and you are saying, i'm not making much money and i'm not paying income taxes. i like it if the taxes go up. no, you don't. what happens if you get excessive taxation? you get no jobs. you can't beat up on businesses and say all businesses are bad and then complain there aren't any jobs. if we keep soaking the owners of businesses with this excessive taxation, we will have a problem with jobs. the solution to these problems are -- shouldn't be complicated. you have to back off on taxes and -- mr. graves: the solution isn't takeover of various industries, but it's the opposite. in the 15 counties i spoke to said get out of our way. let us once again be creative and come up with the ideas to dream and expand my business,

but don't put that next regulation or force health care upon me or increase taxes on me at all. instead, let us the business owners, entrepreneurs, risk takers, the ones willing to work the hardest here and put it all on the line. do it without government interference. mr. akin: this is an amazing chart. these are different countries all around the world down here and a little green line here and this is the corporate tax rate. little green line happens to be the united states. and the only one with higher taxes on corporations is japan. and we wonder, gosh, i can't understand why we have lost jobs in this country when we have the second highest corporate tax rate going, not to mention the taxes on individuals as you are seeing. so we're not doing the job -- and part of the reason we are doing this taxation, of course, is because we are spending too

much money. mr. graves: there was a report put out by the hert age foundation that indicated that america is now classified for the first time as mostly free. and that would be a good illustration. i don't think most americans realize that america is second highest in the world when it comes to corporate tax rates behind japan. that all the other nations you have on this chart have lower tax rates than the united states of america and we wonder why jobs go overseas to other countries. mr. akin: people get upset, the democrats that were talking before we came on tonight were talking about -- they're upset all the jobs went overseas and i'm thinking to myself, who is pushing the jobs overseas? you are creating an environment that is hostile to business. it is inevitable as water running downhill. we keep increasing taxes and increasing government spending and the smart executives and

corporations in america that have plants and facilities all over the world, they keep creating jobs, it's just the jobs aren't here, because they have created a hostile environment that the jobs aren't going to be here and how did they make it hostile? too much taxes. and second thing is spending. here is a containment dome. we have trouble with oil leaking out in the gulf. this is a containment dome. there is another containment dome and not working either. take a look at the rate of the spending that we have been doing and the spending is always followed by a whole lot of taxation. and so the first thing, if you want to get this thing back on track is if you want to do the opposite of job killers, you want to create jobs. then what you need to do is cut your taxation. this is one of those things that i started out by saying, i wish the democrats would learn from the other democrats and one

thing they could learn from is j.f.k. he did the right thing. he cut taxes. and when he cut taxes significantly, guess what happened? more jobs, stronger economy. and the funny thing is, and this is sort of odd, that if you cut taxes, the federal government will actually take in more money in revenue than if you didn't tax. have you thought about that? it is counterintuetive. mr. graves: it is counterintuitive, but it works, then the opposite must be true if you increase taxes. that means your revenue decreases. great example in the state of georgia, trying to increase the tobacco tax to fill allege budget hole. prior to that, the administration raised tobacco taxes and as a result of the raise of the tobacco tax from the federal level, income of the state tobacco taxes had decreased by 20%, 20%.

mr. akin: let's do that again because these numbers are interesting. georgia did a little experiment along these lines, a specific tax on one product, that is tobacco, and they increased the tax on tobacco -- mr. graves: proposing to increase the tax on tobacco but then they looked at what happened just prior to that and it was the year before, and the administration here actually raised taxes on tobacco. as a result of that, the receive knew for the state of georgia actually declined 20%. the federal government and the state of georgia not raising taxes but the state of georgia taxes have declined. when you increase taxes, the productivity, consumption, decrease and it's more damaging to the economy. mr. akin: how do you explain that? because i give some of these talks to my constituents and one of the ways i try to explain it

is, let's say you're king for a day and your job is to tax a l oaf of bread and get as much tax revenue as you can by taxing bread. so you go through this little exercise in your mind and say i could tax the bread $10 a loaf or one penny. no one would notice and i would get a penny times all those. but if i got $10 a loaf, i could make a lot of money, but no one would buy the bread. somewhere between a penny and $10, you are going to come to a place where people will keep on buying bread. if you increase it, you lose revenue. so there is a spot. and what's happening is, the government is taxing people so much that by increases the taxes, it stalls the economy and

so the revenue drops. if i was a happy socialist and one of these guys who wants the government to do everything -- mr. graves: is there such a thing as a happy socialist? mr. akin: not many are happy because they are worried about making money. if i were a happy socialist, i would want a strong economy so i had more money to slop around to my buddies. what we are doing is we raised the taxes so much, it kills the economy and don't have much money to work on. the federal government doesn't notice, but state governments -- missouri has a balanced budget amendment. we have to balance the budget. if you are a legislator in a state that has a balanced budget, when you have a recession, it's a tough time to be the leader of your state and people hate you because you have to keep cutting things. down here, we just let it go. .

mr. graves: there's a line that i refer to as a tipping point that occurs, whether it's in an economy or anywhere else, there's a great book written on that subject matter, how it occurs throughout time. so what we need to do right now is look for the solutions that tip the other way. and i think, you know, we republicans certainly are the ones for less taxes, less government, personal responsibility, and it's those positive solutions that i think meshes are looking for right now. they're looking for that glimmer of, i guess, sunshine out there that says, we're going to get through this. i'm telling you, we are going to get through this. we'ring if to get through this as americans together, working hard, once again dreaming and not being dependent on the federal government to be the solution. mr. akin: you're absolutely right. i like the idea of being positive and the solutions, one of them was j.f. cannest. cut -- j.f.k. he cut taxes and after a period of a year turns right around and things go well. ronald reagan did the same thing.

massive tax cut. as soon as he did that, the economy takes a little while, the economy turns right around because there's money now being invested not in more big government, but the businessman puts that money into different new ways of creating, buying another milling machine, another wing on the building, more money for research and development to come up with a better way to make a product. and all those thention together, when the money goes -- all those things together, when the money goes back to the small businessman, they start to hire people. companies with 500 or fewer employees employ 80% of americans. if those smaller businesses are down, if they've got more money to spend in their own business, that's part of the solution and everybody does better when that happens. of course another thing that kills jobs is this insufficient liquidity. the businessman can't borrow money because it's all tied up in banks. of course we've got that problem going on now, too, and part of the reason is the government is gobbling up so much money with

their incredible, incredible level of federal spending which once again we point to this chart. this is what's happened under obama, the first two years of his presidency. it's three times more deficit than bush in his worst year had. and so this liquidity is a big deal to businessmen and the banking rules right now make it hard for small businessmen to get liquidity. then as you mentioned, the economic uncertainty. who is going to take a risk when you see the lineup of what's happened to us? first of all, you've got wall street bailout, then you got cash for clunkers, you got this stimulus bill where we erased $800 billion, then we pass cap and tax at 3:00 in the morning, it's supposed to be about how bat co is and what's the solution to the bill -- co-2 is and what's the solution to the bill that keeps co-2 down? you guessed it, a whole lot of taxes and a whole lot of red tape and government regular laces -- regulations.

mr. graves: those taxes wouldn't impact the consumer. that's the argument that's put out there. but we all know that it's not big business that pays taxes, it's not the corporations that pays taxes, it's all passed town through the consumers to the cost of any goods and services. as any other cost would be in a service or in a product. but, you know, i was thinking, i've been here 30 days, 30 days i've been sworn in here as a member of congress and certainly -- mr. akin: we're demrad to have you, too. we wish we'd have more people that who would vote along the lines of get these jobs going and get the economy going. mr. graves: it's an honor to represent georgia's ninth district. we have three fortune 100 companies, the world's busiest and largest airport, the fourth busiest portland in the -- port in the nation, an incredible university system, and so much entrepreneurial spirit. mr. akin: you haven't mentioned georgia peaches yet. mr. graves: grate state, so much to work with there. but there's that uncertainty

that lies out there. in my 30 days here i voted for or voted against, rather, the house voted on tarp 2. of course i opposed that. the expansion of unemployment benefits to far-reaching amounts, and then the war supplemental budget which was 61% unwar-related and it goes one thing after another, whether it's financial reform or whether it's this reform or that reform. just in my 30 days. so there is a little bit of certainty out there in the business community. the certainsyity is that something's going to come -- the certainty is that something's going to come down from washington that's going to put another burden on them, another tax on them and that is killing job creation today. it's time to turn that around and say that coming out of washington it's going to be less government, personal responsibility, and liberty and justice for all. mr. akin: that's what it boils down to, doesn't it? two different visions for america. one of them is that there's all these people who are victims and

the government has to take care of them and you don't have to be responsible and you just are going to be part of this permanent welfare idea. and i don't think americans by and large really want that. i think americans really like the idea more of having the courage to live some dream that god puts in their hearts. you know, everybody, the way that this country was founded, they bleaved that every single person that -- believed that every single pepper that god created in this world had some -- person that god created in this world had some purpose, some job that god had in mind for them to do. so they came up with the idea that the only thing that you got in trouble for up in new england was if you didn't work. you see, over in europe they had all these classes and they had certain people that didn't want any calluses on their hands because they didn't hike the idea of working but the people that came to this country -- like the idea of working but the people who came to this country said, god maybe a -- made a job for everybody to do. they created almost a classless

society because how you can look down your nose at somebody else, god made somebody to be an accountant, another person to be a black smith, another to be a farmer. how you can look down your nose at somebody? it was always the idea of hard work. and being honest. and so people could be free and chase the dreams that they had in hair heart. i don't think people are -- in their heart. i don't think people are happy when the government is dishing them out, you know, always dependent on the government. and i don't think that's what america's all about. and i don't think americans are happy with the system where they're just constantly going to be dependent on the government. i think people love freedom in this country. you know, as you talked to people around your district, i ask people, if you had to summarize what is america all about, i love to ask that question, let's say somebody from some foreign country came and they had a big -- one of those tv cameras and put it in your face and you've lived in america, you can tell me just in a sentence what is the basic

secret of what makes america such a special place? and the word that i always hear is freedom. it's freedom. it's not like, the government's going to take care of me. it's the idea of being a free pepper. and that's something that's so precious to us in this -- person. and that's something that's so precious to us in this country. mr. graves: that's what we've got to get back to. allowing the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. that's a freedom as well. not government bailouts and government taking care of businesses that make poor decisions or take a risk that just doesn't work out for whatever reason. when we think about where we're going in the future, i think we've got a great future, we just have to be positive. we have to come up with positive solutions and solutions that aren't the government being the solution but empowering the private sector. we're coming to a new era, i believe, and i believe it's coming. i would like to say the sun is setting on an era and that's the era of the champions of government. that the sun is setting on that and now a new dawn is arising and that's going to be the

champions of the taxpayer. so as we move forward through these next weeks and this great recess that i think america's waiting for this congress to take a recess, so they'll stop passing policies that are damaging the small businesses and elect a new governing majority here coming up soon, and we have positive solutions that just reduce the burdens on the business owners. once again, empower them to be the job creators instead of empowering government to be that. mr. akin: people make a mistake, we were talking quite a bit about socialism and, boy, liberals just really hate it had you mention that word socialism. but really an awful lot of americans don't know socialism when they see it. and it's very dangerous. it's deadly. and it goes to the idea of what's the job of the government? if you go to our founders, right off the bat, the pilgrims had socialism imposed on them by the loan sharks from england and they pitched it out. they knew it wasn't any depood. they realized that socialism was

really a system of stealing, where the government would take from one person and give to another person. if you go to the founding of our country, it was built on a bright vision that there was a fresh air, there was a vie bransy and enthusiasm -- vie brant -- vibrancy and enthusiasm. the government was limited and limited in a particular way. that was, the job of the government was justice. and lady justice was depicted they chipped her out of marble and she is sitting this and she always has this blind fold over her eyes and she held out the scales and the scales were what the law says and your own actions. but she always had that blind fold on what did the blind fold mean? it meant when you came before the government, before lady justice, she didn't peek, whether you're black or white, male or female, rich or poor, she said this is the way, the law applies evenly to all people. but socialism does something

different. lady justice peeks and says, this one's rich, this one's poor, i'm going to take from this one to give to this one. we get sophisticated, we steal from everybody and pass it around to everybody in the government, it gets more and more inefficient. but lady justice is peeking. that's socialism. it's wealth redistribution, it's morally wrong and it doesn't work. mr. graves: i believe over 150 years ago it was referred to as legalized plunder in the book "the wall." he knew that anyone that was taking without permission and giving to someone else was plunder. and in the case of taxation here in the united states and the raising of taxes that we're going to see in january of 2011, just because of the inaction of the leadership here in washington, that is an increased legalized plunder that's going to occur. mr. akin: which wraps back around, i promise when we started that we'd ask a couple of these really basic questions,

that is, can the government steal? and a lot of kids say, well, the government can't possibly steal the. the fact of the matter is the government can steal when the government does stuffs that not its job to do. one of the thing that's not its job to do is take something from one person and give it to someone else. that's, of course, what the president said that he wanted to do with the government. he announced that before he was elected, that that was his plan, to take money from joe the plumber and give it to someone else. and of course he said he wouldn't tax anybody that made less than $250,000 and yet that silly cap and tax bill that we passed in this chamber before you were here, you don't have the shame of having that having gone through here, but if you flipped a light switch, you start playing -- paying a tax. it isn't matter of $ 50,000. you flip a light -- $250,000, you flip a light switch, you're going to be taxed. and that socialized medicine bill. they've got taxes on there on wheelchairs. i thought of taxing as

everything that moves and doesn't move, but they've got that. and the problem, is that's what kills jobs. it's messing the economy up. and insufficient liquidity, the economic uncertainty. and of course there's red tape in government mandates. you put this package together and you can go both ways. you can have a vibrant economy, people free and prosperous, out there chugging along, good economy. or you can just keep on dialing in more and more government interference, more tremendous levels of spending and basically what you're doing is you're killing freedom. mr. graves: you think about it, imagine if you had the opportunity to implement the policies that you felt were best to get jobs moving forward here in this nation, if it was me i would say, you know what? let's empower the private sector, let's allow them to be the job creators, not government. let's reduce the tax burden, let's start with a capital gains tax, a corporate tax rate, as well as many of the other tax rates involved in there, but then not only reduce taxes, cut

spending. you have to cut spending in association with those tax cuts. in addition we need to cut it beyond because of the spending level that we're currently on. when you think about spending, everyone around here says, well, you can't cut spending. you have to ask the question, are we running an efficient level here as government? we know the answer. the answer to that is no. in my opinion there are no sacred cows. it is time to cut government and cut deep when it comes to you the cutting government. americans are cutting their budget and there are a lot of important things in their budget. i believe it's time for the federal government to cut their budget, reduce regulation, let the plight of sect -- private sector once again flourish. . absolutely right. the idea, though, that we can bring the level of spending that we got going on under control by just trying to get efficiency, i think that's optimistic. we have to decide that there is something that washington, d.c.

should not be doing in the first place. we shouldn't cut it but totally eliminate it. stop. none. we need to take a good look at our federal spending and say, one of the federal government has to do, we have to defend our nation because the states aren't going to do that and make sure there are no pirates in the high seas. one of the federal laws against pirates in the hey seas. there was a law against counterfeiting. that was not a state job but had to be a federal job. very few jobs that originally started at the federal level. and everything else, we have to push them back to the states. i would be happy to say, if the people of california or massachusetts or tennessee want to have socialized medicine, let them try it and see how it works. they could learn from massachusetts or learn from tennessee. they shut down medicine in tennessee. if states want to try, let the experiments begin at the state

level. but at the federal level, we have to stop a lot of stuff. the first place i would start with, shut down that department of education. i had a group i was talking to down at a honda dealership a couple of days ago and i asked them, how much benefit do you think you have gotten from a whole bunch of bureaucrats that work at the department of education. has it helped your kid at all? and there was a blank look, i don't think it helped at all. what if you shut down the department of education at the federal level. why can't that be done at the state level. gosh, it would be nice if -- but we can't afford it. debt and deficit as a percentage of g.d.p. here's the united states and we are right alongside grease and spain and -- greece and spain and these european countries that are struggling.

we are way overspending. here is debt as a percentage of g.d.p. and united states. two other countries worse than wer greece and italy. so we have driven ourselves to a degree -- mr. graves: care to simplify that for the american viewers out there. 91% of our debt is a percentage of g.d.p. how would you simplify that in terms of the average house ell hold at home when they have income coming in, their pay? mr. akin: let's say the income for the whole year, they make 100. what does this mean, 91%? if their income is $100 for the year, what does that mean? that means they have an incredible level of debt. they aren't going to get back out from under. mr. graves: 91% of that goes to

debt. that income has to go to debt. mr. akin: that's the problem. mr. graves: if the liability was called in at that point. it is a liket of 91%. mr. akin: yeah. the point is, what do we do here in america? we have to stop thinking that the federal government is god and it's going to solve every problem. we have the federal government now, they're into the automobile business, the insurance business, the student loan business, flood insurance business and in the food business, housing business. you know, it kind of reminds me, there was this country that i grew up paying close attention to the u.s. and had this philosophy that the government is going to give you food and it's going to give you a place to live, some shelter, some education. the government is going to give you a job and health care. we looked at that country and thought, that's not going to

work. and it didn't work. the whole country crashed economically. called the u.s. -- ussr. and what is the federal government doing? giving people housing, food and education and a job and health care. how are we different? we have to understand that the federal government has to be reined to do what it is supposed to do, which is justice, provide a set of laws where everyone is equal before the law and a national security that protects us from terrorists and other people that wish us ill. and that federal government is going to have to go on a diet. mr. graves: i have only been here 30 days and i can tell you this government is way too big. it doesn't run efficiently and things they shouldn't be involved in. and in my few short weeks of being here and as i think about

where we're going and i think about the solutions we are all seeking, the economic advisory council that i have put across the 15 points in the 9th district are one of the most district are one of the most dymic. those are on the ground and hiring making decisions for their businesses and making tough decisions and what to cut out of their budgets. what supplies are they going to buy. and we are asking them that question, what is keeping you from hiring that next employee, because it goes back to that if one out of three businesses would hire one person in the next 12 months, unemployment would be cut in half. what is it that the government is doing to prevent you from hiring that next employee? i'm excited that soon i will be bringing back what i believe will be some powerful recommendations to the house of representatives right here and say from the 9th congressional district, business leaders in north georgia here's what they

say needs to be done to get the economy back on track. mr. akin: you and i have a pretty good idea of what they will say, they have enough business sense to know what has happened historically. they know socialism doesn't work. jobs, wealth and freedom, those are things that come from free people. those are not -- it isn't the government that makes jobs, but the businesses, innovative americans that are living that dream in their heart, from the beginning days of this country, there are people, these crazy people that came to this land with dreams they wanted to do. one guy want todd build light bulbs, he built 100 of them and his attitude was, now i know a hundred ways how not to build a light bulb.

their dream became reality and america was built one dream at a time. we called it the american dream. i know as you travel in georgia and you talk to those people and you get to love them out there and you hear the stories, my wife and i were sleeping under a park bench and we had this idea for a little business and that was 20 years ago and the kids are in good shape. we have a nice house, i think i might be selling the business. we do this or that. i tell you, we have one guy in missouri, he started a little company. i love this story, because talk about someone with imagination. he grew up on a hog farm. some of us may may not be too fond of the by product. and so this guy took pig manure and put it into a tank and ran

the temperature and pressure up according to basic principles with the way we work with petroleum products and figured out a way to turn that into this thick oily sludge, which they then used to make asphalt. he has a section of road in the state of missouri that's paved with asphalt made from pig manure. does the road smell? no, when you get the temperature, the ammonia it's gone. he took what no one wanted. and he's got an invention that is going to turn the pig manure into asphalt to pave our roads. that's the kind of thing that makes america. i thought that was a colorful example. my son -- my brother was a ram brooklyn wreck from georgia tech. mr. graves: great opportunities and challenge in georgia. as i know we are wrapping up our

time and as i have closed out, it goes back to that zero sum. it's a zero sum game when it comes to employment. you are either expanding the private sector or expanding the governmental sector and i believe our job texttive and -- objective and as we consider deliberation the next several weeks, those watching tonight know there are two men, plus more here want to see the private sector expand and expand through innovation and the excitement of the idea. and so i sort of liken it to the flame. there is that entrepreneurial flame out there that has been dampened over the last 15, 16 months with the policies coming out of washington. and i believe we can do this. it is time to fan that will flame and get that dampened spark and that entrepreneur fired back up.

and i'll close with this story, my son who is 10 showed me the greatest illustration. we were debating allowances. a dollar for this task and that task. and he stopped me. he said, if you give me $1 for something i should already be doing isn't that what mom could be buying groceries. what a example from a 10-year-old boy who understands productivity and wealth aaccumulation. and that's something that excites me that that young generation gets it. mr. akin: that's a heart-warming story and shows the basic nature of your 10-year-old son. he understands that somewhere along the line he was made to do something. and even if god has a plan for him. and his thinking was, i want to help my dad.

there is nothing i think as a christian that inspires me more than a passage in the bible that says that where god's workmanship created in christ jesus. each one of us is a special and unique person. he says under good work that god prepared us to do, every single one of us has the purpose and our father wants us to do. and it's pretty exciting to say, you mean i can actually do something that would please my father in heaven? and the freedom we treasure in america was given to us so that we could do that mission that we were created to do. that's what freedom is all about. not to have the government take from one person and give to another person, but doing what we were called to do and living that american dream.

and as a country, builds and become strong and we have this attitude that everybody has a purpose, everybody. and the freedom that we enjoy is freedom so that we can do what we were created to do in the first place. when we have that kind of attitude, it gets contagious. people will say is nt that exciting? they understand the difference between socialism, which is big government doing something that is stealing and dishonest and allowing people to follow their god-given direction. and that means, as you said, though, people will fail sometimes. we try, we fall down, we have to get up and try it again. if we didn't understand that, none of us would know how to walk. we fall down the first few times. i found that out trying to ski as well. there is part of my anatomy that

got pretty soar. but we keep getting back up again. but i think america loves that sunlight, fresh air and the enthusiasm of the challenge. and the fact that every one of us has a purpose that we were put on this earth to do. and the lord has given a simple commandment, thou not steal. that is short-circuiting the way god made everything. it didn't work for the soviet union or these other countries. socialized medicine doesn't work. you get insurance, but you can't get any health care. it doesn't do any good. i appreciate you joining me and thank you for the good citizens for georgia for sending up such a great congressman, congressman graves. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. akin: pleasure joining you. the speaker pro tempore: under

the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 60 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. it's always an honor and privilege to speak on the floor of the house of representatives where so much history has been made. a number of things we need to cover. had some interesting things going on in the natural resources committee today because we're taking up legislation as a result of the oil spill. those pesky words keep

resurfacing, never let a crisis if to waste and it appears that that's what's happening here. and 11 people lose their lives in the deepwater horizon explosion, many thousands may lose their livelihood, we know that it's the worst environmental accident we've had in the united states. it's been amazing that so little had been done to try to assist from the federal government, eventually the coast guard came onboard, but three days after this terrible accident, nations like the netherlands that have extraordinary expertise in building barrier islands and actually taking in water, separating out the oil, people

that had all these wonderful inventions and ideas and things that would help capture the oil should have all been utilized because so many of them have merit and yet the coast guard kept turning them away. kevin costner had spent $10 million of his own money to see this thing developed that would separate oil and water and do so in large numbers but didn't get a lot of attention. and so i know there were a lot of pressing things to do, people had -- there were golf courses to be played, there were things that had to be done, parties that had to be attended. but all the while the oil kept coming up -- coming up and the environmental kept suffering, wild-- environment kept suffering, wildlife kept suffering. then we eventually find out, well, actually there was a reason british petroleum thought they were bulletproof, they thought they could have more

safety violations, hundreds of times more safety violations, than other oil companies drilling in the gulf of mexico and be immune from having the administration come down on it, it's understandable now once we got into it, you know, they were supportive of the administration's crap and trade bill. in fact, as the deepwater horizon rig was sinking, senator kerry down the hall was making negotiations, making sure b.p. was still onboard with the crap and trade bill. the white house counted them as being supportive of their -- of the bill. and they of course have so many lobbyists, their best lobbyists are all from democratic administrations, they felt like

they were bulletproof. and so then it begins to explain why it took so long to finally get on to b.p. and fuss at them because america had had enough. they'd seen the kind of poor safety record b.p. had and so b.p. got thrown under the bus, much to their apparent surprise. after all their support, they've given heavily to the president's campaign, so i'm sure they were surprised when they ultimately were thrown under the bus. but, as a result of that terrible tragedy there are some laws that are being voted out of committee, we had debate on them for several hours today, and that's as it should be, a bill shouldn't come to the floor that is so sweeping, unless it goes through proper committee channels. didn't go through subcommittee but we had a long hearing on it

today. and it will be voted on in the morning. all the votes were rolled so they'll take place in the morning. -- were roll so they'll take place in the morning. it's just hard to believe that out of a crisis like the gulf oil spill that people would take advantage of that and want to pork up the bill. shocking. shocking. one of the things that economists have proposed across the country that would help get us on track is that -- financially, that is, on track, is that we have got to get out of the mentaltality of constant i had buying -- mentality of constantly buying more and more and more land, the federal government seems to want to take over the country or at least those states that often vote heavily republican, the

colleagues across the aisle want to buy more and more of the lapped. so i had a chart here -- land. so i had a chart here of what the west looks like, western part of the united states, how much of it we have in red that is owned by the united states. that is, by the united states government. so you get an idea. here is the western united states, the red parts are those that are owned by our federal government. and the federal government wants more and we have had information on the amount of money that our federal government has been spending in the past on buying

land and it's been rather shocking to see the numbers. but tsh -- but -- here we have the amount of money that was allocated in 2008 for the federal depoff to spend on buying -- spend -- government to spend on buying more land for the federal government to take over. it's important to understand that when the federal government takes over land it means the schools in that vicinity, the local governments in that vicinity get nothing.

because all of the land when the federal government takes it is removed from the tax rolls. it cannot be taxed. schools, cities, counties, states cannot tax the federal government once it takes over the land. so, it makes sense that outwant to be cautious in having the -- that you'd want to be cautious in having the federal government take over more and more land in this country. and in fact that's what economists have said, you got to get out of the mentality of continuing to buy land, start setting some. let's get on -- selling some. let's get on track to get rid of our deficit. quit buying land. and it turns out that right now we're $3.7 billion behind in the

projects that are needed to keep up the existing federal land and federal parks that we have right now. our parks are going to squalor in many places, places that people used to love to visit are just being let go because the money's not there to take care of it. why? because we keep spending money on buying more and more land. and locking that land up so it cannot be used for any purpose. you know, that's one of the problems week of got down at the border between arizona, a u.s. border, and mexico. 32 miles of that border are wilderness national park which means the border patrol are the only ones that can't take or u.s. federal agents are the only ones who can't take vehicles in there. it's against the law them. commit a crime if they do that

-- it's against the law. they commit a crime if they do that. but it doesn't stop the drug interest smugglers -- the drug smugless -- smugglers from taking vehicles across there so that's what happens. they can have mechanical instruments. even if you need to bring a helicopter in to lift out somebody who has been shot, like a border patrol agent, which has happened, the helicopter can't land. illegal aliens, drug smugglers, they can drive right by them, but our border patrol cannot go in there because it's a national park wilderness area. it's why i've got a bill to try to do something about that. but apparently it's not going to see the light of day. so here we have in 2008, last year of the bush presidency, but since all appropriations originate in the house of representatives, no matter what the president wants to do, originates here, and if you

check back in 2004, 2005, 2006, it was a fraction of $100 million, well, in 2008 it was a little over $100 million. 2009 it was still not -- about $150 million or so, according to the chart. and then in 2010, this year, from last year's appropriation, it shot up to nearly $300 million and for next year, already what is being laid out for next year's land acquisitions, is nearly $400 million. so here we are in the worst budget crunch we've ever had and what happens? for the first time since 1974

congress is not going to have a budget. apparently it was considered too politically difficult for people to come in and vote for a budget that would expand costs as apparently the desire is to have done. so here you have a tragedy in the gulf of mexico, still ongoing, hopeny the cap is going to hold -- hopefully the cap is going to hold but that remains to be seen. still so much damage. and since we're dealing at a time when those in control do not want to let a good crisis go to waste without taking advantage of it, in the legislation that we debated today and that will apparently pass in the morning around 9:15 we're going to stick in $900

million for land acquisition. that's in the committee, july, 2010, that's what is apparently going to happen because the majority will have the votes and they're going to appropriate in an authorization bill $900 million to buy more land. as if our parks are not in enough trouble because all of this money keeps going for more and more land acquisition. we're going to not cut spending on land acquisition and just even have a moratorium, just for a little while, let this country catch its breath. you know, we're looking at a $1.5 trillion deficit for one year. my first year here i kept

hearing people across the aisle talking about how $100 billion was an outrage for a deficit in one year. and you know what? they were right. there shouldn't have been $100 billion and $200 billion deficit for one year. and that's why people voted them into the majority in november, 2006. and yet here we go this year, same people have no problem with the $1.5 trillion deficit in one year. because of all the jobs it apparently, they think, is creating. well, it did for june, 431,000 jobs were created. unfortunately 411,000 of them were temporary census jobs. so here's our chart. this is what will pass tomorrow

because me and my friends simply do not have enough votes to keep it from passing. they're going to pork up this bill to deal with the gulf oil crisis by sticking $900 million of pork in there to buy more lapped -- land for the federal government to open, to put local government, local schools, state governments in a tiff situation because they'll -- in a difficult situation because they'll never be able to generate any tax thrars or revenue from that land -- rev -- dollars or revenue from that land once the depoff takes it over. with that in mind, we look at the map that shows the western part of the united states, with that in red, representing areas

that the federal government already owns. but apparently to those in charge right now, it's not enough. not enough to own nearly all of nevada. not enough to own 70% of utah. not enough to own most of idaho. arizona. wyoming. $900 million will be appropriated tomorrow in this crisis bill about the gulf oil crisis to buy more federal land. that will hurt more local governments and more local schools. it's just hard to fathom. it is hard to believe. this is going to happen tomorrow but we simply do not have enough votes in our minority to keep that kind of

pork from being added to a bill emanating from a crisis. we've already heard people -- families of victims who were killed on deepwater horizon out begging, please, do not have a moratorium because they knew their friends would be out of work, other family members would be out of work. i don't have a problem if you want to shut down every one of b.p.'s offshore rigs until we're sure that they are safe. but when, as we heard in the hearing today, b.p. had 800 safety violations to some cases none for other oil companies in the same period, one for other oil companies in the same period they had 800 system of what did the administration do? they gave them an award for safety. that's right.

they didn't fine them. they gave them an award for safety. when you understand they were embracing a tax, a gas tax, they were embracing so many of the bill this is administration was pushing forward that most in the country did not support, they didn't want to lose their good friend b.p. that's why it took so long to throw them under the bus. that's one area which we're throwing away a lot of money. pretty amazing. pretty outrageous. another area is in our foreign assistance programs. now, this is my third term here, and in each of my three terms i filed a bill. this is no exception.

h.r. 4636, i've now filed for a discharge petition, hopefully we get enough folks to sign on to a discharge pope decision to force this bill to the floor for an up or down vote because haven't been able to get one and it's a very simple bill. in essence, it says -- well, it's entitled, the united nations voting accountability act. very simple. any nation that votes against the united states' position more than half of the time on contested votes in the united nations will receive no federal assistance from our government to theirs. very simple. as i've said before, you don't have to pay people to hate you,

they'll do it for free. why pay them to hate you when they'll do it for free? so when we pulled the report for this year, because each year, a report comes out, has to come out by march 31 of each year of all the votes, contested votes the year before so we could get some idea of who is voting with us, how often, who we're paying to hate us. for example, here's, 2008, there was $105 million given to bangladesh they voted against the u.s. position, 82.4% of the time in 2008 and 80% of the time in 2009. we gave millions to belarus.

former state in the soviet union. and they voted against us in 2008 84.6% of the time and this past year voted 75% of the time against the u.s. interest and position. you've got bolivia, down in south america. we've given them over $100 million. that was in 2008. as i understand, it's a great deal more than that, 2009. they were our great ally, they were voting against us 82.5% of the time in 2008 and got a little bet for the 2009, only 70% of the time they voted against the country that provided them over $100 million in aid. we're paying them to hate us. brazil. of course we heard recently about the $2 billion that we

are loaning to brazil to develop their deep water -- deepwater territory, deepwater offshore drilling program. lo and behold, it turns out, apparently that's george soro s's biggest personal investment is in the company that does that drilling. we provided $2 billion to help our dear friend george soros make that much more money from his biggest investment and so brazil, we loaned them millions, i'm sorry, we loaned them billions, give them millions and they voted against us in 2008, 70.7% of the time. and against us last year in

2009 62.5% of the time. cambodia, where lots of american lost their lives fighting for freedom, for the people. let them out for under -- from under all the murderous regimes that have followed but tens of millions of dollars, they voted against us 84% of the time in 2008. 62.5% of the time in 2009. still just pouring money into them. now, i've been talking about this ever since i came into congress in 2005 and it makes me think maybe we're doing some good because of all the millions, hundreds of millions we've given colombia, they voted against the u.s. position 80% of the time in 2008, last year, 40% of the time. they would not be adversely affected by this bill because they found their way clear to

support us. most people think with the embargo sanctions against cuba, that's taken care of. not true. in 2008 alone, we gave $45 million in aid to cuba when they voted against us in the u.n. 87.8% of the time and in 2009, they got even higher up than 90% of the time. now, the republic of the congo in 2008 got $103 million or $104 million. for some reason that same year they only volted against us 7% of the time this year, i was under the impression they got more money but voted against us 71% of the time. 10 from 7% to 71.5%. you've got dominican republic, give them tens of millions of

dollars, they voted against us 80.5% of the time in 2008, 60% of the time in 2009. egypt. they get a couple of billion dollars in essence but they voted against us in the u.n. 93.3% of the time in 2008 and in 2009, 81.8% of the time. got ethiopia. we gave $455 million in 2008, they voted against us to show their gratitude, 82.9% of the time in the u.n. in 2008. and 83.3% in 2009. again, you don't have to pay people to hate you, they'll do it for free. india, $99 million we gave away as federal assistance to india

in 2008, they voted against us 76.3% of the time. the number, i think, may have risen and now so is their opposition to anything we hold dear. they are now up to 88.9% of the time in 2009 voting against us. india is benefiting from our high corporate taxes. they're benefiting from the threat of the crap and trade bill passing. they're benefiting from the health care bill that just got passed because employers, big manufacturers are saying we've got to go where the country doesn't hate us being there so much. we're going toineda. we're going to china. we're going south america. a lot of countries, we're pouring money into that we don't have that we're having to borrow from china. all the while, they're opposing

us every step of the way. we've got nerve nerve -- indonesia, $190 million simply in foreign aid. not counting other benefits we've given them. yet they opposed us 84.9% of the time in the u.n. in 2008 and 80% of the time in 2009. pouring money into these countries that we don't have, that we're having to borrow, while people are out of work, hurting, searching for jobs, hoping for the economy to turn around and something besides temporary census jobs to become available and this is what they find out. jordan in 2008 got $687 million simply in aid and they voted against us 91.7% of the time in 2008.

60% of the time in 2009. now, mexico, this shows $50 million in foreign aid in 2008 but also, of course, we had, i believe, $500 million that we provided them to assist them in their defense effort. as a result, we have the president of mexico come in here and chastise us for having immigration laws that he says promote racism. laws like that passed in arizona that simply are begging to have our laws enforced. mexico voted against us 75.9% of the time in 2008. but in 2009 that dropped to 36.4% of the time. so apparently, we're buying some love and affection there. nicaragua, they've got tens of

millions of dollars each year. yet they voted against us in 2008, 84.7% of the time and against on sigs -- against our position 87% of the time in 2009. nigeria, $486 million they received in 2008, foreign aid, not counting other types of aid, 2008 they voted against us that same year, 82.7% of the time in the u.n. and against our position 63.6% of the time in 2009. pakistan. we keep hoping is going to make a turn for the better. well, in 2008, simply in foreign aid, we gave them $737 million, they voted against our position 81.1% of the time in 2008, 87.5% of the time in

2009. got the philippines. they wanted to be completely shed of the united states, didn't want anything to do with us. almost nothing to do with us. they did want our $100 million-plus that we would give them as we did in 2008, while they voted against our position in the u.n. 81.2% of the time in 2008, 62.5% of the time in 2009. people there, many of whom are very dear to the united states. but as a separate independent nation, they're free to make their own decisions. love us or hate us. but we shouldn't have to pay people to hate us when they're willing to do it for free. russia, hard to believe but we gave them $81 million in foreign aid in 2008 and they voted

against us 82% us in 2008. 77% of the time they were against our position in 2009. south africa, $574 million in 2008, we gain of only in foreign aid. not counting other types of aid. they voted against us, opposition, 84.5% of the time in 2008 and against opposition, 66.7% of the time in 2009. sudan, gave them $337 million in 2008, they voted against us to show their gratitude 91.9% of the time in 2008 and a clear 90% of the time in 2009. uganda, we gave them $350 million simply in foreign aid, not counting all the other types

of assistance. in 2008 they showed their gratitude by voting against opposition, 82.3% of the time in 2008. 62.5% of the time in 2009. venezuela, i bet most people didn't know, we were giving venezuela foreign aid, but we did. this majority voted to give them around $10 million in 2008 regardless of who was in the white house, the congress is the one that votes appropriations. venezuela got basically $10 million simply in foreign aid and of course they showed their love and affection for the united states by voting against us, opposition, 86.1% of the time in 2008, and 81.8% of the

time in 2009. we've got vietnam. vietnam, we've gotten so friendly with, they got over $100 million of u.s. taxpayer money, actually i'm sure it's borrowed money from china, but our grandchildren will pay the interest on and pay the principle as well, unless they have to declare bankruptcy as a nation because of our glutny, but vietnam, we gave away over $100 million to them and their gratitude was expressed by voting against the things we believe in 94.5% of the time. in 2008. and 75% of the time in 2009. yemen, yemen, now, this was just giveaway money here, $16 million, $17 million just as foreign aid to yemen in 2008.

showed their appreciation by voting against opposition 92.8% of the time in 2008, 71.4% in 2009. but yemen, not only did they get millions and millions of dollars simply in foreign aid from the united states, new england gave them a real boom. new england just found out in the last few weeks this year new england gave them a contract to provide liquid natural gas for the next 20 years to yemen. now, in order for yemen to get that contract, we had to snub our nose at countries who have been very supportive and have been friends, including some in the caribbean. we snubbed our nose at our

friends and new england gives what will result in incredible amounts of money to yemen for liquid natural gas. at the same time we were having hearings, been having hearings in natural resources committee to try to hamper hydraulic fracking by the use of -- fracking. by the use of hydraulic fracking we've been able to secure over 100 years reserves of natural gas that we could be using our own natural gas, across the aisle there's a wonderful bill that would encourage making cars that run on natural gas, more widespread, mauricey to get. and frying -- maurice -- more easy to get. and trying to move our country

over to natural gas vehicles because we have so much of it. of course if we eliminate hydraulic frackings, which by the way has never been shown to polluted drinking water, we've had hearings on that, and there's no need for the federal government to get in and try to oppose hydraulic fracking, many states that have it regulate it themselves. and they've diop a good job in controlling that. and will continue for the future. as one of the members of congress from louisiana said today, if you were to eliminate hydraulic fracking, would you do more damage to louisiana and its economy and people's livelihoods than this environmental disaster would do. yet yemen got this massive

contract to provide liquefied natural gas to new england. that means big, huge ships carrying massive amounts of liquefied natural gas. in other words, a rather large bomb will be floating in routinely to boston harbor and found a quote from the coast guardy where they indicate, gee, one of their biggest concerns since yemen has proved to be home of so many terrorists that want to destroy our way of life, one of their biggest job is going to try to make sure there's not one stow-away somewhere on that yemen tanker that may set the thing off and wipe out much of boston in the process. i wonder if people of boston knew that that was going on, that not only were we giving away so many millions to yemen, of course some may remember that

just recently people were allowed to leave guantanamo bay, went to yemen and yemen, of course, ended up seeing them take off and we don't know where they are anymore. heck, they may be back here coming across our mexican border since we haven't secured that. so, going back to my bill, 4636, i'm going keep bringing it up, and we will have a discharge position and give people on both sides of the aisle an opportunity to sign that, bring that to the floor for a vote. that will end up cutting off foreign aid to countries that so strongly oppose the things that we hold dear, the things for which we have sacrificed and john -- in john adams' words, toil and blood and treasure to

secure and yet we just keep giving money to those who are opposing us in almost every turn. there's sovereign nations we shouldn't be getting into nation building. they're big folks, they can make their own zgses. but if they want to oppose us at every turn they can -- can't expect us to continue to pay them to oppose us at every turn. so, it's hard to believe that that's something we're still dealing with but it is. and i have to mention this, regarding the gulf oil spill and this legislative voting markup is what it's called, voting a bill out of committee, it's the

emergency response to the gulf oil bill that includes $900 million a year for the next 30, 40 years simply to buy more land , think about the james bond tower, the world is not enough, well, only most of the west doesn't seem to be enough. my friend rob bishop from utah indicated, about how a friendly amendment -- how about a friendsly amendment to just say the federal government will only buy land in states in which the federal government does not already own up to 20% of the state? but my friend as i cross the aisle from those states in the east that love continuing to purchase land in the west, forcing schools to lay off teachers, shut down schools,

inability to provide tax revenue, they love that because they're not going to have land bogged in their state -- bought in their states. the friendly amendment that mr. bishop offered since the federal government already owns 70% of his state was not accepted. so, the intent appears clear, they want to keep buying more land in the west, they don't want it purchased up in the east for the most part. so in addition to that, during the hearings regarding the gulf crisis, when i was questioning director, brought out the facts that we had learned that there was only one entity, one group within m.m.s., minerals management service, that was allowed to unionize and that was the offshore inspectors. the offshore inspectors, the

people that stand between disaster and our beloved homeland and they're unionized. so i offered a simple amendment today because those offshore inspectors that go out to make sure things are done properly, to protect us from disaster on our homeland, they're like people in the army, you know, i never went into warfare, i was commissioned based on a army scholarship i had at texas a&m, had an army scholarship there, i went to the army four years but i wasn't commissioned until a year after vietnam, when i took the scholarship i anticipated i'd end up in vietnam, but the war ended.

and we would talk, though, in training and i'd been a sentry before, put out on a perimeter to sit guard during the night and i was out there standing guard to make sure nothing happened to my friends who were getting some sleep at night. i was their protection. so i wasn't about to fall asleep when, as dark as it was, out on perimeter, because i had to warn them if someone was coming in and, sure, it was drills, it was practice, if some want to call it that, but during drills you take have very seriously, but i came to appreciate the role of someone who is a forward observer, someone who is a century, someone -- sentry,

someone who is out there on the perimeter sitting, standing guard to make sure that they're protected back in the main group, well, -- well, that's the way the role of an offshore inspector struck me. they're out there protecting us. you can imagine someone on guard duty out protecting your perimeter calling in and saying, guess what? i'm going on strike. i don't like my contract, i'm going on strike. so you're no longer protected out here, things could go completely awry, i'm not inspecting, i'm on strike. that should not be allowed to happen in the military, it shouldn't be allowed to happen on offshore rigs. so i had a simple amendment that says, offshore inspectors are not allowed to strike or threaten to strike. in doing their jobs. votes were rolled so we'll have a recorded vote on that in the morning and we'll find out how

serious people on both sides of the aisle are about protecting our homeland or are they going to have to cow down and cater to the unions as we've seen on so many votes? we're talking about our homeland, we're talking about prevention of environmental disaster. so, mr. speaker, i hope that people will let their members of congress know that are on the natural resources committee, don't vote for the unions, vote for the homeland. don't vote to allow our soldiers, our offshore inspectors out there on our shore, on our offshore rigs to go on strike because, wow, what leverage. it would be like an air traffic controller saying, all of those planes are in the air and i don't care if they land or crash, we're walking away,

they're on their own. you can't let them do that. you have to provide for our country's security. you can't let people in position of power over lives and livelihoods to walk away on strike at the worst possible times. we'll find out tomorrow who is voting for our nation's homeland, our homeland, all we love and hold dear, the environment, the animals, the plants, that can't do anything about the oil coming ashore. we'll see whether the vote will be for the unions so that offshore inspectors can continue to have the threat to strike if they so feel like it or not. that's tomorrow. one other thing i want to get to, because i know our president said this year that

we're not a christian nation and i want to debate that. i don't know if we are or not -- i won't debate that, i don't know if we are oor not anymore. but i know how we got started. it's easy to see in the writings and things that were said the proclamations, it's easy to see. for example, george washington, may 2, 1778, gave this order to his troops. may 2, 1778. to the troops at valley forge. here it is, i'm quoting from george washington's order. the command for the chief directs that divine service be performed every sunday at 11:00 in eachbury gade which has a chaplain. those brigades which have none will attend the places of

worship nearest to. the it is expected that officers of all ranks will, by their attendance, set an example for their men. while we are se lousely performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. to the distinguished character of patriot it should be our highest glory to laud the more distinguished character of, and this is washington's words, christian. that was his order to the continental army, may 2, 1778. again, i won't debate whether or not we're a christian nation now but it is important that people in this body know and people across america know that we at one time were the

judiciary committee of the -- we at one time were. the judiciary committee of the senate made that proclamation one time in one of their votes. they said, point-blank, we are a christian nation. that was in 1800's. abraham lincoln, july 7, 1864, said this, in his proclamation, abraham lincoln said, i do hereby further invite and request that the executive departments of this government gather all legislators, judges, magistrates and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, naval or all soldiers, marines, all the other law-abiding people in the united states to assemble in their preferred places of worship on that day then and there to render to the almighty and merciful ruler of the universe such homages and such

confessions to offer him, offer to him such supplication as the congress predicts. that was for the day, july 7, 1864. september 5 of 1864, abraham lincoln addressed a committee and according to the historic document of colored people from baltimore, that's according to the historic document. now that would be african-americans, i'm sure but back in 1864, apparently lincoln didn't know better and so acknowledging a gift of a bible from those wonderful people, he said in regard -- this is lincoln's words. in regard to this great book, i

have but to say, i believe the bible is the best gift god has given to man. all the good savior -- this is lincoln's word -- all the good savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. but for this book, we could not know right and wrong. all things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it. in the bible. how about that. those are lincoln's words. you look at his second inaugural address. interestingly enough, he said these words. these are carved in the north wall of the lincoln memorial in the middle of his second inaugural address, talking about both the north and the south. both read the same bible and pray to the same god.

prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been fully answered. the almighty has his own purposes. then he quotes the bible, quote, woe unto the world because of offenses, unquote. yet if god will that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn shall be paid with another drawn by the sword as was said 3,000 years ago so still it must be said the judgments of the lord are true and righteous. unquote. that was lincoln's words. his second inaugural address. so i won't debate whether or not we're a christian nation, but that's how we got our start. despite the efforts of those evenly 1800's, up to the

present day who disregard the facts they disregard so many of our founders' own words, call benjamin franklin a deist, even though 80 years of age at the constitutional convention, he's the one that says, i have lived, sir a long time and the longer i live, the more convincing proof i see of this, god governs in the affairs of men and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice is it possible an empire could rise without his aid? we have been assured sir in the sacred writings that unless a lord build a house they labor in vain that build it. he went on to urge other members of the constitutional convention, his words not mine he said firmly believe this. i also believe without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in our political building no better than the builders of ba bell. so -- of babel.

so much for him being a deist. regardless of where we are now, this nation started as a christian nation. all the indications from official sources, from our president indicated as much. so regardless of where we are now, that's where we started. we need to get history right if we're going to have a future. thank you and with that, madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. hinojosa of texas for monday, july 13, and the balance of the week. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, ordered. the request is granted. is there a motion to adjourn in mr. gohmert: i move that we do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the

question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it and the motion is agreed to. the ayes have it and the motion will call the

this is 30 minutes. >> ok, good afternoon, everyone. welcome to today's operational update here at lake front

airport in new orleans, louisiana. today's update will follow the standard format, we'll take questions from the room followed by questions from the phoneline. at this point, i'll introduce admiral allen. >> thank you. thanks for coming here to lakefront airport. i returned a short while ago from a visit out to the well site with secretary salazar, secretary of the interior. we are on the this he lick producer one, the production platform we have brought on to be able to increase our production. this is the first time a floating production unit has been employed in the gulf coast. it was a pretty significant event, we had a chance to talk to the crew and that was a very -- that was very, very helpful moving forward. out on site today in and around the well site, we had 40 skimmers, 20 of them within 15 miles of the source we did five in situ burns, we are looking

at the new stacking cap and the shift, i would like to brief you on that as i briefed the press in houston we intended to proceed yesterday with the well integrity test related to the new capping stack put on the well site after we were able to remove the piece of riser pipe that had been there for many, many days. we had a meeting yesterday, went from about 11:00 in the morning almost 3:00 in houston and we wanted to make sure we were getting this right. that we were attending to all the details. this is a significant event and significant test in the response and our ability to increase containment and increase our capacity. we consulted intensively with outside experts from academia. our science team led by the secretary of energy consulted also with other members of industry regarding a potential issue we should deal with.

i will zero right in on what the discussion was mainly about and i'll be happy to answer questions about it. we have never been sanguine or sure we have known the coffin the well bore and the casing pipe since the event occurred. as we've gotten closer to having the potential to close in and do pressure readings on the capping stack, we have had numerous discussions about what the current status is of the well bore and the casings and the implications if they had been doorged if there was any communication outside the well bore to bring oil or hydrocarbon into the geological formation and potentially the subsea floor. questions were raised yesterday about the implications of leakage and how that interfaced with the test as we start to shut down the valves and increase pressure in the capping stack and i'll go over that process in a minute. what we might expect, even low probability, high consequence outcomes, as a result of that

we asked b.p. to go back and give us more information on the structural strength of certain portions of the casing pipes they had run down there, particularly around the 22 inch and 18-inch casing pipes. we asked for more information about assumptions that could lead to irreversible leakage outside the well from external experts. we thought about what kind of thresholds we would need to look at was weas ran the well integrity test. that took us 24 hours to work through all of that. we've had a number of conversations and early this afternoon, i briefed members of the cabinet on the way forward. at this time, we'll be releasing an order to go forward with the test and we did this to make sure that we were taking due care and in some cases maybe an overabundance of caution to make sure we didn't do any harm

to the well bore as we proceeded forward. what we are going to do when b.p. is ready and these procedures will start shortly, we will start to increase the pressure in the capping stack and we will do this in six-hour intervals. in each six-hour intervals we will stop and consider pressure data. we will look at information we are gaining from sonar, any remote visual data we have from remote vehicles. i will put this in writing to b.p. so it will be an adjustment to the plan i previously approve thsmed test will run far maximum of 48 hours, at which time we will stand down, assess where we're at and assess next steps. two of the very positive aspects that can come out of this depending on the pressure readings we find are an assessment of whether or not we can just cap the well at this time and the pressure can be maintained without damaging the well bore or the casings. we are also in the process of

building out enhanced containment strategy, which includes redundancy so if one part of the system is not work, we can continue to produce and capacity, as you know, our current flow rate projections are 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. we had intended by about this time to have 53,000 barrel a day capacity by bringing the helix producer online. what we have is a convergence of two events trying to bring the production up to 53,000 bafrles and because of weather to reduce the capping stack insulation system of these kind of overlap. i don't want to lose track of the fact that we're following a robust containment strategy started in early june where we directed b.p. to come up with alternatives to reduce re-- to have redundancy with regard to flow numbers. we'll be initiating the test late they are evening, i'll

stun you with my audiovisual aids here, i'm at lakefront airport, i have had no access to power point. here we go. everybody see this? ok. i'm going to explain what's going to happen here. you have at the bottom, the blowout preventer and the marine riser package that are left over from the deepwater horizon loss. that's right town here. we are currently producing off the kill and choke lines of the her marine riser package and blowout preventer to the choke line to the q-4,000. last week as you remember we removed the stub of the riser pipe and put in what we called a p flange pool. on top of that, we have exceeded the capping stack here and it basically has three rams and blowout preventer. it has a kill line and a choke

line. you have a small b.o.p. and a smaller b.o.p. here's how we do the test. we'll take down production from the q-4000 and the helix producer later today to the point where they are not producing any more that will force the oil up throughout blowout preventer. at that time, the kill line and choke line and the top of the stack will be open. we know that's the reason we've got skimmers and diational capacity on the surface to deal with that. we'll then, in sequence, close the middle ram here which will stop the flow out of the top of the stack. then we'll take pressure readings. we will then close the kill line. and take pressure readings. following that, we'll use a remotely operated vehicle to

hook on to the bar here that turns a and this choke line has been especially constructed, if you've looked at the video, you'll see a yellow object with a curved up pipe that is the choke line. that is the last way for oil to leave the capping stack. we'll slowly close that very, very slowly in partial turns and measure pressure at the same time. in that manner, we will slowly close the entire capping stack and read the pressure. as we do that, we're going to be watching very closely the pressure readings. if the pressure readings stay low, that will tell us that the oil is probably going someplace else and we need to consider the fact that we may have a breach in the well bore or in one of the casings. if that is the case and we have low pressure readings for about three hours, we will probably stop at that point. that will be the assumption and we will go into production, bring everything back online so

we minimize the amount of oil going into the environment and we will assess the results of that test. that will also tell us and give us more information about what we'll need to do with the relief wells down below when we try to start to pump mud in and finally kill the well. if the pressure continues to rise, we'll monitor it every six hours, again looking at acoustic information, visual inspection of the sea floor. if there are no problem the decision we made in six-hour increments to proceed. at the end of 48 hours, we'll stop the test, assess all the information we have, we will probably do another seismic run over the area around the well to detect any potential hydrocarbon or methane leaks from the sea sea floor. then we will assess whether or not we need to go into another cycle of closing the capping stack down, taking pressure

reading and this will lead us in two very positive directions. number one, at some point our ability to determine that we can with confidence shut the well in and understand we're not harming the well bore and casings. this will be be particularly useful during hurricane season. we have good weather right now and we try to take advantage of that as you know. but if we have to leave the site, vacate the site we need to know whether or not we can just cap the well and leave. if we're not successful in doing that, we can still move to our strategy, which was by the middle to the end of july to go to four production platforms that would be producing at that point out of both kill and choke lines from both preventers, the legacy ones on the bottom and the new ones on the top. that's what gets us to 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day which is in excess of our flow rate

of our estimate. in case the flow rate went down, we could keep operating and hand they will flow rate and reduce it and the capacity we need moving forward. this last-minute evaluation was due to an overabundance of caution led by our technical team and other member of industry and the academic community. we sat long and hard about delaying this test. there is not easy. there are significant perceptions that have been created around the country. i have my own perceptions of howwide like to move forward. but i think in the interest of the american people, stife the environment and safety of the project moving forward, it was adviseable to take a 24-hour break and make sure we got this absolutely right and understood the best way to deal with the unknown quantity, the coffin the well bore, and now we're prepared to do that. i'll be glad to take your questions. >> david mattingly from cnn.

could you characterize for us what you think the odds are for success? you're obviously moving forward but how confident are you that this is going to work? >> as far as containment, i'm very optimistic because we have a cap in place regardless of whether or not we can shut in the well or not, we have the cap in place to allow us to go to four production platforms. one of the problems will be is we may not get 100% containment, but it will be more than we have right now. we have capacity that's in excess of the flow rate. this is good nusmse it owould be terrific news if we could shut in the well, i don't think we can say that, there needs to be an overabundance of caution and i don't think we can shut this well until we get the empirical readings we need to have and try to understand the coffin the well bore and casings. >> admiral, evan brown, fox news radio. how much was this delay in fact a delay and a disappointment or

a setback for everyone involved? >> the -- everybody understands this has been a substantial impact on our environment. there's been a substantial impact on the gulf coast, the people, the culture we understand the difficult times we're going through. what we didn't want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake. there are some ways where the hydrocarbons can leak out and you say, we're going to tolerate that while we do the test because we'll be able to produce the oil and there will be no way for them to get out. but there are some instances where if that happened, that might not be reversible. we want to have a serious discussion about what we felt about that. those are the kinds of discussions going on. it was an overabaundance of caution. >> admiral allen, katie moore.

you said you have your own opinions about how you should have proceeded. who is calling the shots? people are wondering why there isn't a sense of urgency? is there a sense of urgency? >> there's a tremendous sense of urgency. i thought long and hard before i directed b.p. to put a 24-hour hold on it. i did that with the advice of the technical team. the only way you give legal standing to a direction to b.p. is through the federal on-scene coordinator. so when we give them a direction and it's from me as a federal on-scene coordinator that has the direction of law and regulation, ok. so i am the authority that had has to issue it given that it's not unreasonable to sit and think and make schuur you're getting it right, regardless of how quickly you want to get this done. i thought we took a thoughtful approach wembing had a lot of people looking at the problem, looking at potential outcomes and i'm satisfied with where

we're at. >> you said one reason you stopped to look at everything was it was unclear what the condition of the well bore and i can't remember the name of it -- >> the casings. >> yeah, the casings. can you elaborate what the condition is? >> that's the issue, we don't know. we have people postulating what if we increase the pressure to over 8,000 pounds per square inch at the top and we inadvertently cause a breach in the well bore, do we think that will happen? we did a couple of things. we asked b.p. to come back and say what were the engineering margins you built into the casings and the way you connect the casings together with what they call the foot and shoes and how they hang thing the different sections of casing go together. what were your engineering guidelines by which -- and what kind of pressure would it take to cause a problem with those. they answered that set of questions. regarding what is the inch igs

-- implication of hydrocarbons or oil into the formation around the well bore itself or potentially getting out and coming up in the subsea, one of the things that's key that made it worth our while to wait, there was a seismic test done yesterday, we didn't have the results until this morning. they rep re-inforced the fact that there was not a problem where there could have been. we had more confidence in the way we were looking at the alternatives that could come about. >> kim holden with wbtv here in new orleans. can you talk about the stopping of the drilling of the relief well, why that happened, why that coincided with this delay? and could the pressure readings, however they turn out, have any impact on starting those relief wells drilling again? >> there is a connection on the status of the well bore, we'll talk about that second. we haven't sthoped relief well. development driller three leading the relief well is down

at about 17,840 measured depth feet in the pipeline. they're about four feet four inches from the well. as they go down, they'll go down in 10 or 15-foot segments, it'll be done deliberately and they'll remove the type and -- pipe and make sure they put a sensing device down to make sure they know the angle and distance where they want to come in and intercept the well bore for the final relief effort later on this month. they are going slowly, they have not stopped. on the other hand, development driller two, which was drilling the second relief well has got ton a certain point, they are close and they're going to hold where they're at because if they get down in there and starts to be interferences with the sensing equipment. they are down, waiting in the wings to see how the effort goes and they can move in right behind them. once they get down there, the coffin the well bore and the