revenue coming in and so what we're getting at is, the part of the solution to the problem that we talked about in the very beginning and the solution is two-fold. the first is fairly obvious. we have to cut spending and particularly we must cut these entitlements in some way. the second thing, though, is that you don't have to cut them entirely. what you can do probably is also to some degree grow your way out of the problem. in the -- i guess it was may of 2003, george bush had been elected in 2001, the same time i was elected, and when we came in there was a recession going on. you can see that reflected in some of these graphs. this was the time period from 2001 on up to about 2006. this chart is a little bit old but it makes an interesting point. this was the gross domestic product before and after tax relief. the tax relief is this vertical

line right here. this was not a particularly popular tax. it was a tax relief to get rid of capital gains, dividends, get rid of the death tax. oh, people say, well, those are taxes that favor the rich. well, the problem is if you want jobs, you got to have lawyers. if you tax small business into the dirt you won't have as many jobs. and so you can't have it both ways. if you want to allow small business owners to keep enough money that they can invest in their business you can't tax them very, very heavily. and so the deal was here you change capital gains, dividends and death taxes. that freed money up for small businesses to invest. now, look what happened. this is the g.d.p. or the growth of our economy. here's the tax cut. these average about 1.1% of g.d.p., and then here after that tax cut, this thing

averages 3.5%. this then has the result of generating a lot more money for the federal government. so when business is doing well and when people are being employed and people are -- have good job markets and the economy is strong, not only do individual citizens prosper, the federal government prospers. it gets more money. so let's take a look at that question and we are going to look at this exact same graph. this is may of 2003 when those tax cuts went into place. they were called the bush tax cuts, as you recall. here's a chart on employment, tax before and after tax relief. anything going down is we lost jobs. you see we are losing a lot of jobs in the front end when we were in the recession. then as we did some tax cuts in here, it helped a little bit, but still when we do this tax cut, take a look at how things

turned around. and this is the average loss of 100,000 jobs per month. this is a gain of 168,000 jobs a month after this tax cut goes into place. so what you can see where i'm going. i'm starting to get to a solution to this problem. really two pieces of solution. let's look at the final chart here. this is government revenues. again, may of 2003 capital gains, dividends, death tax. so this tax goes into place. this is the federal revenues coming down here from $2 trillion down to $1.9 trillion to $1.8 trillion. the country is in a recession. we do the tax cuts and take a look at government revenue. government revenue takes off because the economy is starting to strengthen.

now so are the revenues for the federal government. four straight years of increases right after the tax cut. what an odd thing. you might not have expected that. so what does that say, then, about our problem overall? coming back to our first chart. the problem is that the entitlements are eating our launch. entitlements are taking everything that the federal government has. and so the solution is what? well, it's two-fold. first, we have to reduce the amount of spending here, reduce spending anywhere we can, for that matter, particularly in this sector because a lot of the spending over here creates a tremendous amount of red tape and regulations for businesses.

if we can reduce the red tape and regulations on businesses, if we can also cut taxes on businesses in certain specific ways you can start to get this economy growing again. and if you do that then what starts to happen is instead of having $2.2 trillion in terms of our receipts from the federal government, they'll start to go up. we get more tax revenues so we have less debt and so we both reduce here but we also grow our way out of the problem. and so that's the general strategy that i think most any economists would say you are going to have to do faced with the problems. now, of course there's a whole lot of politics, as you can imagine, that's involved in these questions and these issues. the politics are the main political questions would be, first of all, what should the federal government do? is it really the job of the federal government to get involved in education, per se,

or is that something that should be done at the local level? is it really the federal job to get involved in flood insurance? is it good for the federal government to provide loans to people? is that really the job of the federal government? what, really, is the job of the federal government? that is the biggest political question here and what we argue about quite a lot and for good reason because that is the big question. as you recall there was a nation that believed that the job of their federal government was to provide you with a good education, to provide you with health care, to provide you with a home and some food, provide you with a job and a future. it was the federal government's job to do those things. and that particular nation went into the dust bin of history, and we thought as the soviet union collapsed, oh, that will

never work. that's communism. communism doesn't work very well. socialism doesn't work very well. yet, years later in the united states we think the federal government should be providing housing, federal government should be providing food. federal government should make sure you have a job. federal government should be doing that, this and the other thing. so we wonder why we're starting to get in trouble. now, that's a debate. what should the federal government be doing? should it be doing all these entitlements? well, if you go to the u.s. constitution you'd find out, well, no. in fact, a lot of these things are unconstitutional. the constitution says the only things that the federal government can do are the things that are specifically enumerated. well, what is one of them? well, you don't have to read past the first page. it's in the first paragraph. it's in the preamble. we are supposed to as a federal government provide for the common defense. we're supposed to be protecting

-- first of all, the job of the federal government is to protect our country. any other rights you have mean nothing if you're being bombed and people are attacking your shorelines. and so the main job of the federal government is to provide for the national defense. a lot of these other things, they might be nice. they're probably, even though they've been around for generations, not constitutional because they are not specifically enumerated powers of the federal government. and what we're seeing happening, what was a safety net has become a way of life for huge blocks of our citizens and we're getting to the point where -- in fact, we are and have arrived at the point where the numbers don't work. we're america's solvency. everything you and i think of an america is up for grabs. this is a very, very sober moment for our country. i would ask you to, if you will, just pretend in your mind

. pretend that you are a congressman or senator in the year 1850. in the year 1850 you might recall there was this 10,000-pound gorilla in the tent. people politically didn't quite know what to do with it. it was called the issue of slavery. and the way politics was working, you had the southern guys and the northern guys. and so the power was somewhat divided and the people that were congressmen and senators didn't know what to do with this huge gorilla which we call slavery. the issue they didn't know what to do with so they tried to step around it as best they could politically and say we will have one state come and be a free state. they will compromise instead of dealing with it head on the problem they had.

1852 there was a book, "uncle tom's cabin" and it increased the rhetoric and the issue of slavery. the gorilla is glowing and he's there and he's threatening. by 1857 the terrible decision from the supreme court, the supreme court, again, decided to act like legislators instead of interpreting law, decided to create it in dread scott. dread scott wasn't a person. he had to go back to slavery. he was property. and made other decisions that the congress couldn't decide whether new states coming in were free or not. now this whole big gorilla is about to come out and storm out. president lincoln, the first republican president is elected. the south knows he's against shave -- slavery. he gets on the train and he hasn't gotten here to washington, d.c. and the

southern states starts to recede. it goes into the civil war. after four years abraham lincoln writes his second inaugural address and he references the fact that this war is more miserable, it's much, much worse than anybody imagined it would be. and so what's the point? the point was there's this gorilla in the room that the leadership failed to deal with. and the results were absolutely horrible. statistics don't touch your heart but statistics are also helpful to know that 600,000 americans died in the battles of the civil war. that's more than all of the americans killed in all the wars of our past other than the civil war. but the stories that come from that war are even more compelling. i recall one that every time i think of it puts a face on the civil war.

there was a northern unit that was trying to take a position occupied on some higher ground by a southern unit. the northern unit seemed like they had the south just waivering or about to be able to take the hill and there was a young officer at the top of the hill that would reappear almost -- not worry about his own safety and he'd reposition his southern troops. they'd settle down and fight the north back. it happened back and forth a number of times until the officer of the northern unit remembered that he had an older man that was an excellent shot with a rifle. he said, there's a young officer up there that's really the one that's holding this hill. i want you to use your great marksmanship ability. i want you to take that officer out. and so the next time that young officer showed himself, this craft marksman shot him and the young officer, southern officer dropped dead on the spot. the northern troops moved up and by the time they took the position, the marksman went

over to see who he'd shot. he realized he had shot his own son. he was so distraught he just stood up and ran across the field where the southern army was shooting and he was killed by that rifle fire. that's a little personal tragedy. the civil war was full of those. but they are full of them because there was a leadership failure to deal with a crisis that america had to deal with and they didn't do it for whatever reason. today, we also have a crisis that's right here in front of us, and as americans start to understand where we are with the budget, we also have to deal with this thing. and the face on our entire economic system collapsing could be very ugly indeed. and so my point of being here on the floor today is not to be particularly partisan but simply to acknowledge the fact

that the numbers don't work. now, i have to be somewhat partisan because our president submitted the 2012 budget. the 2012 budget is irresponsible because it refuses to deal with these mathematics. it pretends that it's a budget but it never deals with entitlements for whatever particular reason and tries to kick the can down the road pretending that the gorilla isn't there. that we cannot do. the fact is we're overspending. we're overspending at a horrendous rate and something has to be done. and so america now faces a great challenge in the next couple of years as to how are we going to deal with this problem. and as i said before, the solutions are not simple. in fact, the solutions are simple. they're just not easy. i think ronald reagan said that.

the solution is simple but it's not easy. the simple part is we have to cut the spending. the simple part is we need to grow the revenues of the government by getting the economy and the jobs going, and we know how to do that. we got to cut the red tape. we got to cut taxes on small business owners, and we have to try to make sure that the liquidity is available to small business owners through the banks. and then we have to stop the era of uncertainty so that the businessman feels like the economy has settled down and they can make investments. those are the things you can do to get the jobs going. we know, it's fairly simple, what it takes to get jobs because we know employers make jobs and that means that businesses have to be healthy and we have to do things so they are not red taped out of existent. we have to allow them to be competitive overseas which i would stack up american competition-wise to any foreign country as long as we don't

burden them down to too much red tape and scare all the jobs overseas. so that's the piece. it's simple. it's not easy. . cutting the level of entitlement spending. you just can't not do it. how do we do it? that's where we are. we can't ignore the gorilla in the tent. if we do that, we have all kinds of problems in our economy. the other different pieces that have to go into place. we have to stop all the regulations that make it so we can't drill for oil. we have a federal government now that ever since the oil spill has shut down drilling for oil. and i guess they got one well working right now. you have chaos in the middle east. and we are dependent on foreign oil, which we shouldn't be, because we have a lot of oil in america. we have great natural gas

resources that we just discovered, all kinds of coal to last us for hundreds of years. and we have the resources in america. but you know what? we aren't developing them. we don't have drilling rigs going out and drilling where we know there's oil. those drilling rigs are silent. why? because there is an environmental lawsuit on every promising well, wells that could really bring in oil, or if if it's not that there are regulations that say you can't drill. and war is in alaska and very flat and very cold up north and you could bring drilling rigs anywhere it is solid, drill down there and pull them all out before it is thawed and you have a pipe and pump the oil and pull the pipes out later if the oil gets tapped out. there is a lot of oil there. why are we not drilling? why is it on our continental

shelves, foreign nations are drilling for oil and we aren't? that doesn't make sense. there are policies that come over in this area where america can do some things to get our economy back in shape and cut a lot of the ridiculous regulations that come from places like the e.p.a. there was an award we presented last week here on the floor, i think it was called the golden turkey award for the fact that the e.p.a. decided that milk, because it contained oil-like substances in milk or fat, whatever it was, had to be treated like an oil spill. so farmers had to put containments around their dairy barns instead of having a few cats to lick up the milk. it is a cry over spilled milk. but talk about overregulation. another part of e.p.a. was a decision now that we cannot, if you are a farmer would not have

rowing dust. if any -- rogue dust. so the e.p.a. is concerned about rogue dust. they haven't come to my state to see when you are harvesting corn in the fall and that has all kinds of dust and if the rain is deposited on it and when the machine goes by, there is a cloud of dust, but still the corn is good and feeds the cattle. what do you do with the rogue dust? that seems absurd to me. we have to get rid of the red tape and the ridiculous kinds of things and let good old american innovation go. that's what free enterprise is all about. there is a guy in my district that i'm so proud of, kent sheehan, and has a company called know ventor. and we try to avoid pig manure

and has its own special smell and some people can take it and some people have trouble. he thought maybe if we could find something to do with the pig manure, we would really have something. he is a guy with a lot of imagination. what did he do? he gets the pig manure and puts it in a big kettle and under pressure and temperature and works like a petroleum-cracking process until he breaks the stuff down into a presumptive asphalt. they have taken the asphalt and mixed it with gravel and used it to asphalt some roads. you must think it is a smelly road, but it's not. but it doesn't because of the chemical changes and they are tested out a section of highway that has been made with pig manure. it is not that big a unit and put it in areas where there are pig farms and bring over the manure and get paid for it and still make a profit on selling

the asphalt. that's the kind of thing that makes america. that's the kind of thing that makes america a special place. it is called innovation and talking about somebody who has a dream in their heart and willing to take a risk and try to do something no one has ever done before. and to hear someone you can't do that, and then an american says ain't no such word as i can't. and america has been built that way. this great nation was built that way by people that had a crazy dream that was a vague possibility and then a possibility and actually happened. and america was built one dream at a time, beautiful country. a country now because of government irresponsibility is in a crisis state and something that we all have to deal with. now, some of us that hold

elective office, we travel around and talk to our constituents and talk to people in different states, but our own particularly, and there is a perception out there that we can solve this problem by taking out a line in the budget that is called waste, fraud and abuse. we never found that line in the government. it's like a fat piece of meat. we try to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. but you aren't going to fix this problem by fixing waste, fraud and abuse and not fix this problem by more efficiency, not going to fix this problem by saying we aren't going to send any more money to foreign countries, you aren't going to fix this problem by trimming a little bit here and there. it's a massive problem and going to require a rework of the entire way we are spending money in the federal government. that doesn't mean that it can't be fixed. i recall ronald reagan, seemed like things were in rough shape

when he took over but had a can-do attitude, he would kind of cheer america along and put us on the right path and got the economy going and won the cold war. he was a great man, great leader that god brought to our nation at a critical time and we need to be praying for great leaders in america, people who understand the problem, not going to turn their tail and run away. they aren't going to pretend it doesn't exist, but take it straight on, because i believe the american public, when they understand the nature of what we're dealing with here, i think they are willing to roll their sleeves up and say let's do what americans have done so well and move forward and solve this problem. and figure out what's reasonable and move forward and get this thing done. it was my father's generation -- my father served with general patton and there was that phrase, everybody did their bit.

that was speak of the day. and we likewise a challenge now we have to do our bit. we have to be making the wise decisions to put our businesses and industries back in place. now that's very controversial. you might be surprised here on the floor of the u.s. congress, you wouldn't be surprised if i said republicans and democrats are pretty polarized on the abortion issue. they are. but you might be surprised to know that in terms of voting, republicans and democrats are more polarized on the energy issue than they are on the abortion issue. but i believe that the fact that the foreign oil is starting to become very expensive and more scarce is going to tip the balance of that argument and america is going to start developing their own supplies of energy and that's the way we have to go. we have to get rid of the red tape and ridiculous regulations like rogue dust and spilled milk in the dairy barn and things

like that that just don't make any sense. there is a clean water act that has incredible kinds of regulations and things that don't make any sense at all from an engineering point of view. and so we have to look at those things. we are going to have to triple out those things in this budget in order to create that environment, a good, strong environment for business. but we have to look at this spending. we have to figure out ways to reduce that spending. and as a member of the armed services committee and actually i'm a chairman of the subcommittee that deals with the navy, the marine corps and projection forces, that would be things like bombers and long-range. we realize that there is not a whole lot that we dare to cut here because of the various other nations and the rate that they are spending on defense and the threat they could be to our country. this money is not always spent as wisely as it should be, but again, the navy right now, the american navy is the same number

of ships we had in the year 1916. that's not enough ships to do what we need to do in order to try to create a peaceful and free trade area where we can trade back and forth across the oceans of the world. and so there isn't going to be a lot here to solve this money. we could spend the money more efficiently, but we can't cut a whole lot there. the solution is pretty straightforward. we have to cut particularly the amount of spending we are doing on entitlements and particularly, we have to reduce the -- reduce the growth where the entitlements as the years go out are going to become more difficult. this growth is enduesed because of the population is getting older and older people are taking more of these entitlement programs and it becomes more expensive. people like me, i'm a baby boomer. as we get older, we will get on

to these programs that will cost a lot more and not a lot of younger workers to pay. so we have to be able to bring that curve down and cut the level of spending in that area. we have to do the cutting on the one hand and we have to grow the economy. that's -- we know how to do it and has been done by other presidents. something that we understand the economics of it, but it's just a big challenge and the sooner that americans across the board understand what we're dealing with, say, ok, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work on this thing. i have tremendous confidence because america in the past -- americans in the past have always rolled up into challenges. they have done well. and we have gotten through many things. i think the way we'll get through them is something we can learn from the past. that was what the pilgrims did when they first landed. they had a dream of creating a nation that was designed in an entirely different way than the

european countries. they arrived here and in the first couple of months, half of them died. the mayflower the time spring came around, the captain said come back to england with me, but 52 or 53 said, no, we felt god called us to this country and they stayed. and that dream started the great american dream. later on, 160 some years later, a general by the jaime of general washington at valley forge and he also was forced to his knees looking to god for help in america's time of crisis and he saw the answer to his prayers. in fact, there was this old guy with bifocals when the first constitution was going to be ratified that talked about those days when george washington ran the army. he rose to speak because the politicians were disagreeing with each other and old ben

franklin with his glasses down on his nose, 80 some years old, which is very old in those days, stood to address george washington and said, i have lived through a long time. and the longer i live, the more convincing proofs i see that god governance in the affairs of man. and if it's possible that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that a nation can rise without his aid? and then he goes on to say that in the recent war, we saw frequent instances of god's superintending providence and he closed by saying, we need to be in prayer as a constitutional congress here as we look at adopting the new u.s. constitution. washington called the first day of thanksgiving as america adopted the u.s. constitution. but that tradition when we got in a jam that we look to god

conted. general eisenhower recognizing that trend decided to add it to our pledge of allegiance and so it was that he added words that came from lincoln from his gettysburg address, the words one nation, under god. and so eisenhower on just the front steps behind me of this capitol recited the new pledge, which included, one nation under god, indivisible. and so as we approach this crisis with our history, i have faith, faith in the american people that we'll take a look at the problem and we'll do the right thing and reckthies the problem is bigger than we are and will have the wisdom to also ask for god's blessing on our efforts and by his help, we will be able to overcome and to put america back on a more solid and fiscal footing.

i thank you for allowing me to do -- i suppose you call it a 30,000-foot view of the budget. not a lot of details, but the big picture, a very sober and serious big picture one we have to think about and have to become engaged in and take part in. mr. speaker, i thank you for your indulgence and thank you for your attention and attention of my colleagues and friends. and so i would yield back the balance of my time and with the conclusion saying, god bless you all and god bless america. thank you. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. reyes of texas for today and the balance of the week. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted. under the speaker's announced

policy of january 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from the district of columbia, ms. norton, is recognized for 60 minutes as designee of the minority leader. ms. norton: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to lead a special order this evening in tribute to public employees everywhere and especially our federal employees here in the united states. 85% of whom do not work in washington. i hope that my colleagues and i will be able to offer some little known facts about federal employees today so that the word federal employee gets a face. and you know who it is we're talking about. today, i also introduced a resolution supporting the right of all workers to bargain collectively, public and private workers.

i'm grateful that representative donna edwards co-sponsored this resolution with me and invite others to co-sponsor the resolution. the resolution reminds us what our grand fathers, our forefathers would have told us that for a long time there was a fight waged after it became clear that individual workers standing alone have little or no barring inc. -- bargaining power against some employer that they hope will hire her or -- and whose employee she finds herself. thus finally legalized the right of workers to form unions. in no free society in the world is the right to bargain

collectively barred. that right has been under attack for decades, and the decline of unions in the united states is directly attributable to the difficulty in organizing workers today because the nationally relations act is a figurement of another century -- figment of another century. i think we'll see in some of the statistics coming out of wisconsin and out of the country at large that the decline of unions today does not mean that unions are not institutions in our country. and i will have statistics to show that. what i think most americans recognize is that they owe to

the american union movement much that they take for granted today even if you are not a member of a union movement. unions could have been content to bargain at the table for health and safety conditions, for 40-hour week and the rest of it. instead, they led the country in making laws that require a 40-hour workweek, abolish child labor laws, require health and safety conditions, require overpay pay -- overtime pay, require health insurance and pension insurance. those matters which began at the bargaining table now many americans enjoy. and yet, we have seen targets,

especially placed on the backs of public employees. i'd like to open by giving you an idea of who a public employee is. by speaking of a public employee in my own district, the district of columbia. i don't know about anthony hutchinson but i've heard about him. he's an example of an exceptional federal employee, i understand. a husband and a father of two. he lives on savannah street in southeast washington. he's a transportation security officer, and he's worked at the ronald reagan international airport for the last six years. he's also a member and shop steward of his union, which in this case happens to be the national treasury employees

union. he's been named the transportation security officer of the year. he's received outstanding ratings from his employer. he has been made the chair and vice chair. he was once chair and vice chair of the safety committee. he has -- he's on a team that has designed ways to keep transportation security officers up to date on techniques for identifying weapons and prohibited items through x-ray machines. he served on the emergency readiness team. that's a team that deploys within 24 hours in the event of

an emergency or natural disaster. anthony hutchinson is a federal employee. when you speak of federal employees, it seems to me we owe them at least the courtesy of recognizing them for what they do for the american people . but you would not have understood that if you had been watching over the last few weeks the episodes in wisconsin. these were shocking, and many, i think, thought, well, maybe it has come to this. unions aren't very popular and maybe people are ready to bash

unions in just this way. but look at what the polls are showing us. the polls show following wisconsin the national polls about the standing of public employees and public employee unions that americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a huge margin. by a margin of 2:1. 60% to 33%. even a slim -- only a slim majority, just a slim majority of republicans favor taking away bargaining rights. it's as if americans understand a right when they see one. now, bargaining rights are not like the rights of freedom of

relimmingon or freedom of speech, but they're right up there on any list of six or seven rights that americans believe once you get you are entitled to because you have gotten them democratically. you had to go worker by worker. you had to organize. and when it looks as though there has been a horrific backlash from wisconsin, indeed americans when asked how they would choose to reduce their own state deficit, having watched wisconsin, say they prefer tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by a margin of 2-1. that is what wisconsin has given the country.

it has laid bare what a frontal attack on a basic right means and what it means is americans are not for it. we saw what happened in wisconsin overnight. that through the tricks of parliamentary maneuvers they were able to in fact weaken the bargaining rights of wisconsin workers. there is going to be a price to pay in wisconsin, i believe, and i'm going to point to why. the present governor of wisconsin came in with a six-point margin of victory. the polls show him seven points behind now.

45% strongly approve of his performance. the man has only been in office a little more than three months. public employees unions, including teachers unions in wisconsin, now have favorable, positive ratings. 16 points higher than walker's ratings. the turnaround in wisconsin i think tells us where the government -- where the country -- pardon me -- is headed when they see the overreaching here in washington and when they see the overreaching at the state level. the wisconsin results are just astounding.

they fly in the face of everything walker was doing. they are the classic backlash to overreach. the state's population now believes that walker should reverse course and raise taxes on those making $150,000 a year. that's by a 72% to 27% margin. there you have it. a kind of inc. baitor of -- incubator in one state which tells us where the country stands when it comes to public employees. now, the national polls found,

not unexpectedly, 71% democrats oppose weakening collective bargaining rights. there was almost a strong opposition from independents. 71% democrats, 62% independents. and only a bare margin of republicans were for weakening collective bargaining rights. we know that when it came to walker there was no doubt what he was after because the unions, seeing that the state was indeed in trouble, had a huge deficit, gave him what he desired in savings. and still he would not

compromise. he held his ground, and in holding his ground appears to have lost his state. this is a turning point moment for the country. this is a moment that is sorting out those who linger on the extreme from those who have fought to find their way to the mainstream. . wisconsin is what overreach will reap here in the house of representatives as polls in wisconsin show has already done there. look what we have here. the president has already announced a freeze, a five-year spending freeze on federal employees in his state of the

union, they didn't like that but that whet the appetite for republicans for more and even more. they come to the floor with bills that would furlough federal workers for two weeks, would impose an additional one-year pay freeze, one-year pay freeze, and cut 200,000 federal jobs. there's another bill that would limit the ability of federal workers to bargain collectively. the bills just roll out of republicans. a freeze, a cut in the federal work force by 15%. don't you think somebody would want to look and see who the workers are before coming up with a number like that? cutting agency funding to 2008

levels in 2012, as h.r. 1 does and then to 2006 levels for the next nine years. that would reduce most agency budgets by 40%. i see that my good friend, who has also co-sponsored the resolution paying tribute to america's public and federal employees has come to the floor and i'm pleased to grant her such time as she may desire. ms. edwards: i thank the gentlewoman. i'm here today because i'm here on behalf of and with the 150,000 federal workers who live in the fourth congressional district in maryland, but in our region, in our metro region, we know there are some 700,000 federal workers just in the washington metro region who do so much to protect this country, to keep our neighborhoods, our communities safe, to keep our

food safe, to make sure that we know what the weather is. 2.7 million to 2.8 million federal workers around the country and around the globe. so i'm always troubled when i hear people who for the last couple of decades have gone on an all-out attack against federal workers. and i would say to the the gentlewoman from district of columbia. i grew up in a household with two federal workers. my mother and father both worked for the federal government and it was working for the federal government that really help them become a part of the middle class in this country. it was the work that they did as federal workers that saved taxpayers lots of money. it was the work that my father did in uniform in this country, protecting and honoring all of us by his service.

and so there is such a wide range of the federal work force. and yet, some who want to go after federal workers and i say go after, and i mean that very directly, do it without actually knowing what it is that federal workers do. i want to tell you about some of the federal workers in my congressional district. there are workers that work at the food and drug administration and doing some of the most cutting-edge research out there. they are looking to make sure that our -- the food and the drugs that are in our marketplace are safe for children and families and consumers. i want to talk about the federal workers at the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. today in the washington region and up and down the east coast, we have had flood warnings for communities, including communities around the district of columbia metropolitan area

that are under flood warnings and watches today. it's federal workers who help us to analyze the data coming from the satellite that was put up into our atmosphere by federal workers that help us understand what's happening in our environment, with our climate and our weather. it's the federal workers at the -- at nasa, who have taken -- who took the charge that president kennedy gave to them to explore space, to discover that new frontier, who have been at the cutting edge of all kinds of research that benefit us in every capacity. i would like to say it was a federal worker and the federal work force that figured out through technology and experimentation that they could create materials that would lead to the creation of air bags and seat belts in our space program. and those are the same air bags that i know saved my life one

time when i in a car accident and saves many lives. that's the product when you make an investment in the federal work force. it's the federal worker who works at andrews air force base in my congressional district, looking out for the protection of the president and for diplomats who fly in and out of andrews, making sure we safeguard the protected space in the capitol region, making sure that we have an air force and personnel who are deployed to as far away places such as afghanistan and iraq, looking out for improvised explosive devices, training some of our, you know, other great service members, german shepards and other service dogs we see. it's the federal work force

that's doing those things. i'm often shocked, mr. speaker, when i hear people targeting the federal work force. and let's just be clear. federal workers have actually absorbed and been willing to absorb and to take, not liking it, as the the gentlewoman from district of columbia points out, a freeze on their wages, but they continue to serve. it's the federal worker, mr. speaker, who makes sure that that social security check and that disability claim and those veterans' services are provided, not just in the fourth congressional district in maryland, but all across this country. and so when i think about the range of things that the federal worker that no one else does, it is extraordinary. when people try to compare wages and salaries to wages and salaries in the private sector, it's not a direct match.

imagine, if you would, that we could get away this the private sector with paying a top-notch engineer and researcher $100,000 to work for us, but that's what happens in the federal government, even those those salaries may be significantly higher than that. ms. norton: the gentlewoman is making a very important and very much misunderstood point with these comparisons between apples and bananas. half of the federal work force, i learned, work in the nine highest paying occupation groups, judges, engineers, scientists, nuclear plant inspectors, that's half of the federal workers. less than a third of private sector workers work in these same nine, top-drawer

occupations. when you hear these comparisons, you aren't comparing comparable work forces. private sector has categories we don't even have here like cooks and manufacturing workers. these comparisons that you speak of, i will say to the gentlelady, could not be more important to distinguish. we are talking about the highest level work force in the united states of america. and i'll say to the gentlelady, i learned as well that there are far fewer of them than when i was a child. in 1953, there was one federal worker for every 78 residents. today, there is one for every 1

47. how did you go from one for every 78 residents to one of out of 147. it is a work force to die for. ms. edwards: i thank the gentlelady. i think it's important for us to understand really who is the federal worker, what is it that they do. and as the gentlelady has pointed out. our food is safe because of federal workers. our -- the drugs that we take, whether they come over the counteror prescription drugs, they're safe because of a federal worker. when that prediction is coming through for severe weather that hits the middle of our country in the most oppressive way, it's a federal worker who analyzes

that data and works really hard and really quickly to get that information out to the public. federal workers also work in some of the most dangerous fields in addition to being some of the most skilled fields in this country. you mentioned the work the gentlelady mentioned, the work of our nuclear scientists that federal workers do in our laboratories all across this country, not just in washington, d.c. but in states like colorado. some of the highest scientific work in the country. we have a skilled federal work force. i was shocked in the story we are hearing in wisconsin and the struggle of wisconsin workers for collective bargaining rights. that indeed on the committee which we serve in transportation, just a couple of weeks ago, we were looking at an authorization for the federal

aviation administration. and in that authorization, we actually passed legislation through our committee that would say that if you didn't show up for a union vote, maybe you were sick, maybe you didn't want to vote, whatever reason, your not showing up would be counted as a no vote. can you imagine if any of us ever conducted elections like that, folks who decided to stay home for whatever reason would be counted as no votes. i would say there would be a lot of members of congress who would not be members of congress under those rules and those are the kind of rules being promoted by the republican majority through our continuing resolution, through our authorization that really go at the heart of taking the feet out from under the federal work force. and with that, and i would yield. ms. norton: i hope the

gentlelady remains with us because the gentlelady is pointing up distinctions that the public is largely unaware of. some of these job categories that my friend from maryland points to, ought to be instructtive. rocket sciences, v.a. nurse, park ranger, cancer researcher, prison guard. it's interesting that the cooks in the bureau of prisons are probably paid more than the cooks in the private sector because they have supervision of prisoners who also work in the kitchen. how do you measure that? you don't do it by throwing out a bunch of statistics, public versus private and believe that that tells the whole story. we are very pleased to be joined by the the gentlewoman from wisconsin, who we are pleased to welcome -- sorry, i do have

wisconsin on the brain given what happened last night. this is a new member from hawaii and pleased to grant her five minutes. ms. hanabusa: relativey new member and i'm glad to join the two of you in honoring the work of our federal workers. ms. edwards and i sit on the same infrastructure committee and it was revealing to talk about the changes that the people were proposing to the f.a.a. bill that would have changed the way you count votes. ms. hirono: it doesn't happen in any other arena and certainly if we have to count votes where all the people who were registered to vote didn't count and would be counted as a no vote, i would say most of us here, including our friends on the other side of the aisle would not be here. that is very telling to be the

kind of perspective that is reflected and any kind of an effort that goes after government employees, and today, we are here to talk about the thousands and thousands of federal employees who are doing the job every single day to keep our government going. who do we think keeps government going, but our workers. and we need to acknowledge that, honor them and when you go to the social security office, for example, as i have, and you see the federal employees processing the paperwork that needs to happen so that our seniors can get the benefits that they have worked hard and they deserve. you go to an unemployment line and -- well, state workers. but government employees are there doing the jobs they need to do to enable our working people, middle-class families and everyone else in our country to get the kind of services that we pay for.

. to scapegoat them as though they are the one responseable as the economic crisis, some people are referring to it as the great recession, with a capital g and capital r, as opposed to the great depression, but so many stories are about people struggling to make ends meet, including federal employees. they're like the rest of us. there are faces to all these federal employees. let me just tell you about some of the federal employees who have been acknowledged in my state for the exemplary work that they're doing. for example, i want to talk about sergeant michael shonbock, who is in charge of the marine corps base in hawaii and he won a federal leader of the year award for providing

unparalleled customer service to prepare marines for operation iraqi and enduring freedom. warren howe who won an admirthor of the year award who worked in the naval command as an electrical engineer on the far east planning team he developed and implemented an electronic data gathering tool to update facilities plans. the tool is now required at all navy and marine corps installations and has increased productivity, saving taxpayers, that's all of us, a lot of money. bill purse lee a 2008 federal mentor of the year and he worked for the transportation security administration at maui county airport. under his guidance and leadership, over dozens of officers have been promoted to

lead, supervise and master positions so bill has a calm and convincing demeanor which has earned him the respect of airport employees and leaders and he's had a significant impact on keeping us safe. these are just a few of the thousands, 4.6 million, federal workers in every state in our country. and retirees nationwide who have not only provided services to us over the years and earned their retirement but who are continuing to step up and now as we've heard in so many committees, step up to do more with less. and they've been doing that for years now. i'm proud of them. i'm proud of the federal workers in hawaii. >> i think it's very interesting you have on the floor -- ms. holmes: i think --

ms. norton: i think it's interesting you have 85% of federal workers who do not work in the washington region. ms. edwards and i feel fortunate to live in the national capital region but we, by no means, regard ourselves as representative of federal workers. every member has federal workers in her district system of when you are bashing federal employees, you better watch yourself. you're bashing your own constituents. the gentlelady from maryland want to speak to that issue? ms. andrews: i do. i thank you for raising the point because too often we hear, let's cut washington. let's -- we don't care if the federal government shuts down because then that just is a bunch of federal employees when in fact only one quarter of federal employees work in this

three-state region that comprises the washington metropolitan region. all of the other 75% of federal employees work someplace else. and i love this idea of exploring what it is that federal employees do. because i'm often fascinated by the many jobs they do that provide so many important resources for us. ms. edwards: what could we do without meteorologists, ask the people of california and in these zones with earthquake zones and the home state -- your home state of hawaii, the gentlelady from hawaii, we need meteorologists in that sector. aerospace engineers, exploring this 21st semplingry and our new technologies and the horizons not here this earth looking at things like climate and planner to science and they don't make a lot of money. they may have ph.d.'s, a ph.d.

aerospace engineer probably makes about $70,000. imagine if you transplanted that and that skill level into the private sector. i thank the gentlelady for reminding us of the fact that federal workers span the spectrum of job skill bus they also are in every single state, every congressional district in this country. ms. hirono: if the gentlelady would yield? ms. norton: could i ask how much time we have? the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady has 25 minutes remaining. ms. norton: i'm glad to yield to the gentlelady from hawaii. ms. hirono: when we think about the benefits we all enjoy, think about the national parks. what tremendous resource for all of us. so many families go to the national parks.

guess who is there to make sure we all have a lovely time and who are protecting our endangered species in national parks. we have a lot of national parks in hawaii. one of them, you may have seen the pictures recently of the continuing eruption of kiluaea on the island of hawaii which is part of my district. there are so many areas in which we could not do without the commitment of our federal employees. i feel as though they're getting picked on for basically political rps and it's unjustifiable. to do that and to scapegoat our workers in that way. ms. norton: they deserve the opposite. far from scapegoat, we ought to stand up and is a lulet federal employees for what they're doing for this country. ms. hirono: and you mentioned, ms. edwards, about exploration and meet rolses, well the

astronaut program where we went to the moon, that's a federal program. we had a wonderful astronaut from hawaii who tragically lost his life in the challenger disaster and so these are all -- you know, this is part of what we need to do to educate all of us and the young people and our students. i was visited by a group of students from my district yesterday and they're here with a close-up program and they're here to learn about the federal government and what keeps the federal government going. it's not just us. it's all those 4.6 million people out there. helping. ms. norton: ms. edwards, you probably also are aware, we hear about the best and the brightest, the federal work force now with many baby boomers is eligible to retire and there is absolute panic

about whether or not we'll ever see a work force as good as the work force we got in the post-kennedy period. these were people who came fresh with the -- with all of the notions of the kennedy era that public service was a wonderful thing. and they made their careers in the federal service. 90% of them could retire in the next 10 years. now the whole world is open to them. they could go to the high tech companies. they could go to hawaii. they could go to california. will we be able to attract the best and the brightest right when we most need them? in an era when the country needs this side as well as in the military side the very best talent we can find? ms. hirono: and the gentlelady raises yet another --

ms. edwards: and the gentlelady raises another interesting point, not only could they go anywhere else in the united states but the world is their oyster. we know our best and brightest are not just being recruited from state to state outside of the federal work force, they're being recruited outside of the united states because we know that we have the talent here and what better place to absorb that talent in public service than in service in the federal sector. i'm so proud, i think about the time i met a scientist a researchers, over at the national institutes of standards and technology and let me tell you what they do at nist. any piece of electronic equipment that you might have, maybe it's in your doctor's office and it's an m.r.i. machine, or maybe it is -- it's something, a piece of your home equipment in your home and maybe it's the iron or it's the toaster or it's the microwave,

the national institutes of standards and technology sets a standard for industry for those products and tests those to meet standards. it means that no matter where you go, no matter what store you shop in, that equipment is calibrated in the same way. now you may not think that matters for a toaster but it surely matters for an m.r.i. machine. and so those are the kinds of jobs that our federal employees do and those are jobs that you really can't translate into the private sector but that are so necessary to safeguard the public. ms. norton: that's such an important point, unlike what the federal government is required to do, the people who are doing the comparisons don't do what the bureau of labor and statistics does. this is very, very difficult work.

when the bureau of labor statistics compares workers in the public and private sector, they have to, for example, look beyond the title of budget analyst. in the federal government they may be dealing with a budget analyst which has -- who has oversight over multimillion dollar agency budgets. in the private sector, that may be somebody who is sitting in an office pushing papers, they're qualified but nowhere near the same kind of responsibility. what the bureau of labor statistics does and only the government can do this because only the government has the resources is to literally get into the weeds so that when you see the government statistics, those are the statistics to be trusted. i've got to ask my good friend to help me as well on one of the great distortions and that is on federal benefits.

i think most americans don't know that federal employees pay for 30% of the cost of their health care. if you get dental and vision, you pay 100%. if you have group life insurance, the employee pays 66% of the premium and the full cost of any additional coverage. if you have, and many employees now have federal long-term care , 100%. the federal government is, yes, it is a decent employer, it is by no means an overly generous employer. just compare that to fortune 1,000, or fortune 500 employers and see if these employees who pay 30% of their health care

premium are coddled. i don't think. so -- i don't think so. another issue that is often raised is contractors. up with of the most astounding things about the federal work force, and we -- some things should be done by contracting out, but there are more contractors than federal employees. so that when you are attacking federal employees, you're attacking people who work in the agencies who work as my two colleagues have spoken in detail, who work as park rangers, who work as rocket scientists but the invisible work force, the contracting work force, at the department of homeland security, for example, we have 188,000 employees, but there are

200,000 contracting employees working for the agency. so if the public really wants to know where the money goes, they shouldn't be targeting the employee who stands up, has u.s.a. written across her chest is proud to work for the federal government, they should look at the entire work force, which turns out to be many, many contracted workers, it's interesting to note that the president is cutting the number of contracted workers and expects the -- to save $40 billion annually by in fact bringing that work in house so we know who is performing it, we can measure them, we can get rid of the work we don't need, you contract the work out, it's gone and it gets a life of its own. . ms. edwards: if the gentlewoman would yield.

you raise an amazing point for the american people. one about federal benefits. there is a wide assumption across the country that federal workers don't contribute to their own health and life insurance and dental insurance, and it's just not true. i think it's really important for us to debunk that right now. and as you say, the federal government is a decent employer, but it is no means the best employer when it comes to providing benefits as some of those fortune 500, fortune 1,000 companies that you point to. nonetheless, it's the federal worker who contributes to her pension, contributes to her health insurance, contributes for her family members across the board. the gentlelady also makes an important distinction for us to know that, in fact, the federal work force, because they

sometimes work along side contract employees who are paid different rates, who have different benefits, but in some cases doing very similar kind of work. and i applaud the obama administration trying to get a handle on what is uniquely government work and shouldn't be contracted out because we need much greater oversight. i know -- i mentioned earlier to the gentlelady that i come from a family of federal workers. and i want to tell you about one of those workers, because if anybody goes back, they would say my money saved the federal government a boat load of money. she was a steward of the taxpayer. she worked in the department of defense doing military housing, overseeing contracts and she would tell you in a minute if a contractor was violating a contract. she would tell you if they were

overspending. and she would save the taxpayer money because she viewed herself as a steward of the taxpayer, as a public servant. i know my mother is not alone. she's joined by millions of federal workers all across this country to take pride in the work that they do for the taxpayer, the work that they do in service to this nation and whether it's processing social security disability claims or it is making sure that our veterans get appropriate mental health attention or making sure that our airways are safe and clear and planes are landing and taking off safely, protecting us in our parks, if a child gets lost in a park, it's a federal worker that goes to find that child and reunite him or her with their parents. and so, the federal work force

is varied, it's diverse and efficient and becoming more efficient every day. and federal workers are really contributing to the life blood of this country. and so i think, you know, for those who want to get about the business of cutting spending where it's appropriate, let's do that responsibly. but let's not make the federal worker the scape goat for budget cutting and for ending deficit spending. let's continue a strong and vigorous federal work force that is working to the best benefit of the taxpayer. ms. norton: this is such an important point, i say to my friend from maryland, because remember in wisconsin, the public employees said look, we will do our share. and yet, the governor insist the going after collective bargaining. anyone who says the public employees don't understand how

union operates, if there is a work force that needs to be downsized or a work force that needs to give up some of what it has for a period of time, the best way to deal with that work force is through an agent that the workers trust. if the employers have no agent and goes in and does it, that becomes a deflating, i am moral, sapping exercise. unions are very sophisticated. unions operate within our capitalist system. they know when there is money on the table and when there is not. unions are said to have been the major agent in creating the american middle class. what do we mean by that? there were businesses, automobile companies and managers, what we mean by it is that when that revenue was

coming to business, it was sitting across from a union who said workers help produced this product. the revenue from this product should be shared with workers out of that came the great american middle class. that is why an automobile worker, for example, who didn't have a college education, could get a pension and could support families. and unions did this, yes, across the bargaining table, but in doing it for their own members. they have spread it through the society because then competitors had to meet the union wage. and so what happened was, you got a great american class that you did not have before the unionization of american workers and they deserve credit and unions deserve credit for that.

they don't deserve to be bashed. and i have to say to my good friend, i was never so gratified to read what the polls show us. and i indicated some of those figures when we began this special hour, that two-to-one, americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employees after all that is happening in wisconsin. instead of them reaping the whirl wind, american people understand what it means to take away a precious right, even a right they don't enjoy, so they would rather have their taxes raised to weak yench the collective -- weaken the collective bargaining rights of workers. if that is not a listen for the other side of this chamber which is overreaching in a thousand

different ways, nothing is. it is a bellwether of what is to come. ms. edwards: i thank the gentlelady and my friend, because i think what you have done is you have brought the connection from the public sector worker in wisconsin and throughout our states to the federal work force, to the private sector work force. and i think what we have seen over these last couple of decades and it is evidenceed in the polls and all workers are showing in wisconsin and the idea for collective bargaining rights, we recognize as workers whether in the private or public sector, state or federal government, that, in fact, it's that organizing and the ability to organ the ability to bargain that has helped so many of us to achieve a place in the middle class. and i think there is an understandable fear of losing that given what's transpired

over the years. in fact, you look at wages in the private sector and private sector wages have, in fact, remained stagnant for about the last decade. so you can understand that a private sector worker is actually feeling that strain. but they understand the position of the public sector workers, of the federal workers. so we are all united as workers together to make sure we can lift all of us into the middle class. and i think the federal work force is particularly important because the federal work force then becomes sort of a bellwether for what can happen in other sectors in our work force. so thank you for bringing that full circle. ms. norton: i thank the gentlelady for coming down and you make important points about the stagnation of the american standard of living. it correlates with the stagnation of the american labor movement. the stagnation of the american

labor movement has everything to do with the difficulty under the national labor relations act of organizing a union today when unions were first legalized in 1930. they were encouraged. today, it is very difficult under the existing statute to organize a union. i'm amazed that they are still alive and kicking. but what we are seeing in wisconsin is a national reawakening of the union movement. they will be able to organize. thank you, governor walker. as i close this hour, i want to thank my two friends from hawaii and maryland for coming down to share this special hour with us. we think -- the least we can do is to every once in a while say to federal employees and public employees, we appreciate what you're doing.

president obama perhaps said it best, i don't think it does any good, he said, when public employees are denigrated or villified or their rights are infringed upon. we need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. these times demand it. again, i thank the gentlelady for coming forward. and i yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time. under the speaker's announced policy january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. jackson, for 30 minutes. mr. jackson: thank you, mr. speaker. let me first begin my associating myself with the remarks with -- with the gentlelady from district of

columbia and gentlelady from maryland. there are comments about my comments that every child in this country should have an equal right to education of high quality. let me be clear. i raised the possibility that it might lead to a standard of an ipad for every child just like it leads to athletic facilities and music classes and other important resources for our children. let me be clear. these devices are receive -- revolutionizing our children and will alter the way we educate our children. mr. speaker, this is an ipad. an incredible device, so incredible, in fact, before i could open it up, after i recently purchased it, apple came out with the ipad 2.

mr. speaker, this is a kindle. a device from amazon that allows you to download books and to read them. before i could finish opening up my kindle, kindle came out with an even smaller kindle, neither of which have been activated at this time, even smaller than the original. mr. speaker, it won't be very long before every child in this country is educated using one of these devices or something similar. why? just go to your local borders book store, that is if there's one left. recently borders announced it was closing 200 of 508 stores, including one in my congressional district. if the recent history of the music business is any guide, then other book stores and libraries, both private and public, may not be far behind

them. that's because the future of publishing isn't in hard copy books anymore or magazines or newspapers, it's all digital. the ipad, the kindle, the nook and other similar devices make it possible to access any book, any period call at any time, any place. as digital downloadable music has gained popularity, we see a shift in the music industry. there are hardly any physical stores where we can buy cd's. we have gone from the 78 to the 48, to the long-playing lp, to dvd's and now to downloadable music. the same will be true for publishing. books will soon become obsolete. so the school library will soon, unfortunately, be obsolete. schools are likely in the future to use that space for more

classrooms. maybe it will help alleviate our classroom size problems. but for certain, architects in the future will likely be designing future schools without a library. hard copies of textbooks will become obsoletes instead of buying them and storing them and forcing our children to lug around huge backpacks full of heavy books, we'll download them on to a device just like one of these. . this is going to happen in the future. in fact, it's happening right now. in my district, at chicago state university, the freshman class of students, every single freshman, received an ipad. over time, as new classes enroll, the administration hopes that all students will

use electronic gires textbooks and to submit assignments. it could be a textbookless campus in four years. imagine the cost savings for schools, president watson said. give a child an ipad, nook, kindle or any of these devices when they are in the first grade and he or she could use it all the way through college. all the cost of buying hard copy books for the course of that child's educational career would be simply wiped out. now, mr. speaker, because i suggested this idea, i've been called a communist and a socialist and any number of other things but let me tell you why that's misleading and malicious. let me go back to what i talked about last week. last week, from the house floor, i talked about the greatest capitalist in the

history of our world. in my opinion, the greatest capitalist in the history of our world where the -- were the men who founded our country, our founding fathers. they were engaged in all manners of trade and commerce. it ranged from farming cotton and beans and corn and even before the constitution of the united states was ratified in 1788, even before the bill of rights in 1791, even before the declaration of independence, from 1492 until 1776, and certainly and even more tragically in 1619, 19 scared africans ai'ved on the shores of jamestown, virginia, 157 years before the declaration of independence. their desire for commerce and capitalism even had them

trading people. they traded among themselves and with others across the wol. when they rebelled against the government of england and established their own country, they had a choice in unregulated, unfettered free market system or a system of government with checks and balances and regulations and rules. so much for the anti-government movement in our nation. our founding fathers were not anti-government. they chose government. but they chose government with an over all -- overall structure of freedom and personal liberty along with rules. that leads us to the bill of rights. the first amendment is one of the great landmarks in human rights and personal freedom. it certainly is that not only in domestic history but in world history. it protects free speech, freedom of and freedom from religion, the right to assemble and to petition the government,

it also happens and often not talked about in our country, it also happens to be the greatest economic program in the history of our country. think about it. i asked the congressional research service and their experts responded by saying to specific question, how many jobs in the united states of america are tied to the first amendment? initially they said, it's practically incalculable. he said, any job, and i quote, with a public presence, unquote, could be considered protected under the first amendment. and therefore the congressional research service conservatively estimated that approximately 50% of all jobs in the united states are tied to the first amendment. imagine. or just stop and think about it. every newspaper in this nation, and the jobs that emanate from those newspapers are tied to

the first amendment. books. internet publications. every tv station. social media. public speaking. serious networks. -- sirius network. am-fm radio. lawyers. advocates. movies. c.d.'s, d.v.d.'s, v.h.s.'s, mp-3 players, democrats an republicans, telephone services, cell phones, droids, pagers, music, classical, r&b, pop, country, western, hip-hop, techno, karaoke. the united states postal service. federal express. u.p.s. print advertising. times square.

new york city. commercials. ipods. iphones. ipads. computers, art, museums, photography, education, colleges and schools, theaters, plays, musicals and on and on and on. they have their basis in the first amendment. that doesn't even include freedom of religion. the churches, the synagogues, the mosques. all religions. nonprofit organizations. 501 c 3's, 501 c 4's. charitable given. all of this is first amendment activity. the first amendment with american innovation through time from the founding of our country to this very day has unleashed over time the greatest economy that the world has ever known. the founding fathers set in place a system that through our value system would give birth to more than 50% of all jobs in

the united states of america. that system has worked remarkably well for a long, long time. but now there's a problem, mr. speaker. these devices will cause the loss of jobs at bookstores, borders is closing. almost 50% of its stores. it's going to cost the jobs of librarians. and libraries. publishing houses. printers. bookbinders. and where do we think these devices are made? they're not made here in the united states. they're most likely made in china or other places. so if you're not an american and you believe in the value system that emanates from the first amendment, including all the jobs that emanate from the first amendment and you're outside of america looking in you need only wait for american innovation as a result of our own freedom system to take

advantage of selling to the united states at some cheaper labor cost a product that helps strengthen our first amendment. it comes, however, at the cost of jobs. significant jobs. so the first amendment, the amendment that has unleashed such great economic activity and brought about such amazing innovation and helped america become the greatest economy in the world is now known for helping the chinese economy grow and create jobs and prs perity and ironically challenge america's place in the demrobal economy. we all know that our economy has struggled over the past few years. the financial and economic crisis have been devastating for many americans. the unemployment rate hovers over 9% and in communities like mine, it's over 15%. how do we turn our economy around? i have suggested, mr. speaker, that we follow the mold of the greatest capitalists and turn to our constitution.

turn to our bylaws, the bylaws of the american enterprise. that's what president roosevelt did as he began his fourth term in office. mr. speaker, here's what president roosevelt said on january 11, 1944, in his state of the union address. january 11, 1944, unemployment is beginning to come down but throughout president roosevelt's administration, we see the highest levels of unemployment in the history of the united states. the period known as the great depression. but as we are coming out of the great depression, president roosevelt, after having served nearly four temples as president of the united states -- four terms as president of the united states has some insights on how future generations of americans must address unemployment. today, unemployment hovering at around 9%. let's hear what our president had to say he said, it is now our duty to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for winning of a

lasting peace and the establishment of an american standard of living higher than we have ever known before. we cannot be content, no matter how high the general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people, january 11, 1944, whether it be 1/3 or 1/5 or 1/10, is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-ous -- ill-housed and insecure. this republic at its beginning, 1788, 1791, and grew to its present strength under the protection of certain inalienable political rights. here roosevelt is giving deference to the idea that the first amendment through the great depression is responsible for most of the nation's jobs. among these rights, president roosevelt said, is the right of free speech. free press. free worship. trial by jury. freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. they were our rights to life

and liberty. as our nation has grown in size and stature, however, the president acknowledges, as our industrial economy has expanded, these political rights proved inadequate to assure us that is every american, equality in the pursuit of happiness. we come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. quote, necessitous men are not free men. people who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made of. these have become accepted as self-evident. we have accepted, so to speak, a second bill of rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed. among these, he said, the right to a job. the right to rn enough food to provide for one's family.

the right to every farmer to raise and sell their products. the right of every businessman, large and small, the right of every family to a decent home, the right to adequate medical care. the right to adequate protection from the economic feefers old age and sickness and accident and unemployment. the right to a good education. all of these rights, and that have war is won, he said they spell security. we must be prepared to move forward, forward through time, a time that president roosevelt himself would not live to see, for the implementation of these rights to new goals of human happiness and well being. america's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these rights and similar rights are carried into practice by our citizens. mr. speaker, what if we amended the constitution? if we amended the bylaws of america, to include the right of every citizen to an

education of equal high quality. what would that do for architects? and roofers? and bricklayers and manufacturers as school districts across the country seek to meet the equal high quality standard by building new schools and improving existing ones? what would it do for the nasdaq as schools improved their technological capabilities with laptops and computers and ipads and nooks and kindles and other devices. there are 60 million children in the nation's public school system. 60 million. i believe that like the first amendment, over time an amendment guaranteeing every american the right to a quality education for all students would provide a huge economic boost for our country. just like the first amendment at the inception of our country is responsible for 50% of all jobs if we truly want to compete with china, with india,

with other countries around the world if we truly want a population that is better educated than any other population on planet earth, capable of pay manager taxes, eliminating unemployment, rebuilding schools, rebuilding bridges, rebuilding hope in our communities, and by definition every time we build a newer first class school, we change the property values of every home around that school. in america, we just don't sell housing anymore, we sell housing plus schools. at the same time. i wish every member of congress, mr. speaker, in my home state would visit new treer, in the northwest suburbs. their high school represents quality of education provided unlike any other high school in the nation. their state of the art classrooms with small class sizes, top quality athletic

facilities including two aquatic centers. that's swimming. the school rents it out for fees raising revenue to offset its costs. there are 17 varsity athletic teams for boys and 17 varsity athletic teams for girls. the school is noted for its drama, for its music, for its visual arts program. students are given an opportunity to develop all aspects of their talent. they are given full educational experience that molds boys and girl into young men and women. . in 2006, the mean s.a.t. verbal score was 520, meaning that 1370 was an average score at the school. the school literally turns out ivy leaguers. we need more new tree ares and we need resources.

i need it in my congressional district on the south side of chicago. and if there is someone who wishes they had a school like that, i wish they would touch their television set, mr. speaker and say amen. we can't get there under local property tax regimes that fund our schools. in the 50 states and territories, there are 95,000 public schools. in 15,000 school districts, in 20,000 cities, all different, all separate, all unequal and all funded differently. at new treer, $15,000 is spent on every child, which is nearly the state's average. it is in one of the wealthiest districts. i don't want to take anything

from new treer. my vision is that the united states of america should be building 95,000 new treers, 95,000 schools putting millions of americans to work in high quality education for as long as there is an america, not for the 115th congress or the 113th congress, but for all of the congresses and there have been 1 12 congresses that have been responsible for all the jobs in this nation. it has taken 112 congresses for 51% of all jobs to be vested in the first amendment. what's the debate thing about my amendment, the jobs that are associated with building 5,000 schools are not likely to end up in beijing. because building schools has something to do with putting americans to work.

that's very different than building ipads or using first amendment values that tends to use our own country and yes they spread goodwill throughout the world, but takes our quality of life and standard of living with them, and that is what mr. roosevelt is talking about. he is the president who had to address unemployment. what he is looking for are jobs with domestic content, but he recognizes that the constitution of the united states, however much we honor it, it is insufficient on the question of economic rights for all americans to ensure that future generation of americans will be the beneficiary of the highest possible education standard that the world has ever known. as i have said, mr. speaker, it will create new jobs over time. as teachers are hired to provide that high quality education and schools are built and rebuilt and technology is purchased and

maintained that will unleash capital is particular opportunity that will drive job creation and corporation profit for generations to come. there will be a cost, but mr. speaker if we can find monies for the wars in iraq and afghanistan, and find out money to bail out wall street, if as martin luther king junior said, we can find money to put a man on the moon, we ought to put a man and a woman on their own two feet here in america and guarantee our children a high quality education like that of new treer. only the united states constitution can guarantee that and unleash incredible job growth and economic activity. now with the few minutes i have remaining, i have been dedicating this session of congress to unemployed. a lot of unemployed people have been sending me my resumes and

the cost of putting them into the house record which i ask them to continue to send their resumes and stories is astronomical. and i wonder irwhy the congressional record isn't digitized and why we have to cut down trees to deliver these speeches. the cost would be significantly less if the congress of the united states would catch up to the nation's education system and start digitizing the congressional record. i'm not convinced yet that we aren't dragging our feet into the future. i want to read a few stories of people who have been going through hell. these are the stories of our men and women who have served. this is from john bridges. representative jackson, i appreciate your effort to show what is happening by entering resumes in the record. i was raised in illinois and

joined the navy when i was 17 and after 23 years i retired. i went into the wireless telecommunications industry before being laid off at the end of august, 2010, i have not had any success with any position since that time. i have had one interview with the v.a. and one with the university of north texas, however i have not heard back from anyone so i assume the positions have gone to other individuals. good luck with your service. we will do what we can to find you a job. how about robert green? congressman jackson, thank you for thinking of veterans who sacrifice for our country. my story is that after getting after the marine corps i landed a job as a welder working as a welder. i went to night school and

continued to use my benefits to add classes while raising my family and trying to live the american dream. after nearly 30 years of work in the construction industry, i found myself laid off. i have not completed the degree program but have the experience and credits for a two-year degree. i worked hard to establish the role of senior project manager on a construction project. without that degree, most companies won't give me a call. it is my hope this heightens the concerns of veterans and sheds light that keeps people forever from pursuing their degrees that despite their personal life changes, nothing changes. thanks again, former sergeant, robert green. congressman, i'm currently a government contractor with the combat training squadron in florida where we are undergoing a management decision which

included the realigning of resources for fiscal year 2010 and 2014 to decrease funding and increase funding for 33,400 new manpower authorizations, 10,000 of which are for the defense acquisition work force. i and others are being replaced by workers and will be terminated on the 25 of february. all three of us served our country for over 20 years and been part of the 505th fighting squadron. it's going to be a difficult task to find work because of our age and disabilities. i myself having young children and limited opportunities find myself wondering if everything i have worked for and the american dream of keeping my house and putting my kids through college has now become a nightmare. thanks for promising to posting veterans' resumes. at least you are trying to bring visibility to the plight of our

nation's veterans. mr. tracy l. palmer. least we can do is try to find him a job. my name is thomas and i read an article about this program in the marine times. i served from 2001 to 2010 before receiving a medical discharge. i was separated after having a seizure disorder. i served as a radio operator plat toon sergeant and worked in a control point while serving in iraq in 2007. i have been semping for a job for over a year and we relocated to japan where the job search still continues. i thank you for starting this program. there are so many veterans out there that can be productive members of our society if the congress would find something for them to do. out of respect for your resume that is going in the congressional record tonight, my hat is off to you and we will

try to find you a job. i served as an active duty member in the pennsylvania naval guard for over 20 years as a mechanic. i took advantage of the v.a. program to start a second career. i applied to all technology positions at local v.a. medical centers. my application was not even considered. i infer gave up and tried for 10 more years. and my last job, i was making $44,000, but just enough for the both of us. now i'm forced to tell potential employers i will take $15 an hour to get interviewed. i see companies wallowing in their greed to outsource jobs to other countries because it's cheaper and that's what we are getting into, cheap products instead of investing. this has to stop somewhere. respectfully yours, sergeant, united states air force,

retired. and mr. speaker, they go on and on and on. and mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to request a revise and extended remarks to submit remarks relating to the special order including the names of these veterans that i specifically offered tonight. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. jackson: 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 illinois rise? does the gentleman seek to make a motion to adjourn? mr. jackson: i make a motion to now adjourn. ism the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it and the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 9:00 a.m. to

>> cd hearing in its entirety today on c-span. >> potential republican contenders have been making stops in key primary states. this weekend on the road to the white house, michelle laughlin had a fund-raiser for the republican state committee. this weekend, ltv is live with two days of panel discussions and interviews. authors include former gov. castro, joyce maynard, and tj stiles. also this weekend on c-span 2 book tv, dinesh dsouza.

>> house minority leader nancy pelosi held a conference today. she also took questions about the ongoing 2011 spending debate. she is joined by other democratic members at this 45 minute briefing. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> good afternoon, i am very happy to be with you today to be with congresswoman, the chair of the diabetes caucus. her daughter has type 1 diabetes and she will tell us about it.

herself a breast cancer survivor and a fighter for these issues. assisted vice-president, and again, vice president of the federal advocacy of the american heart nearly one year ago, congress proudly made history and make progress for the american people bypassing the affordable health care act. they were born with the disability. we injured that your doctor will be there when you get sick.

no insurance company bureaucrat can take away from new or limit your medical choice. millions of americans are seeing the benefits. no longer can insurance companies deny coverage to children with a pre-existing condition. soon they will not be able to discriminate against the 129 million americans of all ages living with a pre-existing condition. it is quite remarkable.

gave up theseon's reforms from the beginning. it represented the millions of americans that would benefit from reform. i was pleased when an attempt was made to repeal health care reform. they supported this bill.

they told stories about their constituents on hal healthcare reform affected them. some waited six hours in line. they took many to the floor of the house. some showed up at a hearing that we had. one woman told us the story of her children. when they were four years old, they bore both diagnosed [inaudible] they have health insurance. for a while they were ok economically.

when they came to testify at a hearing, the children are ok now. one has just turned 12. they still have a pre-existing medical condition. without this bill, they are not be able to receive coverage. that is not the case because of the passage of this bill. no longer will be they be subjected. i recently received a letter from one of my constituents come at a lesser from a grow five- years-old. she has a heart condition. her coverage was dropped when she was not in surgery. they did not stop the surgery but they did stop the

coverage. that is not right. this makes it right. we are proud of it. no one can say the coverage away from the twin daughters. my children have protection based on pre-existing cancer conditions. they will never have to fear the decision of their health insurance if they get sick. today our top priority is creating jobs. this is about creating jobs in strengthening -- and strengthening them. it strengthens the metal class.

we want them to reach their the filament and be able to be self and floyd. we do not want them to be job lot because they cannot take the health insurance with them. under this legislation, they will be able to do so. that is why insurance reform is so important. we are. proud that the reform is entrepreneurial in terms of what it allows them to do. it is about the good helped of the healthcare. it is still exciting.

they are using the benefits of science and make our country held fear. this is very -- help the air. this is very positive. this is cause for celebration. they will stay focused on creating jobs, growing the economy, strengthening the middle class, and ensuring that all americans have access to affordable and quality health care. it is about expanding access and improving care. i am very pleased to turn the podium over to one of our special guests who is here, it to diana. diana was a champion passing this legislation.

>> thank you so much. i want to thank you. all my buddies are year and wearing their red shirts. but want to thank steve berringer who is here. he is my constituents. the people i really wanted think the most are the young people who are here that have type 1 diabetes. they see you. you are the best lobbyists that we have on these issues. you guys are the best lobbyist. thank you for coming here. you heard the leaders say it. the one-year anniversary of the affordable health care act is coming up. there are so many provisions in

this bill that are beginning to help american families right now. one reason why this was so important to me and why i use my position to make sure we could pass its is because i know how important it is for america's family that insurance companies cannot discriminate on the basis of a pre-existing condition. when you hear stories like nancy pelosi told about a young child being in surgery in, it is almost unbelievable. you have a child with a serious medical condition. you know that these kind of decisions up until now have happened on a regular basis.

i would just tell you my personal situation. my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 4 years old. i'm sure this is happen to some of you. we had no knowledge of any family history of diabetes. she had all the symptoms. we were at the emergency room. aside from all the worries that you have in the middle of the night, and up until now, american families with diabetic children have had to larry will i have the insurance coverage that i need to make sure that my child has the health care of that veiny the? if i do have that, while i have some pretty well i still have the insurance filed is my job. -- well i still have insurance if i lose my job. i get rehired every two years.

if my constituents and not rehire me, what would i do? what would happen to francesca that if i changed my job? that is what we were about. we worry about what will happen with the lifetime cap. it is an extensive problem to treat. we pass this legislation that said right now that you cannot discriminate against those children because they have a pre-existing condition. fast forward. francesca is 17 years old. she is diabetes for 13 years old. she is getting ready to go to college. now start to think about how now i can keep her on my insurance until she is 26 years old. that is the other thing the leader talked about. but only can she not the turnoff, i think keeper on that

says she can pursue her dreams of becoming a musician without worrying that she will not have insurance. these are the very real issues that millions of americans face. this is why we are committed every day to making sure that this law stays in effect and that our laws are in fact -- intact. i was asked everything let them know how important these provisions are. i want to introduce someone u.s. and a great advocate and to is going to talk about this from a global perspective, it the chair of the american diabetes

association, john griffin. >> thank you. how special it is to be representing 26 americans and another 80 million people in the zone of danger. there are several hundred of you who are on the hill this week advocating for full funding for the cdc to people with diabetes better. [applause] as someone with diabetes, i know how important the affordable care act is in the lives of people with diabetes and their families. we know what used to happen. we had a pre-existing condition exclusions. we know how important it is. if we do not intervene, we see

eye surgeries. we see dialysis of people around the countries. it is needless and preventable. the affordable care access mechanisms to prevent diabetes and surgery's. we share the celebration of the act. it tears them walls that lets people without the ability to prevent the is ones. pre-existing conditions is bipartisan. this was a dark black hole that has now been filled with light for all americans. we became involved in this fight because of people like jesse.

since being diagnosed with diabetes in 2004, she worked hard to control diabetes. her husband lost his job. they ended up without any insurance. she looked for affordable insurance. it was astronomical to cover someone with diabetes. she was repeatedly turned down. they have been forced to cut back on the insulin. the two young men were deadness when they were eight. this bill makes it imperative that they will no longer have to cut back on their insulin to survive.

let's be honest. we talk about complications. it is not a fair word for what blindness, dialysis, and and --ptations amputations it helps prevent. these words echoed in his head as he struggled to pay for his medications. during the recession, he lost his job. he lost the health insurance. the health-care cost tripled, costing unspeakable financial difficulty. before health reform, we had a system that would pay for amputations but not the tools to

prevent them. if you had diabetes, you were just one job lost away from losing all of your insurance. if you have small and children who have the chronic disease, they would be dropped. that was the roles of the game then. we were on the outside looking in as opposed to now. we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the affordable care act. we know when it is implemented, it will tear down the defense -- the fences for those with heart disease and diabetes. ryan was diagnosed two years ago. he was a teenager. he had coverage from his father's job. less than a year, he age out and got too old to be on his parents coverage. work is ahead of us. he was in a black hole.

he could not do anything. in august of last year when this bill became law, his coverage was reinstituted. his family is protected in ways they never were before. there is still much work ahead of us in this job. defending these games is going to be challenging periods millionths -- is challenging. we are making sure these walls are rubble. the real news that this legislation helped american families and taxpayers. no more limitations and a cherry picking. no more limits on people's lifetime insurance. the needless billions of dollars that would be spent can be avoided and prevented.

these are real. we will not allow them. thank you. >> thank you very much. i am a member of congress that represents the 25th district in south florida. the affordable care act has been incredibly beneficial in our fight to and cancer. i was diagnosed with breast cancer just over three years ago. i successfully underwent a double mastectomy and reduce the chance of it reoccurring. in one day, i went from being the picture of help to being a person who is living with a pre- existing condition. i would be labeled with it for the rest of my life despite the fact it took every step to make

sure they are never be an incurrent. i would find it almost impossible to maintain health insurance. i found the lump in my press early. i could afford the surgery is needed to ensure my recovery. far too many women are not as fortunate. i had so many women confess that they had a at not had a mammogram in years because they cannot, for the co-payments or they fear the prohibitive cost of treatment. even more troubling are the women he came up to me in airports in grocery stores and sterile in a whisper, and i found a lump in my breast but i cannot go to the doctor because i do not have their insurance. it hit me from keeping coverage in the future. i cannot even imagine that after being hit with the ample but i was hit with. this is crushing for me.

when breast cancer is found in the early stages, the survival rate is 98%. it is only 20% in late stage. and >> of a woman's ability to fight breast cancer. women are dying. be affordable care act changed all that. a cancer diagnosis will no longer be a sentence that a woman is uninsurable. women will have the courage to go to a doctor for regular exams including mammograms at age 40. this includes many seniors appeared be affordable care act eliminate out of pocket costs and preventative services for them such as mammograms. legislation that i sponsored establishes education federal republic and health-care professionals.

the act will save the lives of countless american women. we cannot allow bureaucrats to bring us back word. we must stand together against cancer. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for celebrating this one-year anniversary. this legislation which is now the law of the lens signaled any commitment to making healthcare available and successful. the goal was to ensure that all people have access to quality affordable health care and long- term services and support that meet their individual needs.

they were asked indignantly as possible. they strongly supported this legislation. specific provisions includes a reform and long-term services including the act and affordability prohibitions. this as the percent of affordable health care for those who have a difficulty obtaining and retaining coverage. a new phase of work began. it is now unbonneted businesses, state legislators, and helping human service agencies all over the country to provide support and guidance as policies are put in place. success is apparent.

taking cover an adult child with a disability until they are 26. a child cannot be refused coverage because of a pre- existing condition. black time limit on al-azhar coverage -- lifetime limits on the covers is eliminated. begin work and play in their communities. this is a key way to making this possible. we look for to making this possible. [applause] >> thank you so much for your beautiful testimony as to why this is important because of what it means in the lives of people and family. thank you for my colleagues for sharing their stories.

from their personal experience and from your personal experience in professional dedication, we are making american help the. it is pretty exciting. this is about our founders giving us the pursuit of happiness. there are questions on the subject of this.

>> they create 3 million jobs. >> [inaudible] did you see this? but i do not know the reference to arm making. this is the biggest growth in jobs. we are talking about this being a catalyst. there are health care providers of every level. in a continuing revolution that is being put forward, there are

fundings. this is not a healthy thing for our country. that has answers. they are one accident away from meeting the last researchers that can hear it. it is in a special way. to cut back on that research is wrong. we also passed, at the children's health insurance program to accelerate that help for our attention. we also had advancements in biomedical research. it brings help get closer to home of of art.

-- suppose this was the case. suppose every person was perfectly satisfied with their

health care and insurance. we would still have to do this legislation. we are on an unsustainable course of costs to businesses, individuals, and to the economy in terms of competitiveness internationally. it is costs to the national budget. personally and economically, we cannot sustain the course we were on. the other piece of this comprehensive bill is the ability to reducing costs and building clarity. this is why when we talk about the bill of rights, they are rooted in some of the provision that you talk about.

he cannot separate them. -- you cannot separate them. >> i feel pretty confident about the legislation. >> >[inaudible] >> thank you for your question. that has been made in the continuous resolution. the majority have voted on the first day they were here to give themselves at the to the federal insurance program.

they voted this benefit for themselves. two weeks later, they voted to repeal it for everyone else. if you want access to health care, run for congress. everyone can do that. they are trying to take little pieces away. it doesn't affect them. real help and share -- and their health insurance is intact. the american people will have to know what it means when you talk about diminishing the funding. there are also attempts at national institutes of health and other initiatives that will be harmful.

many of the discoveries that we have from biomedical research is advance because of improvements. we are existing beyond our life sciences. we are improving our capability to see a path. it is all connected. it all create jobs. it makes as healthier at the same time. in the case you referred to, they are there for education.

we have to talk about the value of a healthy american. there is the value of creating jobs. it is really more about value. it is not just about dollars. >> cancer and diabetes patients a lot bailout -- will not allow them to be rolled back. the protections that are built into the act are so important. it is that important to people with heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

>> the vice president's recedes this a week ago -- received this a week ago. she wished there is a little more finality there. they will not close down government. we have good communications.

it came to see is the day before. the senate would go forward. now it is back to the drawing board. we should not be sitting there. it is a false economy. it'll cost us millions with the changes they want to make. it will create jobs and keep the economy going in a forward direction. all the economists had said that what they are trying to do it is a resolution to take this in the

wrong direction. the economic growth would beat diminish depending on who you talk to. >> they pass the bill. it would have to go forward. it recommended to not getting down government, perhaps we had this to do that. it cannot take a u-turn.

it'll take our country in a forward direction. this is really what the debate is. i do not think the american people want is to go down that path. >> thank you all. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> i would like to thank everybody and you help get it passed. it means a lot about health care reform. people with pre-existing conditions and have a sigh of

relief. thank you.

>> peter keane had the first series of hearings examining the radicalization of american muslims. more than 50 democrat sent this

saying it would jeopardize the trust between muslims and law enforcement. you can see the hearing tonight at 10:00 eastern. >> the houses in tomorrow at 9:00 eastern. before that, kevin talks about his role in the republican committee budget. then weather and not the u.s. should pick u.s. foreign aid during this economic downturn. it is like tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. tomorrow, president obama holding is fresh -- holds a news pressure at the white house. we will have his comments live at 11:15 a.m. eastern. earlier today, president obama

said that bullying is not a problem that makes headlines every day. it touches the lives of young people all over the country. they posted a conference at the white house, in fighting parents and teachers. this is a few minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and mrs. -- >> good morning. the morning. welcome to the white house. i want to thank all of you for joining us here today to discuss an issue of great concern to me not just as president and first lady but as a mom and a dad. that is the problem of bullying

in our schools and our community. as parents, this issue really hits home for us. as parents, it breaks our hearts to think that any child feels afraid every day. it breaks our hearts to think about any parent losing a child to bullying are wondering if there can still be safe when they leave for school. we also know that sometimes are a lot of the times, it is hard for parents to know what is going on in our kids' lives. they do not always tell us every detail. >> what happened at school today?

nothing. the mayor kicking you out of that school. we know we need to make a real effort to be engaged. need to listen to them and be there for them. we need to get involved in their schools and activities so we we know that they are up to. when something is wrong, we need to speak up. we need to take action. that is what we did -- what jackie did. if she is from oklahoma. she is here today. when her child was bullied, she got together with other parents and plan meetings. they held meetings for the public to raise awareness about bullying. they have been meeting with the school boards and superintendents to discuss steps they can take to keep their kids safe.

parents and not the only ones that have a responsibility. we all need to play a role. that is not just mean working to change our kids' behavior. it means thinking about our own behavior as adults as well. we all know that when we, as adults, treat others with compassion and respect, when we take the time to listen and give each other the benefit of the doubt in our own adult lives, that sets an example for our children. it sends a message to our kids about how they treat others. so we all have a lot of work to do in this country on this issue. and i hope that all of you, and everyone who is watching online, will walk away from this day, from this conference, with

new ideas and solutions that you can all take back to your own schools and your own communities. and i hope that all of us will step up and do our part to keep our kids safe, and to give them everything they need to learn and grow and fulfill their dreams. so with that, it is my pleasure to introduce this guy here my husband and our president, president barack obama. >> thank you. thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you, everybody. thank you. well, welcome to the white house. i want to thank michelle for her introduction, and for marrying me and for putting up with me.

i want to reiterate what michelle said. preventing bullying isn't just important to us as president and first lady, it's important for us as parents -- something we care deeply about. we're joined here by several members of congress who've shown real leadership in taking up this cause. we've got a number of members of my administration with us today who are going to help us head up the efforts that come out of the white house on this issue. and i want to point out judge katherine o'malley, the first lady of maryland. she is right here -- katherine. thank you for being here. thank you all for being here. you have a chance to make an enormous difference, and you already have.

bullying isn't a problem that makes headlines every day. but every day it touches the lives of young people all across this country. i want to thank all of you for participating in this conference. but more importantly, i want to thank you for being part of what's a growing movement -- led by young people themselves -- to put a stop to bullying, whether it takes place in school or it's taking place online. and that's why we're here today. if there's one goal of this conference, it's to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. it's not. bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. and it's not something we have to accept. as parents and students, as teachers and members of the community, we can take steps -- all of us -- to help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe, a

climate in which they all can feel like they belong. as adults, we all remember what it was like to see kids picked on in the hallways or in the schoolyard. and i have to say, with big ears and the name that i have, i wasn't immune. i didn't emerge unscathed. but because it's something that happens a lot, and it's something that's always been around, sometimes we've turned a blind eye to the problem. we've said, "kids will be kids"" and so sometimes we overlook the real damage that bullying can do, especially when young people face harassment day after day, week after week. so consider these statistics. a third of middle school and high school students have reported being bullied during the school year. almost 3 million students have said they were pushed, shoved, tripped, even spit on. it's also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different, whether it's because of the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the disability they may have, or sexual orientation. and bullying has been shown to

lead to absences and poor performance in the classroom. and that alone should give us pause, since no child should be afraid to go to school in this country. today, bullying doesn't even end at the school bell -- it can follow our children from the hallways to their cell phones to their computer screens. and in recent months, a series of tragedies has drawn attention to just how devastating bullying can be. we have just been heartbroken by the stories of young people who endured harassment and ridicule day after day at school, and who ultimately took their own lives. these were kids brimming with promise -- kids like ty field, kids like carl walker-hoover -- who should have felt nothing but excitement for the future. instead, they felt like they had nowhere to turn, as if they had no escape from taunting and bullying that made school something they feared.

i want to recognize ty's mom and dad who are here today, carl's mother and sister who are here today. they've shown incredible courage as advocates against bullying in memory of the sons and the brother that they've lost. and so we're so proud of them and we're grateful to them for being here today. no family should have to go through what these families have gone through. no child should feel that alone. we've got to make sure our young people know that if they're in trouble, there are caring adults who can help and young adults that can help, that even if they're having a tough time,

they're going to get through it, and there's a whole world full of possibility waiting for them. we also have to make sure we're doing everything we can so that no child is in that position in the first place. and this is a responsibility we all share -- a responsibility we have to teach all children the golden rule: we should treat others the way we want to be treated. the good news is, people are stepping up and accepting responsibility. they're refusing to turn a blind eye to this problem. the pta is launching a new campaign to get resources and information into the hands of parents. mtv is leading a new coalition to fight bullying online, and they're launching a series of ads to talk about the damage that's done when kids are bullied for the color of their skin or their religion or being gay or just being who they are. others are leading their own efforts here today. and across the country, parents and students and teachers at the local level are taking action as well. they're fighting not only to change rules and policies, but also to create a stronger sense of community and respect in

their schools. joining this conference today is a young man i just had a chance to meet, brandon greene from rhode island. brandon is 14 years old. back in 6th grade, when he was just a kid, he did a class project on bullying. now, two years later, it's a school-wide organization with 80 members. they do monthly surveys in their school to track bullying rates. and what they realized is that stopping bullying isn't just about preventing bad behavior -- it's also about working together and creating a positive atmosphere. so brandon and his fellow committee members are now also doing activities like coat drives and community service at their school. and it's making a real difference. so we're very proud of brandon and the great work he's doing. [applause] there are stories like this all across the country, where young people and their schools have refused to accept the status

quo. and i want you all to know that you have a partner in the white house. as the former head of chicago's public schools, nobody understands this issue better than my education secretary, arne duncan. he's going to be working on it, along with our health secretary, kathleen sebelius. arne is going to head up our administration's efforts, which began last year with a first- of-its-kind summit on bullying. and we're also launching a new resource called stopbullying. gov, which has more information for parents and for teachers. and as part of our education reform efforts, we're encouraging schools to ask students themselves about school safety and how we can address bullying and other related problems -- because, as every parent knows, sometimes the best way to find out what's happening with our kids is to ask, even if you have to -- if it's in the case of sasha, you have to keep on asking. now, as adults, we can lose sight of how hard it can be sometimes to be a kid.

and it's easy for us to forget what it was like to be teased or bullied. but it's also easy to forget the natural compassion and the sense of decency that our children display each and every day -- when they're given a chance. a couple other young people that i just had a chance to meet -- sarah and emily buder, who are here from california. they're right here next to the first lady. and sarah and emily, they read a story about a girl named olivia in a nearby town -- this is a girl they didn't know -- who had faced a lot of cruel taunting in school and online because she had had an epileptic seizure in class. so they decided to write olivia a letter, and asked their friends to do the same. they figured they'd send olivia about 50 letters. but in the months that followed, thousands and thousands of letters poured in from every corner of the country -- it really tapped into something. a lot of the letters were from young people, and they wanted to wish olivia well, and let her know that somebody out there was talking -- was thinking about her, and let her know that she wasn't alone.

and because those children treated olivia with that small measure of kindness, it helped olivia see that there was light at the end of the tunnel. the fact is, sometimes kids are going to make mistakes, sometimes they're going to make bad decisions. that's part of growing up. but it's our job to be there for them, to guide them, and to ensure that they can grow up in an environment that not only encourages their talents and intelligence, but also their sense of empathy and their regard for one another. and that's what ultimately this conference is all about. and that's why all the issues that we're talking about really matter. and that's how we're going to prevent bullying and create an environment where every single one of our children can thrive. so thank you for the good work that you're already doing, and i'm sure you're going to come up with some terrific ideas during the course of this conference. thank you very much. [applause]

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