that's why it has the support of groups like the americans for tax reform, the national taxpayer union and americans for prosperity. madam speaker, i urge my colleagues to vote for this bill so small business can get back to with a what they do best, creating jobs, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. all time for debate on the bill has expired. pursuant to house resolution 129 the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. the question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: a bill to repeal the expansion of information reporting requirements for payments of $600 or more to corporations, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? >> i have a motion to recommit at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: is the gentleman opposed to the bill?

>> in its current form. mr. camp: madam speaker, i reserve a point of order. the speaker pro tempore: a point of order is reserved. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: mr. mcnerney of california moves to recommit the bill h.r. 4 to the committee on ways and means with instructions to report the same back to the house forthwith with the following amendment, at the end of the bill -- mr. mcnerney: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection? objection is heard. continue reading. the clerk: and at the end of the bill the following new section, section 5, nonrefundable personal credit for taxpayers subject to a tax increase under the small business paperwork mandate elimination act of 2011. a, in general, subpart a of part 4 of subchapter a of chapter 1 of the internal revenue code of 1986 as amnded by inserting after section 25-d the following new section. section 25-e, credit for taxpayers subject to a tax increase on the small business

paperwork mandate elimination act of 2011. a, in general, in the case of an individual, there shall be allowed as a credit against the tax imposed by this chapter for the taxable year an amendment equal to the excess if any of, one, the regular tax liability of the taxpayer for the taxable year over, two, the regular tax liability for the taxpayer for the taxable year determined by applying section 36-b-f-2 as in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this section in lieu of section 36-d-f-2 as in effect on the day after the date of the enactment of this section. b, carry forward of unused credit. one, rule for years in which all personal credits allowed against regular and alternative minimum tax. in the case of a taxable year to wit section 26-a-2 applies if the credit allowable under

subsection a exceeds the limitation posed by section 26-a-2 for such taxable year, reduced by the sum of the credits allowable under this subpart, other than this section, such excess shall be carried to the succeeding taxable year and added to the credit allowable under subsection a for such succeeding taxable year. two, rule for other years, in the case of a taxable year to wit section 26-a-2 does not apply if the credit allowable under subsection a exceeds the limitation imposed by section 26-a-1 for such taxable year reduced by the sum of the credits allowable under this subpart other than this section such excess shall be carried to the succeeding taxable year and added to the credit allowable under subsection a for such succeeding taxable year. b, conforming amendment. one, section 24-b, 3-b of such

code is amended by inserting 25-e after 25-b. two, section 25. -e-1-c of such code is amended by inserting 25-e after 25-d both places it appears. three, section 25-a-i-5-b of such code is amended by inserting 25-e after 25 d. four, section 25. -b-g-2 -- the speaker pro tempore: without objection. objection is heard. the clerk will continue reading. the clerk: four, section 25-b-g-2 of such code is amended by inserting 25-e after 25-d. five, section 25-d crsh-2-a of such code are amended by inserting and section 25-e after this section. six, section 26-a-1 of such code is amended by inserting 25-e

after 25-d. seven, sks 30-c-2-b-ii of such code is amended by inserting section at that-b after 25-d. amended by inserting 25-e after 25-b. nine, section 30-d-dr.-2-b-ii is amended by sections 23 and 25-d and inserting sections 23, 25-d and 25 herb e. 10, section 1400 cd of such code is amended by i serter 25-e after 25-d both place it is appears. c, clerical amendment. the table of section for subpart aof part 4 of chapter a of one of such code is amended by sinerting after the item of relating to section 25-d the following new item.

section 25-e credit for taxpayers under the small business paperwork mandate elimination act of 2011. d, effective date. the amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after december 31, 2013. section 6, income attribute bull act -- attributable to domestic activities. subpart b of section 199-c 4 of the internal revenue code of 1986 is amened by striking and at the end of clause ii and striking the period at the end of clause iii and inserting and. and by inserting after clause iii the following new clause, 4, in the case of a major integrated oil company as designed in section 167-h-5 the production refining processing transportation or contribution of oil, gas, or any primary

product thereof. b, effective date. subsection a shall apply to taxable years beginning after december 31, 2014. section 7, mangor integrated oil companies -- major integrated oil companies ineligible for last in, first out method of inventory. a in general, section 471 of the internal revenue code of 1986 is amended by redesignating subsection-c and subsection d by inserting after subsection b the following new subsection. c, major integrated oil companies ineligible for last in, first out method. in the case of a major integrated oil company as defined in section 167-h-5-c. the last in and first out method of determining inventories shall in no event be treated as clearly reflecting income, and two, section 472 and 473 shall not apply.

b effective date, one, in general, the amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after december 31, 2014. two, change and method of accounting, in the case of any taxpayer requirement the amendments made by this section to change its method of accounting for its first taxable year beginning after december 31, 2014, a, such change shall be treated as initiated by the taxpayer. b, such change shall be treated as made with the consent of the secretary of the treasury and c, if the net amendment of the add adjustments required to be taken into account by the taxpayer under section 481 of the internal revenue code of 1986 is positive, such amount shall be taken into account over a period of eight years beginning with such first taxable year. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? mr. camp: madam speaker, i insist on my point of order. i make a point of order against the motion because it violates

clause 10 of rule 21 as it has a the net effect of increasing mandatory spending within the time period set forth in the rule. i ask for a ruling of the chair. the speaker pro tempore: does any member wish to be heard on the point of order? mr. mcnerney: madam speaker, i appeal the ruling of the chair. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman wish to be heard on the point of order? mr. mcnerney: madam speaker, everyone knows that times are tough and individuals, families, and small businesses are having a difficult time making ends meet. that's why it's so important that we provide small businesses who are the backbone of our economy with the tools to succeed. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman wish to address the point of order? mr. mcnerney: yes. the gentleman wishes to address the point of order. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will hear the gentleman. mr. mcnerney: with rising us prices of gasoline and

unemployment that remains far too high helping small businesses is more important than ever. mr. camp: the gentleman is not addressing the point of order. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from california wish to address the specific point of order? the other member wish to address this point of order? the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: madam speaker, the gentleman from california was addressing the point of order. i think he should be allowed to do so. the speaker pro tempore: does any other member wish -- mr. levin: he should be allowed to continue. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california may be heard only on the point of order. he can continue if he is speaking directly to the point of order. mr. mcnerney: madam speaker, this directly addresses the tax provision in the republican bill.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman may proceed. mr. mcnerney: this motion to recommit addresses the pay-for in the bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman may proceed. mr. mcnerney: thank you, madam speaker. i'm a former small business owner and while i strongly supported our efforts to reform the health care -- mr. cam n: madam speaker, regular order. the gentleman is not addressing the point of order. mr. leffy: madam speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair will hear the speaker from california. mr. camp: regular order, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: members will suspend. mr. mcnerney: we have a pay-for that's germane included in the bill, motion to recommit. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman may proceed. the chair will hear comments from all members on the point of order only.

the gentleman from california continues to be recognized. mr. mcnerney: while i strongly supported our efforts to reform the health care system i also supported repealing the 1099 reporting requirement. this requirement will negatively affect small businesses ability to operate smoothly and efficiently. there is a broad bipartisan consensus on this point of order and i received many emails, phone calls, and letters from constituents in my district who oppose the 1099 reporting requirement. i support repealing the 1099 provision -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. remarks must be confined to the procedural issues at hand with regard to the point of order. mr. mcnerney: we have a pay-for tax cut that is in order. the speaker pro tempore: does any other member wish to be heard? mr. levin: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: the gentleman wishes

to proceed. the gentleman from california wishes to proceed. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman must speak to the specific procedural question mr. levin: he says he's doing so. he's saying he's doing so. the speaker pro tempore: there is objection to that. the gentleman from california may proceed. mr. mcnerney: i stand here to offer a better alternative and it's paid for. instead of simply agreeing to the majority's bill, the motion to recommit would repeal the 1099 requirement and provide a new tax cut to the middle class paid for by closing tax loopholes, exploited by large oil companies. it's paid for. and it's germane. oil companies have earned record profits over the last few years and it's just unacceptable for them to take advantage of the special loopholes when the middle class -- mr. camp: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan.

mr. camp: the gentleman is not addressing the point of order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california has not spoken directly to the procedural part of the point of order. the chair will now recognize other members. the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: thank you for yielding me the time to address the point of order. madam speaker, the rulings of the house -- rules of the house give a modicum of support to the minority to offer motions to address a different point of view on legislation. albeit in the form of a motion to recommit. the rules of the house, madam speaker, allow the minority to express that point for the motion. in this motion to recommit as placed forward by the gentleman from california, the simple choice between oil companies and the middle class. side with the oil companies or side with the -- the rules of the house, madam speaker, allow us -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman is not addressing

the procedural issues within the point of order. mr. crowley: if i can, i am addressing the rules of the house that allow for the minority to have an opportunity to make a motion to recommit. it may not be agreeance with the majority, we understand that, they may not like the motion to recommit, we understand that. they may not like the motion to recommit under the rule because it touches on to an area that they are not comfortable with, that is tax -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is not addressing the procedural issue. the gentleman is not sticking precisely to the procedural question at hand. mr. crowley: i'm trying to do that. mr. camp: madam speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: rule 21. mr. camp: i would ask the chair to rule. mr. levin: madam speaker, i wish to be heard. .

the speaker pro tempore: does any member in the body wish to be heard on clause 10 of rule 21? mr. levin: yes, i do. the speaker pro tempore: specifically. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: madam speaker, the rules of the house is crafted by the majority to make it difficult for us to craft motions to recommit that are germane. i submit this is and i think you should listen to us before you make a ruling. you are the speaker of the house acting in that capacity. this motion would cut taxes, would end oil subsidies and ensure more americans have health insurance. it is germane, the republicans should not try to gag us. i urge that the speaker rule this in order.

mr. weiner: madam speaker, i'd ask -- mr. camp: madam speaker, i'd ask the chair to rule. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has heard enough and will -- mr. weiner: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: is prepared to rule at this time. mr. weiner: point of order. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from new york have a point of order? mr. weiner: just because one person you feel didn't address it doesn't mean all of us should be prejudice on the opportunity to speak. the speaker pro tempore: the argument is at the discretion of the chair. mr. weiner: it is. i make the point of order -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair has ruled that it is time to now rule on the point of order. the gentleman from michigan makes a point of order that the motion offered by the gentleman from california violates clause 10 of rule 21 by proposing an increase in mandatory spending over a relevant period of time. pursuant to clause 10 of rule 21 and clause 4 of rule 29, the chair's guided by estimate it's of the chair of the committee on the budgets that the net effect of the provisions in the amendment wine crease mandatory spending over a relevant period

as compared to the bill. accordingly the point of order is sustained and the motion -- mr. levin: madam speaker, because of the way this has been handled, i appeal the ruling of the chair. the speaker pro tempore: the question is -- mr. weiner: madam -- madam speaker, i move to lay the appeal upon the table. the speaker pro tempore: the question is shall the decision of the chair stand as the judgment of the house? for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. camp: i move to lay the appeal on the table. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to table. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. mr. levin: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mr. levin: i ask for a recorded vote.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman asks for the yeas and nays. the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. and pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, this is a 15-minute vote on the motion to table, will be followed by a five-minute vote

the house will be in order. the house will be in order. the house will be in order.

the house will be in order. members will kindly stop talking . the chair would like to make a statement. members should be aware that debate on a point of order is solely to edify the judgment of the presiding officer. as such, argument on a point of order must be confined to the question of order and may not raise to an underlying substantive question. the chair endeavors to hear such argument as they may tend to edify her judgment, but when she's prepared to rule, she may decline to hear more. the optimal accommodation of members' desire to argue on a point of order could be achieved only , when first, those seeking

recognition for the purpose properly confine themselves to the question of order, and second, those who believe they have heard enough leave it to the presiding officer to preside when she has heard enough. the chair enlists the understanding and cooperation of all members in these matters. the question is on passage of the will. -- bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the aye vs. it. -- ayes have it. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? mr. weiner: i rise to a point of order. recorded vote, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will -- the chair asks the chamber to be quiet. the gentleman will state his point of order. . mr. weiner: madam speaker, regular order, please.

madam speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. mr. weiner: the voice vote we just took violates clause 5-b of rule 21 and this show the value be taken with the 3/5 required for passage. the speaker pro tempore: does any member wish to speak to the point of order? mr. weiner: madam speaker, i do. -- >> madam speaker, i do. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection? the gentleman from michigan. >> is there objection to what? mr. weiner: i made a point of order. mr. weiner: madam speaker, as we all know here, we have a special rule in the house, as i just referenced, it's clause 5-b of rule 21. that was put into the rules of the house to make it extraordinarily difficult for us to change tax rates. the reason we did that was out of a bipartisan consideration that we wanted to make sure that legislation we did hear didn't

have the affect under the rules of some other action of changing effective tax rates for people so this rule was put into place to state, if you're going to do that, you need a 3/5 majority. well, this bill that we're considering now is by its action changing people's effective tax rates. for example, if you strike an amount, you wind up getting an amount of a raise that -- >> the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. anybody who is speaking deserves to be heard. the chair would ask the house to please be in order. anyone who wants to take a conversation, please kindly take it off the house floor. thank you. mr. weiner: i'll try to be brief. i know many members hadn't been tuned into the debate and i want to explain this point. what the bill would do if it were to be passed would be to say, if someone had a marginal increase in their income, that took them up into a next bracket, they would lose not

only the subsidy provided under the health care act to buy insurance, but in its entirety, a $200 increase above the bracket would essentially put them into a different tax bracket. this is exactly what this rule was intended to prevent. us taking an action that unwittingly changed where people's tax rates were without us standing up to do it. this rule puts a pretty strong level of tax -- text into place for us. it says we need a 3/5 majority. it's very difficult for the chair to rule about a 3/5 -- a voice vote, and if we're going to a recorded vote that -- first of all, i mean, i can be accused a lot of people, not speaking to a point of order is not one of them. this point of order is specifically whether or not the rule that we have that says that the movement within tax brackets is subject to a higher order and let me also make this argument in support of the point of order, it -- the gentleman does not control the time. the point of order, i'm on my

feet to a point of order. i can't be taken off the seat by anyone except the chair. i urge respect from the gentleman. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will continue hearing the gentleman from new york. mr. weiner: the reason this is so important that we enforce now is just as we all have in our rules, the annotation of when this rule has been bent and broken, we don't want to, at the beginning of this congress, one of the earliest actions we do is bend and break and leave in shatters the 3/5 requirement. this is a clear case where the changes, and you might believe it's a good thing to do, i just think there should be at least 3/5 of us under the rules that we agreed upon to raise the tax bracket, particularly since it's on middle class americans. when you're making $80,000-some a year and make an extra $200 in income, they want to increase your tax bracket. i urge that the point of order be upheld and we have to vote on this by 3/5. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york, mr. crowley, wish to be heard on the point of order specifically? mr. crowley: on the point of order, madam speaker,

specifically. let me just clarify for high friends on the other side and our side, to all members of the house, that the house rules, clause 5-b of rule 21, states the passage again of a tax increase needs a 3/5 majority of those present for passage. if we are changing the tax rate or the brackets of individuals, i know it's not, again, comfortable, but as the example i laid out in the debate which was not refuted by anyone, if an individual earning $88,000, a family of four, receives a $250 bonus, that would require them to pay $4,460 in tax, is indeed a new tax. and therefore should be subject to this rule that we would require 3/5. i know it's hard because that's the difficulty of this. in changing the tax rates. it should be difficult. that's the rule to make this bipartisan we do this together.

a 3/5 vote. madam speaker, we are changing the tax rates, we are changing the brackets and therefore this rule ought to be imposed. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from michigan wish to be heard? mr. camp: i do wish to be heard. thank you, madam speaker. i would refer the members of the house to the committee report in this area. and in that committee report it states the committee has carefully reviewed the provisions of the bill and states that the provisions of this bill do not involve any federal income tax rate increases within the meaning of the rule. and i would say that the rules of the house in this area refer to specific sections of the internal revenue code. also the rules of the house, and i would say my friends are not going far enough in their reading of the rules, say that the rules define exactly what an income tax increase is. this bill does not amend those specific sections of the code that are referred to in the rules, accordingly a point of order does not -- does not lie. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan.

mr. levin: i just want to read from the bill. if the advanced payments to a taxpayer exceed the credit allowed by this section, the tax imposed by this chapter for the taxable year shall be increased. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas wish to be heard? does the gentleman from texas wish to be heard on this point of order? mr. gohmert: yes, madam speaker. the point of order began with the words, whether or not no point of order can begin with the words whether or not. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair is prepared to rule. mr. weiner: may i be heard further on the gentleman from michigan's point? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. weiner: let me say very briefly, the gentleman from michigan is correct. we don't directly do bha what is described in the rule but the effect is that, it can be indisputed that someone who is one tax bracket after this bill will move into another one. the purpose of this rule and clear from the annotations, we're trying to look at the

purpose of this rule, and the reason we have the speaker interpreting the rule is to prevent that from happening and if it's good for the goose it's good for the and goer, you're going to see it happening a lot this term. mr. camp: i'm prepared to hear the chair's ruling. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york for a brief moment. mr. crowley: does the community support -- does the committee get to waive the house rules? does the committee report get to waive the house rules? the committee report, that's the evidence to waive the house rules? that's a new low standard. the speaker pro tempore: the chair is prepared to rule. the house will be in order to hear the ruling. since the 105th congress, the requirement in clause 5-b of rule 21 for a 3/5 vote on a certain tax measure has comprised of three elements described by speaker protell baldwin in the ruling of january 18, 2007. the first element of the requirement is that the measure

amends one of the subconnections -- subsections of the internal revenue code of 1986 that are cited in the rule, the second element is that the measure does by imposing a new percentage as a rate of tax. the third element is that in doing so the measure increases the amount of tax imposed by any of those budget subsections of the code. the chair is unable to find a provision in the pending bill,. had r. 4, as perfected that fulfills even the first element of the requirement. a bill that does not meet any one of the three elements required by clause 5-b of rule 21 does not carry a federal income tax rate increase within the meaning of that rule. accordingly the chair holds the majority vote is suspicion to pass the pending bill and the chair properly announces the result of the voice vote on passage. >> i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a

record vote is requested on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. -- all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 314. the nays are 112. the bill is passed. the bill is passed, without objection a the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.

mr. hoyer: i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute for the purpose of asking the majority leader about the schedule for the coming week. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from maryland is recognized.

mr. hoyer: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield to my friend, the majority leader, mr. cantor. mr. cantor: i thank the democratic whip. the gentleman from maryland, for yielding. mr. speaker, on tuesday, the house will meet at 2:00 p.m. for morning hour and 4:00 p.m. for legislative business. on wednesday, the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for learning business and recess immediately. the house will reconvene at approximately 11:00 a.m. for the purpose of receiving in a joint meeting with the senate the honorable prime minister of australia. on thursday the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on friday, the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for lemming business with last votes expected by 3:00 p.m. the house will consider a few bills under suspension of the rules on tuesday and possibly wednesday which will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. the house will also consider two bills that were marked up by the financial services committee today, h.r. 836, emergency

mortgage relief program termination act, and h.r. 830, the f.h.a. refinance program termination act. these bills will eliminate two effective mandatory programs that without congressional action will continue spending on auto pilot. the house is already at a robust debate on the discretionary side of federal spending, mr. speaker, and will continue to do so, but it's time we turn our attention also to the mandatory side of government spending. i expect further debate on mandatory spending throughout the month of march. with that i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. he mentions that we'll be considering some bills under suspension as is normal. two bills, 836 and 830 presumably under a rule. i ask the gentleman, will those be open rules? before i yield to him for his response, i want to say that i want to congratulate the

gentleman on the process that we considered h.r. 1. while those of us on this side did not ultimately support h.r. 1, i know that the speaker and the leader are both pleased with the openness and transparency of the process and i'm wondering whether or not there was a preprinting requirement, of course, so it wasn't totally open rule in that sense, but does the gentleman expect there to be open rules on the h.r. 836 and h.r. 830? i yield to the gentleman. . mr. cantor: we are working with the rules committee to be able to announce an open process for the consideration of next week's bills. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i ask the gentleman

-- i thank the gentleman. can i inquire, is an open process is that a nuance of an open rule? mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, i thank the -- i think the gentleman indicated in his remarks the preprinting requirement in the c.r. of h.r. 1 provided for it to be a modified rule and it is in that spirit that i think the speaker initially began this session, that we're committed to an open process, to have the ventilation of ideas, to have the participation of as many members as possible in the debate of measures coming to the floor, we continue to want to go in that direction as we have before. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. let me say to the gentleman in terms of a constructive discussion that we might have, and i happen to believe that the preprinting requirement is

positive -- is a positive requirement in that it gives notice to people. one of the things, as we know, that it requires, however, is the printing of amendments prior to the time you know the status of the bill at the time you might offer the amendment. i suggest perhaps we have discussions -- discussions about how to take care, or take into consideration the process where you preprint the amendment, prior to getting to your amendment, something is changed by a previous amendment that might require modification of your amendment in terms of an understanding on both sides that perhaps we would accommodate either by unanimous consent or some other process that change. i yield to my friend for his thoughts on that issue. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman for raising the point that did come up during the debate of h r. 1 and i would say back to the gentleman that it is probably a very good

discussion to take place within the context of the rules committee and we look forward to having that discussion with the gentleman as well. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. the current c.r. expires march 18, that we passed this week, the senate passed and the president has now signed. can i ask the gentleman his thoughts on going forward, what we might be expecting with respect to funding government from march 19 through september 30 for the balance of the fiscal year? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. the gentleman has pointed out the house, mr. speaker, has produced its position in h.r. 1. the difficulty is the senate has failed to produce a senate position and so there really is very little foundation upon which to engage in any discussion as to how we're going to get through the remainder of the fiscal year.

i know that the minority leader was recently today out saying that the position on the part, i guess, of the senate, and perhaps your caucus, is that there is a desire to bring about $41 billion of cuts. i would say to the gentleman, mr. speaker, $40 billion is not a cut. that's the status quo. that's been our position all along. we want to make sure we change the status quo. that we actually do what most americans are having to do, which is tighten the belt and cut spending in order to get this economy going. so i'm saying to the gentleman, we would encourage the senate and leader reid to act so that we can move forward and until then, mr. speaker, i would say to my friend from maryland that i would expect the house to continue its process of cutting $2 billion per week until we can see where the gentleman's caucus and then the democrat leader in the senate is.

i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his response. i might want to pursue that response a little bit, however. the pledge to america, as i understand it, said that you were going to cut $100 billion is that accurate? cantor: i say to the gentleman that the -- mr. cantor: i say to the gentleman that the pledge to america said we are desire rouse of reducing discretionary spending, nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels. mr. hoyer: and h.r. 1, as i understand it, is scored at $102 billion, or thereabouts, is that accurate? mr. cantor: as he know the figure of $100 billion was taken from the difference between the president's f.y. 2011 request and the 2008 levels, which is how that figure has become. i say to the gentleman if he's trying to make the point about

$100 billion versus $61 billion, the gentleman is accurate when he saze the $100 billion in cuts off the request by the president is the same as $61 billion of cuts against the current level of spending at f.y. 2010 levels. if i can make the gentleman's point for him, that's why i say that insistence upon $41 billion or $40 billion in cuts is nothing but defense of the status quo. that's why i say to the gentleman, that's unacceptable to our side and unacceptable to the american people. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for explaining my proposition but if i may clarify a little more, what the gentleman has said, the way you get to $100 billion is counting the $41 billion that you say is the status coe and adding $60 billion, or $61 billion to it to get to $102 billion or a little short of that. my point clearly is that the gentleman and his side of the

aisle, has clearly counted the $41 billion that he says is the status quo. the reason he's done so is because from -- he said during the course of the campaign and others said during the course of the campaign they were going to cut $100 billion and in fact, as i recall, the speaker and yourself and other leaders made the point, during the course of your initial consideration an the offer that was initially made to your conference, that in fact the $41 billion was in fact a cut from the president's request of $41 billion. we agree with that. but we now believe that you are -- your side is saying, oh, no, that doesn't count, notwithstanding the fact that it is $41 billion less than the president requested and you counted that $41 billion less as part of the $100 billion you represented was part of the

cuts that you had said you were going to make and that you in fact made. so my point is, as the gentleman has pointed out, that yours already 60 billion, by your side's argument of cutting $100 billion, it only gets to $100 billion because you're counting the $41 billion which we have cut. i say that for this reason. you made the $100 billion pledge prior to december. you made it prior to the election. then we in fact cut from the figure you were using at the base, the 2011 base of the president's request, we cut $41 billion by feezing at 2010 levels. now, my point to you is, as i'm sure you know, we have already come $41 billion, which means -- cut $41 billion, 41% of the place where you want to get.

we can continue to discuss this matter hopefully we can come together and find a compromise figure. i know the gentleman doesn't serve in the appropriations committee, he serves on the tax writing committee but in the propings committee, we found a way to come together and make an agreement. i think it unfair and incorrect, frankry, not to count $41 billion as -- because we're now starting at 2010 levels as opposed to the level you started at and we started at, the president's 2011 request, and both of us have come that $41 billion an the issue is how much further we're going to go. if the gentleman wants to make any further comment -- mr. cantor: i say to the gentleman, we've discussed the math here. the problem is the american people are waiting for us to act. if the gentleman knows the position of senator reid and where he would like to go, other than maintain the status

quo, then that's what we're looking for. the house has made its position known. its position is $100 billion off the 2011 request, or $61 billion off of the 2010 levels of current spending. and we have maintained the position all along, mr. speaker, that freezing spending at today's level is unacceptable. it will bankrupt us if we continue to spend at these levels. we have got to begin to show some fiscal restraint so we can get people back to work in this country. so i am delighted to hear the gentleman say we need to cut more and i am hopeful that we can continue to see progress on that front. but thus far, the gentleman's colleague, our colleagues on the other side of the capitol, senator reid, has not indicated where his position is and that's what we need to know to

move forward. the speaker pro tempore: i thank the gentleman for his comments. mr. hoyer: might i advise the leader on the other side of the capitol that there is in fact on a willingness on your side to compromise between zero and 100? i yield to the gentleman. mr. cantor: i would ask the gentleman, mr. speaker, does the gentleman know of any position having been taken, any vote that has been taken in the senate to indicate where they are and whether they have come off their position of defending the status quo. again, i would say to the gentleman, his leader, the minority leader earlier today was in the press indicating that that's her position. she wants to defend the status quo. thrs 41 billion in cuts, there's not a cut from the current level of spending. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the

gentleman for yielding. if that's the status quo, i suggest he's not going to get to $100 billion which he represented and his side represents they want to get to. we'll see whether or not they're prepared to do that, but i will tell my friend if that's the position, then i think we will not reach agreement because there appears to be no ability to compromise in that context. the gentleman counted the $41 billion in his -- during the course of the campaign, the gentleman counted that $41 billion when he made a representation to his caucus as to why you were offering a $32 billion cut because together, given the fact that it was halfway through the year, that that would in fact be tantamount to, but again in each one of those instances the gentleman counted the $41 billion. now he's saying, oh, no, that is the status quo. does the gentleman know of any

budget the president bush siped in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 that maintains the status quo or cut below the so-called status quo? when your side was in charge of both the house and senate and the presidency? mr. cantor: listen, mr. speaker, the gentleman and i have had similar conversations over the last couple of years. i think it's best for all of us to see how we go looking forward not looking back. i know the gentleman will suggest we can learn from past history, i'm all for that. but what i would say is we need a position by the other side in order to go forward so we can actually do what the american people want, which is to cut spending. mr. hoyer: i would hope that

the gentleman would consider, the gentleman has made statements in the past that uncertainty undermines the economy. he said last year, working families remain gripped by economic uncertainty and washington has only made the problem worse. if we want to cut into the 9.8% unemployment we have to instill confidence in the economy and begin to foster an environment for job creation. i suggest to the gentleman we will not do that until we come to an agreement. both sides need to work toward that end. i agree with the gentleman on that. i'm hopeful that the senate will in fact make a suggestion in the near term. hopefully hours and a few days, rather than weeks, the 18th, we'll be honest, as you know, very soon.

if we don't reach an agreement, we won't be able to get the paperwork done to get a bill ready to pass by friday, the 18th of -- a week from this coming friday. two weeks from this friday. i think that will be unfortunate and will lead to uncertainty, disruption, both in the public sector and in the private sector. let me ask you one more question on the issue of compromises. assuming the senate makes an offer and assuming it passes an offer or reaches an atreatment, when it comes back, will there be any hearings on the proposed cuts and the ramifications of those cuts? i yield to the gentleman. ment i i would say to the gentleman, first of all as to his suggestion about our adding to

uncertainty and perhaps facilitating government shut dunn -- shutdown, we have said all along we do not want to shut down the government, we want to cut spending. as i said before to the gentleman, it is our intention to continue to go forward, reducing spending at the rate of $2 billion a week, until we can see some signal from the senate that they're serious about wanting to cut spending. as for the gentleman's inquiry about hearing on specific cuts as to a potential bill that will govern the route forward for the rest of the fiscal year, i would bring the gentleman's attention to ongoing hearings now as we proceed throughout this fiscal year about the 2012 budget and spending that we should be about anyway. let us not forget the reason why we find ourselves where we are is because the majority from the hetcht -- 111th congress did not

finish the business of this fiscal year which again is why we find ourselves in the position of these expiring short-term c.r.'s. we are dedicated to the notion of open process, as the gentleman knows, and i know he shares that goal as well, and we will continue to operate in that manner. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that answer. the reason i ask that question, however, i don't know whether the gentleman had an opportunity to read a column in the "new york times" by david brooks, relatively conservative columnist in the "new york times" as the gentleman knows, in which he wrote a column called the new normal. in paragraph four of which he started in washington the republicans who designed the cuts which are included in h.r. 1 for this fiscal year seem to have done no serious policy evaluation. he goes on on the next -- about four paragraphs later to say, referring to his austerity

principle, three austerity principles he propounds, he said never cut without an evaluation process. i think that we need cuts. i have said that. the gentleman said that. we are proceeding. in fact when we have done some of those, and we have agreement on some of those as the gentleman knows. but there were no hearings and that's why mr. wrooks -- brooks says that they seem to have had done no serious policy evaluation of those cuts. that's why i ask that question. but i understand the gentleman's answer. is the gentleman -- i'll bring this to a close. we have some concerns by the fact that a number of economists , large number of economists, have expressed concern about the economic ramifications of some of the cuts and magnitude of the

cuts included. as you know ben bernanke indicated that this spending plan could cost a couple hundred thousand jobs, a number he called not trivial. goldman sachs we might adversely affect g.d.p. by 1.5% to 2% in the second and third quarters compared with current law or as the gentleman refers to, the status quo. i ask the gentleman, is that of concern to you? or do you believe that those evaluations are incorrect? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman. i would say always mindful of opinion makers, compen tators, economists, and their view as to what's going on here in washington. but i would say to the gentleman, i think we have been down the road that the gentleman suggests is preferable before.

we on this floor passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus bill, at least the gentleman's side passed it, and we saw the effects of spending that kind of money did not produce the kind of job creation that was desired or was promised. and if i recall some of the economists that the gentleman refers to probably were ones that supported the notion that the stimulus bill would make sure that unemployment didn't exceed 8%. if we went ahead and spent that money. i think we tried that before. the gentleman also knows that we are borrowing nearly 40 cents out of every dollar we are spending. that is unsustainable. and so the gentleman's focus is spend more money from washington to create jobs, then essentially we are creating jobs, paying people we can't afford to pay. so -- the position is from our

side of the aisle, mr. speaker, is we want to be honest with the people. we want to look for long-term solutions to get this economy going again. we all know that most jobs are created in the private sector. we all know that most jobs come from the entrepreneurial aspirations of the people of this country. it is they who continue to point to washington as the problem. it is they who say the government's explosive growth, government's continued increase and appetite for capital is making it so we can't see investment occur here in this country. if you want to fix the economy, deal with the deficit. that's what we are trying to do, mr. speaker. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his comment. certainly i agree with him we need to deal with the deficit. as the gentleman knows i have been pretty vocal about that and indicated that we need to look at the whole spectrum of spending. focusing on 14% of the budget will not get us there.

i think the gentleman probably agrees with that proposition. i know the chairman of the budget committee agrees with that proposition. we may not -- i may not agree with the chairman of the budget committee on how he wants to get there, but i think we do agree we have to look at all of the spending that we do and that bringing down the deficit is of critical consequence. let me say to the gentleman, however, when he speaks about jobs, as he knows we lost 3.8 million jobs in 2008, the last year of the bush administration. the last year of the obama administration, last 12 months, we have gained 1.1 million private sector jobs. so when the gentleman says that the recovery act did not have the effect that the administration hoped for, he is correct. we went up above the 8% unemployment, but the gentleman i'm sure knows that during the last 12 months we have gained

jobs on an average of $569,000 -- 569,000 over the last five months. so half a million jobs. is that enough? it's not. frankly we are going to have to be at 300,000 or 400,000 per month to overcome the number of jobs that were lost prior to or during the recession which started in 2007. so i want to agree with the gentleman and hope that we can work together on looking at the entire challenge that confronts us in bringing this deficit down. i tell my friend to continually focus as the gentleman has been doing in this colloquy and in other colloquies on simply the discretionary spending, nondefense, nonsecurity spending, while we certainly need to cut fraud, waste, and abuse and cut duplication and

make government simpler and more accessible and more cost-effective for the american people, we also need to be, as you said, honest with the american people that if you cut out every penny of the portion of the budget which you are looking, we will not solve the deficit problem. so i say to my friend, i look forward to working with him. our side looks forward to working with him and his side. i have had discussions, i see mr. dreier on the floor. we need to work together on this issue because the gentleman's correct, it's critical area. unless the gentleman wants more time, i yield back. mr. cantor: i would just say to the gentleman, thank you for the courtesy of yielding. that is exactly why we are turning to mandatory spending next week. the gentleman knows we'll be back on the discussion of the budget as well. as the gentleman knows and can expect our budget will owe proach the issue of entitlements -- approach the issue of entitles and we feel it's very

necessary for us to begin that discussion. frankly were dismayed by the fact that the white house did not include any mention or discussion or did not deal with entitlements in its budget proposal. so we hope and i know the gentleman is earnest in his desire to want to try and deal with the deficit, both on the discretion and the mandatory side, look forward to working with him toward that end. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. in concluding on that the administration did appoint a commission. which did look at the spectrum of spending, made some very substantive recommendations. the administration has commended those recommendations to us for consideration. but the administration also said that we need to make sure that we invest in growing our economy if we expect to bring the deficit down. investing in the education of our children and investing in our infrastructure, investing in

innovation, and invention. i agree with the administration on that and i think we need to be very careful we pay attention to both the investments and the reduction of the deficits. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. when the house adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet on tuesday, march 8, 2011, when it shall convene at 2:00 p.m. for morning hour debate and 4:00 p.m. for legislative business. and when the house adjourns on that day it adjourn to meet at 10:00 am million on -- am on wednesday march 9. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches . for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise?

mr. dreier: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. dreier: i didn't want to prolong the colloquy but i have to say that both my friends, mr. hoyer and mr. cantor, were talking about the imperative for job creation and economic growth. and there is a bipartisan consensus in this institution we all want to see private sector jobs created. we have an opportunity to work together in a bipartisan way to do something that president obama addressed in his state of the union message here in this chamber. he talked about the need for us to pass first the u.s.-korea free trade agreement and he also included, i'm happy to say, the colombia and panama agreements. all of those agreements have been pending. the colombia and panama agreements actually preceded the korea agreement, and we know, mr. speaker, that if we were to pass all three of these pending trade agreements, we could create good union, union and

nonunion jobs here in this country in the manufacturing sectors of our economy. if you look at companies like caterpillar, john deere, whirlpool, other manufacturing companies right here in the united states, creating an opportunity for those union and nonworking union members to sell their products into latin america is very important. let's create jobs. let's pass all three of these agreements. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from new mexico rise? the gentleman is recognized. mr. lujan: i rise today to pay tribute to marine corps pral joe silver shoot who passed away earlier this week at the age of 86. as a navajo code talker, corporal silver smith earned the silver congressional medal of honor for his service during world war ii when he answered the call of duty and serve his country in the south pacific

from 1943 to 1946. corporal silver smith was part of an invaluable group of navajo men who transmitted secret communications during the war that contributed to victory for the allied forces. as we take this moment to remember the contributions of corporal silver smith, we are reminded of the brave service of all navajo code talkers. corporal silversmith and his brothers in arms were nothing short of heroes for their efforts during the war. he went on to become a minister after returning home from the war and a well respected member of the community. always supporting those he ministered to. he will be missed. as we mourn the passing of joe and celebrate his life, my thoughts and prayers are with his wife and their two daughters during this sad time. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlelady from florida rise? the gentlewoman is recognized.

ms. wasserman schultz: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker on monday i met with parents of young children in my district who attend early child hood education classes. we spoke about how vital early education is and the development of young children. how early education increases high school graduation rates. how 50 years of solid research has shown that early childhood education reduces crime and delinquency and yield up to a $7 return on every dollar invested. unfortunately, though, with the passage of h.r. 1, just over a week ago, this body made the largest cut to education in our nation's history. . now, we all understand that our nation needs to cut spend bug the society that planses its budget on the backs of its children should not be surprised when the spine of its future is broken. these children are 2, 3, and 4 years old. they didn't run up the debt and deficit of our country. but the response of the republicans in the house of

representatives is that they would pay for it. that doesn't make sense. it is morally wrong. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. mr. defazio: today it was announced that mexico will begin to reduce its ex-tore gnat -- extortionate tariffs on fwoods from the united states. but we shouldn't accept a bad deal from mexico that jeopardizes travelers on our highways, that jeopardizes our security on the -- on the board we are mexico. what american trucking company is going to send their trucks south of the border into the lawless zone with the extortion and kidnapping and everything else down there?

if we give mexico free license to drive north into the upper 48 states of the united states, we will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. so it's good news they're addressing the tariffs, but we're going to be scrutinizing the details of any deal that this president reaches with the president of mexico to protect the safety of our traveling public, the security of our borders and american jobs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. are there further one-minute speeches? hearing nothing, without objection, the earlier request of the gentleman from illinois, mr. jackson, to insert extraneous materials in the record is granted. under the speaker's announced policy on jaff 5, 2011, the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert is recognized for 60 minutes as the dez knee of the

majority leader. mr. gohmert: these are serious times in which we are living. supposedly there's a chinese curse that says, may you live in interesting times. we certainly do. and i really have been shocked that the mainstream media has not done more in the way of stories on the americans, the four americans on a boat that were hijacked and then killed, and of course it made some news on february 22 when it happened but it appears it didn't survive much of a 24-hour cycle. this is an act of war against america. this was an act of war against four apparently had the gal -- gall

to travel around and offer bibles to different places and apparently were spending american blood and treasure in places like afghanistan and iraq only to find out that they are persecuting christians in a manner that is reminiscent of why people came to europe and tried to create a country in which christians could worship freely without being persecuted, tortured, imprisoned or killed simply for their religious beliefs. in this case, though, it was a matter of the -- of barberry pirates. -- of barbary pirates. i know most people in washington haven't learned enough from history but there are so many history lessons

that make very clear what ronald reagan used to say when he said no country ends up being attacked because they're too strong. what barbary pirates have seen, what people around the world have seen, including libya, tour key, lebanon -- turkey, lebanon, iran, they see we have been promoting weakness in the united states and promoting a very weak vision of ourselves around the world. this story from february 22 indicates that the pirates fired a rocket propelled grenade at a u.s. navy destroyer that was following the hijacked yacht with four americans onboard. gunfire erupted and four americans that had been taken

hostage were fatally wounded. they were killed. i don't know what this administration needs to see in the way of current events, or why this administration will not take anyone from the mir -- any one of the myriad lessons from history that when you're dealing with pirates, when you're dealing with religious fanatics, people who want to destroy you, could care nothing about your life, your pursuit of happiness, you don't placate them. you don't try to negotiate with them. you don't show that we don't know what to do because what you get is more piracy, more terrorism.

there's only one way to respond, and that's the way that the united states did in its early days in the early 1800's with thomas jefferson as president. some don't go back that far and learn history. all they want to do is look at a fictional approach to u.s. history that says, in essence, gee, we're mean, we're colonialists, we have sub jew gated people around the world to our imperious whims but unfortunately despite the hyperbole and the rhetoric, what we have done is expend american blood and american treasure in the name of freedom. not just american freedom, freedom of iraqis, freedom of muslims in eastern europe, freedom of people all across

europe, france, germany, belgium, holland, poland, all across, americans have given their lives in the name of freedom. all across the pacific, given their lives, their last full measure of devotion for freedom. no racist view, but absolutely as jesus said, greater love had no one than this, that they're willing to lay down their life for friends. in the case of americans, we've laid down lives for people we didn't even know. because the concept of freedom was so important. and in our earliest days, washington, of course, was quite concerned that having won the revolution, we were still not strong enough to survive system of often you'll see a new government trying to arise in a country it overcommits to

other obligations with regard to military and they lose their young nation. washington was afraid of that. and through the 1790's, we had barbary pirates, pirates off the coast of north africa, taking americans hostage, capturing american ships, taking american sailors hostage, they would kill or torture them but they would ransom them if they had not killed them and at one point, i read that as much as 18% of the american budget was being spent to pay ransom to get american sailors back. and at one point, thomas jefferson was one who was sent over on behalf of the united states to negotiate with these

muslims about why they were attacking american ships and the discussion apparently included questions as to why would you attack american ships? we have not harmed you in any way, we're not a threat to you, we are not threatening you and one history lesson indicates that jefferson was told, well, under our religion, if we are killed while we are taking action against an infidel like americans, then we go straight to paradise and we're rewarded. jefferson was shocked because as a man who was so well-read, he couldn't believe that any world religion would encourage the killing of innocent people and the killing of innocent people would gain you a trip to paratice. so he got his own english copy

of the curran that is still over in the -- of the qur -- of the koran, that is still over in the library of congress. it's still in the lie brear of congress. american history students know we finally created the united states marines. those not familiar with the history may still be familiar with the marine corps him that says from the halls of montezuma to the shores of tripoli. it was the shores of tripoli to which the marines were sent with the message we can't continue to pay ransom to bloodthirsty religious se lots and so we're at war -- zealots and so we're at war with you until you stop. it was only when the americans showed strength that they could not be pushed around, would not be taken hostage without a response, and that there would be american blood and treasure

spent in the name of freedom to anyone who tries to threaten the freedom of americans on the high seas or on american soil. and because the marines fought so valiantly and fiercely and farelessly -- and fearlessly, the pirates, the muslim pirates learned a valuable lesson, gee, maybe we ought to leave these people alone for a while and they did for a long time. but in 1979, after the carter administration had welcomed back the itoe la khomeini ss a -- the itoe la khomeini as -- the ia toe la khomeini has a man of peace and they had snub ed the shah of iran and put all their eggs in the bass wet the

wonderful man of peace, the ayatollah khomeini, who it turns out would also like to see the united states destroyed and viewed americans as infidels as well, like the original barbary pirates. i was in the army at fort benning when the hostages were taken. no one at fort benning that i knew of was dying to go to iran , but most everybody i knew at fort benning was willing to go. and thought we should go. because an act of war had been committed against the united states. under everyone's interpretation of international law, when a united states embassy or united states compound is attacked in any nation, it is an attack on that nation's own soil. it is an act of war. under everyone's interpretation

of the international law. and if you go back an you view the television footage of the day and i'm relying on my memory of those days because we were certainly paying attention, we didn't know who might be sent, turns out none of us were sent from fort benning, because the carter administration, as eloquent as president carter was, and as peace-loving and as well-meaning as he was, he felt surely these people in iran will see how much i care. they'll see how much i really love them and will negotiate and they'll be impressed by our words, they'll be impressed by our negotiations and they'll let our people go. but that's not the way those folks who view us as infidels who need to be killed work. and in fact, if you go to your

own experience back to a school-yard, if a bully is picking on you, or especially a smaller person is picking on a bigger person, and you don't defend yourself, but instead say, let me pay you money if you'll leave me alone, not only does that smaller person not have respect for the bigger person, they have nothing but hatred and now you've added contempt. because they can't believe somebody is such a coward and so weak when they appear to be so big and strong that they would pay someone who hates them to leave them alone. so you get hatred, you get contempt and you get more violence. and that's what we've seen. we have continued to this day to

pay the price for the message that was sent in 1979 and 1980 for appearing to be so weak and helpless in the face of iranians , we were told initially students, who committed an act of war and then gave our hostages to the iranian government. now, as i watched all this unfold it appears to me as a young man in the army that, you know, the ayatollah's spokesman kept coming out and talking about the students, the students attack, the students have the hostages. and that seemed to me as an inexperienced person in the way of foreign policy, but someone who had studied a great deal of world history, that that was their backdoor for iran. that was their way of saying,

look, we don't know if the united states is going to be the powerful country we're afraid they might be or if they're really the toothless tiger that we saw tuck their tail between their legs and run out of vietnam. so let's just test. let's talk about the students taking the hostages, let's talk about the students committing the atrocity on invading the embassy and if america steps up and says, you either get our hostages back from the students within 48 or 72 hours or we're coming in and we're addressing this act of war against the united states of america, and we're getting our hostages back and if you kill them we will be at war with anybody who condone

that action and that would include the iranian government that allowed this to happen and did not interseed when they could have, that's what you have to do and that's what we didn't do. so it appeared, it all unfolded that after two or three days the ayatollah realized america is as weak as we hoped they were. this president carter, he thinks he's a man of peace, we see him as a man of nothing but weakness. as the poorest leader the americans could offer. so they quit talking about the students had the hostages, the students attacked the embassy and they started talking about we have the hostages. because they gave us time to show whether or not we'd react with strength, they saw we reacted with weakness.

you can't negotiate with people like that. you instill more contempt on top of the hatred. and of course i filed -- found in all three congresses i've been a part of and this congress will be no different, my u.n. voting accountability bill that basically says, if you vote against the united states more than half the time in the u.n. in any year, you will receive not one dime of financial assistance from the u.s. in the subsequent year. now, some say, gee, that seems so heartless. well, the fact is, we have been paying money to prop up regimes like mubarak's, is it any wonder the report is he has billions of dollars in the bank when we've been paying egypt billions of

dollars that doesn't appear to have really gotten to the people and helped them? we're doing it all over the world. we're paying tyrants who hate us and would like to see our way of life destroyed with american treasure. it doesn't buy love, it doesn't buy happiness, it buys contempt. and as i've said repeatedly, you don't have to pay people to hate you. they'll do it for free. and at a time when the united states is struggling so with economic issues of just staying afloat, why should we be paying tyrants that hate us and paying people who have not helped their people? i mean, you look at the money

that we poured into the palestinian group and see how much of the money we've paid in to help the homeless palestinians has been paid toward building homes. it should be a no-brainer. palestinians, so many of them hate the israelis because they have no homes. so they're told, well, blame the israelis. so they do. and they grow up hating them. well, why not with the billions and billions of dollars we've paid out of this country to the palestinians, why have know the not used it to build homes so those people won't continue to hate israelis and hate americans? it's no secret, we're not buying affection with the billions of dollars we're spending overseas. it makes no sense to these countries who hate us that we keep giving them money.

but they figure, if we're that stupid, sure, they'll take our money. and all the while the dollar gets weaker and weaker and you have more and more claims from people, we're giving money -- people we're giving money to give the dollar as a reserve currency and when that happens, if it ever happens, then our economy is in for just the fastest spiral down anyone could possibly manl. dollars are required to buy much of the oil in the world. we keep showing this kind of stupidity in our foreign policies and there will be consequences. there are consequences for four americans who were hijacked and then killed. as a former judge, a state judge

and state chief justice in the court of appeals, when i hear stories i'm constantly looking for evidence so that i can find out, is there any substance to this story that's been heard? now, we see that there was a naval destroyer following, shadowing the hijacked boat of these americans who were simply going out trying to help people in the world. they were not a threat to anyone. they were providing bibles and hope from what we can find out. well, how does that compare to the incident of the captain of the bank being taken hostage by three pirates and how it concluded? there were conservative talk show hosts that said, hey, we

disagree with so much that president obama has been doing to this country and in our name, but looks like he got this one right. well, the story was circulating and i was curious whether it had truth to it that when the seal team was deployed, the order was a little different than normal, where instead of the order saying, go rescue these hostages and they put together their own game plan for how you go about achieving the goal that's ordered. that this order was a little different, it just said, you know, go to the ship and receive further orders there. a little different for a seal team, that's what we were hearing. and that they did the drop at night and they had the seal team there and from basically three days they had a bead on all three of the pirates in the boat with the captain they had taken

hostage. and that at any moment they could have taken out all three pirates for that three-day period but the story went, what was circulating was that the president's order said, do not use deadly force under any circumstances unless the life of the captain is in eminent danger of immediately being taken. only under those circumstances are you to use deadly force. well, when a pirate group attacks a ship it is an act of war. by those pirates. that administration's response here is just to have a navy destroyer tag along and try to negotiate and they were in the process of trying to negotiate, apparently, when the

rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the navy destroyer and then the four hostages were killed. well, the story was the administration didn't want to take any action against the pirates, we'll just negotiate our way through this. it's one of the problems with being one of the most gifted orators in american history, if you're that gifted of an orator, the temptation arises for you to think you can talk people into anything. that people that hate your country, when they see that you really sympathize with them and not your own hostages as much, certainly there's sympathy for the hostages, but if they perceive that there is sympathy for the pirates or for those attacking americans, then, sure, they're willing to negotiate, but it appears to be weakness.

and obviously these pirates in february were not impressed with america when they took the americans hostage, committed an act of war and even had a naval destroyer behind because they perceived we were weak. well, the story about the captain that was going around was that for basically three days the seals were not allowed to take out the pirates that they could have at any time, and then we heard on the news during that that the captain, while the pirates may have been falling asleep, was able to get out of the boat, get into the water. as soon as i heard that i thought, wow, he was trying to give the seals clear shots at the pirates. he must have figured, as i did, that they surely would have

taken an open shot if they knew they wouldn't jeopardize the captain, the american captain. and so by his jumping out of the boat, it gave them a clear shot to take the pirates out without jeopardizing the captain but no shots were fired. that surely had to perplex him. it sure did me and many others. why didn't they just take out the pirates before they drug him back in the boat? but our american seals did nothing. not because they couldn't or wouldn't, but the story was they were doing that because the president had issued an order that they were not to use deadly force. and the story was going that the captain, when he went out of the boat, and these guys came to their senses, that they put their guns down to grab him and put him back into the boat and therefore he was not under immediate threat of death, so the seals were not allowed to kill him. it must have perplexed the

captain that nothing was done when he got out. but nothing was done. the story went that these seals were following orders. and then came an occasion when one of the pirates that had a gun on his arm or over his shoulder waved his weapon in the direction of the captain and that's when the seal team commander realized he's waving his weapon at the captain, we cannot take a chance, the order to shoot was given, that could have been given any time for three days, and ended that terrible ordeal, was given not by the president but by the commander on the scene and our well-trained seals did a remarkable job in taking out two of the pirates and rescuing the

captain. the story went, could have happened any time, but the order of the president restrained them from doing that because he was convinced they could just surely know how good and loving and peaceful we were and they would eventually let these folks go. because this administration apparently had not learned the lesson that thomas jefferson had to learn, you can't deal with peaceful negotiating efforts or even paying people money or snubbing your allies and friends to try to convince them that you're really a great person they ought to love. those things don't work. you have to go to war against them and let them know when they attack americans, when they attack america that we are coming after them. we don't have to be at war with a country, we don't have to be at war with an entire race or group of people, there's no need in that.

but you go to war with the people that are at war with you this administration has not tone that. we have four americans who are dead. obviously this administration didn't want americans to die. of course they didn't. that's a terrible thing. and they didn't want it -- would love to have avoided it, certainly. but it's not enough to intend good consequences. you have to study your historylesssons and do so objectively, learn from history so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. and that's what we've been doing. and as much as i respected and think ronald reagan was one of our greatest presidents, in 1983, when our marine barracks was blown up and we withdrew from beirut, it appeared to be further evidence of weakness and i can't help but believe

from people i've talked to that were part of the administration that if he had to do it all over he would do it in a different manner. but he had advisors telling him, accurately, we're in lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. we have finished the mission, there is no need to keep staying there. let's go ahead and get out. we've finished our job, let's get out before other americans get killed. the problem was, when it did -- when we did, it appeared to be followup weakness to what president carter had shown on behalf of this country. now we see it on the high seas. we have a naval destroyer, we have seal teams, army, navy, marines, coast guard, we have air force that can achieve things nobody in any prior service could have ever dreamed could be accomplished.

we have a better military than i ever dreamed we could have had back when we had just gone to an all-volunteer army and i was concerned about our national safety. amazing military, smart, motivated, and yet despite that, we're showing weakness. the story that was going around was the captain had ordered the fire got a call from the white house saying, really chewing him out, that the seal team around didn't know what was being said but they knew that their commander was getting chewed out royally and supposedly the story that was circulating was he said, that's fine, sir. that apparently wasn't the president, but he said, you can tell the president if he wants

to continue this rear chewing of me, we're going to be at andrews air force base, he can continue it there, or maybe he would like to congratulate them. there was a wonderful photo and he was congratulating the men as he should have. ever since i heard the story, i wondered, is there evidence of similar activity that might give substance to that story? and how we handled these four americans, these loving, caring americans, being killed on the high seas, seems to be that kind of evidence. that this is our mode of operation. you commit an act of war

against americans you commit an act of war against our ships, and we're going to send a navy ship to follow you and try to offer you bribes to leave us alone an leave the people alone. but you done have to worry much. but after the rocket propelled grenade was fired, it all went bad and four americans are dead. it's shocking. we need to show strength. and i was, a year ago in april, in west africa, with a group called mercy ships that brings healing, the lame walk, the blind see, they bring a ship into a port of a country that needs health care and they provide treatment to thousands of people. and i had gone to see this for myself and before i left the

ship after the days there over the easter break, some of the west africans wanted to visit with me and the oldest, a wonderful, wonderful man, i don't know how much education, but a smart man, great wisdom, he said in essence, we wanted to make sure you understood, as africans we were excited when you elected a black president. we were excited. we thought it was wonderful. but since he has been president, we've become very concerned and a bit afraid because we see him showing weakness for america. and we need you to please convey in washington that america is the hope for people, christians, people who want peace around the world, we're their hope.

and if you show weakness, and if you weaken america, we don't have hope in this world, as christians, they knew where they'd go in the next life. but they also knew that america stood for hope if -- in this world and when we show weakness as we have been doing, then it signals the tyrants to have their way. and we've got to stop that. now, i want to -- may i inquire how much time is remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 25 minutes left. mr. gohmert: i wanted to shift gears, we've been doing so much talking about the continuing resolution, which is just an on fwoing funding of the way things are going, except for amendments that have been adopted to the c.r.

and we've talked so much about health care and the president's bill that many call obamacare. and in the c.r. that was debated for over 90 hours, with an open rule, until a unanimous consent agreement was reached, 80 hours or so into the debate, it was the first open rule we'd had like that in years. certainly we didn't have such an open debate and open rule during the last two years, during the democrats' control of the majority. in both the house and senate. we didn't have an open rule here. and we were advised it was the first time in america's history that there was not an open rule where you could bring -- anybody could bring to the floor and offer them to a bill.

now it's not a pretty thing to watch. all that debate going back and forth. and i know i hear some people say, you know, you guys shouldn't big so much back and forth. but they show a lack of knowledge about what the founders intended. justice scalia put it so well to a group when one asked, do we have more freedom in america because we have the best bill of rights in history? and scalia, as only he could do, abruptly said, basically, no, even the soviet union had a better bill of rights than we do. i'd forgotten but back in college, during one of my history and world courses, i had written a paper on the soviet government and their constitution, their bill of rights and justice scalia was exactly right. they had more promises in their bill of rights than we do.

but as justice scalia so aptly pointed out, the reason we have more freedoms in america than any country in history is because the founders did not trust government. so they put as many impediments in the path of creating laws as they could. they knew if they made it too easey to pass laws, it would be too easey to subjugate americans an take away their freedom and have the government get bigger and bigger until it basically took away people's freedom and way of life to which they'd become accustomed. they knew that, they'd seen that they learned that if their vast reading of history. he had such great -- they had such great knowledge of the writings of philosophers and historians. they knew all that they did not trust government.

they were not satisfied to have one house as a representative body because it might be too easy for one body, one group to take over control of that one house and then ramrod through all kind of oppressive legislation like obamacare, for example. so they were so worried about that, they created a second house of representatives, ended up being called the senate and they were selected a different way, by the state legislators, so that they would be responsible to the state legislators so they wouldn't end up taking away states rights and wouldn't allow the house of representatives to take away a state's rights. so they thought, gee, two houses. but even that wasn't good enough. because they realized, you know, we could do like has been done before and have a prime minister elected by the lennell slative body and he'd be the

top executive. it's not good enough. not enough on an -- of an impediment or obstacle to passing laws. we want to make it harder to pass laws. let's create a separate executive branch and have the executive, the top executive, the president, elected by the entire country. and at least elected by the entire country's representatives. but that was going to be a different format. and then they set up the judiciary branch. and both the president could veto and even the judiciary it turned out would be able to veto things if it got through the house and senate and yet took away some constitutional right. they thought they created a good enough system that wouldn't be as abused as the

entire system was in the last few years. they could not have imagined that a 2,900 page bill, obamacare, could have been crammed down the throats of american citizens that poll afterle -- after poll showed did not want it. they would never have imagined that the senate would not be independent enough and would be so taken over by one political extremist group that they would pass through such an oppressive bill that would force a government takeover and government control of everybody's health care that would force every american to have their medical records sent to a central repository that supposedly general electric would handle because they're

good cronies with this administration and they would take care of every american's records because the federal government would have control of all of that. not only that, they would take control over all the health care insurance companies, they would take control over ordering what would be allowable under health care, what would not be allowable under health care, all in this massive bill that would provide for, supposedly, hundreds of thousands of regulations that would follow to interpret those 2,900 pages. they could never have imagined it would get that bad in this country, that the system they created to throw obstacles in the path of government creating laws that the american people did not want and serply not that a majority of americans didn't want and by golly, they got it through. they rammed it through. they used care rot, they

dangled benefits, they added all kinds of pork to bills, they threw in something for the big pharmaceutical, they threw in something for trial lawyer they threw something in for the a.m.a., they certainly threw a big juicy bone in for aarp, a bunch of juicy bones, actually. they threw all these things in for all these interest groups except for the one who poll after poll say, we don't want it. don't do this. you promised us you would negotiate a health care bill on c-span and we would be able to see who was out for the people. so all the people could assume was that because none of that was done on c-span, other than a dog and pony show after it was basically done and about to be crammed down republicans' throats anyway, we had a little summit and it got crammed down our throats anyway and americans didn't want it.

well, i did go through the original thousand-page bill, i went through the 2,000-page bill, i put off going through the 2,900-page bill because who knew if there'd be a third or fourth, i mean a fourth or fifth on top of that, i didn't want to end up going through yet another bill that wasn't going to be the one that really was the one that was seriously going to be made law. so i put it off. and when i got around to going through and reading the 2,900-page bill, i'll admit, i was wanting to look at what the sections did, their affect. so i was struck by finding really ingenious or insidious language and drafting provisions , depending on your viewpoint, for example, with abortion. there was a section there saying, you know, you couldn't

have federal funds for abortion but over in the section that was going to allow it, instead of mentioning the word abortion, it just referred to the section, so if you went online and did a word certain for the word abortion you wouldn't see all of the provisions that allowed for abortion and federal funding, you would only find restricted group. that kind of really clever hiding what was going on. i passed over a lot of the numbers that were utilized and so it was a bit surprising to find out here recently, in going back through and a former member here that i served with, now with the heritage foundation, yesterday provided me with copies of specific pages of the bill and again this is public law 111-148 and 111-152, but if

you looked at -- let's see, consolidated print-26. here it says down here, there is -- it is hereby appropriated to the secretary out of any frunds -- funds in the treasure, $30 million for the first fiscal year, it goes on and another page says, hereby appropriated to the trust fund and it appropriated $10 million for this, $50 million for this, $150 million for that, another $150 million, another $150 million. and you go through these and it's staggering how much money was actually not authorized but they used appropriating language. because as many people know and i'm finding more and more that are watching c-span, but they know, gee, normally you have a budget, well, there was no budget last year.

the majority didn't want people to see exactly how the money would be budgeted, so they didn't bother with one in election year, first time in decades, as i understand it, but we didn't have a budget and then we had this -- beginning of this continuing resolution stuff, but normally you'll have a budget, you'll have an authorization for expenditure, but then it had to be followed up with an appropriation. well, obamacare went straight to it and appropriated vast amounts of money and in fact in this first year of 2011, fiscal year 2011, there's $4,951,000,000,000 appropriated in the bill. they apparently not only overran all the obstacles and hurdles

that the founders put in our way to come up so that we would not come up with legislation that americans did not want, they overcame that and then just to make sure that it would be difficult to ever stop this by unfunding it, they actually didn't just authorize, they appropriated $105,464,000,000 in this obamacare bill. $-- over $105 billion from 2011 through 2019. $105 billion. now, the rules get a little complicated around here and any amendment that seeks to resipped a prior appropriation is going to be subject to a point of

order objection and not be allowed because it legislates in an appropriation -- appropriating bill and under our rules you can't lenl slate an appropriating bill. so the only way, and these people that put this language in here, they knew it, when they were telling america, we know we're broke, we've got to rein in spending, all the while they were sticking in $105 billion of spending in one bill. not authorizing, not saying, gee, you may not be able to afford this five or six or seven years from now, so instead they just said, we're appropriating it and you can't do anything about it because under the house rules you try to bring up an amendment to rescind that, it's subject to a point of order objection and we can keep it from coming out. the only way that i understand that this $105 billion that's now been appropriated by the

last congress, the only way they can be taken out, is to have a provision in the original bill from the appropriators, not an amendment, a provision that rescinds this $105 billion of appropriations in this law from last year, and it's in the original bill and then the rules committee waives any point of order objections to that rescission being in the appropriating bill. my understanding is that's the only way we can get it done. the amendments we were trying to do and that we got done fearntly are not going to accomplish that. we're going to have to have it in the original committee bill, rescinding all of this massive amount of money and right now we'll be borrowing 42 cents of every dollar of that $105 billion.

it's irresponsible, it's almost inconceivable except here it is in black and white in front of us. america deserves better than this. i told some folks back home, have mentioned before, it strikes me that this government in the last not just four years but even going back into the last few years and especially the tarp bailout that was such a disaster and should never have been passed, that this government became like a parent who had an overwhelming desire to spend and could not control their own spending, so the parent goes to the bank and says, you've got to loan me massive amounts of money and the bank says, how are you going to pay it back? you're not going to live long enough to ever pay this back. and the parent says, no, but i've got my children here and

they're going to have children and those children will have children, so my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, i'm pledging they're going to pay back all of this self-centered massive amounts of money i'm throwing upon me and my friends and i'm pledging and promising my children will be endentured servants for the rest of their lives because i can't stop spending. now, in a case like that you'd probably have the child protective service come sweeping in and say, you are an unfit parent, you have no business having children when you are selling your children's future for your own use of money now?

how irresponsible that is. do you care nothing about the children? that you can't quit lavishing all that money and paying your friends for doing nothing? you can't control your spending so that your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren can have freedom like you had it? you can't control that? you're an irresponsible parent and you shouldn't even have these children if you're going to do that. i mean, i've heard child protective services in texas come in on a lot weaker claims to take children away from parents than that. it's irresponsible what we're doing and to pass a bill that was against the vast majority will of the american people and to stick in $105 billion of spending is just irresponsible, it's got to stop. on one final note, before my

time concludes, having been a judge in the state, chief justice, i'm sensitive when i hear judges threatened and especially in the wake of gabrielle giffords' shooting and the loss of life in arizona, we really should not be provoking actions to the point of violence or threatening actions and i've certainly had my share of death threats as a judge. but it was usually when -- only when they included my family that it got serious. and we have a group that's held itself out for years now, common cause, as this wonderful nonpartisan group and yet you see over and over, like you did here recently with the rally they held in california, with

van jones, such an impassioned socialist, speaking and stirring people up against justice thomas and justice scalia, justice thomas himself after one of the most embarrassing episodes in american history, the way he was treated as he went through the hearings for confirmation to the supreme court, he said himself, you know, it's a modern day lynching, high-tech lynching. and in his book, "my grandfather's son," where he describes coming out of poverty, severe poverty, and making it on nothing but hard work and his brilliant intellect, he achieved the great heights he has, and i've heard him say himself, you know, he started out in college as an angry black man, left wing

extremist who came to realize more oppressive government is not the answer, but he also came to see firsthand, as he has described it, that if you're an african-american and you spout the words that the liberal left tells you to say, then they love you. but if you dare, as he points out, otherwise i wouldn't use these words, but he says, if you dare to step off the plantation and think for yourself then here comes all the groups that come after you. and we have seen that with this attack from common cause, that they are using to fund raise this attack after justice thomas and scalia and i again look for

evidence, are they nonpartisan? well, it seems like they only come after conservatives, mainstream americans, but they encourage left wing extremism on a wholesale basis, but to be attacking justice thomas and scalia and stirrup sentiment, i mean, they sent out the emails urging people to come, they sent out the notices of what they were doing, urging people to come. they knew who they were sending those to, they urged these people to come and what they got were the friends that they'd invited saying they wanted to string up, basically lynch, one of the most honorable people in america, clarence thomas, that came from a most oppressive background and fought and worked his way up, as he would tell you, with the help of loving grandparents to the status that he has. and they want to do a high-tech lynching of him now? except the people that they stirred up aren't going to be satisfied with high-tech.

they want to lynch him, they want to lynch his wife and when you look for evidence, well, have they been saying this all along about other incidences that were similar? well, when we got the national leader of the aclu they never mentioned one word about perhaps she should recuse herself from things that involved the aclu and ourshies -- sympathies go out a any time someone loses a spouse but when people on the supreme court who came from leftist backgrounds had spouses that had direct interests that were affected, common cause was silent, oh, no, they raised their money on going after people that are mainstream conservatives and believe in the constitution meaning what it says. after bringing this up at a press conference this afternoon, we get word that

common cause has come out and said, we apologize. we never meant for them to say that. no that's not what they said. they came out and said, this is laughable. they didn't come out ancon democrat people that want to lynch a supreme court justice, or justices and the spouses, family, and torture them, do these terrible thing, didn't say anything about that, just said, this is laughable because they are still raising money and it's time the justice department started being fair about justice and not just us at their justice department but look into common cause and look at whether they really deserve to be called not for profit and nonpartisan because what they're doing to stir up americans against honorable americans is is intolerable. america deserves better.

the adage is, democracy ensures that people are governed no better than they deserve. my hope and prayer is we deserve better in the next election. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. kucinich: thank you very much, mr. speaker. today in the state of ohio, the state of wisconsin, the state of indiana, there are epic struggles under way where those who serve the public, who teach our children, who police our streets, who fight the fires,

who perform a myriad ofer is is vises at a state, county, and municipal level are under attack. their wages are under attack, their benefits are under attack, their pensions, their working conditions. and these public workers are being made the scapegoats. in all the budget challenges which states face, they're now blaming the workers. our whole economy has been turned into a somewhat efficient engine that takes the wealth of the american people and accelerates the wealth to the top. that after all is what our tax system is about. that's what wall street is about. that's what banking is about. that's what our energy policy is about. taking the wealth of millions,

giving it to a few oil companies. if you examine every area of our economy, you'll see that we're at a time in the history of america where the rich truly are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is getting destroyed. enter public workers. people who have dedicated their lives to public service. people who are truly public servants in the truest sense of the word. people who were told that if they agreed to public service, that they would have certain guarantees. so they dedicated their lives. ohio has had a new governor, a person who i serve with in this -- i served with in this house. from the moment he has come into office, he and his supporters have run an agenda

that's aimed at officiating -- at vishting the -- at vitiating the rights of public workers and it has resulted in a bill in the state senate that will strip collective bargaining rights just about across the board from public workers, that would take away public employees' right to strike that would make the penalty for a strike removable with replacement workers, that will open the door to privatization of services. now, my read of what's going on in ohio, which is my home state, is this. that by attempting to crush public workers, by telling

them, you will not have any ability to negotiate your benefits, you will not have any ability to negotiate your working conditions, your health benefits, your pension, these provisions are not subject to discussion. the number of people working with you at any time not subject to discussion. that what's happened is that we have seen accomplished an economic attack on workers which will lead to them working for less but opening the door to privatization scheme, which, mr. speaker, works like this. you make public workers the issue, you say that they're

paid too much when, you know, i have here a matter for the record if the economic policy institute that says that ohio public sectors are undercompensated compared to private sector counterparts but fact, unfortunately, means little in this debate. but you tell the public that these public workers are overpaid and then what you say, and this new law, senate bill 5, would make -- would enable the state of ohio to do this. would say, we're going to privatize this section of the work force. we're going to put the work out for bids. we'll get a private company in here to do it. we prom it will be done more efficiently. and -- we promise it it will be done more efficiently. the taxpayers go to sleep and they wake up one day to discover that what happened is this. they have permitted a privatization of their services and they end up inevitably

paying more and getting less. the corporations walk away with the profits, the privatized workers get paid less in order to enable the corporations to make more money. so ultimately, what senate bill 5 in ohio will do is enup costing the state government even more. not going to be any savings when you set the stage for a weakening of workers, then you set the stage for making it illegal to strike and knocking them out with replacement workers and setting it on the path to privatization. that's what this is about. you look in wisconsin, i believe it was paul krugman and

others who pointed out that in wisconsin there was a provision in the wisconsin budget where, from the governor of wisconsin's bill, it says is, sale or contractual operation of state-owned heating, cooling, and power plants, saying that the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or contract with a private entity in the operation of such plant with or without solicitation or bids. so you have a private contractor, just give it away, without any bids at all. they're power plants that serve facilities in the state of wisconsin. these are the kinds of things we can expect in wisconsin. except in this case we're talking about privatization of public services. privatization of public services is well established here already, unfortunately. and it's -- the afl-cio public

employee department produced a paper which talks about when you get in the privatization, the public ends up having really little accountability on the question of public funds. and they point out that private business has no business allocating public funds or monitoring the use of public funds. there's a question of fiscal accountability. look, we know that when there's matching amounts of money available that it goes from the public sector to the private sector, let's take iraq or after fan stan with respect to contracts, billions of dollars disappear, get wasted. it ends up being a racket.

reduce it to a state level and you have the potential for fraud, you have the weakening of the community ability to assert collective interests, and as i said, the resulting savings that taxpayers are being told will occur are directed toward the corporation so is they can get higher profits. privatization is inevitably a racket. when, as a member of congress, in my home district of cleveland, a defense finance administration wanted to privatize a number of accounting jobs in cleveland. mr. speaker, i had a seven-year battle with the defense finance administration where we proved that the taxpayers were getting taken for a ride in this privatization plan that was being promoted by our government to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. we reversed the privatization.

privatization is at the core of this battle in ohio. because the assets of the state are worth countless billions of dollars. if you could take a work force, there's over 300,000, about 350,000 public workers in ohio would be affected by s.b. 5. there is not a service that can't be privatized. but then the public doesn't have any control over it. they can't call up their elected official and complain about a service that's privatized. they have to call up the corporation. and they end up paying more in taxes. people need to understand that. states have budget difficulties. they have to deal with. i got that, i understand that. states need a revenue sharing

plan from the federal government. but the federal government doesn't have the money right now. why doesn't the federal government have the money? well, how about the fact that the federal government is spending trillions of dollars on wars, one of which is based on lies, the other is based on a misreading of history. a nobel prize-winning economist in his book "the $3 trillion war" has stated that the cost of the war in iraq will run between $3 trillion and $5 trillion just to the u.s. taxpayers, the cost of the war in afghanistan is already half a trillion dollars. the long-term cost of that, since we're still in a period of acceleration of that war will certainly go into the trillions of dollars. we saw a couple of years ago, wall street come to this capital, suddenly the waves

parted. $700 billion in loans. when wall street was flagging. that could have been anticipated that wall street would create incredible speculation when glass-steagall was effectively repealed when they took down the wall separating commercial from investment banking. those who were the cops on the beat kind of walked away. this bubble was building on mortgage-backed securities. hedge funds, speculating, speculating, inflating the bubble. it burst and all americans got hurt. but all merps didn't get in a hole. most americans have experienced a 30% drop in the value of their mortgages, where wall street is enjoying record profits once again. where wall street once again is

experiencing high salaries and high bonuses. not on main street, though. on main street, you have 15 million unemployed, 12 million underemployed 15rk million people without health insurance, 10 million to 12 million people's homes in jeopardy. you go back to the state level where states are pressed, but states are pressed in part because of the mismanagement of the national economy. and because we have a monetary policy that has worked for wall street but it certainly hasn't worked for main street. so by the time this debate gets down to a state level, those executives who are more inclined towards corporate point of view are saying, look, easy, we'll just knock out the public unions . but there are serious implications to this type of

thinking. because what we're actually doing is we're setting aside an entire struggle that's been part of americans' history, that we should all be part of. the civil rights movement is part of america's history. we should be proud of. the civil rights movement which resulted in constitutional changes, which recognize the rights of all citizens as being equal, truly equal. the civil rights movement which accorded women an equal place in our society with respect of course to the exception of pay, but nevertheless, the potential for an equal role in our society is something we should be proud of. with that civil rights movement, the labor movement moved the pace. and that labor movement was

about lifting everyone up. not just those who are members of unions. unions came about because workers were being crushed, they were working in awful working conditions, they were subjected to forms of slave labor, they were working long hours and paid very little, they were working under conditions which put their lives in jeopardy. america had a tradition of child labor at one time. all that changed with the laws that were passed in this chamber . we should be proud of what america's been able to accomplish in lifting up the status of working people in our society so that you could have an eight-power day, so that could you -- you could have a safe workplace. so much so that today we understand that intimately linked to the very nature of our democracy is the right to

collective bargaining. the very right that's under attack in ohio and wisconsin and can indiana and other states across this union. the right to collective bargaining is being able to assert a first amendment right of association, it's to be able to assert that workers have a sense of agency, that in a society where capital can be amassed in tremendous sums, one individual has the right to be able to assert his or her right because they have representation . because there's a law that says they have the ability to be able to have an influence on how much they're paid, on what their benefits and on what their working conditions would be. that's the essence of what it means to be a democracy. that workers have a say. that it's not top-down, this isn't a dictatorship.

and yet sb-5 sets the stage for a kind of dictatorship. top-down these are your working conditions, take it or leave it, these are your benefits, take it or leave it, don't ask any questions, shut up and go to work. when did america buy into that? because the minute we buy in a that kind of mentality, how does that separate us? from what's happening in china? i want people to focus on this for a minute. we passed a trade agreement with china which has -- china trade which i voted against, without any provisions for workers' rights, human rights or environmental quality principles. i had some paper workers in my office from washington state a month ago and they showed me how many jobs in their industry have moved out of washington and how

many plants for their industry opened up in china. it's amazing to look at a map and to see, well, they were here once and now these same jobs are in china. well, china workers don't have any rights. there's no right to collective bargaining in china, they don't -- that's not part of the discussion. the government of china's run under a different philosophy. workers don't have a right to strike in china. there's no right to decent wages or benefits. oh, yes it's called communist china, excuse me. as part of a democracy we assert and have a right to assert that workers here do have a right to collective bargaining. they have a right to join a union. they have a right to strike, they have a right to decent wages and benefits, they have a

right to a secure retirement. they have a right to a safe workplace, a right to be able to challenge legally an employer who maintains an unsafe workplace. they have a right to participate in the political process. so many of these rights are under attack at a state level today. and this has an affect not just on public workers but on all workers. because if america begins to take down the hard-earned rights of workers, whether it's in a public sector or the private sector, if we begin to take that down and we try to justify it, here's what we can look forward to. we can look forward to lower wages, we can look forward to people having zero health benefits, we can look forward to people having zero pensions, we can look forward to workplaces becoming less safe and we can look forward to becoming a little bit like our trading partner in china. which by the way has about a

$200 billion trade advantage with the united states out of a trade deficit that's in excess of $450 billion. so are we exporting our democracy? are we importing values that are estranged from a democratic society? that's really the question that we have to ask ourselves. if we think that what happens in wisconsin doesn't relate to us, if we think that what happens in ohio is none of our business. mr. speaker, i went to columbus, ohio, and stood with thousands of workers. i stood with firemen and policemen and teachers, i stood with people who care for children and seniors. these people are people who have dedicated their whole lives to public servants, they have a

middle class standard of living because they had that dedication. they are people who are not our enemies, they're our friends, they're our neighbors and they serve us. since when are we now faced with looking at those who serve us as being opposed to us? how did our country get that way? why can't we come to an understanding we have a collective interest here? and why can't our governors tell the truth about what's really happening? that states are getting strangled because of policies at a federal level that are making it much more difficult for states to be able to get any assistance at all. i have not run into any single labor leader who said that they did not want to negotiate the

issues that are at hand. i've not run into any labor leader who didn't understand state budgets are tight and they want to make sure that states can meet their -- the needs of all people. but this top-down approach, this political approach to dictating what state workers, what their conditions are, and what their rights are, this sets the stage for an estrangement of people from their own government. so, we have to look at the issue of collective bargaining and in the state of ohio we have to understand that the fact that they had collective bargaining makes strikes less likely. this law was passed in 1983 in

ohio. and it actually provided -- collective bargaining provided for the public's health, safety and welfare. and this bill, senate bill 5, eliminated -- is aimed at eliminating collective bargaining, it would not only prohibit the state from being involved at this point in collective bargaining for the purpose of benefits of working conditions, but would also prohibit counties, cities and other local government employers from continuing to negotiate employee benefit plan coverage and also to set community-based standards for public employment. what of home rule? i mean, at a state level, cities that are home rule should be able to make these decisions. this flies in the face of a constitutional right which cities have for home rule.

senate bill 5 has -- is really an attack on quality public servants. it represents a destructive undermining of the compact between government and their workers. it changes the whole relationship and it cannot do anything, cannot do a thing to improve the quality of service. look at some of the biggest industrial corporations in america, you know, they had their battles with labor but they also understood, by having a work force they could work with, the steel workers work with the steel energy to produce a quality steel product. the auto workers work with the auto industry to produce a quality car. in air space we have some of the

best technology in the -- aerospace we have some of the best technology in the world and the industry works with unions. and the whole idea about being able to negotiate for your wages , to be able to negotiate for your benefits, is so that you can elevate the condition of your family and yourself. these aren't selfish people, they're people just trying to make a living. they just want to have a -- continue to do their work, to have an opportunity to negotiate their pay, to be able to negotiate their benefits, to have benefits so that then they could go home and put food on the table and maybe be able to send their children to a decent college and maybe be able to put a few dollars aside, maybe be able to save a little bit for their retirement in addition to their -- to a pension plan that they have at work.

when has that become asking for too much? i think it was ma dow the other day had something -- madow the other day who had something on her joke, people sit down at a table, you got a c.e.o. sitting at a table, you got workers and a tea party member sitting at a table and there are 12 cookies on a plate. and the c.e.o. grabs 11 of those cookies and then the worker goes to get that remaining cookie and the c.e.o. says to everybody at the table, better watch that person, he's trying to take your cookie. this is what's going on. in state after state. and this is actually what's happening in our economy. where it's working people who are the target of this attack and it's not only at a state level. every worker in america understands that downward pressure on wages, unless you're on wall street.

every worker in america knows that if they don't have any job security they can't plan for anything. there are so many people in america who are single paycheck away from losing their home, from losing everything they ever worked a lifetime for. and in this economy cormingses -- corporations have extraordinary power, because of our trade agreement they can move out of our country like that, we're going to further weaken our ability of workers to have a voice at a state level or anyplace at all? come on, america, wake up. we have to understand the implications of what's happening in ohio and wisconsin. we have to understand that our very way of life is at risk here. that if corporations can use their influence to get state leaders to knock down workers' rights, it won't be long before every worker in america is

reduced to a form of pionage. people can laugh and say, that won't happen. but i want to quote to you from a book called "the great american stickup." and the subtitle of it, so that you know that i'm not a partisan here, mr. speaker, the subtitle is "how reagan republicans and clinton democrats enriched wall street while mugging main street." i won't get into that too much but i do want to quote from the book. he talks about how two university of california economists, emanuel sayez and his colleague thomas picady, analyzed tax data and other statistic and concluded that

the boom of the clinton years and afterwards primarily benefited the wealthiest americans. from 1993 to 2000, the income of the top 1% shot up at an astouppeding rate of 10.1% per year while the income of the other 99% of americans increased only 2.4% annually. in 2002 to 2006, the next surge of the boom that clinton's policies unleashed, the numbers were even more unbalanced. the average annual income for the bottom 99% increased by only 1% per anumb. the top 1% saw a gain of 11% each year. further, just as the good times of the bush years saw almost three of every $4 go to the wealthiest 1%, the g.o.p. cut taxes for the richest brackets. so as i said at the beginning,

the whole economy is being converted to an engine that takes the wealth of america and puts it in the hand of -- hands of a few. how can wru maintain a democracy that way in a political democracy. the minute we start attacking what people make, the minute we start putting pressure on people's wages, and keep in mind, it's ok with wall street that 15 million americans are out of work. why? because that creates a big labor supply which does what? keeps wages down. so instead of having a full employment economy, which really ought to be what we should expect in a democracy, everyone who wants to work has a place, we have 15 million workers out of work, 12 million underemployed, but wall street keeps making more and more money. we're being told there's a recovery but it's a jobless recovery.

and so in this morass we see an attack on public workers. you have to recognize exactly what's going on here. this is still another attempt to grab more assets from the people and put it in the hands of a few. just think what can happen in ohio. if the state legislature goes ahead and passes s.b. 5, the state house passes it and the governor signs it into law, we've set the stage for increased privatization which will reduce service, increase costs and put more money into the hands of the richest. state workers, city, county workers, they are the government. they are the ones who provide service. i served at a local level, mr. speaker.

i was a councilman. i served as mayor. i served at that local government where government is really close to people. it provides an opportunity where people can get on the phone and say, hey, mr. councilman, we need somebody who is going to fix this street, take care of it. the political accountability, you get enough calls, it's not taken care of, you won't be re-elected. but that control that comes from people in the neighborhoods to city hall, when you break unions an you set the stage for privatization of their jobs, you break that. you break the tie. then it's the government at the top that has to deal with the corporations to make sure their workers are doing right by the people.

the essence of democracy is accountability. the essence of democracy is that people have the ability to be able to contact their government and be able to change conditions if they don't like it. and also the essence is service. people pay taxes, they should get something in return. and yet the public workers who are being -- who are being attacked in ohio and wisconsin and other places. -- and other places are the focal point of a great debate over whether or not we will continue to have something that we call government of the people. all across this country, mr. speaker, there are governors who are faces budget shortfalls. they're watching events very carefully in ohio and wisconsin.

to be able to determine how far they're going to go. we're looking at cutbacks in pension benefits, cutbacks in health benefits, some of which representatives of the workers are agreeing to to keep their jobs. but we're also looking at this parallel attempt to knock out bargaining rights. what does one have to do with the other? if people don't have the right to collective bargaining, they don't have a right to a sense of agency in dealing with governments, they are reduced to nothing. why do we do that to people who serve us in why should we do that? and why shouldn't we be calling to an accounting these public officials who by and large will be representing corporate interests or corporate thinking. there are those who think that the interest of corporations and the government are one and the same. oh, no, they're not.

government exists to provide service. corporations exist to make a profit. fine. but let's make sure we understand there's a difference. government does not exist to make a profit. but it does provide a service. when government resources are starting to be eroded, we have to ask why. i'll give you an idea, mr. speaker. cap i ask how much time i have remaining, by the way? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 25 minutes remaining. mr. kucinich: we're being told that there's just not enough money anymore. let's look for a moment at our monetary system itself. when you go to a bank and you take out a loan, the bank will book that as an asset. banks for years and years have been using a device known as a

fractional reserve where they're able to create for every dollar they book as cash that they claim to have, they're able to create another $99 -- another $9 or maybe $10 or even more that device known as a fractional reserve has given our banking system the money to create -- the ability to create money out of nothing. there's some people who are ok with that. they say, well, banks have to have this ability. but when banks have that ability, we also know that banks have been prone to being able to make transactions when they got involved, as some bank in cleveland did on mortgage backed securities, again, investing heavily, investing

money they didn't have, when the market collapsed, the bank collapsed. so this device of fractional reserve actually in this economy has ended up helping fuel speculation. what about the fed? the fed, which this congress has tried many times, and i worked with mr. paul on this, the fed has virtually no controls whatsoever. limited accountability. when the federal reserve act was passed in 1913, it really took out of the hands of this congress the ability to have control over the monetary system. now this constitution of the united states which i carry with me, article 1, section 8, congress has the ability to coin money. to coin money doesn't mean just to make coins. it actually means to create money. to publish money.

that was a foundational principle of the ability of congress to have a role in the money system. we basically sent that over to the fed with the 1913 federal reserve act. so the fed through another device known as quantitative easing, i want everyone to remember this, quantitative easing, what does it mean? it means the fed has the ability to create money out of nothing. to the tune of trillions of dollars. $4 trillion in this most recent economic crisis. now we're told that unless the fed can do this, our economy would collapse. i think it's time we started to look at these institutions which we've created and ask if this isn't the time for us to

take control on maff of the american people. -- on behalf of the american people. to critically analyze the transactional reserve system to see if it has any more viability, if it doesn't really expose us to more problems than it ends up creating. i personally think that it's time to challenge the fractional reserve system to the point of where you let banks loan the money that they actually have on deposit. instead of creating money out of nothing and then if the bank goes down, we have to bail them out. i think it's time for us to take the fed, which has been out of our reach, and put it under the control of treasury again. and then, if the government needs to invest money, and we do, then we invest the money. then we spend it into circulation.

we're told right now, we don't have any money. we don't have money to fix our roads. there's over $2 trillion of infrastructure needs. states don't have money. that's what we're told. that's why we're told there's a conflict with the workers, they're out of money. we don't have any money to fix up our roads. f.d.r. figured out what to do in the new deal, create the w.p.a., put millions of people back to work and rebuild america. we're not going in that direction. why not? we don't have the money. we have to boar reit from banks? if we can borrow money from japan and from china and from the u.k. and from the cayman islands to manage our economy, well, if we can borrow money to keep wars going, hello, why can't we spend the money into circulation, take back the power which inherently is in

the constitution and invest in the creation of jobs again. and put those 15 million americans back to work. create a revenue sharing program for the states so states aren't faltering anymore. have a national health care system so you don't have to worry about health care being on the bargaining table. absolutely make social security solid so there's never a question about a partial privatization which is another agenda some people would like to run here. it's not like we don't have within our grasp an ability to change the conditions in which we're operating. but instead, we have this poverty mentality which rivets us to control by corporate interests who are making money hand over fist, who we're being told all of america's poor except wall street. how did that happen? with our money, nonetheless? how did that happen? why isn't unemployment a

problem on wall street? think about this. why is wall street doing better than ever? why do we hear the dark tales about speculations happening again. are we getting ready for another pump and dump scheme and we'll be back here in a few years having to bail out wall street again? meanwhile, main street's infrastructure crumbles, main street's workers are hungry for work. main street is struggling for health care. main street is worried about its pensions. main street is worried about whether they're going to have a home or not. what's happening in ohio and wisconsin is relevant because every single economic issue which is facing this nation today is part of that debate.

why should we accept an economy where people are told they have limited expectations? this is america. we have the ability to -- we have shown the world the ability to create untold wealth. but we keep shipping it offshore. why shouldn't people who have an education, who have strived to achieve a middle class standard of live, why shouldn't they expect that their government will stand next to them? it's time for people to understand that we need to take a strong stand in favor of the rights of workers. now how do we do that? let's look at our trade agreements, mr. speaker. every trade agreement needs to be renegotiated. we need to renegotiate nafta and the general agreement on tariff trade and china trade and we need to say that every single

trade agreement has the right to collective bargaining. we're going in the wrong direction in the states. every agreement we should should have the right to collective bargaining. the right to joint union, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to be able to sue an employer if they maintain an unsafe workplace, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in a political process. if we have those in our trade agreements, if in our trade agreements we had prohibitions on child labor, slave labor, prison labor, if in our trade agreements we had the protection of the air and the water, then these corporations wouldn't be running to china or anywhere in the world in order to have the people of that country subsidize their profits through dirty air, dirty water, low wages, slave labor, child labor. think about it. that's why we need to go back to the trade agreements.

we need to get -- we need to elevate the condition of workers in our society. we need to think in terms of raising peoples' standard of living, we need to think in terms of helping people save their homes, we need to think in terms of more competition in our economy, we need to think in terms of how do you create wealth in our society and not just how do you create debt, because right now, mr. speaker, our whole economic system is money equals debt. and as long as we're locked into that mentality of money equals debt, then all we're going to have is debt no matter where we look and our ballooning debt keeps getting larger and larger and we're told, well, we have to pay off that debt before we can deal with our problems. bologna. we don't have to do that. what we have to do is to start looking at what can be done to prime the pump of our economy. to get america back to work. we have the resources and if we

have to change the way that we handle our money system, we should do that. the fed has not been responsive, the private sector isn't creating jobs, they're getting rid of jobs, if the private sector created jobs then right after we gave hundreds of billions of dollars to wall street we should have seen millions of people go back to work. that did not happen. we're in at least a double dip recession. we have americans struggling to survive. and they can read the daily reports about how great wall street is doing. let's go back to ohio and support those workers. let's support those who teach our children, who police our streets, who put out the fires, who serve our elderly, who take care of our children. the people perform the services that the myriad of state offices and at county and city offices.

let's respect and honor those who are in public service as we ourselves would want to be honored for taking the path that we chose in our careers. the people who chose the civil service, the people who chose to do that day to day work of being involved in a community, they are no less important than we are, as individuals. we're part of the same tissue that makes up a democracy. and so i want to appeal to my colleagues to look at this moment in history, to understand the deep threat which the breaking of collective bargaining represents to our democracy, to understand how urgent it is that we support

workers everywhere, that we express our appreciation to them , that we understand that in this house there are many different points of view, we have different points of view about the amount of power we would let concentrate into fewer and fewer hands, but we should have no difference of opinion, there should be total solidarity , on protecting those who serve the public and on protecting workers whose basic rights are cardinal principles of a democratic society. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

the chair lays before the house the following communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, i write to notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives that the committee on oversight and government reform has been served with a subpoena for documents issued by the united states district court for the district of columbia in a civil case now pending before that court. after consultation with the office of general council, i will make the determinations required by rule 8, signed sin veerl, darle issa, chairman of the committee on oversight and government reform. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from new mexico, mr. pearce, for 30 minutes. mr. pearce: thank you, mr. speaker. we appreciate the opportunity to address the house this afternoon . mr. speaker, there are many people who are wondering in the nation exactly what it was we were doing up here a couple of

weeks ago as we were talking about amendments to cut the budget, amendments to increase the budget and for myself i'd like to keep it in very narrow terms, i'd like to get it as simple as possible and, so we went across the district last week had, town hall meetings, trying to explain to people exactly the situation that we're facing here in the country. and i got a chart here which is very instrumental in helping me to visualize what's going on and basically this chart is one which shows that we're spending $3.5 trillion at the current moment and we're taking in $2.2 trillion and that begins to give the basic understands of where we are. now, if a local family were in this position, they would be maybe spending $3,500 a month and bringing in $2,200 a month. and their banker would not be pleased with that, their banker would say, well, we probably need to do better, especially if they were borrowing money every

month. and we are borrowing money every month to work here and so our government is just as stressed with the debt and with this imbalance in spending and imbalance in revenues that a family would be. now, our banker in this country is used to americans saved and we got treasury bills, that's how we would finance our government, but americans across the country don't save anymore. and so we have to find other people who buy our treasury bills and that's the chinese government. so china is our borrower of record, our lender of record, and so wie watch what the chinese have -- so we would watch what the chinese have said in the past couple of months and years and a couple of times china has said we're not going to buy any of the treasury bills from the united states government. at one point they said, we'll buy south korean treasury bills meaning the south korean government was a better bet than the u.s. government. and so our banker has been

giving us signs that we're concerned, we're concerned about this economic health of the country because they see that we cannot long continue. now, for myself i've gone ahead and done the mathematics, that you if are spending $3.5 trillion, you're bringing in $2.2 trillion, are you running a deficit of $1.3 trillion every year. now, that's a deficit as long as it's unaccounted for, as long as it hasn't been spent. but the moment that the money spends, then it goes into the debt barely and that's the top small barrel and we have a debt of approximately $15 trillion, might be a little bit less, so put that in perspective, that debt barrel began to build in the early days of our history and we accumulated up to $5 trillion worth of debt to the second president bush, george w. bush, and during his term we increased that debt from $5 trillion to basically $10 trillion. a very rapid escalation of debt

accumulation during the second bush years. but then under president obama, then we have seen an acceleration even faster. so that we've already added almost another $5 trillion in debt in 2 1/2 years under president obama and we're on track to maybe add another $6 trillion or $7 trillion, maybe $8 trillion in the next two years. this $1.3 trillion deficit for this coming year, that was last year, this coming year that number becomes $1.6 trillion, so you can see that the gap between what we're bringing in and what we're spending is absolutely increasing rather than decreasing. now, to put this in a bigger perspective, the last year of president bush, the deficit was about $200 billion. so instead of $1.3 trillion it was about $0.2 trillion. you can see that almost immediately under president obama that we went to -- we increased our deficit, that is

we increased these outlays by almost $1 trillion that so that our economic condition is worsening very rapidly. now the unsettling piece -- i mean, if you look at the $15 trillion in the top debt barrel and then you look at the revenues that we're bringing in from the government, you say, well, we could pay off seven or eight years. if we weren't spending a thing we could pay off for seven ar eight years and still not have quite all of our debt paid off. but then the alarming piece is this fiscal gap at the bottom. that is social security, medicare and medicaid and when we consider those elements, then we're looking at a $202 trillion deficit, debt, debt that we owe. those are mandated spending programs that we're not going to turn off. so we can already understand that we would pay almost 100 years, if we were only getting $2.2 trillion into this -- into paying off this fiscal gap that

we experience here. now, over in the far right corner of the chart we see now a graph and the thing about graphs is they go on in time. this bottom line, the horizontal line, is actually years. and the vertical line then is representative of the average income per capita income that we as americans have had through our history. and so i ask our listeners always, are you doing better than your parents did? and almost always the answer is, yes, i make more money than my patients did and i myself made more money than my parents did. and that's shown on this chart, that every year the chart has been increasing as we go through time. the numbers increase and so it shows that. but then we see that the chart levels off and starts down and so when i ask people right now, are your children going to live better than you, are your children going to have more income than you did, and very few people in a room will raise their hands. that's because they see that the

economic condition of the world is getting worse, not better, and that worsening condition is based simply on these factors right here. there's nothing in the world economy that would not improve if we didn't solve these problems and so it does not have to be, we can continue that growth curve forever. so we're right now at the point where the cunch flattens off and moves down into a lower category, but at the very tip of that curve is a red dot and then the curve stops. and discerning people would say, well, i thought graphs just continue. well, do you except this chart stops and this chart stops because our economy literally shows both office of management and budget, the white house, and the c.b.o., that's the congressional arm, so both the white house and the congress both show the same chart that our economy simply seizes to function about 2037. for the people who are younger than myself, that's in your

lifetime. i may not see that, but my children and grandchildren will see this point where our economy quits. that's what happened in the soviet union. president reagan believed that if he simply increased our spending enough on arms that could he cause them to continue to invest more spending on arms, they would not be able to increase their revenues, they would have that this gap right here, their deficits would increase, their debt would increase and eventually the system would implode, it would collapse on itself and that's what's happening in our economy in 2037. so at this particular point in our time, we have to stop and say, we can't continue this. we must begin to do differently. and that's what the house is doing -- was doing last week. many in the country have said, oh, they're draconian cuts, we should not have done that. you shouldn't have cut that deeply. and others are saying, you should have cut more. so let's evaluate that very briefly and we cut basically about $60 billion out of the budget, we cut it out of the

continuing resolution a couple of weeks ago when we passed that bill, and so what does $60 billion mean in this chart? $60 billion would mean that you change this number from $3.5 trillion to $3.44 trillion. and we're still faced with only the $2.2 trillion here in revenues to the country. and i would ask every listeners in the -- listener in the audience, is that significant? is it draconian? if you think it's draconian, would your banker think it's draconian? almost everyone laughs if i ask, if you were spending $3,a00 a month, bringing in $2,200 a month and you went to your banker, would your banker think you'd made significant cuts if you cut from $3,500 to $3,440 and most people laugh and say a banker wouldn't talk to me if i only cut that much. so i put it into that context that we did not do significant cuts and yet many of the people here in washington are wailing and weeping and nashing of teeth, those sorts of things

that catastrophe just awaits us because we cut spending by .06. i think that the looming economic crisis in 2037 is the more important point, that our economy will cease to function at that point. you can go online and look at c.b.o. or o.m.b. to find that chart. that's where we pulled it from. so take a look at it. but the important thing is to understand that no company, my wife and i ran a small company and no company ever found itself in fiscal straits like this and cured it simply by cutting spending. i don't think that it's possible for us to cut spending from $3.5 trillion to $to.2 trillion. as a businessperson it doesn't seem true. if we can't cut that much spending, you have to say, how

to we get the $2.2 trillion to move toward the $3.5 trillion. if we can't cut spending enough, how do we grow revenues? some people say, we should raise taxes. that should be -- they would say we should raise taxes and then you should have to ask, what's the jut come of raising taxes? the first thing is to understand that there's a basic economic truth that tax increases will kill jobs and so if we want to make this number smaller, just increase taxes, an we actually increase the difference, we increase our deficit and this number actually gets smaller at that point. if we want to solve the problem that we're facing now, there's only one way to go and that is economic growth. we need to create jobs. if we have to create jobs, then we must evaluate the ways that we're not creating jobs today. the two greatest threats to job creation --

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend temporarily. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the senate. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam sec ve tear. the secretary: i have been directed to manufacture the -- to inform the house that senate has passed without amendment h.r. 662 cited at the surface transportation act of 2011. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new mexico may proceed. mr. pearce: we continue our discussion talking about how these two numbers would come together. i would repeat it's very difficult to cut enough spending to reach a balance, my idea is we must increase the number of jobs. as we bring people into the work force, we're simultaneously accomplishing two things. we're causing this number to go up as people pay taxes that were previously unemployed, but then we're also bringing people off of unemployment, welfare

and government assistance so we're lowering this number toward this one as we increase that one. the actuarial table shows us at about a 3.5% rate of growth, we can move toward plan, these numbers begin to clear up significantly just by creating jobs in the growth rate of about 3.5%. then the next question would be, can we create jobs and 3.5%? that's exactly what we have averaged for over 70 years. it's well established that we can do it. right now, our economic growth is in the 1% to 2% range is so that means we almost have to double our rate of growth and that would be possible if we did two basic things. number one if we lowered taxes, tax breaks create jobs, tax decreases create jobs, tax increases create jobs and so then the second aspect of creating jobs would be to lower regulations.

i have many people that react in horror when i say we should lower regulations. they immediately claim you would go to zero regulations. i don't mean that at all. i simply mean we are regulating our jobs out of existence. companies are fining it ease wrer to go to another country and operate rather than operate here. the regulations are so extreme. one way that we're regulating companies out of existence is through our lending right now. we passed the dodd-frank bill which puts new requirements on banks so the bankers in my district in southern new mexico have been calling recrenly saying that we used to under the previous accounting methods an previous reporting meths would simply get run written up if we made a mistake on the loan package. today we're told we can get a $50,000 fine. so they are skeptical and reticent to lend money to small businesses and people buying homes because they stand to lose more on the loan by one

typographical error than they can make. so that then has a formal process that a young family in new mexico who recently graduated from new mexico tech, in that area both employed, both have degrees, both have good paying jobs yet the bank says, we don't want to len money, it might turn out to be a pad loan and we could lose our bank over one bad loan or get a $50,000 penalty over a mistake in the loan application, it's too tough. that means the regulations have been so high that businesses are saying, we would rather stay on the sidelines, which is what's happening nationwide. so we're being told that if the banks would simply loan money, that everything would be fixed and it's a lot true, construction would start back, houses would start back, everyone would start back except it's regulated down to a low, stagnant position because

of these regulations that are in many people's eyes too high. another way that we regulate jobs out of existence is in environmental concerns. we are saying to ourselves that we should protect a species at all costs, even the human costs. i'm saying that's too extreme. i would not let a species go extinct but i would say we should create jobs and protect the species at the same time. so in order to cure this problem, to raise this $2.2 trillion toward the $3.5 trillion simultaneously lowering the $2.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion. i've put bills in to have test cases for america. the first would be yes, we should keep he spotted owl alive but not kill every timber job in america, which is basically what happened. in new mexico we used to have 20,000 jobs in timber and today

we have more or less none. sometimes one guy says i got eight people and sometimes he said, i laid them off this week. so we're up and down. the meaning of all that is we've lowered, because of the spotted owl, from about 20,000 jobs to about zero in new mexico and nationwide. that's caused this number to get smaller as people go on welfare an it's caused this number to get bigger. and as people get less paying jobs, then that means this number gets smaller because they don't pay as much in taxes, they don't have as much to spend so retail merchants don't make as much and then they pay less in taxes, meanwhile more families are struggling, they get some sort of aid even when they're working and the $3.5 trillion number gets larger as we get jobs that pay less. so again, my bill simply says let's have a discussion as americans. let's discuss whether or not we have to make a species the last

determinant, or instead keep the spotted owl alive on 1,000 acres there or 1,000 acres there and go back to timber. and some extremist will say, you can't clear cut the forest. land management companies have a plansed thinning program, go through, cut some trees of all sizes, they're constantly working their way through their acreage so that good, small companies exist on rr small acreages. we've got 225 million acres of forestland in this country and yet it's being logged at almost zero rate. we've got forest in new mexico, three million acres in one, two million in another. we've got very large forest, yet they haven't had significant, 1,000 acre timber sales in forever. that's maybe in 20 years since they had significant timber sales.

even then, they're restricted from harvesting the large diameter trees that are economically profitable. we've driven out most of the timber mills and most of those people who would make a living doing that in the name of the environment. all of us want the environment clean, we would like the species to not be extinct but i do not think we have to completely ignore the job situation at hand. the second bill we put in was the 27,000 farmers in the san joaquin valley put out of work about two years ago by silvery minnow. a judge said all the water in the river has to stay there, can't be used for agriculture. so those 27,000 people who used to be paying income tax here, now are at the cost of the government, they're on welfare, that's a toxic case for a government, a business or a family yet we're encouraging it through our policies. keep the two-inch minnow alive,

put them in holding ponds, put them in the river when we need them, but let's use the water in the farm. the worst thing about shut do you think that farmland, they produced most of the vegetables for this country. now, then, with them idle, we are importing vegetables from central and south america and they spray pesticides that we're not allowed to so we hurt our revenue, we accelerated the cost of government an we got an unsafe food supply all at the same time. it does not have to be that way. we can accomplish both jobs and the species. the last pill we introduced was offshore. every one of us saw the b.p. situation. again, i believe that b.p. should be accountable. i understand the process that they went through they made some bad decisionsing they are being held accountable, they're actually paying 100% of the costs and that is not the question. the question is, whether the

president should have ordered for the 100,000 plus jobs to be killed? you see right now the governor of louisiana, you see the people in louisiana really suffering because those rigs that used to be offshore working, thousands of people out there working every day, at very high paying salaries now are drawing unemployment. we lowered our $2.2 trillion figure lower and made the situation much worse by policies that threaten or stop job growth. back on taxes, we mentioned that's one way that companies choose to live and operate elsewhere. now the -- people say why do taxes create jobs more slowly? mr. sweat in the second district of new mexico said it best he said for me to create a job takes $300,000. he said that's what a bulldozer costs an i run bulldozer.

when the government takes my money away from me, it takes me longer to get that money. he said by the way, i've got to buy a $60,000 pickup because they won't let me drive the bulldozer to work through the main streets of the town. every time the government taxes me more, it takes longer to get the $340,000 in the bank. that's the reason that under higher and higher tax rates, our economy stagnates an jobs are not pocused as quickly because we are taking that money away from businesses who would create it and put it into the government. that simply then spends it in this $3.5 trillion without really making more jobs. so we are faced with a question in the country, are we caring about the long-term survival of the country or are we going to continue down the same path. that's the greatest discussion we should be having. that's discussion they're having right now in wisconsin. in wisconsin, basically, the

union employees are say, we want more, we want more pay and more benefits that is, more retirement. right now, base which i, across the country, our union employees, i think they should get every penny they're wanting and that they are deserving, and that they are deserving, but we have to understand that