passion. republicans persisted. we got a welfare reform bill. the end, though, they blinked as to who was going to give in in the end. and it's like a street ball when whoever is standing there is the one who one. bill clinton one on who would put the government back at work instead of leaving them shut down. but we got welfare reform. america thinks there was a real model accomplished. and some of that was a model that came out of the state of wisconsin from governor tommy thompson. a lot of that was done in next door iowa without that level of fanfare. but that came to the capitol. that's where the federalist system that leaves the decisions to the states and manifested itself in the model of wisconsin and iowa. some will say it is a better

program than wisconsin, was reflected here in washington welfare reform. we thought we reformed welfare in the mid-1990's, but when you track the dollars, you look and find out it's not that handful of welfare components we might think of such as food stamps, rent and heat subsidies and aid to dependent children and others. but 72 different programs. and these programs are so myriad in their number and diss par ate in their varieties that it is impossible for a citizen that is sitting at home reading the newspaper and maybe they are tracking the internet. 72 different programs. 72 programs, many of them, most of them, maybe even all of them growing. and so what we have seen if you chart the graph is, welfare spending is going up. mid-1990's, reform came and it leveled off and went up again at

a pace and accelerated at a level or equal to greater than the mid-1990's because they blended so many in, it crept in before we knew what was going on. i'm looking forward to hearing him at 8:00 tomorrow morning and i hope there will be a good number of members who arrive and we will get into the subject matter. this is one of the things that goes on in this congress that doesn't get any press and we are back behind those doors constantly sticking our nose, eyes and ears into programs trying to find ways that we can better configure this government, ways we can save money and get more productivity out of the people in this country. . our job is to increase the annual productivity of our people. that doesn't mean everybody's going to be producing. some people are going to be in a hospital bed. some are going to be in the nursing home. some are going to be shut-ins at

home. some will be retired. because of their age or maybe they've earned it. maybe they're retired because they've earned the kind of wealth that let them retire. their capital's still working bufment we need to have the able-bodied people and the able-minded people in this technological era that contribute to this economy, that are producing something on a daily basis, that are proud what have they do, that are creative and when you add that all up, 306 million americans, and just think, if every sickle one got up every -- single one got up every day and did something that's constructive and productive in the private sector, how much difference that would make. think of this if we're all on a great ship sailing out across the ocean. you had to grab ahold of the ore to go anywhere, sails aren't helping you. you can man the sails when the wind's blowing. if everybody goes and pulls on

that ore you -- oar, you sail through the effort without a lot of effort. but every time somebody lets go you have the oor and sits in the steerage passage and the steerage exarment and watches the ocean go by and watches everybody else work and pull on the oar, you know what that does? every time somebody let goes of an oar it's harder to keep that fish going. it must slow down because you've got fewer people pulling on this economic engine. and the more people that quit and give up are provided an incentive, let's say it pays the same, to pull on the oar as it does to sit up there and steer. let's say the food's the same, the service is the same, you get a bunk that's as good. why would you pull on the oar? if you're living as good a life without having to go down in the hold and pull on the oar and do your share of the work and carry your share of the oar, -- load, why would you do it? just out of good conscience because you like to row the boat? mr. speaker, that's not the way it works in the real world.

some people do like to row the boat. some people work just out of conscience. some of them give from an altruism from within their heart. but that's not what keeps the economy going. what keeps the economy going is it contributes but what ensures that the economy goes is that people are rewarded for their labor. people are rewarded for their creativeness, for their entrepreneurial spirit, for inventing, for providing and for marketing -- producing and for marketing. people that add to this economy need to be rewarded for what they do in proportion to their contribution and only the markets can determine that. not some good bureaucrat, not some pay czar, not somebody that decides this c.e.o. should get paid x that c.e.o. should get paid y. nor a president who can decide this c.e.o. needs to be fired. well, mr. speaker, i'm not making that up. that is a fact of history. undenied by the president of the

united states or any of his spokesmen in the white house, the president fired the c.e.o. of general moters a year ago, a little more, fired him. came out in the press, the president eliminates the c.e.o. there was no denial out of the white house. he essentially took a bow. remember how many times he said, if you put obama in there and then put in quotes in your google search, i'm the president, how many times has he said, i'm the president in the last year and a half or a little more? a number that i can think of. he constantly reminds us he's the president but no president in america should ever have the authority to fire the c.e.o. of a fortune 500 company or anything else. let him fire his own staff, let him fire his own cabinet, let him fire his own executive branch, that's fine with me. that's his shop. general motors and chrysler were private companies taken over by the federal government and the president of the united states

fired the c.e.o. of general motors and approved the replacement hire and hery placed all but -- and he fired and replaced all about two of the board members of general motors. he ordered the elimination of 3,400 car dealerships. why? because his car czar and his people in the white house had some offbalance idea that if you eliminate dealerships you can sell more cars. now, you know, i come to this office with, i think, maybe a gift of the commonsense that -- common sense that comes from the midwest and i'm sure it exists in all of the rest of the country, too, but here's what we know where i come from. if you want to manufacture widget, especially if you invent a widget, but if you want to manufacture them, let's say you go in your little shop and you create and manufacture a wind chill et and you decide, i can make these things pretty good and i can mass produce them even. so now i want to sell them. what would you do? simple.

you go to the county fares, you go to all the county fares and you would -- fairs and you would show these widgets and you'd say, you should be a franchisee. i want to let you be my dealer and you can take this widget home with you, pay for it, of course, stock it in your inventory, i'll give you the material and you can sell widgets out of the window of your shop. or out of the implement lod to -- lot or whatever the widget might happen to be. and you'd know if you want to sell a million widgets you can't stand there and sell all of them, there's not enough time. but if you can get enough dealers out there, if you can get 3 had, 400 dealers out there, you can sell a whole lot more widgets than if you don't have any dealers. so do 3,400 car dealers sell more than 3 had, 400 less car dealers? the answer is obviously no. it's a stupid decision to think you can eliminate car dealers and sell more cars. and what's happened? the company that was not

dictated to by the white house is the one that's selling the cars and growing and turning a profit. ford motor company. and i've not been one that went out and bought ford as the first vehicle. been hard for me to buy a ford in the past but it's looking a little more attractive to me now. because they're american cars, americanmade that are not propped up by the taxpayers and they're proving what free enterprise does. now, i'm not saying necessarily that i'd go out there and change the brand that i currently drive, i'm currently happy with that, but, mr. speaker, my point is, the white house has been dictating to the private sector, they have nationalized and taken over general motors and chrysler and three banks, three large banks, a.i.g., the insurance company, to the tune of $180 billion, fannie mae and freddie mac, this just popped up a couple of days ago, in addition to that, the $145 billion that have been poured into fannie mae and freddie mac to prop them up,

we also have the other agencies, f.h.a., federal home loan administration, and some other loans that are rolled down through other federal agencies, the loans that have been issued throughout those other agencies, now the no down payment and the very low down payment loans, and that means the low down payment of 3.5%, that would be kind of down there in the low from 3.5% down to 0%, that's $1 trillion in loans that the federal government is the guaranteer of. the guaranteer. $1 trillion. fannie mae and freddie mac give the taxpayers a contingent liability of $5.5 trillion. so what happens if these loans all blow up? that means the taxpayers are stuck with 5ds.5 trillion plus one, and know the math on that. $6.5 trillion in contingent liability for the american taxpayer because the people that don't understand free enterprise

think somehow the only reason that thank somebody that doesn't have an income, doesn't own their home is because nobody's offered them a no down payment loan. and so you they're going to figure out -- and somehow they're going to figure out how they're still going to pay the mortgage payments on a house. now, that means -- here's your house, you have no skin in the game, and it takes at least six months to foreclose in most of the states on a loan like that, well, who wouldn't take a home for -- i wouldn't, actually, but there are many people that would take a home for no down payment, you get to live here for six months without making payments before we figure out how to evict you. we had a bankruptcy clawback bill that was brought through the judiciary committee, from here to the floor of the house, that exempted some people and gave them breaks, who are -- whose homes were being foreclosed on. and i offered just a simple amendment on the end of the judiciary committee and it was this, if someone had defrauded their lender or attempted to

defraud their lender they wouldn't be able to take advantage of the special provisions in this bankruptcy clawback law. and that amendment passed the jury judiciary committee, mr. speaker, by a vote of 23-3. but guess what happened? the will of the committee was reflected in the vote, the recorded vote, but by the time the bill got to the floor the language was changed miraculously. by whom? well, maybe the staff of the judiciary committee, with the consent of the chairman of the judiciary committee, john conyers, with the compolicesy of the rules committee, chaired by louise slaughter, and i think at least in the silence of it all, within the arrangement of the speaker of the house's method of running this place, speaker pelosi. and so, this franchise that is every member of congress, each of us that represents about 700,000 people in this congress, we come here to carry the values

of our constituents and out among our districts, we have all the solutions for america. we have all the answers that man and woman can device out there among our constituents, 700,000 i have the privilege to represent added to the other 305.3 million or so that are represented by the other 435 members of congress. and we go out, we have an information network. we gather data and we have those voices coming in to my office constantly. that's what we do. and as part of my job, weigh those ideas in, place them in the right place, get them to the subcommittees, get information before the hearings, get them to the subkest and for the markups and get them to the full committee for the secondary markup. get them to the floor with amendments before the rules committee, if it's just that they go there, and get this into the debate. if we don't get it solved we want to go down the hallway into the senate and weigh in over there and use whatever kind of influence we have. because it's so important that we collect the wisdom of the

300-plus-million americans, that's what a constitutional republic does. that's what it's designed to do, mr. speaker. but we have a draconian house of representatives that has shut off the input from the citizens of the united states, has shut down the process to the point where, on a -- an amendment can be offered and passed in a markup of a bill before a full committee like the judiciary committee or the energy and commerce committee would be another example, mr. speaker, where this has happened on obamacare, on cap and tax as well, where the will of the committee is just ignored and they go rewrite the bill and bring it flood floor. they don't say anything to anybody them. don't ask permission, they don't ask for a signoff or a consent from the people that recorded their vote in support of those amendments. they just simply ignore the entire lot of committee or defy it and rewrite the bill after the fact and send it to the floor without notice.

and when caught red-handed, their answer is, it was so obvious we knew you'd catch us. that really gives me a feeling of comfort. how many were not obvious? how many didn't we catch when they tried to change a little word like a may to a shall or vice versa, something that can completely transform the meaning of an entire piece of legislation. well, if you're looking at every word, i suppose you would catch it. it's obvious a may to a shall or a shall to a may or a notwithstanding slipped in or taken out but it should have the integrity that the will of the group is brought out by the chairman of the committee and then that decision of the committee must be sacrosanct and honor and -- honored and it should never be changed. if there's something that has been a mistake or there's a change of opinion, then whoever wants to change that conclusion

of a committee should have to bring an amendment to the floor of the house of representatives and debate it here. that's how a constitutional republic is designed to work. it's dysfunctional if it's not run that way. this is a dysfunctional congress. the will of the people are not being reflected in this congress in many, many ways. this takes me to the issue -- a couple of issues. cap and tax passed this house almost very close to a year ago today. looks like it's balled up in the city and i hope it stays burr areried there. they'll keep trying. that didn't refleck the will of the people. that was a high-handed leverage operation. i won't go so deeply into that. i don't expect we'll see that, at least before the election. after the election, if there's a lame duck session, and there likely will be, it better be just pro forma activity of this congress to get the business

done that must be done so this country can function because the people in november will have spoken, mr. speaker. and they need to be -- their will needs to be reflected after the election. a lame duck session that brings transformative pieces of legislation breaks with the trust of the american people and would be a defiant action and it should be met with the defiance of the american people and anything they should try to do in that kind of environment should be repealed. the president of the united states ought to say so. he ought to say, no transformative legislation should be brought before this congress in a lame duck session. the president that honored the constitution and the will of the people would reinforce that position right now and he'd do it today, mr. speaker. but another one of those pieces of legislation brought before this congress that defied the will of the people is obamacare. i'll tell you what it is, it is what the president has identified, he's referred to it

as obamacare, i happen to remember february 25 at the blare house this year, when president obama talks about this health care plan as obamacare. that's the moniker he'd like to have on it, that's what he'd like to have for his legacy. the american people can't have obamacare and have freedom, too. it has to be one or the other, it cannot be both. they are not compatible with each other. freedom and liberty cannot coexist side-by-side with obamacare, mr. speaker. this obamacare that was contrived and recontrived and manipulated and are remanipulated and set up -- sent up to the congressional budget office for another c.b.o. scoring after another c.b.o. scoring turned logical contortionism inside out to get to a conclusion that obamacare wouldn't be expensive and the assumptions that were made

defied rational thought. one was, we'll save $532 bhl by cutting medicare $532 billion. here we are, senior citizens are are now the baby boomers, arriving at retirement age and in my district, iowa has the highest percentage of population over the age of 85 of all the states. 99 counties in iowa, 10 of the 12 most senior counties are in my district. the fifth district. draw a line from non missouri and put a third of the state on the west side of that, that's the fifth district. in those 32 counties, we have 10 of the 12 most senior counties in the most senior state in america. i will submit by that standard they represent the most senior congressional district in america. the district that would have, most likely, the highest percentage of its people on medicare.

and social security. and this president and his administration proposed and force fed legislation on the american people that would slash the already tight undercompensated budget of medicare by $532 billion because of a couple of things, one is they allege that there's fraud and corruption and waste, fraud, and abuse in obamacare and we don't know whether that's true everywhere in america, but we know, or i'm confident, that it's not true in small towns and rural areas in the midwest where i happen to have the privilege to serve. so the idea is, slash the budget of medicare and then if you do that, it'll magically find the corruption and waste and chop it out. well, the people involved in gaming the system are the best at gaming the system system of those that are simply working on a stable budget providing

services that aren't waste, fraud, and abuse are reich i -- likely the ones to get their budget cut. they're not gaming the system, they are just trying to provide service to senior citizens who need help. here's what we find out also, obamacare, you look at the real numbers, it's a trillion-dollar deficit, $1 trillion over the budget projection. we're also seeing that they're putting things in place to ration our care, putting the c.e.o. in place to -- who is convinced that the united kingdom has -- their socialized medicine is the best plan, worships at the altar of socialized medicine. it looks like the british are repealing their socialized medicine plan and we just adopted one in the form of obamacare. the people don't yet know what this means.

the speaker tells americans we have to pass the bill, obamacare, in order to learn what in it. as if we can't read 2,300 or 2,400 pages to figure it out. it isn't possible to read the bill and figure it out because you have to understand and predict what the bureaucrats will do to right the rule -- to write the wrules in the aftermath and that's just beginning. here are some things i have seen and here are things that i know, mr. speaker. that is that the president said he wanted to proside some -- provide some competition in the health care industry and there the problem was there wasn't enough competition for health insurance. so he wants to set up the public option. remember the public option? his public option would be, federal government setting up an insurance company that would compete with the private sector health insurance companies. so if there isn't enough competition, the first question the president should have asked and the first question that the pundits should have asked would

be, mr. president, do you have any idea how many insurance companies, health insurance companies there are in the united states. if you want one more company to provide more competition, wouldn't you, at least before you came to such a conclusion, as the president has, wouldn't you ask the simple question, this is like the dumb question, how many insurance companies are there in america selling health insurance? i know it sounds a little dumb, mr. speaker, but there are a lot of people out there that made decisions on this that don't know the answer to this question. i checked it out. 1,300 health insurance companies in america. 1,300. 1,300 health insurance companies selling health insurance in america and the president says let's -- we have we need more competition is let's have a government company to compete against, i don't know what in his head, one or three or five. that's a far cry from not having enough companies, i

would say. if you add one more, it's a government company, 1,301 company, is that the right, perfect, balanced number? his motive isn't to provide more competition, it's to replace the private sector he campaigned early on for the public option and also far single payer. the president's on record being for a single payer. single payer is the government takes care of everything. they take care of providing all the health insurance and all the health care there is. by the way, twhain get to the point where they have a monopoly, they would wipe out the insurance component of this by arguing we are wasting money administratively by managing people's health insurance policy, why don't we just give them the health care? why tell them, you have to own your own policy, carry your own insurance card, pay your premium, we'll subsidize your premium if you're not making enough money, we'll tax you if you're making too much money,s

that share the wealth, robin hood strategy. the only thing is, the president's idea that we're not going to tax -- to increase taxes on anybody making less than $250,000 a year turns out not to be true. it turns out to be false. and the question that needs to be asked there with the president is, was it a mistake, mr. president, or was it a willful misinformation to the american people? that's the question. i remember during the campaign in 1996, when sharlton heston, at the time -- when charlton heston, at the time, was president of the national rifle association, ran commercials against bill clinton who was president. the question was, did the president tell the truth or did he lie? and charlton heston's comment was this, he said, mr. president, if you say something that's wrong and you know that

it's wrong, excuse me, mr. president if you say something that's wrong and you don't know it's wrong, that's called a mistake. if you say something that's wrong and you know that it's wrong, that's a lie. the question becomes, what does the president believe -- what did the president believe when he repeated to the american people he would not raise taxes on the american people if you made less than $250,000 a year? obamacare raises taxes on many people that make less than $250,000 a year. it imposeance individual mandate that requires everybody to buy insurance or be fined and punished and penalized for doing the same. that's never been a requirement by the federal government in the history of this country. that the federal government would produce a product or approve a product and compel the american people to buy it system of if they're going to

approve health insurance policies produced by, say, wellmark or some other company, say, we like your policy and your policy and your policy and our health choices administration czar, i call him the commiczarissioner will pick some of these companies that existed when obamacare was passed, and say, we like these policies but you have to change them to match the rules yet to be written by the commiczarissioner, and once we approve all this, it'll be a decision of how many companies will be left to do business and the federal government injecting themselves in to compete directly against that and then every health insurance policy in america under those standard, actually, every health insurance policy that exists today, will be effectively can sell -- canceled by the federal government under the law and the rule and they will have to

requalify, actually, they'll have to qualify under federal standards yet to be written, there's not a single policy in america that the president of the united states himself, even if it was at a beer summit back on the south lawn of the white house, 100,000 policies in america, there's no one that the president of the united states himself could pull out of that stack of 100,000 policies and that's a deep stack, maybe that high and point to it and say, this policy, mr. or mrs. american, is your policy and you get to keep it and the substance of the bin fits on it will not be changed and your premiums will not increase or be altered dramatically different than the markets would normally move it. not one policy out of any one of the millions of american that are insured and not one policy out of the 100,000 varieties out there to be sold

can be guaranteed, even by the president of the united states tork man who fired the c.e.o. of general motors, replaced the board of directors, all but two, reminded us that he's the president and he gets to do these things, maybe he's also the one who has brought about the firing o, the elimination, replacement of the c.e.o. of b.p., i think he'd be pretty proud of that if you could get down to the soul of who he really is, but there's not one policy he could say, this is yours you get to keep it, the premium won't be altered substancively and the benefits will be the same. they all get canceled. after 2014, they all have to qualify. that's like going to the racetrack, you have the fastest car, you set your standard and

when you pull on there with that nice, fastst car and you have to go back and you've got to run the laps and qualify again and again and again. that's what it is. everybody has to qualifymark won't. many companies will be broke. they'll be drin down. a lot of policies have to be rewritten, premiums will go up, but there's more to that. employers will look at the penalty, 8% penalty on payroll, those that employ 50 or more, and they'll decidemark of them irk can pay the 8% penalty for not insuring my employees cheaper than i can pay their premiums, so why would i, knuckle under and comply with the federal mandate when it's cheaper to do something else. and then you have individuals that will be self-employed, those who will be working for companies that don't have 50 or more employees and those companies are going to be providing health insurance less and less and those employees

that don't have health insurance are going to be more likely to just pay the penalty because they know this. they've got guarantee issue. they've got pre-existing language -- condition language that's there. so why would you buy insurance if could you simply buy the insurance when you get sick? on your way to the hospital, in the hospital, from intensive care, sign the application, pay the premium, like somebody that's completely robustly healthy and pay the same premium. this is a my opic thinking that comes from the white house and the other side of the aisle. they don't understand how business works, they don't understand how insurance works. they understand how socialism works and they're seeking to drag us there. now, i used to refrain from saying such things, mr. speaker, but the evidence is so replete and it's just -- it's a constant out there among the american people. they understand this. they understand that -- some of this actually began at the end of the bush administration.

all of it though with the blessing of now president obama. we had a $700 billion tarp program that was a mistake. $350 billion of that was passed in the lame duck of the bush administration. and then there was -- then there was the nationalization of three large investment banks, a.i.g., fannie mae and freddie mac, general motors, chrysler, the takeover of the student loan program in the united states that not that many years ago was all private. now it's all run by the department of education, every bit of it. if you wonter -- -- wonder about this pattern, they know what they're doing. back in 1960, 1960, 1961 and 1962, in that era, the only flood insurance could you buy in america was sold at the private sector. property and casualty flood insurance. so you if -- so if you lived in a flood plain you could pay the premium to a private sector company and protect yourself from floods but the federal government decided they would get involved in the federal flood insurance program and they

passed that. just a few years later there was no longer any private sector property and casualty flood insurance in america. there hasn't been any for almost 50 years. for almost -- almost 50 years, since we've had private sector property and casualty insurance. because the federal government got in the business and they couldn't compete well enough in the beginning but then they passed legislation that required that anybody that had a loan through a national bank had to buy flood insurance so the flood insurance premiums were compelled as a condition of the loan. so they imposed a requirement to pay those premiums and over time they pushed out the property and casualty people, the private property and casualty people, and the flood insurance program became 100% federal government. now you can't go out in the market and for years you have not been able to go out on the market and buy flue flood insurance.

you have to buy that through the federal flood insurance program. and curiously, that program is $19.2 billion in the red, mr. speaker, and are looking for ways to compel more people to pay premiums because the value of those premiums hasn't reflected the risk or else they paid out the benefits in such way and think it's a combination two of the. but mostly the premiums haven't reflected the value of the risk. they haven't run their insurance company very well. they're government after all if they fail to meet a cash flow, they don't go broke they just come back to this congress and ask us to borrow money from the chinese to back fill their business inefficient sis. and that's the model -- inefficiencies. and that's the model. we have a federal flood insurance program that's a bust, we've got the student loan program now taken over by the department of education and done so in the dark of the night as part of a reconciliation package that circumvented the filibuster rules in the senate and was

attached to the last-minute deals that were made on obamacare, and now we've got obamacare and it will move itself towards the nationalization of our health care. in fact, i say it is the nationalization of our health care because there isn't nig anybody in america that will be able to manage their health care anybody at their own choice. the markets will not establish the demand, will you not be able to go to an insurance company and say, if you and a million other people in america want to be able to buy low premium catastrophic insurance, let's just say you're 22 or 23 years old and robust health and you've got an income where you're making $25,000 a year and your employer's not providing your health insurance but you want to be responsible and pay for catastrophic insurance and you say, i want to have a $2,500 redubblingtble premium that only -- deductible premium that only pays catastrophic and what's going to happen? i guarantee you it will not

exist. it will not exist because the community ratings already eliminate catastrophic low premium health insurance for young people. which means they have to pay a disproportion share of the premium and when they look at that, they wonder, what am i getting back for my money? well, they're getting the privilege of paying somebody else's health insurance premium that levels this out a little bit. as if the generations had an equal shot at it. but here's what happens. young people that are healthy don't have very many health insurance and health care claims. their premiums generally have reflected the risk in the states where that states allow them to do that and that's many. in fact, it's most. but under obamacareworks the 3 3:1 community rating, that premium can't be anything less than 1/3 of the highest premium that's charged out there. so if you have somebody with a, let's say, a bad health record, that would you charge a high

people are upto, your low income guy has got to subsidize the high claims guy. and the world doesn't sit there just so that a low -- a younger person with low health care claims can't afford to pay a lot more premium than that. they're not a lot more risk than that either. but someone who gets up there, i'm going to say 55, your income, earning capacity increases throughout your lifetime to a certain point and then it tends to level off as people start to retire. let's say mid 50's. that's the time also that health tends to cost more in the aftermath of the mid 50's. so the premiums go up and that's a higher income time of life. why would we go down to the younger people and discourage them from buying insurance, people that would drop off and pay the penalty instead of the premium, because we rigged the game in favor of the people at the upper age group and the upper claims group of this? again, it defies logic. so we could go on and on about how bad obamacare is, mr. speaker. but i just want to make this

point. i brought legislation to repeal obamacare. i asked the draft of that, i could not sleep the night this passed, i typed up a request for the bill draft and i sent it to council at the opening of business that morning. it was a monday morning. that draft came back to me completed in legislative form within three minutes of the time that congresswoman michele bachmann's repeal bill also came down. within three minutes each of them were 40 words, they were never bait am to each other. pieces of legislation that were pure in their simplistic, 2,000-plus pages of obamacare ripped out by the roots, lock, stock and barrel, if we pass this legislation that is so similar that repeals all of obamacare, 100% of obamacare, lock, stock and barrel, not one vestige of it left behind, not one particle of obamacare d.n.a.

left behind. it has become a malignant tomber in our society. it is metastasizing as we speak and it's got to be repealed. every sing of word of it, every component of obamacare has got to be repealed. michele bachmann's legislation does that, mine does that, onmack's of florida real repeals it, also parker of griffith of alabama, bob inglis of south carolina, all, those are the once i can think of, i think jerry moran would be another one, have introduced legislation that repeals obamacare, all of it, lock, stock and barrel. that needs to happen, mr. speaker. if we're to have our liberty back, if we're to have our freedom back, if we're to have our american vitality back, it's got to go, all of it. now, what i have done is work that legislation pretty hard. i ended up with 89 signatures and i'm still taking more if they'll sign on, to the repeal legislation. and because of that effort, and i ask people, those that sign on to my bill, most of them, i ask them to sign on to the bill of

the others. and especially michele bachmann's because she had worked it so hard, but it ended up there were a few more signatures on my bill than the others so i introduced a discharge petition, some five or six weeks ago. a discharge petition, mr. speaker, is the one single tool that the disenfranchised majority opinion in this congress can use to bring legislation to the floor over the will of the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. any other method that we might have to move legislation here in the house is blocked by the iron fist of the speaker. any legislation we try to move through committee will go nowhere, no matter what the support is for a bill, if the speaker doesn't want it to move, it doesn't move. if you want a hearing before -- for a piece of legislation before a committee, you will not get that hearing. if you want a markup before a subcommittee or a full committee, you will not get that

markup. the speaker will decide whether it moves or whether it doesn't. it is an iron fisted draconian hand that shuts down the opportunity for the will of the people to be manifested in a recorded vote on the floor of the house of representatives, there's only one tool, only one tool, mr. speaker, and that's a discharge petition. it is there to give relief for the people in this -- the will of the people in america, reflected in this republican form of government that is guaranteed to us in the united states constitution. a discharge petition, when a bill has been introduced here into the house and once it's been here and allowed to cure for a minimum of 30 legislative days, then it can be converted into a discharge petition on file right over here at the clerk of the house. and it requires a signature of the members of congress who

support it on that document and an initial. now, as those signatures are accumulated here on this discharge petition, mr. speaker, it's discharge petition number 11 that repeals 100% of obamacare, that discharge petition is on file, it has my signature at the top, it has michele bachmann's right there with mine and con canny mack's at the top and it goes right on down the line. when i first filed it, some of the critics out there in america said, well, there's an act of frustration. he won't be able to get anything done on this. they aren't going to sign onto that discharge petition. well, we can take a lack and see what's happened today -- look and see what's happened today, mr. speaker. in fact, we can check it currently and i might be able to do that actually on the fly and that is that we're at least at 159, i think 160 on the discharge petition. and it is -- when we get to 218 then we will be able to bring that bill to the floor for an up

or down vote no, amendments, cannot be blocked by the speaker of the house. that's what a discharge petition does and, let me see there we go, i'll get this going and try to give you a report, mr. speaker. but this discharge petition number 11 is here in the well. and republicans have lined up to sign that petition and they've done so repeatedly and consistently and it's a logistical difficulty to get that maybe people to go to the well and sign a disparage petition. but we're up to 159 or 160 on this petition and there are others that have agreed to sign and of the republicans, mr. speaker, there are only 14 by current count that haven't either signed this discharge petition or agreed to sign the discharge petition and all of the elected leadership has signed and in fact i'm seeing a notice here that all of the appointed leadership has signed, the entire leadership team has agreed to sign the discharge

petition or the entire leadership team on the republican side have all signed the discharge petition. that's 100% support in the leadership team in the republican conference, that's leader boehner, that's whip eric cantor, that's republican conference chair and master communicator mike pence. that's everybody along the line that you will see that line up on the microphones to lay out our republican policy and 160 of us altogether to have signed, there's at least another four that have agreed to, that haven't quite made it down here to put their john henry on the disparage at the tigs. that is very, very close to a full -- petition. that is a very, very close to a full court effort. i think the republican numbers have the opportunity, that by the end of this week, to be significant in a er tos on the discharge petition, total -- totaling. i'm expecting we have a chance to get that that point and maybe, just maybe, on the best day, every republican has signed

the discharge petition. he hope we get there. because here's what it's about, mr. speaker. 34 democrats voted no on obamacare. every single republican voted no on obamacare. it was universal, every republican opposed it, 34 democrats opposed it. why did they vote no? that question's out there, the american people are wondering this, mr. speaker. why did they oppose obamacare? did they do is on the philosophical basis, was a conscious it was a policy question? every one of them would like to tell you it's a policy question. well, is it ever a policy question in some of their cases, i think we're going to find out. we're going to find out because were they voting no on obamacare because speaker pelosi said, i don't have to have your vote, go ahead and vote no, and then you can posture yourself back in your district as someone who is against obamacare and someone who is not necessarily doing the bidding of the speaker of the house from san francisco.

this san francisco agenda has been driven through this house because all 34 democrats that voted no on obamacare voted for nancy pelosi. when you think about how this fits together, if they voted for nancy pelosi for speaker, they enabled the san francisco agenda to be driven through this house of representatives. that includes cap and tax, obamacare, barney frank's financial reform legislation that sets the federal government up to be in a position to take over lending institutions, at least the larger ones, if they so decide to do so. that's been driven by the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, from san francisco a san francisco agenda imposed on america because every democrat voted for nancy pelosi for speaker. now they're going to go back home and say, i vote -- i voted

no on obama care, i know one member of congress, part of the iowa delegation, said, i think the bill has gotten better in the house and i'm going to vote for cap and tax because i think they'll vote -- they'll fix it in the senate. you don't sell out like that. obamacare has to be repealed. the 34 democrats who said they were opposed to it have an opportunity to prove to it by signing discharge petition number 11. 34 democrats voted no on obamacare. if they're sincere, they'll sign the discharge petition and be added to the republicans that have signed it, and there'll be more tomorrow and more the next day, i guarantee that, mr. speaker.

when we get to the point where we find out the separation between the women and girls and the men and the boys. were they for the repeal of obamacare? if they opposed it in their vote they shouldn't be for it in policy today and if they're going to duck and cover and try to have it both ways a discharge pe fission will help separate that, it will separate that, and we'll gavel out of here perhaps thursday night and most every republican will have signed the discharge petition, i'm hopeful there will be a handful of democrats who step up and say, i really meant it when i voted no on obamacare and i'm going to put my name on this discharge petition, which commits them to voting for the repeal if we get 218 signatures and it comes to the floor. that's giving the constituents in each congressional district the opportunity to take a look at the real record, an

opportunity to evaluate the real positions of members of congress, not the smoke and mirrors version, not the duplicity or the straddle the fence version, but the real version which is if you voted no on obamacare you better be for the repeal of obamacare. if you voted yes on obamacare, you might want to reconsider and sign the discharge petition anyway. it's bad policy, it can't be afforded, it can -- no way can it be calculated to fit within anything we might be able to sustain. it's unsustainable, it's unforgivable to do this to the american people and take away our freedom to manage our health care and go out on the market and buy the health insurance policy we want. there are many things we can do for reform, many things we have tried to do for reform, we sent many things over to the senate when the republicans were in charge here in the majority and they got locked up with the trial lawyers in the senate.

we have to get past the trial lawyers. but we cannot tolerate a congress that drives up the spending in america that runs in a $1.4 billion or $1.5 trillion deficit, that's 10 times the average deficit under george bush. and still they stand up and say, push's fault, bush's fault. bush's fault? $140 billion deficit under bush, i voted for a balanced budget, i'll keep voting for that, but mr. speaker to equate a $1.4 trillion deficit and a $1.8 trillion deficit coming the year behind that and to equate that to $140 billion deficit, it defies any rational thought, mr. speaker. and i hope thative conveyed some rational thought for you tonight and i'm glad that you paid attention and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the

gentleman from ohio, mr. ryan, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. ryan: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm going to rise this evening with some of my colleagues to repudiate some of the comments that have been made here tonight, to correct some of the record, to and provide, i think, the real story, mr. speaker, of what is going on in america and compare that, my friend from iowa, who was up here prior to me, stated that it's about the record. i would 100% agree. it is about the record. and if you look at the past few years prior to the democrats taking over, our friends on the other side of the aisle had complete control of the entire federal government and states like many ohio, they had control of the whole ohio government. and with president bush, republican house, republican

senate, they had an opportunity to implement their economic policy, they had an opportunity to implement their foreign policy, they had an opportunity to implement their energy policy, they had an opportunity to implement their health care policy, all across the board, our friends on the other side had an opportunity govern this great country and the end result, we saw, just a few short years ago, with deregulation of wall street, turning a blind eye to what was going on, hoping that the health care problem would go away, hoping that the energy policy, the energy problems we had in this country would go away, and the end result was what happened just a couple of years ago with the complete collapse of the american economy, with trillions and

trillions and trillions of dollars lost by american families and american businesses, with millions of people losing their homes due to foreclosure, with the federal government down here saying that government never works, it has no role, no place in our society, let the free market work. let wall street run the show. let the multinational corporations run the show. and we will do everything in our power, while president bush was in office, to completely denigrate the responsibility of having a referee on the field. to monitor wall street shenanigans, mr. speaker. to make sure learning from history, that if you let wall street go, without any regulation, that they will run

free and for a short time monitor themselves, but then after a while they will get greedy and they will cheat. and it will become inherent in the system, and at some point, as we saw many economists predicting the collapse that they said maybe would happen in 2008, maybe 2009, or maybe 2006, they thought it would come a little bit earlier but there were economists out there who could see what was going -- who could see what was going to happen. and it did. the unregulated free market wall street collapse -- collapsed and took main street with it. and, for example, our friends on the other side just in the last week or so, when this congress and this president passed a complete overhaul of the regulations of wall street to make sure that this doesn't happen again, our friends on

the other side voted against it. mr. speaker, voted against regulating wall street after we'd all just watched as a country and as the world watched, this system collapse. because people just started moving money around. you want to talk about family values and taking responsibility, we are now holding wall street's feet to the fire and our friends on the other side said, no, we're going to side with the big banks. we're going to side with wall street. we're going to side with the status quo. and to me, mr. speaker, that's unacceptable. that's unacceptable. we have a bogeyman america now. we have to hold up san francisco agenda's coming or here comes socialism, it's

coming at you. this time in our country's history requires very sober, mature analysis of the facts and an attempt to build a consensus around solutions. and our friends on the other side have consistently said no. no, no, no. to every -- to everything we've done. now, you can't disagree with everything. my goodness gracious. everything? regulating wall street, saying we need a referee on the field to keep an eye on the big banks and the big-time money firms on wall street, to say they need regulating and you say no? to say that we wanted to pass

unemployment insurance at this very difficult time and republicans put up procedural block after procedural block saying no? they come out and readily admit, we've got to pay for $30 billion in unemployment insurance but we don't have to pay for $650 billion worth of tax cuts that go primarily to the top 1% of the people in the united states of america? millionaires? that doesn't need to be paid for? so what we're here tonight to do, mr. speaker, is to provide for this chamber and for the american people and to put into the congressional record the choice, the difference between the party that is now governing the country and the party of george w. bush who left us this mess. now, no one is saying we can

fix this overnight but basically what happened is that we were in a football game and president bush was the quarterback. and when they took president bush out as quarterback, we were down 50-0. and now, president obama is in as the quarterback, democrats are now in on the team, and we may not have won the game, yet, but we are still in the second quarter and the score is now 50-21. but we're moving in the right direction. and when you look at where the bush economic policies that everyone on the other side of the aisle, mr. speaker, rubber stamped, those policies cost our country millions and

millions of jobs. eight million jobs were lost because of the economic collapse on wall street, which was the final result of the bush economic policies. millions of people in their homes went into foreclosure. because of the bush economic policy. trillions of dollars in wealth was lost because of the bush economic policies. we were bleeding jobs. the january that president obama came into office, we were losing almost 800,000 jobs in that month alone. in that month alone. so this president and this congress took a series of bold measures that weren't necessarily the most popular measures to take, but definitely needed.

mature measures to help stabilize our economy and turn it around. that, mr. speaker, beyond all facts to be presented, worked. now as i said, we are not anywhere near where we need to be. but it worked. the stimulus package worked. did it work well enough? probably not. but i can only imagine what would have happened if our friends on the other side were in charge and there wasn't any stimulus package at all. how many thousands and thousands of teachers would have been laid off? how many thousands and thousands of state workers would have been laid off? police and fire would have been laid off because our friends on

the other side said no? . we are going to implement a strategy that president obama apudeyates. we have to root against the president. we have to root against the president to fail. we have to root for the country to fail so we can benefit politically in the next election. and that's what's happened. no to stimulus. no to unemployment compensation. no on reducing our dependency to foreign oil. no to taking on the insurance companies. no to wall street reform. no to the banks. no to providing more credit for small businesses. no to tax credits. this is the one i really like. our friends on the other side voted against getting rid of the tax credit that incentivized

moving jobs offshore. now, can you imagine saying that, you know there are some things i'm for and some things i'm against. our friends on the other side voted against a closing of a loophole to disincentivize jobs moving offshore. democrats are closing that loophole and incentivizing american manufacturing, things made in the united states again, making things in the united states again. those times when our parents and grandparents grew up where we made things as a country, where we built things. and that's what the energy revolution is all about. we send $1 billion a day offshore, $1 billion a day, mr. speaker, offshore to oil-producing countries that don't like us all that much.

and in many instances, take our money and fund terrorist acts, try to in the united states and across the world, and then we have to spend money in our military to combat the global terrorist act. so if we come up with the idea of, can't we produce our own energy here with nuclear, natural gas, wind, solar and put people back to work in the united states making the 8,000 component parts that go into a windmill, making the 400 tons of steel that go into a windmill or into a solar panel. this is the idea of putting america back to work. and our friends on the other side, mr. speaker, are saying no. let's keep giving tax cuts to the oil companies so they can

keep drilling, when we only have 2% of the world's oil in the united states of america. there's a real choice here. there's a real difference here. and it's important for all of us to recognize the choices that have been made down here and the differences between the two parties. so we stabilize things. we went from losing 750,000 jobs in that first month in january. and now we have an average monthly job growth of 170,000 jobs a month here in the united states. not nearly enough. we need more. and we're working on more by helping small businesses eight-plus small business tax

credits to help create jobs including a tax credit to create jobs here in the united states as opposed to a tax credit that our friends on the other side support to move jobs overseas. so we can put americans back to work making things, manufacturing things and taking on china. that's what these policies are all about. a green revolution in the united states is about resuccess tating manufacturing in the united states. and let me say if you had a 401k or if you have a retirement plan, it looks a heck of a lot better today than it did when our friends threw us the keys. most families have gained about 60% of their wealth back because of the increase in the stock market, because of the policies

of this administration. the bold policies of this administration. we have seen 98% of families in the united states in the past year see a reduceed level of taxation. again, it's in vogue today in america, especially if you are part of the neo conservativism, radical right wing that has taken control of the republican party, mr. speaker, to put up another bogey man and say they're raising your taxes. well, we haven't. 98% of americans have seen a reduction in taxes. and so we are doing what we need to do to get us out of this economic catastrophe that

president bush and his republican party left this country. deregulated wall street. looked the other way. let the insurance companies run crazy over the health insurance industry. and we have seen skyrocketing costs, incentivized, drill, baby, drill. continue down that road, while oil-producing countries take our money and fund terrorism, while we could be investing that money in the united states and manufacturing renewable energy products here. so we have seen, mr. speaker, a dramatic change over the course of the last two years. so the choice is quite clear. do we return back to the failed tried and tested policies, the

worn out, trite policies of the bush administration? do we trot those back out after we saw where they took us? do we bring out those -- you know, here's the thing that i love. our friends on the other side said, well, if we just cut taxes for the people that make all the money, it will trickle down and benefit everybody else. we tried that, mr. speaker. that was the policy of the first six years of this decade. bush came in, passed his tax cuts, and we didn't see extreme economic growth. we didn't see the middle class rise. we didn't see wages go up. we saw more offshoring of jobs to china and foreign countries. we saw the tax burden pushed off on the middle class. we saw health care costs skyrocket and go through the roof, continuing to take money

out of the pockets of middle-class families. we saw tuition costs go up all across the country. 9% a year. and pell grants, because our friends said, you're on your own. we don't want to invest in education. pell grants did not keep pace with where they needed to be. and our friend who was here earlier was talking about the student loans, how the department of education took over the student loan program and free markets, yeah, because the banks were charging 8%, 9%. you want to keep that system going? well, you better take out a student loan when you get out of college and owe $20,000, $30,000 or heaven forbid and go to medical school and come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt so the banks can make a

profit off our kids. that's what the other side wants to do. they want to keep that system in place. they liked it just the way it was. everybody was happy. the insurance companies are happy. the multinationals were happy. the banks were happy. wall street was happy. but we weren't happy as a country. and not only did the banks charge 8% or 9% for a student loan. check this out. the government said if a student defaults on that loan, we'll pick up the tab. wasn't it -- wouldn't it be nice to be a bank under george bush? you mean, i get to loan this student and this family, a student loan at 8%. and if they default on it, the government will come in and pick up the tab? hey, we should all go into

banking and be that lucky. and they set up a system, wall street did, that if there were lots of profits and lots of economic activity, they reap all the benefits and the wealth was not spread tpwhrute -- throughout society. they would benefit. if it failed and collapsed, they would bring the whole country down with them, main street included. and then president obama gets in and we passed the most sweeping wall street reform since the great depression and our friends on the other side voted against it. just to keep the status quo. so let's recap a little bit. bush comes in and republicans rubber stamp his agenda and cut taxes for the top 1% and try to privatize social security and medicare, policies implemented

across the board right down the line. after they are all implemented, the economy completely collapses and shuts down. and the democrats come in. we get the keys to the car. the wheels are spinning, would beling, cracks in the windshield, steam coming out of the engine, the tailpipe is dragging on the ground, there's no back window. it's like the car from the big labowski. and this is would beling down the street and we get the keys down the -- get the keys to the car and our friends don't even try to solve the problem. don't even try to solve the before -- problem.

we saw from losing 700,000 jobs a month to creating on average 170,000 jobs a month. we saw the stock market go from a little over 6,000 up to 700,000 and 60% of the wealth return to american families. we have seen a reduction in student loans. an increase in pell grants. an increase in the minimum wage. making sure that everybody in the country has health care. we tried to provide and we have provided tax incentives for businesses who create jobs here in the united states of america. as opposed to our friends on the other side who voted against closing the loophole to bring jobs to the u.s. they wanted to keep the status quo which incentivized businesses moving their companies offshore. and our friends on the other side don't want us to reduce our

dependency on foreign oil. and have consistently voted against initiatives to bring back manufacturing here in the united states and invest in green technologies and green energy here in the united states. so on and on and on. in addition to that, mr. speaker, which i think really highlights the difference between the two parties is that if you look at the alternative budget provided by the republican party here in the house of representatives, it privatizes social security and it attempts to turn medicare into a voucher system for our senior citizens. again, a leap back to the bush-era policies. do we really want to go back

there? and i'm the first to say, we haven't done everything right. i can talk with some of my disagreements with what the president has done. we aren't all in agreement here. but clearly, there's a difference between what we have done and what our friends on the other side handed us after full implementation of their agenda. and i would like to yield to the gentlelady from florida. . who has our florida orange on tonight. ms. wasserman schultz: i do, because i bleed orange and blue. we are joined by our good friend who has been a weekly staple of these message hours where we are trying to communicate to our constituents and to people across the country and to our colleagues about the progress we have been able to make that has been so significant and evident and one

thing i wanted to highlight, i'm not sure if you've gone over any of this, but i think an important chart we usually begin with when we talk about the progress that has been made is the private sector employment increases over the course of the past year and a half. if you look down, if you look back to december of 2007, all the way through to june of 2010, you can see the dramatic job losses that occurred in the bush administration. the bush administration ended right about here in january of 2009. then president obama took over, we at this point in the year passed the recovery act, the stimulus package that injected $787 billion into our economy, both in terms of an infusion of spending as well as tax cuts,

98% of americans received a tax cut, mostly focused on tax cuts for small businesses and working families and then at that point, that's when you see the job growth. -- then you see the job growth curve start to shift, from almost 800,000 job losses a month in the months before president bush left office and president obama was inaugurated, then you begin starting to regain jobs to today where you look in june of 2010 where we have added jobs for six straight months, an average of 100,000 jobs per month, almost 600,000 jobs created this year alone and if we keep on this pace, by this year, we will have created under president obama's leadership and the leadership in this congress more jobs in this year, more private sector jobs in this year than the entire bush presidency. that's just the facts.

and it's an unbelievable fact. we have turned the economy around. we have begun to go in the right direction, we have a long way to go. look at the other indicators. look at the stock market. look at the three straight quarters of growth in the g.d.p. look at the 11 straight months of growth in the manufacturing sector. we are about -- america has always been about making things. the two of you are fro communities, -- are from communities, mr. tonko and mr. ryan, are from communities that your constituents, the people who sent you here to represent them, they are used to rolling up their sleeves, doing a hard tai's work for a hard day's pay and making stuff. we want to make sure that we can get america back to work making things again. that's why we have our making it in america agenda we'll be talking about in the next few weeks as we enter the august recess period and we're pleased to be joined by our good friend, mr. tonko a new mobe

who has been doing a terrific job. mr. tonko: thank you, ms. wasserman schultz. it's a pleasure to join you and mr. ryan here on the floor. you talk about our districts being about making things. i thought i would share some numbers that personal ites this to new york. let's look at some numbers. beech nut, which produces baby foods a tremendously powerful economic engine in the mohawk valley, their jobs are 156, 52 in management and 54 in new factly positions. these are workers that will be producing on the line. it is a strength to our region. x-ray optical. the x-ray optical system said they feel that they need to share with the world that throughout this recession, they have maintained their work force, and their order of business, they believe this is

a monumental feat. so we're thrilled they are able to have survive through this economic climate without any layoffs, without any firings. certainly the jobs in the capital region are plentiful, become manager plentiful. the albany medical center has more than 400 openings including nurses, technicians and other specializations. general electric needs some 200 engineers, researchers, financial analysts. comfort tech is hiring 400 people since may and looking for 15 additional workers this time last year, the state labor department in new york reported there were 3,800 registered job openings in our area now it's reported 600 job openings. unemployment in the albany area is 6.6%.

these are numbers personalized to one congressional district in one state. as we continue to see this sort of increase in jobs across the country, we begin to understand that the dynamics of the recovery act are indeed important. there are those who might bemoan that invest. we stopped the bleeding of the -- that investment. we stopped the bleeding of the recession and for slightly less than $1 trillion we see factors like 1,800 jobs lost in the last 18 months of the bush administration, household income just lost in that period. we have recovered $6 trillion of that household income with the result since the recovery act. when we talk about that, down payment of under $1 trillion has recovered some $6 trillion in household wealth. i think that's an amazing return for the dollar. that's an amazing recovery

system of the recovery act is not only producing that private sector job growth as the -- as my two colleagues indicated this evening with the chart they've presented, it's also recovered some $6 trillion in household income and for a down payment, again, of under $1 trillion, that's a great return. so i think america is poised for greatness. this cleansing process has been painful, but it allows us to go forward with the sense of commitment to innovation, to clean energy economy, to the sort of emerging technologies and the innovative genius that is uniquely american. if we can move forward and take a number of these success stories, success stories in our r&d centers, in our basic research and allow them to be deployed into manufacturing sixtyors and into the work force by taking those pageants and the investment we need to make, we can respond with a

jobs agenda and respond to sose yo economic ills out there. our energy crisis in this country, several crises under the umbrella of energy, can be addressed by investment in technology, investment in r&d and certainly job growth that comes into a new dimension that allows jobs to be created from the trades up to the ph.d. it covers the fulgham out. i think that's the sort of investment we're talking about here. we're talking about advanced battery manufacturing. we're talking about smart meters, smart grids, smart thermostats. these are the investments that can be made. people that will install energy efficiency improvements in homes and businesses to make businesses more productive to maintain homes at a cheaper cost by using less electricity and creating jobs in the process. i'm thrilled to join you both as colleagues here this evening because we have a message a great message to share and people need to know, the public needs to know this investment was made in a deliberative,

laser sharp focused type matter that a-- manner that allows us to begin to see the improvements taking hold. had nothing been done, had the previous administration allowed its way we would have seen that straight line decline continue until we hit the great depression. so i think we are on the right course, we're now veering northward with that v formation and we'll continue to grow north to make certain we continue to grow the private sector economy. mr. ryan: if the gentleman will yield, i think it's important for us to say, we tried the old way. this is what we have been trying and attempting to fix and here you will see, again, even a rise in manufacturing and what the democrats are saying here, and you see two, four, six months of job growth in the manufacturing sector and what democrats are saying is, that's part of the economic stimulus package. that is part of moving toward a green economy.

where our people -- people in our country who have always made things, have always went to the factory and made things, not everybody can be in an ivory tower, not everyone can do the research. if we're going to succeed as a country we need the middle -- we need the middle class of our crunt i to make things. -- of our country to make things. the idea of taking $1 billion a day that leaves our country and goes to oil-producing countries that don't like us, and fund terrorism and we have to fund the military to chase them around the world is an ignorant policy. it's a frivolous policy that doesn't work. and so what we've done is made investments into wind and solar and the batteries and the things that the gentleman stated earlier, so that we can do the cutting edge research, but then we can make it here. we could manufacture those products here. 8,000 component parts go into a

windmill. 400 tons of steel. solar panels are filled with different components. in to lee dee, for example, they're doing a lot of different solar panels. in toledo, ohio. let's make this stuff in the united states of america so we can get back to a time where parents and grandparents throughout the country could go to work and make something and watch it ride down the road or look at the steel in a building and the concrete and the windows and the framing and everything that gos into it, that's what we're moving back to. we've broken with the past, broke within the bush economic policy our friends on the other side have rubber stamped and we are now moving in a new direction. not nearly as quickly, or with the selerity all of us want, but we're going in that direction. ms. wasserman schultz: a couple of years ago, when we'd be out

here each night with the 30-something working group, we had -- our symbol was the republican rubber stamp that was emblematic of the philosophy of our friends on the other side of the aisle. i think we should take a walk down memory lane. maybe we want to bring the rubber stamp back because it does appear that they have not shed those tendencies and that's evidenced in the choice that americans will have over the next few months. let's go through those choices. you're talking about how important it is that we go back to making things in america that we revitalize the economies that had manufacturing as the back bone of cities and towns throughout this country, throughout the northeast and the rust belt and i don't even like the term rust belt. it implies something that's irretrievable. once something is rusted out,

your perception is that it's not able to be regained. i know we don't believe that. we believe in investing in the concept of making america. and it's more than just a concept. that we're going to put resources into making sure that when we have a choice, that we choose to make sure that it's americans that are doing the manufacturing for the things we need here. and we're doing that by backing that up with actions when it comes to our policy decisions as well. so are the republicans. their actions are vastly different than ours. we propose to close tax loopholes that allow outsourcing u.s. jobs overseas and use the savings to pay for hometown tax credits for small businesses to expand manufacturing jobs. and what do they do? they vote -- they being the republican, they vote 170-1. 170 republicans voted no to one that votes yes to protecting

tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. 170 to one, they voted to keep that tax loophole intact so we could continue to allow companies to get tax breaks when they ship jobs overseas. mr. tonko: that vote is so -- is such an example of -- mr. ryan: that vote is such an example that the other side seems to be playing politics. like they want obama to fail and they want to be able to say -- they want to be able to say, we had nothing to do with any of that. so being so ideological that they vote against getting rid of tax cuts that incentivize offshoring business, that's just -- that says it all. it's one thing to say you're against some of the stuff but that too? ms. wasserman schultz: would the gentleman yield? mr. ryan: i'd be happy to. ms. wasserman schultz: it would be bad enough they voted to protect the tax breaks.

95% of house republicans have signed a pledge to protect the tax breaks. signed a pledge, put their name on the line and said i'm going to protect tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. it's absolutely mind-boggling. we want to make sure that we protect companies and give tax breaks and incentivize companies that make decisions to create jobs here in the united states. in your district in new york, in your district in ohio, in districts across this country. and they'd rather have those job crease ated in china and in other countries. boost up their economy. mr. tonko: if the gentlelady would yield, you talk about telling statements on the floor and the behavior in and around washington that proves very telling, actions sometimes speaking louder than words. the activity taking place, having taken place on this floor as it dealt with america

competes, here was a major bill invested in, a number of groups overviewing this legislation, monumental for the future of america's work force, to manufacturing, to investment in basic research and r&d and there were all sorts of effort made to hear everyone, to be totally inclusive about that final package that was developed and then presented on this floor, approved in committee, then travels to the floor. then the game of gotcha politics takes hold. we use -- they used all kinds of stall tactics, gimmicks to embarrass, to trap people to circumvent the issue of how do you strengthen manufacturing, how do you put together a package that invests in what's required, how do you begin in the educational network so stem, the science eric technology, engineering and math concept can all be learned in a way that will enable us to have the work force of the

future? that effort was so very important, it almost went to defeat. it was pulled on the floor and a few weeks later we figured out how to get around the politic spirit that existed. . ms. wasserman schultz: and your point is very well taken. we had to use a procedural motion just to be able to get around their being an obstacle to the america competes act coming to the floor and being able to get a straight-up vote. and when it came down to it, we were tore it and most of them were against it. mr. tonko: the actions taken by the majority of this house have been about job creation and private sector growth. the other side doesn't realize is what we have out there is middle-class anxiety, the

concern about paying their mortgage, paying for education, for credit cards -- bills that they have, medical bills. and they are impacted and losing jobs through no fault of their own and finally they will see hope growing as we go the private sector situation. that is the dynamic that has really been avoided and not addressed by the minority in this house. and i think that when they ask to have control back, i think what we need to look is the contrast. and we have mentioned this will several times over in our frequent visits to the floor, but what we need to do is take the big picture and allow people to see the contrast. we are looking at a group that drove the car out of the ditchment e. when the minority was in the majority working with the previous administration, they drove this car right into the ditch and couldn't get it out and up comes the new team and

what we have done working with the president and leadership in this house is tow that car out of the ditch and now they want the keys back to drive and we say no because we have to go forward, not backwards. we need to pursue a progressive agenda and when we look at social security and where they are at that issue, they want to privatize. imagine the trillions of dollars that would have been lost had we enabled them in 2005 to have their way. i wasn't yet in congress. but fortunately, the republicans did not get their way and did not privatize social security. we are here attempting to keep that out of their wish list of privatization. they wanted to voucher out the medicare program, a very successful program for our seniors. they wanted to put a voucher system in and we are trying to maintain it and develop the security of that system into the

future. they liken our work on wall street reform akin to attacking an ant with an atom bomb. nothing could be further from the truth. a deception they are proud of. they are asking our president to a apologize coming down hard on b.p. for not responding efficiently and in record pace to make certain that we save our environment in the gulf states' area. there are all these snap shots that we need to look at. and there is a contrast. there is a team that wants to go back to the failed policies of the past and there is one that wants to promote an agenda for the future. and we need to remind them there is this anxiety level, with our middle-income americans that is at an all-time high and they are seeing there is a difference between the former majority and

now this democratic majority. and i think we have a track record in history that will show that when we're in control, we deliver for america's working families. and i think that's a record we can be very proud and which really speaks to the strengthen ing of america, her families and the economy. ms. wasserman schultz: one of the things i want to veer a little bit in a different direction towards, again, the choice that americans are going to be facing. because your facts are stubborn things. you can run away from a lot of different things, facts are just persistent in chasing you. they have been chasing the republicans, those stubborn facts for a long time. one of the facts is that republicans are consistently on the record of voting against

statutory pay-as-you-go legislation. back in the clinton administration when pay-go was first established and that was a tough, tough vote that democrats led the way on, made sure happened under president clinton's leadership and the country finished his presidency with record surplus, 1 with a record surplus, which was handed to president bush and he promptly squandered in just a few short years. if you look at this chart -- and we'll start back in the reagan administration. and i want to start back in the and i want to start back in the reagan administration, because walk with me down memory lane. i know it's painful, but i think it's instructtive. as you walk with me down memory lane, look under which presidents we operated a deficit

and which president we operated at surplus. president reagan, $1.4 trillion deficit. president bush, didn't get any better, $3.3 trillion deficit. president clinton, we went from a record deficit at the time to a record surplus of $5.6 trillion. and then when president bush finished off after being handed a record surplus, he finished office with an $11.5 trillion deficit, handing that record to president obama. and as you said, after having driven our economy off a cliff, now the republicans are asking for the keys once again.6 c1 for the keys once again. facts being stubborn things, the republicans voted against statutory pay-go. under the administration --

under the bush administration, they allowed pay-go to lapse. they deficit spend like drunchen sailors, two wars not paid for, the medicare present subscription part d program. as goo and we are pleased that they have it paid for, it is deeply flawed and could have been 1,000 times better. and we were able to fix it in the affordable care act. but they blindly spent through tax cuts and spending and now suddenly seem to have found religion when it comes to spending and deficits. mr. tonko: representative wasserman schultz, if you'll allow me to make a comment. when you talk about the $11.5 trillion deficit, that's when the bush administration ended and when i arrived in washington as a freshman.

several months ago now in my first term, i distinctly recall that economists of all stripes from far right to far left, found that we needed to invest in this deficit situation and the situation has long but passed. so the denial under the deficit growth which became a record proportion, could have been resolved if they had changed their policy and looked at the failure and tried to turn it around. so by the time the new administration took hold in january of 2009, the requirement was there. it was basic. every economist was suggesting and strongly urging that it took investing. so we really have to take additional monies that drove the deficit a little larger, but to stop the bleeding of the recession. because the likelihood of disaster was tremendous. so there was no choice but to

further invest. so deficit drove additional investment requirements, but because of the track record we are showing this evening, it did have its corresponding results. it was a dividend that came from those investments, but they were the smart investments that drew the deficit slightly but stopped the bleeding and shows the growth. ms. wasserman schultz: one of the important things to note, mr. ryan is that when we became the majority once again in 2006 and over the last several years, we re-established statutory pay-go. we established it in rules and then passed it in statutes and 100% of the republicans in this body voted no, voted against making sure that we made a commitment in the law to not spend more than we take in, to pay for the legislation, other than emergency spending, which obviously we have been in an emergency and been pretty careful about what we declare as

emergencies, making sure that we have covered the legislation with pay-for, that they haven't believed in pay-fors in years and years, if ever. the tax-cutting policy that they had, which was exclusively focused on the wealthiest 1% of americans also wasn't paid for. there isn't anything wrong with tax cuts. we have to balance it, but when you don't correct revenue, that is less revenue we have in the treasury and that affects the deficit as well. so their total disregard for balancing the books is not something that they're going to be able to run away from and we aren't going to let them run away from it. mr. ryan: when you piece this all together, the philosophy which didn't work, but it's to cut taxes for primarily the top

1% of the people, millionaires and multimillionaires and expect to get that money re-invested and in china and that was part of the offshoring. then their philosophy was to completely look the other way, take the referee off wall street and let those people making money continue to find these other schemes to make more money, and that's how that ran, even to the tune of the student loans where they gave loans at 8%, 9%. so the system was just set up to just allow the wealthiest people in the country to make money any think -- way they thought of. mr. tonko: it was a partnership with big interests, big oil, big banks, big insurance industries. when we saw some of the -- in

the beginning stages of the bush presidency, we saw some of the attempts there for trade contracts, for contracts with china, that, you know, when we look at the investment, when we look at the jobs market, it can be broken down into elements, agriculture, manufacturing and financial services. it appeared as though the manufacturing was pushed aside. we didn't see the kind of execution of the trade contracts to favor manufacturing. instead, we were somehow -- they were gripped by the special interests of big banks. and they ruled in these contracts that were developed. so i think, history will show that manufacturing didn't have a high priority with these groups, when you see the emerging technologies, the american innovation. there were many small businesses continuing to grow that could have pros period with the appropriate treatment from washington with policies,

programs and resources and that didn't happen. and we saw the further relaxation of regulation with the financial services sector. so tools are being developed to intentionally circumvent to relax regulation and avoiding an aggressive approach. all of this created a failure that brought america's economy to its knees and it is about partnerships with special interests, big companies and big industries that had a grip on what is happening here and caused a lot of failure. ms. wasserman schultz: i want to bring us back to the choice, the choice of going in the direction that we have been taking the country, a new direction to re-invest in america, to make sure we can create jobs here and not give tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas. we established statutory pay-as-you-go rules so we don't spend more money than we take

in. let's walk through some of the other bills that we passed here to make sure we can focus on our own economy and compare the record. because again, this is about a choice that americans are making. . 98% of republicans voted against that legislation. how about the small business jobs tax relief act. that was a bill that provided tax incentives to spur investment in small businesses and grant small businesses a tax -- some tax penalty relief. 97% of republicans voted against that legislation. how about the american jobs and closing tax loopholes act? legislation that would help create or save more than a million american jobs and prevent corporations from shipping jobs overseas and sticking american taxpayers with the bill, 83% of republicans voted against that legislation.

the hire act. that bill would give small businesses tax incentives to hire jobless americans, an estimated 4.5 million new workers were hired, making american businesses eligible for $8.5 billion in tax incentives under the hire act, 97% of republicans voted against that. i could keep going. there's an unbelievably long list of job creating legislation that we have passed, put out here on the floor of this house and 9 -- over 95% of republicans have voted against it. we could continue to move the direction that we've been going in, job creation, spurring the economy, investing in america, or we could back slide toward the bush era, go back toward the same ageneral da as they have committed to focusing on and i'm not sure i've met anybody who wants to go back to

that agenda. mr. ryan: right. what we're proposing and have been investing in is a pro-growth agenda for our country. that is not as simple as cut taxes for rich people and hope and pray that they somehow invest in the manufacturing in the u.s., you know, in other investments in the u.s. we need to rebuild our infrastructure in this country, roads, bridges, waterlines, suer lines, combine sewer in our big cities, that's going to put people to work and rebuild our country. our highways and bridges, we can invest into that and rebuild the country. that's going to lead to economic development and economic growth. we are going invest into technology, green technology, national institutes of health, biotechnology that is ultimately going to make us healthier and create more jobs. those investments aren't made by the private sector and we need to make those investments to put -- that will directly

put people back to work so we want to go back to the philosophy we had in this country in the 1950's and 1960's and a little bit in the 1970's, where we had balanced growth, a rising middle class, strong wage growth, increases in productivity, as opposed to what started in the 1980's, except for the blip in the clinton administration where it's deregulate and let the big dogs, as you said earlier, big insurance, big oil, big banks, multinational corporations, come into washington, d.c. and run this show too. that doesn't work for main street. ultimately, i think as difficult as this last couple of years has been, we got to see the supply side economic policy, what really happens once it's fully implemented. we saw the end result of that. >> to my colleague from -- mr. tonko spock to my colleague from florida and ohio, i

believe the sense i get is there's a thoughtful process now to provide the very strong incentives to grow small business, grow private sector jobs, done in a way that really shows respect, respect for the taxpayers' dollar, and wanting to pull us out of this recession that was so deep and so long. i think it's happening. i know that the innovative genius will be inspired by the legislative route we're taking, by the priorities we're establishing, with the budget priorities we have put into play. it's ability growing jobs. it's about giving people the chance, again to feel the greatness of america. the greatness of america that allows us to know that we have it within our potential, we have it within our grasp, and i firmly believe that we will do our manufacturing and our jobs will grow in the manufacturing sector because we do it smarter. we do it smarter. representative wasserman schultz, thank you for the

opportunity to share with you and representative ryan thoughts that i have and we all share on how we're going down the right course. ms. wasserman schultz: thank you and i look forward, as we go into the august recess, talking to our constituents about how we turned the economy around. i want to close out the last couple of seconds with the focus on tax cut, remind people that tax bills in 2009 were at their lowest level since 1950 and we look forward to continue to work on striking that balance. mr. ryan, i'll turn it over to you to close it out. mr. ryan: we've had too much success, we have a long way to go, and with that, we yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. under the speaker's announced policy of6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 60 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. it's always an honor to be on this floor.

at times it gets very difficult hearing positions put as being mine which were not mine. i would like to point out, for example, about student loans. i have student loans. we gave up -- i won't even get into that. the only asset my wife and i have left is our home so that we could have the honor of being public servants. we've got a lot of student loans. and i cannot imagine a worse scenario than having to come begging to an administration that we already see punishes republican states, republican communities, and beg the

administration for a student loan because there is no one else that makes student loans besides the government. there were people who fought a revolution to avoid having the government, the king, make all the calls on who got to be educated, well-educated, that is, and who got to be property owners, who got to be well-to-do. they fought a revolution so that we would have the chance, the opportunity, to at least succeed ourselves without having a government pick the winners and losers. that's the last thing they wanted. patrick henry talked about that. is life so dear and peace so

sweet that it can be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? they did not want the government to tell them what they could have and not have, what they could do and not do, who could have their children educated and who couldn't and we have grown into a government that tells everybody everything they have to do. and now, though some of us read those disastrous health care bills, others are just now finding out the things we tried to warn about. that it was not about health care, it was about the g.r.e., the government running everything. so now we find out in the news what some of us already knew, gee, people are surprised to find out the government under that disastrous health care bill, so-called, would keep

everybody's records. and then people were surprised to find out that the health care czar says we may require everyone to have a body mass index. so we know who all is fat in this country and who isn't, who is more fat than others. that's the government's business? it wasn't after the revolution. they didn't want the government to say who could eat what and who couldn't eat this and that. my gracious, they got upset over a tea tax. if they could only see what's happened now. but, my friends are honorable people, so were they all, all honorable people, come not to praise this country, apparently we're coming to bury it. and to start with a new country where the government controls

everything. shakespeare could have a day with what's going on now. the government. our friend. the government is going to tell us who gets health care. we tried to warn people that if this health care bill passed, it would mean rationing. passes, signed into law, all kinds of joyous occasions, then we find out the president puts in charge the ration king. it shouldn't have surprised anybody. the president himself said to that dear lady at the white house tea party, press event, whatever they tried to bill it as, what about my mother, she had a pacemaker put in and she has had all these additional years of really quality life and the president ends up, after stammering around for a while, maybe we would have been better off to take a pain pill. those were his words.

maybe we would have been better off telling her to take a pain pill. i don't want the government to have that kind of power. your mom lives, your mom dies. you live, you die. was the revolution for nothing but 200 years, and now we left all personal responsibility, we don't want personal responsibility. we're going to let the government tell us who can have a college-educated child and who can't. we've seen what happened under this majority. with the african-americans who have come begs in this city saying please don't end the voucher program that was started under the republicans. we weren't sure about it. one dear lady was talking about her children, how you know, one

had been brutalized but others had been able to go to a good school a private school because they got a voucher and it allowed them the freedom to have their child as educated as any rich democrat in the city. but apparently, as clarence thomas points out, and i can't do his book justice, my grandfather's son he talked about being raised in a poor, poor african-american community by loving grandparents who had very little, and he talked about his grandfather pointing out that some snakes you don't have to worry so much about because you see them. they make a big deal if they're going to try to bite you from the front. but you have to worry about those that'll sneak up on you, act like they're no big deal, just kind of blend in and all of a sudden they bite you. that's what he talks about, as

i understood him to talk about this soft form of discrimination. you know, we're going to help you, we're boing to provide for you, we're going to take care of you, but don't have a thought of your own because if you dare, as a minority, to have a thought of your own and try to rise above your circumstances on your own, we're going to slap you down. and that, as he talks about in his book, is the kind of discrimination that can hurt worse than any kind. the liberals who would talk to him and you could tell they only wanted to talk about sports or how he had been mistreated as a poor black growing up in america, whereas others he began to notice as a radical liberal himself, clarence thomas in the early days, bitter about what he'd

been through, began to notice that conservatives would talk to him, wanted to know his opinion about a lot of different things. including politics. he began to see that soft discrimination from liberals, yeah, we'll help you, we'll provide for you but you've got to do what we tell you because if you dare to have a thought of your own if you dare to think for yourself, if you dare to try to rise above your circumstances, we'll slap you down and as he said during those hearings, it was an electronic lynching that he got. it's tragic, through it all, when you go back and review his incredible school record, growing up with the poverty he did, the man had and has a brilliant intellect. but you wouldn't know it from the liberals. they were out to slap him down and here you have

african-american mothers coming to congress saying, please, don't let the voucher program go. allow us not to be -- to have our kids educated where they can be shot and be part of game, but where they can go and have a uniform and get a great education and end up being very wealthy or very powerful down the road, much like the president himself did, why wouldn't you want that? for every child? regardless of the race, creed, color, national -- why wouldn't you want that for the child? give them a voucher, let them choose what school they go to. so they don't have to worry about their children being shot, killed. . the majority struck that program down and condemned minorities in the city back to the poor

schools from which they came. don't you dare try to rise above your circumstances, we want you back in the poor schools where you will have to rely totally on us. why not let them reach their god-given potential. slapping them down. and our friends across the aisle and want to come in here and trash mouth republicans because we have concerns about the government taking overall of the student loan business. yes, i do and i always will. the government gets to tell us who is going to get a loan, whose child gets a college education. yes, i've got a problem with that. our friends across the aisle says it's like a car would

beling down the street and people on our side of the aisle don't even want to try to fix it. guess who said it? our friends across the aisle. and i'm sick and tired hearing and i'm sick and tired hearing about the trash mouth of the last two years of the bush presidency and how terrible the last year of the bush presidency and how bad the last two years of the bush presidency was, because guess who was in charge. it sure wasn't george w. bush. he was in the executive branch but the constitution makes clear that the people who run the country will be the congress, that the president down the other end of pennsylvania avenue, right down that way, he can't appropriate one dime for any program.% can't appropriate one dime for any program. has to come from the congress. so what happened? our friends across the aisle

appropriately complained that during the bush early years, the republicans got giddy and began spending too much and began to have 160 billion annual deficit in their budget. and so our friends across the aisle said, throw them out. put us in. they're overspending. we'll fix things. and so, the voters appropriately said republicans, you have been over spending. we loffered you in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, clinton was in office. he fought the republican congress kicking and screaming and he vetoed a few things and

when he couldn't stop the congress, he had folks across the aisle wouldn't be re-elected unless they voted for balanced budgets. and that's why i love the comment from my colleague from across the aisle about the clinton administration. he said, quote, there were problems except for the blip during the clinton administration. that's right. there was 40 years of democrat control in this house as they brought our financial situation closer and closer to the day we are now and as my democratic colleague pointed out, there was a blip during the clinton administration after the contract with america, when republicans took over. and they balanced the budget. the president can't do that,

this congress has to do that. what we have to show this year? no budget. as one of our democratic colleagues said, back in 2006, if you can't put together a budget, you can't govern. this year, they didn't put together a budget, so according to our democratic friend, they cannot govern. and i'm proud to be joined by my friend, congresswoman virginia foxx, and i would be proud to yield to her such time as she needs. ms. foxx: thank you, congressman gohmert. i wasn't subjected to listening to the entire last hour, but i am responding to your email. we know for a long time that our colleagues who just preceded us have often been on the floor and made some really outrageous comments where they rewrite

history and present things as facts that just can't be backed up with facts. and in response to your plea to come share some of the truth telling with you, i'm glad to join you this evening. i did bring a few facts with me that i want to share. but i heard the last five minutes or so of our colleagues and i was really astounded at some of the words that they used like, the pro-growth agenda and how our tax-cutting policy was not paid for and how they did everything under pay-go except very, very rare emergencies where they had to go outside of

pay-go and that we're so irresponsible that we will just not vote for the pay-go bill. i find it really like the book "1984." and i would say to people, if you haven't read the book "1984" or haven't read it in a long time, take some time to read it, because what you're seeing here from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is "1984" being played out in the year 2010. i do want to bring some facts to it and i'm glad, mr. speaker, congressman gohmert is explaining the fact that under the clinton years, which we hear so much about, and which i, on the rules committee am often

having to correct various chairmen, like the budget committee chairman who bragged about the clinton years. and i said who was in charge of the congress the last six years of president clinton's administration. and he didn't want to say and he had to admit it was republicans. and then he talked about the terrible situation under the last two years of the bush administration. and i had to again say, now, remind me again who was in charge of the congress under the last two years of the bush administration. and of course, it was our colleagues across the aisle, the democrats. and we have to constantly remind them, as my colleague has done, that the president is not able to spend money. the president doesn't set up the appropriations bills.

it's the house of representatives that's charged with that in the constitution. the president can veto a bill. and the congress can override the veto. but, you know, our colleagues across the aisle wouldn't even put in an appropriations bill in the last year of president bush's administration, because they were afraid that president bush would veto those bills and they wouldn't be able to override them. because i agree with mr. gohmert that republicans did lose their way for a short period of time when president bush was president and the republicans were in control of congress, they spent too much money. when i came here. mr. gohmert came here in 2005, we brought that message from our districts. and our colleagues from all across the country brought that message. and actually what a lot of

people don't know is we actually cut spending in 2005 and 2006. but we get absolutely no credit for it. and let me say, contrary to what our colleagues were saying, i did hear them talk about what the deficit was when president bush left office. the little piece of fact that they left out was they were in charge of the congress the last two years of mr. bush's administration. when they took over the congress in january, 2007, the deficit happened to be $458 billion. and was on a trajectory to go to zero again. that would have been wonderful. now, let me say that's more of a deficit than i wanted to see, but it was not the $1 trillion deficit that they talked about

which they created in the last two years of president bush's administration. at the end of 2008, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. in two years, the deficit quadrupled. it went from $458 billion to $1.4 trillion, the largest deficit ever. and what's it going to be this year? it's going to be the largest deficit ever again and be even laverager than the deficit that they -- larger than the deficit that they created in 2008. and my colleague was talking about the health care bill that passed with only one republican voting for it in the house. and we're all very proud of

that. republicans are very proud of the fact that we all voted against the health care bill the first time. the second time, no republicans voted for it. and what does that health care bill exactly? it has been ex tolled as a virlt youous thing but has new and higher taxes on businesses and individuals. and the costs for this health care overhaul bill jumps to more than $1.2 trillion. the american people are very concerned about where these folks who are in control, i will not say anything about leadership on their side, but they're in control, they're in charge, and they are leading us down a path of ruin in this country.

and mr. gohmert talked about the education situation in washington. basically, the trend of these folks -- the student loans, what to do about education in washington, the health care bill, everything that has been done by our colleagues across the aisle, mr. speaker, has been to put the government in control of our lives. republicans don't believe in that. that's not an american ideal. we are the freest country in the world. that's what's made us the greatest country in the world over the years. and we will remain the greatest country in the world as soon as we can replace our colleagues across the aisle and put this government on a sound footing economically. what's threatening our freedom is the control and the bills that have been passed to say

that government knows best, the government bureaucracy is what we -- they believe in. we believe in the american people. we believe in government of, by and for the american people, not government to control the american people. so we have to do something to stop this slide that is occurring. and i want to give just one little example, if my colleague from texas would let me. mr. gohmert: sure. ms. foxx: there is a website called republicanwhip.house.gov which has many of these items on it. and i would invite people watching to go to this website. i'm going to share with you something that our republican

whip has put out called stimulus watch. week 52 is this one. . idaho recently received a $2 million stimulus grant for we'd control. a state park located within the county will use a portion of the $2 million to fight weeds across plumber creak. their solution -- renting 540 goats to graze on the weeds. the south african bother goat is the, quote, latest weapon, end quote, in the fight against invasive weeds. the goats have already been put to work munching on weeds like nap weed and st. john's wart. each goat eats about 3 1/2 pounds of weeds per day and should be finished pruning the creek shoreline within the next two weeks. now, this is a cost of $1 per

goat per day and, two weeks, the taxpayer expenditure on goat employment should come to roughly $7,560. idaho's unemployment rate is currently at 8.8%. so while invasive weeds on state parkland may be a problem, it's unclear how fighting their growth by employeing 540 goats and -- employing 540 goats and herders, the herders aren't americans, will get americans back to work. this is the way they think you should spent money. they're out of touch, folks, with reality. most of them have never worked a job in their lives. many of them have been in washington 40-plus years. they have no idea what the average american is doing out there. they don't go home, they won't hold town hall meetings, they're out of touch.

and to provide this kind of money to take goats to eat weeds when we have a 9.5% unemployment rate, it is probably closer do -- closer to 16%, is really a shame. i'd be embarrassed, i would be embarrassed if i had voted for that stimulus package. i'd be embarrassed if i'd voted for the health care bill. i'd be embarrassed if i'd voted for the bailouts of the automobile companies. i'd be embarrassed if i'd done any of the things that our colleagues across the aisle have done in the last 3 1/2 years, almost four years that they've been in control while our economy has been going in the ditch. talk about things going in the ditch. they've taken the economy in the ditch and they're totally out of touch with the american people. mr. gohmert: if i could reclaim my time.

ms. foxx: i would be happy for you to reclaim your time. mr. gohmert: going to the june employment numbers, i have an article here, i'll call him a friend, i hope he would the other way, about the article entitled, the truth about june employment numbers. and he talks about the spin that my friends across the aisle are creating, trying to make it sound great about the unemployment numbers. and as he says, all this spin is supposed to make us respond positively. wow, happy days are here again. the recovery must be really gaining steam. and we're supposed to conclude that maybe we don't need to throw out the democrats in the midterm elections after all. he goes on and says, the june job numbers show unemployment falling .2% to 9.5%.

this may sound or they ma -- may seem like an improvement until you realize that this decrease is almost all caused by an additional 611,000 americans giving up on finding jobs last month. when people stop looking for work, unemployment percentages go down, even though the economy is not improved and may even have gotten worse. he goes on and says, not only is unemployment the lowest in the government sector of all industry sectors in america, federal civilian employees make a stunning 30% to 40% more in total compensation than similarly skilled private workers according to the heritage foundation. now further he says, basically from the end of 2007, the

federal government civilian population -- or civilian payroll has actually increased by 240,000 to 2.2 million workers. excluding census and postal workers. and we know last month in june there was all this about 431,000 new jobs and that would ordinarily be fantastic combept that 411,000 of them -- except that 411,000 of them were temporary census workers. he goes on and says this leaves a smaller private sector supporting an ever larger public sector and that can't be good for the recovery. ms. foxx: would the gentleman yield? i happen to have here a piece put out by the joint economic committee, this is a economy made up of democrats -- committee made up of democrats

and republicans, and i'm sorry i don't have a chart to show it, i know there is one somewhere around here, but there's a figure here that federal government jobs from february, 2009, when president obama became president, to june, 2010, the number of jobs in the federal government increased by 405,000. the number of private sector jobs decreased by 3,261. when the stimulus package was passed, dr. roamer, who is his economic advisor, chief economic advisor, promised that the unemployment rate would not go above 8%. and that tremendous number of private sector jobs would be created. i do have this and i want to try to show it, if i can here, it

shows that under a fully controlled republican government, federal government, that is with republicans in charge of congress and a republican president, 6,690,000 jobs were created. under a fully democrat-controlled congress we've lost 6,403,000 jobs. now, again, you know, facts are stubborn things. these are coming from the obama administration's own labor department. and what caused this to happen? it's cutting taxes and letting the american people keep more of the money they've earned. our colleagues across the aisle believe that the money, all the money in the economy, belongs to the government and that if you

have a tax cut it is the government giving something to the citizens. the government does create money in the sense it prints money. however the government doesn't create wealth. the government destroys wealth. regulations and government spending destroy wealth. it's only when you allow the american people to keep their money do you see job growth. and we're talking about the lapsing of tax cuts that were passed in 2001, 2003, occurring january 1, and those tax increases are going to get every american. they keep saying, it's only going to hit the wealthiest. they're going to hit every american. it's going to destroy even more jobs and as you have pointed out

and our friend, tom mcclintock from california does it so eloquently, he points out the similarities between what's happening now with this democrat administration and what happened under franklin roosevelt in the depression. how these policies made the depression worse. what they're doing at every stage is making things worse. and i yield back. mr. gohmert: i appreciate the point of the gentlelady. i would submit that it appeared that after the republicans not only had congress that they took over in january of 2005 but then also had the white house beginning january of 2001, that there apparently is a giddyness from controlling -- giddiness from controlling both houses of congress and the white house. because when there was a

democratic president, bill clinton, the economy was going to hades and hell in a hand basket and that's when the republicans took the majority, november of -- in 1994. so republicans took over and they fought tooth and nail against the clinton administration and they succeeded despite the best efforts of the clinton administration in balancing the budget and bringing us to the point where things were balanced, despite the president's desire to spend out of control. but then once the white house was obtained, january, 2001, the republican congress quit being as diligent, it was as if the republicans did not want to tell the president no. and from the other standpoint, the bush administration didn't want to say no to democrats or

republicans so there were no vetos for i think at least six years or more of president bush's two terms. but what we've seen since our friends across the aisle have the house, the senate and the white house is giddiness beyond anything anybody could have imagined. we got beat up when it was a $160 billion deficit in a year, ow our friends think nothing of having 10 times that -- our friends think nothing of having 10 times that much deficit in a year. i'm so shocked because i remember vividly people on the other side of the aisle complaining appropriately about not having a balanced budget. i am shocked that they could stand up and act like they

haven't created the biggest deficits in american history in a year and a half and going back to two years before that it shocked me that once friends across the aisle took the majority, november of 2006, that their runaway budgets and deficits were far more than anything we had done in our first two years here in 2005 and 2006. and i'm talking about my friend, ms. foxx, and i both having been elected in 2004. so i don't want to return to the same overspending from 2001 through 2006. but i absolutely know we have got to stop the craziness from the last 3 1/2 years of spending by our democratic friends in charge. and i just have to submit, with

the runaway spending and the daniel that was done to our energy -- damage that was done to our energy pradges in -- programs in 2007 and 2008, as the democrats took control, to our economy, to our private sector, the additional requirements that were rammed down from this congress down the private sector's throat when they took over in january of 2007 and again in 2008, that i would submit to you that either our democratic friends who took the majority in january of 2007 need to stand up and take credit for what they did in 2007 and 2008 or they need to admit that they were the most incompetent congress in the history of the country. because you can't have it any way but one of those two ways. either you intentionally caused what you did in 2007 and 2008 or you were just so incompetent you

need to be put out of your misery, let out the majority so we ask straint things up. but to sit here and hear friend as i cross the aisle say that, gee, and i believe this is the quote, republicans don't want to reduce dependency on foreign oil, it just flies all over me. how could anybody have ears and think that all the people i know on this side of the aisle want to end dependency on foreign oil ? we want to end dependency on our enemies. and let me just add, i'm tired of paying our enemies. not only through oil purchases, heck, the new england area just made a 20-year contract this year with yemen to provide

liquefied natural gas that will come rolling up in boston harbor and they're hoping and i imagine there are a few people praying that there will not be a stow-away from yenl, one of those terrorists that they were -- yemen, one of those terrorists that went back to terrorism in yemen, they're hoping they won't be onboard that ship to blow it up and take half the city with it. . i want to end our dependency, having been in the military four years, i know if you cannot produce as a country everything you need in warfare and especially energy, you can't win a serious war. you can't. and some people are not aware of how dangerous the battle of the

bullling was at the end of -- battle of the bulge. if the germans had enough gasoline, the bulge that was being pushed through the west to the font and montgomery said i'll stay in the rear, it would have been too late if they had gotten to montgomery but they ran out of gas. those incidents where the germans got so close to americans' supply of gasoline and didn't take the supply depots, i think were acts of god. as a result, they didn't have the gasoline they needed. patton was able to move in and they stopped it, but the intent was working to drive americans back to the atlantic ocean. and they ran out of gasoline.

now, we're to the point where we are so dependent on foreign oil, that if we had a major war we needed to win, we would need steel, we would need energy, gasoline, things to power our jets, the ability to make jets like we used to. you would need wood products. you would be amazed how much the military requires in the way of wood products. but all of those things that you need to produce yourself, the plastics, all those things, in order to sustain an attack against your own soil. and we aren't in a very good position right now. what is also so infuriating to hear my colleagues across the aisle saying, republicans are constantly voting against efforts to build back manufacturing jobs in this country. i know that so many of my

friends across the aisle never met a tax they didn't like, but some of us, in a bipartisan group, went across to china some years back and one of the purposes was to talk to manufacturers about why did you pick up your industry and move it to china? i figured in advance, the number answer we would probably get is the labor was so much cheaper and don't have to deal with labor unions, that kind of thing. that was an attraction as was fewer regulations, but the number one reason we heard why whole industries left and took manufacturing jobs from the united states and went to china was how much cheaper the corporate tax was, half, less than half of what we have here. i have talked to major industries that have been injured, about what would happen

if we cut our corporate tax down to 17%, like china. i have heard repeatedly, we would be back in america in no time. and what do our friends talk about, let's heap more and more and more tax on these mean and nasty corporations. there are corporations like b.p. who have done wrong and deserve to suffer the consequences, but corporations provide jobs. small businesses provide jobs. small businesses, so many of them are subchapter s corporations and yet we hear from both the majority and the president that they want to hammer those people with higher taxes. those are the people that create the jobs. and the insidious thing about corporate tax apparently is a

secret that the other side doesn't want people to know is, no corporations stays in business if they cannot pass that corporate tax on to their customers or clients. no corporation. so it's an insidious tax because it's paid by the folks we are trying to help, who are the working folks, the working poor in america who are getting those prices heaped higher and higher on them and told, don't worry, we'll make the corporations pay and the businesses have to keep passing it down to those poor folks who can't pay anymore. in talking to folks, some people across the aisle said, let's create trade barriers and that would create so many punitive measures against the united states and what we could do is eliminate corps taxes and nobody in the world could compete

without cheap our products would be produced. that would explode the economy upward. and as ronald reagan's economic adviser -- boy, i sure wish he was advising this president -- as he pointed out, you can only increase the percentage of taxes so far and as each increase to a certain extent will increase the revenues in the federal treasury. but if you increase it too far, then you start hurting the economy, which then, in turn, starts decreasing the revenues into the federal treasury. so if you want to maximize the tax dollars coming into the government so our friends across the aisle can continue to buy safe havens in china for dogs and cats, for cranes in foreign countries, continue to pay billions to pakistan so they can

turn award and reward the taliban, we want to keep paying our friends' enemies all this money, then we need to have higher revenues by the federal treasury, and that's going to require not raising taxes. we're too high already. lowering and -- and i know this is going to offend some of my friends across the aisle, but you are going to have to lower taxes on the people who are actually paying them. i know that's an afront to some people. they think that the people who are paying taxes must be wealthy or else they wouldn't be paying taxes and shouldn't be entitled to tax cuts. i know it's serious and an afront to my friends, but you have to lower taxes on the people paying the taxes or the

tax cuts don't explode the economy and create new jobs. i yield to my friend, ms. foxx. ms. foxx: i want to give a little statistic from thr small business committee, which has put out a packet of material that i think is very useful. since january of 2009, president obama and congressional democrats have enacted gross tax increases to the taling $670 billion or $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the united states. the list includes 14 violations of the president's pledge not to raise taxes on americans earning less than $200 for singles and $250,000 for married couples. and to back up what you have said, according to the congressional budget office, the

nonpartisan congressional budget office, if we could have a full repeal of the death tax, we could create 1.5 million jobs and i crease small business investment capital by more than 1.6 trillion each year. now you're talking about the fact that our colleagues again across the aisle don't really understand that people don't have to be wealthy to be paying these high taxes and we know that if they allow the tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire, it's going to be the largest tax increase in the history of this country. that's where we are going to hurt the economy tremendously because of that. and these are the people actually paying taxes, as you said. now, the president wants to say he gave a tax cut to 95% of the

american people. well, it wasn't a cut, it was a little rebate, as i recall. and the tax rates were not cut at all. but people can be persuaded that they were given a tax cut, when it was only a rebate. and it's their money to begin with. and it also went to people who paid no taxes, as you said, and have no tax liability. and we have seen that it gives people more money back than they actually paid in taxes. and where's that coming from? from the people who have paid the taxes. mr. gohmert: on that point, parent our friends across the aisle do not want to recall, but the truth is, the rebate that

was part -- that was $40 billion of the stimulus package that democratic stimulus package of january of 2008, which i did not support. i was totally against, it was $40 billion out of $160 billion was going as so-called rebaits to people who didn't pay any taxes. now, yes, president bush was in office, but the democratic majority in the house and senate passed that stimulus bill with me complaining about it and, in fact, after president bush's state of the union address, he's coming up the aisle over here and i asked him and i didn't realize the microphone was

picking up my question, but how do you give a rebate to people who didn't put any bait in. a rebate to someone who hasn't put something in. it's a giveaway. you are redistributing wealth from people who worked hard and earned it and paid tax on it so people here and our majority party could give it away to others they wanted to give it to. that does not encourage job growth. it does something that encouraged me to leave the bench and run for congress and that is because this congress was incentivizing people to never achieve their god-given potential. and congress should never be in that business. we should incentivize people to do their best and become all they can be. and i know my friend, ms. foxx,

having been president of a university, has spent a lifetime working to dry -- to try to help people reach their potential. that's what we all ought to be doing. when you have 30%, 40% of high school students dropping out and never finishing high school, those kids are going to be condemned to never reaching the potential that they have. why wouldn't you want to give vouchers to kids and say go get the very best education you could possibly get. we don't care how poor the neighborhood you are growing up in. if you want to go to where the rich democrats' children go to school. here's the voucher. get as good an education as they

have. don't let people people push you down. let's help you reach your god-given potential. go where you can go and get the best education. what happens? schools know they got to get better, because if they don't get better, no one is going to choose to come to their school, so they have to be more picky about the teachers they hire. they have to be really good teachers. that's kind of the american way. and that's kind of the way that america became the greatest nation in the history of the world. and we are in danger of losing that. and it is a dangerous time. my friends across the aisle have continued to say that republicans hope president obama fails. i hope president obama succeeds. i would love it if he became the

most successful president in helping people reach the great american dream of any president in our history. but if he continues to have the government take over of all the private sector. he continues to take over health care so that his czars that's unaccountable to the congress can tell people which person lives and which person dies, i sure don't want that to succeed. i want him to succeed as a great president. but the words of george washington when he resigned his commission, only time anybody in history has ever led a revolution as head of the military, one revolution as head

of the military and resigned and went home and he sent this beautiful resignation letter. and in it, at the end, he said, i now make it my earnest prayer that god would have you in the state in which you preside in this holy protection and goes down towards the end and says, and finally, that he would -- talking about god -- that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, hue mill ti and specific temper of mind which were the characterics of the divine author of our blessed realon and without an example, we can never hope to be a happy nation. george washington says, if president obama wants to have a happy nation, he needs to

inspire this nation to have the characterics of the divine author of our blessed religion and without a humble invitation in whose example we ever hope to have a humble nation. . one big trouble in this country. it does not help when the government takes over health care, article here dated july 24 in "the new york times" even, britain plans to decentralize health care. talks about the aim now is clear to shift control of england's $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. you want to talk about republicans not being in support of education, i am not in support of this educational bureaucracy.

think about what individual school districts in america could do if you took the billions of dollars that this education department has lavished on itself over the years and you put that money to work hiring good teachers. not administrators who are simply going to have to respond to all the bureaucratic red tape put out by the federal government which requires bureaucratic red tape and bureaucratic jobs in each state capitol which requires bureaucratic red tape and new administrators in every school district. it's time for the madness to stop. it's time to put the money where will do the most good and quit spending the rest of it. and i have a bill, the u.n. voting accountability bill, that i will bring to the floor with a

discharge petition in september when we come back. and i'm hoping my friends on the other side of the aisle, as well as friends on this side of the aisle, will sign on. it's very simple. and it will end what happened where we have apparently been giving, according to the recent reports, billions of dollars to pakistan that has found its way into helping the people that are killing american soldiers. we're paying peeming -- people indirectly to kill american soldiers. as i've said repeatedly, you don't have to pay people to hate you. they'll do it for free. my u.n. voting accountability act says, any nation that votes against the u.s. position on contested votes won haft time will receive no financial assistance from the united states the following year. very simple. it eliminates those problems. because pakistan's made very

clear in the u.n. they are going to fight us and oppose everything we believe and hold dear. i don't hope president obama fails. i hope he will reach the stage of enlightenment that will i you a -- that will allow him to see that every government who has tried these socialized efforts to take over car industries, manufacturing, banking, health care, always result in failure. and it's time to get back to what george washington described as the character statistics of the divine -- characteristics of the divine author of our blessed religion, without limitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. with that, madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back his time. does the gentleman have a motion?

the question is on the motion to adjourn.

the gentleman may proceed. mr. kucinich: thank you very much. i yield myself three minutes. u.s. special forces are in pakistan. congress never voted expressly to send troops there. congress has a constitutional responsibility under article 1,

section 8 of the constitution and ski unanimous consent that this article 1, section 8 be included in this debate. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. kucinich: under article 1, section 8 of the constitution, it's congress which has the power to declare war. now the war powers act extended the debate over article 1, section 8 by pointing out that if circumstances occurred where the president committed troops to imminent hostilities that congress has the right to create a debate and to create a vote over whether or not those troops should stay in those hostilities. now, are there hostilities involving u.s. troops in pakistan? the answer is that three u.s. troops were killed as a result of an i.e.d. in pakistan in february. now that was reported last week in the "wall street journal."

there's just no question that troops have been involved in imminent hostilities in this case, they perished. now there are those who maintain that the war powers act is superseded by the authorization for the use of military force which passed congress on september 14, 2001. i have here a copy of that resolution, which i ask unanimous consent to put in the record in this debate. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. kucinich: and that resolution has this language. nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the war power resolution. let's put to rest right away that the authorization for use of military force would cover our presence in pakistan and make -- and obviate the need for any discussion. it is very clear that the president has a responsibility

to notify congress, he has a responsibility, according to section 4 of the war powers act to report to congress whenever he introduces u.s. armed forces abroad in certain situations. section 4a1 triggers the time limit in the section and requires reporting to congress. why is that? because the people's house has a responsibility under the constitution, we cannot abrogate or renounce that responsibility this debate today is about assuring that congress has a role in a critical foreign policy area where our troops have already lost lives in pakistan. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. berman: mr. speaker, may i inquire -- has there been an announcement by you regarding the time of the opposition? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio has 30

minute the gentleman from california has 15 minutes, the gentlewoman from florida has 15 minutes as well. mr. berman: thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. i rise in opposition to the resolution and i yield myself such time as i might consume. mr. chairman, this is the second time in four months we are debating a resolution under the war powers act. i welcome congressional scrutiny of the commitment of u.s. forces abroad and i appreciate the gentleman from ohio's effort to focus attention on one of the most sacred duties of congress. but once again, i have to take issue with the invocation of section 5c of the war powers act as the basis for this debate. that section authorizes a privileged resolution, like the one before us today, to require the withdrawal of u.s. armed forces when they are engaged in hostilities and congress has

not authorized the use of military force. whereas the afghanistan war powers debate focused on whether there was an authorization for u.s. military force, here, we do not even reach that question because, based on everything i know, u.s. forces are not engaged in hostilities in pakistan. "the wall street journal" article distributed by my friend from iowa refers to the u.s. military's role in training and humanitarian assistance programs in pakistan. that's not, quote, engaging in hostilities, end of quote. in fact, our armed forces participate in these types of programs in dozens of countries around the world. the gentleman refers to the terrible tragedy of three u.s. forces killed by an i.e.d., they were on a humanitarian aid mission.

we have people on such missions, people involved in military training, uniformed officers, who have been killed in many different parts of the world from that, one does in the draw the conclusion that the u.s. is engaged in hostilities with enemy forces. in fact, our -- since u.s. forces are not engaged in hostilities in pakistan there is no factual basis for invoking the war powers act. mr. chairman, pakistan is an important partner in the fight against extremism. last year, congress demonstrated america's long-term commitment to pakistan by passing the enhanced partnership with pakistan act of 2009. any attempt to cut the military ties between our two countries would be counterproductive for our national security interests in the region. no matter what your position on the situation in afghanistan whether you think we should whether you think we should withdraw tomorrow, shift from a