tools or lack of tools then the only conclusion is price controls and i think economic evidence throughout history shows what happens there. so i think we have got work to do. so really analyze this. any plan, but ours aside for a moment, any plan to address the crisis must address health care programs and help inflation and measuring any of these plants against what is a fiscal fantasy and unsustainable trajectory is not an accurate measurement of comparison because it's comparing some plan against the future we now know can't continue. and so, i think we just all have to do more work to try to figure out how to really truly address these issues. >> i want to get into the budget only to say we got your analysis

of the president's budget i won't go back into that, but the president gave a speech april 13th where he outlined a new budget framework that claims for trillion deficit reduction over 12 years, have you estimated the budget impact of this framework? >> no mr. chairman. we don't estimate speeches. we need more specificity than was provided in the speech through the analysis. >> ms. schwartz? >> let me take a different approach on medicare. one is we are concerned about the long-term fiscal health of medicare. it's one of the reasons we passed a law last year to use basically every idea that exists for containing costs and

ensuring quality and access for seniors. you've looked at some of those and acknowledge they do good to quantify all the cost savings that exist and acknowledge the cost savings and i think both you and the medicare trustees talked about at a minimum it is going to save money over the long run in the affordable care act and it does extend the fiscal health of the trust fund for a number of years, and that is i could do better than that, much of the work that's being done and the payment of a free system reform to reduce the duplication and waste as well as coordinate care and improve the efficiencies in the health care system. so it's not just about the future service reimbursement. it's changing the way we do this so the debate doesn't become house simply how much do we reimburse doctors particularly

relative to the private sector. so yes or no that's true. estimate there were important changes made in the structure of the medicare payment to providers, the whole collections in last year's legislation. some people were frustrated at the hour analysis of got into the gerrans frustration this year's proposal by him we don't have the tools perhaps to capture the full effect of certain changes and we are working in that area as well to build a stronger toolkit to provide you with better information. >> i do appreciate some of the regulations cbo has been able to respond saying this is what we believe. that it's a ceo can save where there's so many other actions we are taking and the proponents of hospitals that actually has cost savings you've been able to in allies. >> we certainly have estimated some savings for some of the more unusual experiences. we are struggling ourselves with

developing tools that could enable us to provide better analysis. islamic i want to make it very clear of course what we did in the for care act was to sit out a path and this is the path. it's not going to happen in ten minutes. it's a path to be on to get better value for our dollars and assured access to the highest quality care for seniors and the idea to focus on the other piece of what we are talking about in medicare in particular republican proposals for the premium support the voucher. it's the same thing. it's a support for cooperative support for -- >> would you like to yield a minute? i'm happy to go into this if you want to be this and i completely understand how you equate to the federal employees and -- >> there's a difference between supporting vouchers and the cbo very clearly.

>> one of the things that seems clear and i want you to clarify this is if we are going to give seniors a certain amount of money for them to be able to go and buy private insurance in the marketplace as the costs rise who pays for the cost, the additional cost? you've been very clear about this but initially over time if you could answer that question. >> the contribution which the government contributions are set as under chairman ryan's proposal then one of your extra amount private citizens need to pay to obtain the services they would pay themselves. >> have you estimated how much that would be for the average senior? >> the typical 65 year old body new standardized health insurance benefits, and we

estimated that in 2020 to for example, under dhaka baseline scenario seniors would pay 27% of the cost of the standardized benefit under the proposal seniors would pay 61% of the cost of that benefit. >> can you give a number with this? >> i don't -- >> about $6,000 is what the average senior 55-year-old to would expect to pay and it could go up as much as 12,000 over time. >> i don't have a dollar figure and i'm told by my colleagues we don't provide a dollar figure so the percentages to the other estimates of the cost. >> and that's probably where it came from the point i'm making here of course is the republican proposal has been voted on and supported by every republican in the house does shift the burden of additional cost to the

individual seniors. >> by our estimate a good deal of burden and also ships risk regarding the ultimate cost. >> right. so the notion seniors would be able to get the same benefit to pending the of an extra 6,000 or 12,000 to pay for them or whatever it might be. all understand they see this as choice we see this as if you can't afford it it's not much as a choice. islamic to buy that package of benefits depends on the resources they have available on the estimates being correct about those costs. >> i think you made this threat as well if we are all concerned and you have the style of health we come to in the rising growth and cost can be shared by programs and private insurers and how to actually get better value to contain the rising

cost. in my district nationally families have seen a 100% increase over the decade its double duty for the health premium between paray and proposal the republican vote on proposals the cost containment built in except for the individual senior not being able to afford to buy the insurance but there isn't anything that's actually moved the system to improve quality and reduce cost over time. is that correct? the cost containment peace in the private-sector to do it through what people can afford to buy. >> to observations. first, interest and the chairman's proposal, traditional medicare would continue along the lines in the current law and because people move into the new

system as they turn 65 under this proposal, a good deal of patience and medicare and even larger share of the spending in medicare remain in the traditional medicare system. islamic 55-year-olds would be different and not traditional medicare anymore after a certain point. >> by 2030 evin, more than half of the medicare beneficiaries are still receiving traditional medicare, 45% are receiving the support so it's a gradual transition and the program as understand the proposal the programs in place in traditional medicare would maintain. the second of cervezas the proposal rather than deducting specific experiments on the changes as was done in the last legislation would rely on the price pressure affecting the competing private insurers. >> but does that mean then all

the cost containment provisions that are built into the law we have now if it should be repealed would then go by the wayside and wouldn't see the cost containment. there's a lot of work in the health care system and i apologize this isn't the expertise as you said you haven't driven down this is a lot of important good work being done across the country that is actually getting better value for the dollar to scale that up to more seniors. >> i don't mean to be little this by using the word experiment. what i'm trying to signal is that the successful experiments getting greater value and there's been a number of them have tended to be fairly localized and the question of how they can best be extended across the country is something both medicare and private insurers are wrestling with. with medicare and private insurers in different ways of paying providers and so on. i don't mean to be little that but there will be a certain a lot of trial and error for private and public insurance

whenever the system is, we need our health care system to become more efficient and i think the crucial policy question is public or private system applies more of the use all kinds of pressure and avoid its more of the detrimental pressure you would judge that. >> my time is up but this is a conversation we have tried to advance we will contain the growth in the that the care because we are serious about that as well that this needs to be done in order to sustain medicare as we hope to but turning over to private sector is it could contain costs for businesses or for families or seniors for sure that that actually is a model we can't rely on the fact the federal government pays 46% of the cost of health care in this country we could and should be in our view a force for improving

quality and insuring access. that's one of the big debates we are having. >> i want to help answer the questions you asked the director to show what is our thinking and why we propose what we proposed because you are right. we've got to do this out. medicare is the biggest driver and the affordable care act does attempt to do that. we disagree with the way it attempts to do that. there's no cost containment there's two ways of doing this. you put the patient in charge or put the bureaucracy in charge? we think a patient centered system is a better way to go. now, when you put the bureaucracy in charge let's look where we're headed. accountable care organizations. the idea is very good but look what is happening. nobody's going to purchase it in this rule so let's have a system that's decentralized and not a

government centralized, not to go with price control because price control might make the numbers add up on paper but it wouldn't deny access to people. and so, what we have found is that we continue to underpay providers where they are telling us providers are going to get about 66 on the dollar for medicare now going down to 33 cents on the dollar. we can't assume they are going to keep taking medicare. so i or we don't think that that is the proper approach. more to the point we don't think an elected unaccountable bureaucrats, technocrats no matter how smart they are can figure out how to micromanage our economy. we believe that providers competing against each other, insurance company, hospital, physicians competing against each other for our business has uncovered consumers is a better way to go and we have a lot of evidence that shows that to the point his analysis does not include, it does not include the

fact we've proposed a risk adjustment subsidy as a person gets sick in medicare we want them to have a high year subsidy. it also does not include the fact that we propose to add an additional $7,800 to begin with which keeps growing every year to low-income seniors to subsidize and cover their out-of-pocket cost. there's only so much money to go around, and our point is we shouldn't subsidize wealthy people was much as a free but deals. and we should subsidize low-income people more than everybody else. that is the way we think tax payer dollars ought to be deployed and we want the patient to be the nucleus in the health care system and everywhere else instead of some border 15 technocrats' giving a thumbs-up or thumbs down on whether this will work or not or who gets

paid what, where and how much really don't think there will work because we have lots of evidence already. with that i yield. estimate your correct saying the numbers i quoted and featured in the report did not include the effect of the additional in the letter. we're part of the cost for a typical 65 year old and include their model. estimate the illustration does not suggest a person will get higher income. >> it's an average so it doesn't take into consideration the fact person who has high your mortalities, high-risk get a higher subsidy >> to cover the higher cost and get health insurance coverage >> i could take more time on that. you're introductory comment i thought was pretty well set it all and that is the budget

outlook is daunting. i agreed to. it's unfortunate we been left in the situation the last years of congress controlled by the oversight that racked up $6 trillion in debt. i want to talk about three things. in 2.1 of the material you handed out today you have some gdp growth charts. can you tell me quickly what the revenue assumption were come excuse become the gdp growth assumptions were in the extended baseline scenario and the alternative fiscal scenario. congressman, we set for the underlying path of the benchmark two years for most budget projections and economic future and as you see -- >> just give me some numbers quick. >> under the alternative fiscal scenario, gmp would be seven to 18% lower in 2035 the with the under our benchmark that assumes a steady debt to gdp ratio.

>> not debt to gdp but would you look at in terms of real gdp growth for long-term? >> the real gdp growth we have had is 2.2% on average per year 2225 and that's lower than our historical long term isn't it? >> it is never particularly because the labour force related to the population aging. >> you talk about the fact that taxes would rise to 23% of gdp under the extended baseline is that correct? >> what eli models taxpayer behavior in a situation like this? in other words, do you go to maryland and virginia ortiz? >> i live in maryland. >> maryland doubled its tax rates tomorrow would you move? >> my kids finished their sophomore year i would move on peril of my life. >> he would be looking at it

right? >> it does incorporate the effect of the changes in marginal tax rates that's an important area we have an hensarling analysis in the past few years as was the difference in debt are included in the gdp. >> that factors into the work gdp growth. so there's an impact on revenue by raising the rates because you put a brake on the economy as you move forward. >> on the extended baseline scenario for the alternative scenario where there is more or less steady and rising debt. >> to the extent that you have assumed tax revenues as a percentage of gdp are high year than 18.3% long-term average it has a dampening impact on the economic growth. correct? >> the one we emphasizes the marginal tax rate that really matter for economic growth not just the level of revenue but how that money is raised for the modeling captors the effect of the marginal tax rate the

disincentive to the workers did. >> right. good. okay, the next question has to do with provider behavior. again, everything that happens in the economy is because an individual or company believes in a certain way based on the conditions thrown by its government or by some of their factory. when you look at provider behavior if we were to cut the pay of everybody in ceo by two-thirds with the impact of your people wanting to receive or move to your position? >> i'm afraid it would come congressman. >> essentially what the chain saw that was applied to the provider reimbursement under the obamacare to will does impact provider behavior, and you're modeling doesn't assume any change in behavior, right? >> that's right.

we don't capture, again, if you were trying to in part, our modeling does not capture any sophisticated way the possible ramifications of that >> looking not theoretically but likely realistic outcome with the reimbursement rates are to providers by two-thirds, we are going to have a lot to the providers less health care. >> that's a possibility but i don't think it's -- i don't think it is a guarantee. a lot of experts on health care system say there's an awful lot of inefficiencies the way things are currently being managed and that by changing the organization of the health care system a lot of deficiencies can be achieved and providers can continue to cover their lure more efficient levels of cost with lubber payments. estimate you said it wouldn't work of the cbo and would cut your pay by two-thirds. >> the issue was with the possibilities are for improving the efficiency of the system and we set ourselves and our

analysis of the legislation last year that how long the cuts could be sustained for was arm surgeon and we provided an alternative scenario in which the cuts are not sustained free long period but i don't think that it's obvious the cuts can happen for some period of time. we don't know how far they can go partly because we don't know what the possibilities really are for improving efficiency in the health care system not just as a theoretical matter but practically speaking what kind efficiencies can be achieved in particular places across the system as a whole. >> couldn't cbo operate with two-thirds of your people? the efficiencies to provide the same product to do today? >> we could not to read >> i suggest the same is true for the health care system. that is an important part of the economy. i yield back. >> thank you very much. >> i think one word around which this congress is focused so far this year is kutz, the immediate

far-reaching cuts. the education committee has met and voted to eliminate dozens of education programs. another republican group has said that pell grants, which allow folks to go to college or just another form of welfare and we cannot sustain the level of financial assistance we have. boats have been taken to eliminate federal support for community policing and firefighters and of course it is seldom a week goes by there isn't a proposal to cut health care. putting aside for a moment before reaching consequences of denying educational opportunities and health care and adequate law enforcement, i want to direct your attention to the comment of the chair of the federal reserve yesterday dr. bernanke who said in light of the weakness of the recovery it would be best not to have sudden and sharp fiscal consolidation in the near-term.

i don't think the sharp immediate cuts in the deficit would create more jobs. do you agree? >> yes i do, and we set the same thing ourselves on a number of occasions. >> i thought that was the case. while we want more agency and to address the long-term costs, if these cuts are dramatic of the not only will deny educational opportunity and health care security, but the cause us to lose more jobs and have less economic growth >> the specifics would depend on the specific policies to read our analysis complies the cuts in spending more in taxes during the next few years would buy themselves reduce output and employment that would otherwise have been at the same time credible reductions in the future deficits would boost output in the next few years because they would hold on interest rates and probably increase business and household. >> i certainly agree with you on

both points on the long term i guess the only problem is the specifics so let me go to one of the specifics, and i want to try to quote but exactly what you said to ms. schwartz on believe plans similar to what chairman rye in advance with medicare will come up with, shift a good deal of burden and risk to seniors. now it's great to talk in theory about putting the patient in charge. we've had the patient in charge with regard to seniors on medicare in the past with prescriptions to pete and i guess we can put the charge again and that may reduce consumption of health care because there will be some seniors who will say i would rather eat and go see the doctor or by another prescription. i'm going to keep cutting michaels and half. that is the patient nucleus. while you may reduce some consumption that way in medicare, what i hear you saying is that we have an overall

problem about rising health care costs that affect a different amount at different times with federal employees plan, medicare, medicaid, the veterans administration and private-sector and that if all we do is shift more of the burden, good deal of the burden and the risk to seniors and we haven't found a way better it is through experiments or something else to address the problem of rising health care cost we may have relieved some of the burden on our debt and our taxpayers but we have not relieve the burden and we have increased it on some of the most vulnerable people in our society it time that they are trying to achieve a decent level of retirement security. would you agree with that? >> certainly that if the congress chooses to shift the burden to some or all

demographic group then that is addressing the government a budget constraint by tightening other people, but i would emphasize almost any way i can think of to address the government budget constraint involves tightening somebody's budget constraint that as i say we are collecting, used to collecting certain amount of revenue relative to gdp which has varied over time but it hasn't shown a trend around the 18% market we have government programs that provide certain benefits to older americans from social security, medicare and medicaid and other tasks in the government, national defense, homeland security, veterans' care and on and on, that have occupied a certain share of gdp. we cannot have all those things being together in the future. we cannot repeat the past and the federal government because of the aging of the population and rising health care cost.

>> certainly we cannot but we can avoid shifting a good deal of the burden and risk to seniors without addressing the broad issue of health care cost. thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for joining us today. clich question, how many years have you been director? >> almost two and a half years. >> director, we had discussions today on the house republican plan and by a freshman. how long has it been since you have analyzed the congressional democratic budget? >> i don't want to sound too technical but we don't analyze budget resolutions. they come from the budget committees. in fact we're trying to the kitchen and ryan proposal we analyze the impact of the proposal and the long term impact of other proposals it has had three we don't do an estimate of the resolution. it's not a law.

>> senate democrats' proposal budget committee, when was the last one you analyze that came out of their committee? >> i think, congressman, the last budget resolution voted on by the senate budget committee was in 2009. >> a little over two years. or do they even have one? >> in 2009 because the reconciliation that came out of that budget resolution turned out to be quite important in the final act of the health legislation. selected that passed the senate? >> i guess i'm not sure, congressmen. >> did they pass the proposal? >> trying to figure that out i heard there has not been for a

couple years and it's pretty amazing to me. what i want to talk about the was a question on the economic assumptions. you talk about 26 through 28, the impact of more borrowing, higher tax rates and the impact on economic growth and it's pretty well agreed that increased spending by issuing more debt is going to impact the economy by increasing taxes will do the same though under most economic assumptions it would seem the only reasonable economy to tackle the deficit is reducing spending now has is that correct? >> there are tradeoffs here. higher marginal tax rate due to reduce economic activity to some extent under the views of most economists. but, certain forms of government spending are important for economic growth and we are using -- reducing those can be damaging. moreover -- >> excuse me, but in your

analysis, pages 26 to 28 talk about increasing taxes will hurt economic growth. >> marginal tax rates, yes. >> it's been suggested by the president. additionally by borrowing more debt and has a similar impact on the economy. explain to me that lie reducing spending is not the only alternative to read >> again, congressman, for a dollar reduction in the deficit if one kutz some form of spending that was not in an investment in economic growth, there would be better for the economy than if one raised about her through increase in marginal tax rates. stomaches medicare spending and economic gross revenue? >> i don't think it's an important driver in the long term. >> what about social security? >> i don't think it's an important drivers -- >> what about the department of defense budget?

>> again, there are some pieces of it that have mattered. >> three-fourths of the budget is economic growth as i anderson and? you eliminate two-thirds of it so the remaining third is economic growth? >> there are pieces of federal spending that have been important in economic growth. i don't have an exhaustive list of that and we are not good at modeling those effects. >> but you do make a statement and you identified in the report and are the appreciate you could identify the following program that you believe the right economic growth. mr. bernanke refuses to identify those and face the possibility that we have a debt crisis and that if we don't face that very soon and quickly and suggest that we can't cut spending that somehow we can borrow and tax and that's going to work out, obviously your report doesn't say that so if you could provide that determination if you would

of the type spending you believe cbo believes would help drive economic growth because we are working with that now, and i would appreciate that distinction. >> i would be happy to work with your stuff, congressman. >> thank you. i yield back my time. >> nice to see you again. earlier he mentioned in passing $6 trillion worth of additional debt over the last four years attributed to the congressional the activity. have you done an analysis of the factors that contribute to that additional $6 trillion in debt? how much would have been attributable to the converse actions and how much the policies already in place? >> we've done an analysis sometimes of the swing in the budget deficit from what cbo is projecting about a decade ago to

what has come to pass, and it turns out i think i have the table with me. i often don't remember to bring it but i have it with me. and as you know, congressman, there's been a collection of actions taken over the last decade that significantly worsen the current budget picture. there's also been a collection of default and an economy that were not predicted by cbo that have also led to the worsening of the budget situation. >> would you say a majority of the additional accumulated debt over the last four years was because of congressional like to the war because of existing policies? bush tax cuts and the war initiated in the earlier years? >> will the to to the baseline projections in january, 2001, just a little over ten years ago, the deterioration in the budget of come in 2008, 2009,

ten and 11, they are much more to the legislative changes than the economic and technical surprises. and those legislative changes include both reduction and the tax revenue and increases. >> we will leave it there. there's been a fair amount of conversation already about the impact of increase in marginal tax rates. when you make those statements conclusions they were just economic activities, do you assume an increase in marginal tax rates across the entire population, do you break it down as to the impact on economic activity of raising the marginal tax rates on people making over $215,000 then people making over million dollars? and is there a difference in the impact economic impact of those increases? >> so, congressman, we do look at the effects on a variety of income categories.

i don't know what they are off hand, and we try to apply historical evidence what we think the responsiveness would be. and you can see some of this in all this testimony we did for the budget committee last fall that different ways of the tax provisions, some of those scenarios we study we assume all of the expiring provisions were extended to read that did occur in the end of last year and others we looked at extending only the tax provisions of to a certain point and not above that. i don't have the results of hand. >> is it safe to say the general proposition that if you reduced the marginal tax rates on 35% to 39.6% on people making over a million dollars a year that will not have a huge drag on the economy versus extending the marginal tax rates on the other 99% of the population? >> the question of the total went back and the impact per dollar revenue there are more people on the distribution, much

more income earned in the thus changes in the marginal tax rates below that threshold will have a larger aggregate effect on the economy with the per revenue dollar lost, the effects were generally larger at the top of the income distribution because the changes in the marginal tax rates are less revenue is given up in the sense relative to the changing the incentives. so in terms of the distortion of the economy per dollar revenue lost that is not smaller at the top than it is at the bottom but it depends on the precise nature of the tax policy. >> i look for to discussing it further. one last question to the in the republican budget that was passed by the house, there's an assumption as i recall that unemployment drops to .8% by 2015, and that range stays at a

very relative to today's terms and historic terms a very low level. i believe i'm correct on that and if i'm not the chairman was -- >> what kind of assumption do you make in your scenario to what unemployment would be for the next ten years or so? >> because the recovery is slow, we think that it will come down only fully and over the second half of the coming decade be down to about 5.5% of the labor force. >> thank you. >> that is not an assumption of the budget cbo is the measuring we will use. there's an economic forecast group that did its own separate analysis of the budget. the subsequent week revised that analysis to the deal with that particular statistic and they

revise it to think 5% or something like that. next is mr. saltzman. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. elmendorf for being here. my question is in the report you note the federal government could not issue ever larger amounts of debt relative to the size of the economy indefinitely. do you believe current level of debt is harming the the economy? >> the current level of debt is reducing our output, our incomes relative to what would be the case if we have a lower level of debt leaving aside the effect of the particular recession that complicate that but for the longer period high levels of debt are more damaging than the lower levels of debt. >> you think the discussion on the tax increases keeps money on the sideline as well without encouraging economic growth? >> i think that on the certainty about the federal policy is

diminishing household and business spending and that uncertainty covers a whole set of policies i think it covers tax policies, it covers regulatory policy, health policy. i should say the more important source of the uncertainty is households and businesses, uncertainty about their own income and the demand for the product but we think the government policy is playing some role. >> i agree with you and i feel what families are doing is they are doing what they can control and that is cutting their own spending and budgets controlling their budgets. they can't necessarily control the income revenue because the job market is tough. they can't take on more debt because it's tough to borrow and it's not necessarily wise to do so. so on here in this committee that we only want to cut spending. i know you've been in this job about two and a half years or so. when is the last time congress talked about cutting spending

and actually did cut spending in washington? >> as you know, congressman, the appropriations bill was passed spring reduced spending. i don't keep a list of that to be honest. the covers a variety of proposals that include and but have been enacted into law that include a combination of spending cuts and increases, tax cuts, tax increases. i'm not even sure how i would keep such a tally. >> i don't understand why it is they seem like they should be out of the realm of cutting spending, addressing everything whether it's entitlements, whether it is discretionary come on discretionary spending, military. i believe everything should be on the table, and from your analysis in the report is that we need to be very cautious in the debt that we hold is damaging or holding back the economy a thing devotee agrees the higher taxes, just the

discussion holds money on the sideline. so cutting spending should be a part of the discussion. did you score the affordable health care act? >> yes, we did. >> there was a report about a glitch found on the bill that's going to send 3 million, roughly 3 million middle-income americans and medicaid. can you touch on that? >> i don't know whether it was a glitch in the drafting or the intense but in any case our estimate incorporated of the effect of that provision as a was written. >> what do you think that is going to do to the 3 million middle-income americans trying to find confidence in the economy and in washington? if we continue this sort of -- i am not blaming you because the intent obviously was there, for some reason was there, and now we are finding out after the fact and what it's going to do to affect at least 3 million

americans possibly come so why should say we don't have an estimate of the number of people affected. we took the definition of the income eligibility into account and in our estimate, but we don't have any separate account of how many people were affected by that piece of the definition, and in fact that's not an answer the question because it depends what other things would change to it i don't want to endorse the 3 million. that's not from us. we've had in our estimate. it isn't a surprise to us. >> so, this glitch is not a surprise to see below? >> no, it's not to read i don't know if it is a glitch or in tend but we did that piece of legislation and use that language in our estimate. >> that's what it seems to be called and there's backtracking by some folks here that this is a glitch and we didn't recognize what happened here, and you know, that's -- i appreciate your answers because you've been

balanced in approaching this and because if we don't start talking about cuts come and you know, your report obviously gives not so rosy a picture and we have a lot of work to do to control what we can control and that is cutting spending without doing damage to further damage to the economy, but i believe the tax increases, more borrowing is detrimental to our eligibility. would you agree with that? >> i believe more borrowing is detrimental to our long term outlook and that high your marginal tax rates are also detrimental to the of look and that is why we try to capture both of those where they are relevant in our economic analysis. >> thank you very much >> thank you for joining us to to the conductor on understand clearly these are days or the

expertise is tremendously needed so welcome. if i could just returned briefly to the line of questioning, is it reasonable to assume education spending and economic growth and what about our investment or spending basic infrastructure, the roads, bridges, the connections we need, the infrastructure to move people and goods around the country. >> we this done and i was of infrastructure investment, and obviously there are some aspects of that investment has been more beneficial to the economy and some that have probably not been beneficial not all. but on balance, sensible investment in public infrastructure, investment to pass some sort of benefit cost test enhance economic growth. stomach asked another way is

there is any reason to believe we might see an economic dip if we don't do the investments in education and infrastructure? >> i think the term did and why is a cut in spending more increases in taxing and a short one with as i said before perhaps cause that sort of dip, but usually conversations but education or infrastructure are more of the longer-term and i think reduction in education that occurs in the country, reduction is not infrastructure that we build would be detrimental to the long term economic growth. >> and what about our unemployment, which i have read has a return in economic activity between $1.60 to $1.70 and every dollar spent in our unemployment insurance? >> so we think that in the short run come in the situation of our

economy now, which is a lot of unemployed workers and underutilized factories and equipment, that putting money into the spending stream through benefit payments and reductions in taxes encourages more spending and that leads to more output and unemployment. and in our estimates, the effect of putting money in unemployment insurance is especially powerful because people that receive it tend to spend a large share of it and they are people who have lost their jobs and in many cases they don't have other sources of income. >> it seems as though the economic activity we need to inspire what at least help those in that unfortunate realm. can we bring up the charts that we have on the long term debt? there we go. this chart is from figure 1i believe, and in this you

present, dr. elmendorf, to projections where the debt is headed in the next 35 years. under both scenarios that continues to grow relative to the size of the economy but there's a tremendous difference between the two. where do we in the that the chart and 2035 under each scenario in this chart? >> the extended baseline scenario which largely follows the current law we end up with debt at 84% of gdp. and under the alternative fiscal scenario which more closely corresponds to the current policy settings we end up with debt at 187% of gdp in 2035. >> thank you. can you briefly summarize the key policy choices that differentiate the two scenarios? >> the biggest differences on the revenue side under the current law because of the expiring tax provisions, the provisions of last year's of legislation, just the natural when collection of the tax code

economic growth revenues rise quite a bit relative to gdp. under the alternative fiscal scenario we hold revenue we assume these expiring provisions are instead an extended and keep revenues down closer to their historical average share of gdp. 72035 revenue under the extended baseline scenario or 23% of gdp. and the alternative scenario or about 18.5% of gdp. the differences on the spending side and both of the health programs and then on health on social security part of the budget and the programs for principally assuming under the alternative scenario some of the cost control features of the last year's legislation don't continue over the entire quarter-century that we are showing here. and on the other mom health care and on social security spending we are assuming still a very substantial decline relative to the historical experience but not quite as sparked an endpoint

as under the extended the baseline scenario. >> to summarize, one scenario sticks to the current law and puts the debt of about 80% of gdp in 20 or so years. the other scenario puts it at 180% of gdp by among other things extending tax cuts for the wealthy and refusing to implement the affordable care act. that sounds to me to be an awful lot like the republican agenda this year. my concern is that we are wasting month after month on the pawlenty to policies by the majority and digging us into a deeper hole regardless of how you feel about that strategy going forward, i think we need to do far better than to create a larger -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. and get back in writing if you would do so. ..

larger portions of americans are on food stamps that i've been on food stamps historically. only involved in a cost-containment because the price of food -- food place cost peanut programs going on? >> not that i'm familiar with. the principal reason why the cost of food stamps or so i because the economy is weak in many people are out of jobs.

>> if they are no good cost containment, we hear talk about efficiencies in the marketplace. are there any industry sectors you can point me to where the government has a driver in creating efficiencies for the private sector wasn't succeeding only really got a great initiative program run by the government? >> congressman, a feature and you table 31 underreport corporate excess conscripts in spending for health care and if one looks at the table, one can see it. where in fact federal spending on health care and medicare and medicaid has increased more slowly than private health care spending. there are other periods where the opposite is true. i said in response to an earlier question that just looking within the health care system, the verdict on whether the private or public sector is better at controlling costs is not self-evident.

>> with the gentleman yield on that plane? i'm looking at table 31. for the fourth time periods you have measured from other private health plans have lower conscripts and medicare. there's one of the four appears or medicare is little or and the dirt. although there is lower in cost growth in medicaid. >> so these are -- >> i misreading that chart? >> these are overlapping. i would emphasize. so when the 1985, 2007. come in the last 23 years -- 22 years, medicare and medicaid spending growth was below spending growth in the private sector. as i emphasized earlier i don't want to pick -- >> in 1990 with 1.6 medicare

1.5%. >> history. over the last 17 years, medicare has been slightly above all other. medicated and below that. so what i'm suggesting instrument conclusions about which is better -- you can't draw those straightforwardly with just a look at historical tabulations and that what makes this analytic challenge we face difficult. >> anatomist trying to draw a conclusion about what is better. i'm trying to draw the conclusion were efficiencies are. would you say we have the government purchasing a must-have for health care in the country, we could just tell folks are going to pay less. that doesn't create inefficiency. does your modeling suggests efficiencies is why you see these numbers changes or is it just a legislative change it says were not going to pay you for their successes they are not experiencing on the efficiencies i pay a price controls clearly

successful if done by the government. >> whether one. pain providers less is a hard thing. there are help analysts who point to experience of european countries that pay providers less for health care than we do and they do that is an appropriate way to proceed. i'm not one to make recommendations as you know. i think efficiency means different things to different people in this context. >> attempt of a certain forms of government spending important to economic growth or did you actually mean certain forms of government or to certain forms of spending? as you actually point to areas of spending more valuable if done by the federal government didn't send a state or local government or an individual? >> adventures seen in a hard question, congressman. the point i was trying to before it was simply that one shouldn't feel all forms of government

spending is a drag because there pieces that have returns, but they are more effectively in different ways, i don't know. some of these things are national standards for consistency across the country. when they think of the interstate highway system. others are more individuals in particular parts of the country could be more effective on that level. today kitimat, mr. chairman. i like to follow up earlier in terms of government efficiency. have you done an analysis of the cost per patient for veterans health versus national averages in the private dirt? >> we've done analyses of the health care system. that's a good question she raced to the veterans health care system in any point in time provides a high-quality care at no cost. >> at lower cost than the average. >> in which a prescription medicare drug scam over the veterans administration actually

negotiates prices, do they provide prices less than what people are paying in the private market? >> they do. >> you're extrapolating individual systems. >> i appreciate that, but i just want to say with all due respect that there are monos the federal government is doing now but are providing higher quality at less cost in terms of food inflation, i would think part of that is we are lavishly subsidizing corn production cheaper unnecessarily with the federal government and congress, which is linked and not fixed it in fact the chance in this community to vote against that, contributes to food inflation. but i want to go back to something you said that i had a little concerned with. he mentioned in the course of your testimony that having money

for food stamps actually tends to get into the economy, has a higher multiplier effect because people take it and spend it very quickly. and then in terms of reaction to my friend where you're saying social security is not an economic driver. we seem to me the money that goes into the hands of our senior citizens is almost analogous to food stamps. the senior citizens in my district are much more likely to spend that medicare dollar -- excuse me, social security dollar and some of the lavish subsidies we have now that we've try to turn back. i mean, are you really think that does not have substantial economic impact? >> thank you for the chance to clarify this. the discussion we were having over here was about the long-term economic growth path that we show in chapter two of our report. over the longer term, over the

medium-term and long-term, what matters most for economic growth is supplied of the factors of production, how many workers are another ways. in the short term, particularly in an economy like ours now come with unemployed resources, the principal determines the rate of economic growth for goods and services and that is why cuts and spending today tend to slow economic. >> super. i appreciate the clarification. i guess i would like to just conclude in one area that you referenced that other countries spend far less than the united states. actually almost every developed country spends dramatically less than the united states. and if you're old-fashioned come you look at things like life expectancy, child mortality, indicators that the rest of the road used to look at health care quality. it appears that they provide on

average better outcomes for far less cause. now -- >> i wanted to ask a question without factual basis. i don't think anybody disputes the numbers we've been provided although some may dispute what they want to say is the best care. i'm just trying to get at this sensitive or something intrinsically about the united states that would prevent us from being able to take to scale reforms within the existing system? i come from a state that is low cost high quality for medicare. and if everybody packed his status in the they do in my community or in wisconsin, we wouldn't have the crisis were facing. is there something intrinsic about the economic system that would prevent us from being able to nationalize better quality,

different part of paddings? >> i think there's a lot of potential in our system to do much better than redoing, congressman. the question at hand than what is the best institutional framework to encourage those sorts of changes. as you point to foreign health care systems come you're certainly correct they spend less money than we spend and have in many cases the better outcome, the thing i wanted to be more careful about and whether the measure of health care quality is more complicated because there's a variety of contributors to health care, said lifestyle differences. analyses of the treatment for specific conditions in the system or other health care systems is less clear. >> is black.

>> thank you, mr. chairman and dr. elmendorf for being here today to give us a perspective the long-term budget outlook. i want to follow up on what congressman altman was talking about and he is going more on how dead is effect in individuals and families. as they could turn the attention a little bit in a different direction on private investment because private investment obviously as we invest in jobs in the tech knowledge is something for that sort, we grow the economy and when the economy grows, there's a need for more jobs. so first i'd like for you to talk a little bit about the crowding out effect. explain that. and then go to, what level of private investment become problematic? >> the crowding out as you know, congresswoman refers to the phenomenon that there's more

government debt being issued in a larger share of the private savings in holding that debt, rather than investments in the cool cat will to make a more productive of retirement. that is one of large cause of rising debt. a cost that economists can best quantify. their other costs that we are not going to quantifying, do we write words about in the report. the more debt you have come and work interest payments the government needs to make an icon for other spending and taxes. the more debt you have come in the less flexibility you have to respond to emerging crises and more debt, the greater risk of a financial crisis. and so, so for all of these reasons, additional debt is a problem. for much of these effects, there is no particular tipping point. every extra dollar of debt is a

little bit worse. everything else equal. the one for which they may be a tipping point in this risk of the fiscal crisis, some particular level of debt, but if we wrote in an issue brief last year, we don't need we can identify a particular level because it's not just the level of debt that matters is the expected trajectory, the confidence of investors in the governing process in the country to make changes in the fiscal policy. if the underlying strength and so on. there's a lot off a lot of facts that matter. we been appropriate unwilling to identify some particular tipping point. even the well-known work, they don't really find a tipping point so much as they pick countries that debt, but whether there is some threshold i think is not clear. if they contacted you talk to them fay is factors as well. >> just along those lines, i want to note that figure in your

report does seem to indicate that government are and will have the negative effect on the economy in the list just a few years and you do have that in your report. so i appreciate that. i think that given the fact that there is no tipping point as you say and there's no time limit where we can say definitely this is going to happen and in what i appreciate so much as we've had previous members who have indicated sort of like a pond that you're skating on, were you skate around the edges that are shallow and the ice is very thick and you feel very safe. but none of us know when the ice starts to get and come a water starts getting deeper and we just have to let some of the countries that have argued that in the situation where the debt contact us at a point that would be unknown and could in many cases be very quick without us being able to respond.

then i assume it's a short period of time i have left you would agree that the sooner we address this dead issue, the more safer going to be in the less likely were going to be to look like this country. >> congresswomen, i certainly think the sooner that policy changes are agreed upon, to see for the country will be in terms of the fiscal picture. the question of how quickly to implement the policy changes you agree upon involve trade-offs that i can't judge for you. the sooner you act in terms of implementing changes, the last debt is accumulated and the more credibility is attached the future cutbacks that have been discussed. on the other hand, the center government spending and taxes are raised, the less time individuals and businesses, state and local governments have to adjust to the changes and so the harder the transition must be for them. and also, she just implement in the next two years late in

economy that authority quite weak. so there is a trade-off in the speed of implementing changes. and semi that reinforces the risk of building up high level so that if one gets into a position where one is confronted with less and less choices and that's part of what she seen a trade-off. >> thank you, mr. chaiman. i yield back my time. >> mr. pascarella. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning. in the health care reform, mr. elmendorf, the issue that keeps on coming up, we pass what i consider to be significant savings, one third of that legislation was devoted to medicare and medicaid. many of those savings were not supported for understandable reasons. that's not the issue here.

in a large part -- which is a large part of our deficit, we created innovative payment and delivery models. that was the whole purpose. people say we did not being any changes. democrats, god bless you, who supported the legislation did not ring anything new to the table. they obviously didn't read the bill. but the majority's plan to stop these models and move everyone into the private bracket, that's a brilliant idea pre-1964. very effective. if we look at the private market

in 2010. it's interesting that you outfielder at 29, mr. chairman. 2010 shows a very different situation. in 2010, costs rose by 7.75% cost of health care compared to medicare, cost rate was raised in 3.3% -- rose by 3.3%. that is the standard industries of 2010. that is before three quarters of the health care bill even even went into effect before this. so the point about what cost more in how it can save money, let's take a look at the facts and will improve the legislation or do away with the legislation may be might be very hurtful to the economy and particularly those who are covered and

particularly those losing their jobs. we obviously, mr. elmendorf did not get the forecast radically about the economy in 2008 or 2,642,004 because the 2001 in 2003, when we made those dramatic cut -- tax cut and i'm not singling out any group, but when those cuts were made, what was the forecast of why we were doing this in what the results would be? and then what are the result? did we have to investment them a good friend miss black talks about? did we have any increase in jobs? no, if you look over the past four decades -- for decades, the only president that has

substantial increase in job investment in where the economy stood strong with bill clinton. a 3% increase in business investment under jimmy carter. 3.4% under ronald reagan. under bush one and bush two, president bush, president bush to, we got an increase of about 3.5%, 3.6%. that's a better job than ronald reagan. under bill clinton, 10.2 or send in those eight years with the president of the united states business investment. so tax cuts are not the panacea that we all are pretending it is, is there, mr. elmendorf? >> well, congressman, there are a variety of influences on the economy. the policies of presidents and

congresses are obviously important. i would be close to draw any strong conclusions from that. savages you suggest. >> they're pretty accurate. >> i'm not disputing the numbers. i am just saying to map those directly to the policies while leaving out all the other factors. >> there are other factors aren't there, mr. elmendorf? when the president raised his hand in january 2009, he had no idea, we had no idea of how bad this economy was. would you agree to that? >> if they do, congressman. >> for the record, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. pascarella. mr. kerry. >> i thank the chairman. for taking a page out of mr. pascarella's comments i guess is that with the same time forcefulness.

it is hard to make these projections that should make overtime. >> certainly is, congressman. so when you made these assumptions -- when you make these projections, what do you do quickly with great to assumptions with regard to the overall capital market structure and investments but have you, how does that play into it? >> the private saving matters. we assume private saving continues over time in a way that keeps interest rates and that we do others aims for policies. >> you may have heard -- to what they're not, for example, do you take assessment to see what the capital markets are the proverbial trillion dollars, whether that's invested or not come as bad a and look at?

>> we're looking more at the 40 year for 30 or 20 or averages when you mature projection. with the updating august we're looking at the current state of the capital market. >> your chairman bernanke say some statement where he said jamie diamond i think said david said looking to and consider -- that he considers that the cost is.frank is on the marketplace and he said no is just too complicated for us to do. you heard that? >> we have also not quantify the effects of that legislation. >> day is that something be able to do? is that something you should be doing? >> i don't think we have the capacity to do it, congressman. i think it's an interesting question. >> does it necessarily drive part of the cost of stories the economy going? >> i think it's certainly a factor in economic growth.

>> said then he sent a press conference last week you said he's seen some sort of saucepot in the economy. he said he doesn't quite understand this sort of clueless, if you will because if you projections going forward, doing all the things from me that we're going to be certain places on gdp growth and unemployment, but were not there. you saw the comment? so could that be part of the problem that if those few inherent feeling to have that bit of information as far as what the cost of regulation and implementation could be explaining on some of our charts for the albums are? there's enough a lot of themes >> i think it would be a big fat her as one of their two responsibilities of job growth.

>> capital markets are important. >> so i came in and you may have paraphrased. he said shortcuts right now in tax increases now would slow economic growth. >> yes, that's right. >> can you quickly decide for me what are sharp cuts in spending? >> i was trying to convey with the word sharpless said the magnitude of the cut or increase relative to the size of the economy. so we have an economy in its weakened state has gdp $15 trillion. policies that move that has to be significant. >> can you define that for me? >> now, there is no cut off or say. it's a question of degree. our analysis says the cuts in spending -- >> if we cut $100 billion out of the 02 budget, is that a sharp cut? >> that's enough of a cut that would affect her productions over the next two years.

yes, congressman. >> 100 billion with? >> yes. >> to what extent? >> it depends on what you change. the analysis we've done other recovery act and alternative policy for increasing output and employment show a range of different effects depending on specifics of the policy, which i think it's not just a matter of dollars, and moderates in the policy. >> or percentages that? 1% of that is $150,000,000,000.2 thirds% of the economy. for some forms of government policy come effects on the economy can be less or more than not. the downward revision of the forecast that we got coverage yesterday of mr.'s economic growth are less than not. so about two thirds -- .66% cut

in spending and your mother would slow down the economy? >> yes. all the models try to capture even the smallest acts. i was trying to convey with the turned sharply that you're concerned about it might be raised if the effects are substantial. >> ms. wasserman schultz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to just follow up on that same line of questioning that mr. kerry had. so if we are assuming that $100 billion cut could cut the growth of the economy demonstrates that would even seems that the small percentage cut would have a significant impact, that seems backed up, mr. elmendorf committee chairman bernanke he said an article in "politico" today that i don't think a sharp immediate cuts and deficit would create more jobs. it would be best not to a sudden and sharp fiscal consolidation in the near term.

so we have more than one of our economic experts pointing to the danger of cutting too much too fast. so generally, are you concerned that the proposed -- what i term a close, but a proposed republican budget cut at the cases proposed them and the amounts in size they have proposed them would negatively impact our ability to recover? >> congressmen, i agree with chairman bernanke statement. we have not done an economic analysis of the republican budget resolution. as i said earlier and on another occasion, near-term cuts and spending or increases in taxes under the current economic conditions that showed the economy. credible reductions in future deficits for future spending cuts or tax increases would lose

confidence, lower interest rates and thus strengthen the economy today. i think the effects of an overall fiscal package on today's economy depends on the balance and timing of the changing policy. >> suet make much sense in terms of making sure the pace ourselves on trying to strike that balance to use a chisel when it comes to cut, to make sure that we have the right combination of investments and cuts so that we don't offend the applecart? >> from our analysis, there are trade-offs in the speed of the fiscal consolidation term. the faster wonders, the less debt, the better that is in the long run and the more credible future promise kept b.c., which is good for the short run.

on the other hand, the faster the policy goes, the less time people, businesses, upper levels of government have to adjust in the bigger the hits on the economy in the short term. so there is a trade-off there that we can do is try to hallucinate the trade-off, but it's up to you and your colleagues how to receive. >> thank you. i want to shift to medicare just the last couple minutes that i have. cbo's analysis of the voucher payments in mr. ryan's plan in 2022 says basically it's equal to what is 65-year-old would cost than traditional medicare. my question is kind of typing in the first year of the program the voucher doesn't really see the government any money and doubles the out-of-pocket cost for 60 fibril to be covered under the plan? and my understanding that correctly?

>> congresswoman, we didn't study the first decade or we don't usually city budget resolution alternately distinguish between federal cost. by our analysis it is more expensive to treat a 65-year-old and treat that person through medicare today for 65-year-old, but the plan also overtime reduces the federal government's payment. so we shall overtime the plan reducing federal payment relative to the medicare system. but we also show, as you know the beneficiaries of paying more. >> just in my final 30 seconds, your analysis of the one page 13 indicates the reality of the proposal is some people wouldn't actually purchase insurance because of the extra cost is made. so does that mean we could actually see an increase in the

rates of elderly who are either uninsured or underinsured and would have to spend a substantial amount of income on health care to make up for the difference in what the coverage used to be? >> congressmen come you might see an increase. we were not able to analyze that anything that's a very important question and one of a number of significant caveats to that analysis. another context we've studied decisions given a set of both the government would put in place. we just have not been able to do that with this proposal. >> bottom line -- >> it raises the risk of older americans over the age of 65 that exists now. >> it's a very different world than the world in the traditional program today. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> last speaker.

>> if you could back to my college question on what we lose more people in health care because they wouldn't have the money to buy the difference if our plan actually direct funds more towards lower and middle income as opposed to wealthy millionaires and billionaires, what we in fact improve the circumstance of the insured? >> if we were able to analyze the patient's decision coming absolutely right. the levels of subsidies for different resource is an part of the analysis to be. >> middle-class americans are good ideas. >> it's not my place to make value judgments. additional subsidies for people would increase participation relative to people. >> i need to come back to this mystical magical $100 million in cuts an impact on the economy, some of the federal government

is not actually borrowing that money, what else does the federal government get the money from? >> well, >> from a higher tax how does taking money from one sector of the economy to consumer, giving to another sect of the economy changes dollars in the economy. >> the policy scenario is a cut in spending that match the equal cuts. it's also true that the analysis from american who is not investing payment and is not getting the contract and that reduction in the government money pushed into the economic system reduces spending of

helpful businesses that otherwise get it and the reduction in demand says the economy. >> a message at the money from a consumer might spend it based on their own free choice company abb accrual conflict. >> again, congressman not by reduction probably depends what the cut is, but somebody is not getting a check they would otherwise be getting come either the benefit payment or payment for service provided to the government. >> that might not also get the tax that otherwise would have. >> well, i think the future taxes are you changed right away, that people pic asian in future taxes would probably be different and that's why

emphasize the credible reductions in future deficits through overspending or higher taxes would have confidence building effects. modeling inc. the tax rates >> in your report is a long-term budget -- cbo's production in the most long-term budget understate the severity of the long-term budget because they do not incorporate the federal attack economy, nor do they include the impact of higher tax rates on people's incentives to work and save, which i think is significant. going onto the next page, you say growing debt would also increase possibility of a sudden fiscal crisis. i wonder if you could talk to me -- is simple to look at what sadness and the crazy things, but what does that any crazies need to? how fast a sudden and how big is the crisis? >> first let me emphasize most

of the projections in the report of the economic conditions for comparison across policies. we do in chapter two of an extended analysis on the economy. sudden fiscal crises in other countries have come on and the matter is months or weeks or days they have generally had very destructive effects in the economy to make the decision to put off at a moment when the economy is already under siege if you will are particularly difficult. and dutcher mantles to economic issues. >> just one final comment and then i'll yield also investors of this confidence in the government's ability and the government would thereby lose

its ability. i would dare say based on the conversations i've had with american citizens in my district that many investors and americans have a relative lack of confidence in this government. >> so, that may be to congressmen, but i find books that financial markets, investors putting money on the table are not charging a government tirades. they are actually charging low rate at this point and not things are fine until they aren't anymore. including our panel of economic advisers meeting, the participants were themselves a little surprised that financial market. and most investors do in fact will be taken on a sustainable

path as investors have confidence. >> i hope we weren't that confidence and i'll yield back. >> thank you for indulging us. i know you're hoping to get out of here by noon. it's pretty close to that. hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> next, president obama at carnegie-mellon talking about new technology and job creation. then, two house floor debates, first on libya or the recession, the second to limit funds there. now, president obama at carnegie-mellon university in pittsburgh, to launch the advanced manufacturing partnership encouraging big investments in emerging technologies. shortly before his remarks, the president reviewed the robotics

engineering center, the world's largest robotics research and development organization. this is about 30 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] thank you, everybody. please have a seat. thank you very much. thank you all, state artur jack

wagner and all of you for having me back here at carnegie mellon. it is good to be here. it seems like every time i am here, i learn something. for those of you who are thinking about carnegie-mellon, it is a terrific place, and you guys are doing just great work. i just met with folks from some cutting edge companies and saw some of their inventions here in your national robotics engineering center. that is not the only reason i am here. you might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as commander-in-chief is to keep an eye on robots. i am pleased to report that the robot city manufacture here seem peaceful, at least for now. [laughter]

this is a city that knows something about manufacturing. for generations of americans, it was the ticket to a middle-class life. here and across america's industrial heartland, but millions flocked in project locked in each day at foundress, on assembly lines, to make things. and the stuff we made, steel, cars, planes, was the stuff that made america what it is. the jobs were good, that paid enough to own home, to raise kids, send them to college, retire. there were jobs that told us something more important than just how much money we made, what was in our paycheck. the jobs also told us we were meeting our responsibilities for our cameras -- for our family,

and building our country. but for better and worse, our generation has been pounded by wave after wave of profound economic changes. revolutions and technology have transformed the way we live and the way we work. businesses and industries can relocate anywhere in the world, any where there are skilled workers, anywhere there is an internet connection. companies have learned to become more efficient with fewer employees. in pittsburg, you know this as well as anybody. steel mills that once needed a thousand workers now do the same work with 100. while these changes have resulted in great wealth for some americans, it has gradually increased productivity, it has also caused major disruptions

for many others. today, a high-school diploma and no longer guarantees you a job. over the past 13 years, about a third of our manufacturing jobs have vanished. meanwhile, the typical worker's wages have barely kept up with the rising cost of everything else. all this was even before the financial crisis and recession that pounded the middle class even more. we have made some tough decisions that have turned our economy in a positive direction over the past two years. we created more than 2 million new jobs in the private sector over the past 15 months alone, including almost 250,000 in manufacturing. we still have to confront those underlying problems. they were not caused overnight and we will not solve them overnight, but we will solve them. we are starting to solve them right here in pittsburg and right here at carnegie-mellon.

[applause] by the way, that is why i ran for president, not just to get us back to where we were. i ran for president to get us where we need to be. i have a larger vision for america, 1 were working families feel secure, feel like they are moving forward, and that they know that their dreams are within reach, an america where our businesses lead the world in new technologies like clean energy, where we work together, democrats and republicans, to live within our means and cut our deficit and debt, but also to invest. world-class education, cutting edge research, building the best transportation and communications infrastructure anywhere in the world. that is what is going to take

for us to win the future, and winning the future begins with getting our economy moving right now. that is why we are here. carnegie mellon is a great example of what it means to move forward. at its founding, no one would have imagined that a trade school for the sons and daughters of steel workers would one day become the region's -- one of the region's largest employers angela global research university. yet innovation led by your professors and your students have created more than 300 companies and 9000 jobs over the past 16 years. companies like cargill robotics -- carnegie robotics. more important are what the ideas have become. they have become products, made right here in america. in many cases, sold all over the world.

we are inventors and makers and doers. if you want a robust, growing economy, we need a robust, growing manufacturing sector. that is why we told the auto industry that if they were willing to adapt, we would stand by them. to that they are creating jobs and repaying taxpayers ahead of schedule. that is why -- [applause] that is why we have invested in clean energy manufacturing and new jobs, building when turbines and solar panels and advanced batteries. we have not run out of stuff to make. we just have to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector so that it leads the world away that it always has.

that is how we are going to strengthen existing industries and spark new ones. that is how we are going to create jobs, grow the middle class, and secure our economic leadership. this is why i asked my council of advisers on science and technology a while back to look at the state of american manufacturing and the promise of advanced manufacturing. my concept is not complicated, it means how we do things better, faster, cheaper, to design and manufacture superior products that allow us to compete over the world. he's very smart folks, many of whom are represented here, wrote up a report which is now up on the white house website. we did not want just issue a report, we wanted to get something done.

we launched an all hands on deck ever between our broadest academic mines, some of our oldest business leaders, and are most dedicated public servants from science and technology agency's, all with one big gold, and that is a renaissance of american manufacturing. we are calling it amp, the advanced manufacturing partnership. it is made up of some of the most advanced engineering universities like carnegie- mellon, georgia tech, stanford, berkeley, michigan. some of our most innovative manufacturers from johnson and johnson to honeywell, striker, to allegheny technologies, i have asked the president of mit -- there is susan. [applause] .nd the ceo of dow chemical'

[applause] 2 lead at this partnership and work with my own advisers on science, technology, and manufacturing. throughout our history, our greatest breeders have often come from partnerships just let this one. -- our greatest breakthroughs have often come from partnerships just like this one. carnegie-mellon, georgia tech, berkeley, stanford. but a lot of companies do not invest in early ideas because it will not pay off right away. that is where government can step in. that is how we ended up with some of the world changing innovations that fuel our growth and prosperity and created countless jobs, the mobile phone, the internet, gps, more than 150 drugs and vaccines over the last four years, all because we were able to in strategic

ways, bring people together and makes critical investments. i will take one example. the national science foundation helped fund standards digital library project in the 1990's. the idea was to develop a universal digital library that anybody can access. two is surprising students got excited about the research that was being done at stanford. these students moved from campus to a friend's garage and they launched this company called google. when the private sector runs with the ball, it then it leads to jobs, building, and so on that is successful all over the world. this new partnership that we have created will make sure tomorrow's break bruce r. american breakthroughs. we are teaming up to foster --

[applause] we are teaming up to foster the kind of collaborative or indeed that resulted in those same early discoveries and to create the kind of innovation infrastructure necessary to get ideas from the drawing board to the manufacturing floor to the market more rapidly. all of which will make our businesses more competitive and create new, high-quality manufacturing jobs. to help businesses operate at less cost, the energy department will develop new manufacturing processes and materials that use half as much energy. that will free up more money for companies to hire more workers or buy new equipment. to help businesses discover, develop, and deploy new materials prices fast, we are launching what we call the materials genome initiative.

the invention of silicon circuits and lithium ion batteries made ipad and ipod is possible. it took years to get from the drawing board to the marketplace. we can do it faster. to help everyone from factory workers to astronauts carry out more complicated task, nasa and other agencies will support research into next-generation robotics. judges met with folks from a local company, red zone robotics, who make robots that explore water and sewer pipes. this is fascinating stuff when you watch the robot, it can go through any sewer system. it is operated remotely by the municipal worker. it has a camera attached so it can film everything is seeing. then transmits the data, it goes into a city wide database, and

can enhance the productivity of these workers by three or fourfold and help the city make even better decisions. potentially this can save cities millions in infrastructure costs. companies are also training workers to operate the robot and analysts to pour through the data that is being collected. it helps smaller manufacturers compete. federal agencies are working with private companies to make powerful, often unaffordable software easier to access. i just saw an example. a few years ago, procter and gamble teamed up with the researchers at los alamos national labs to adapt software developed for war to figure out what is happening with nuclear particles. they are using these simulators to dramatically boost the performance of diapers. yes, diapers.

folks chuckle, but those who have been at parents are always on the lookout for indestructible, military grade divers -- diapers. [applause] but here is what is remarkable. using this simulation software that was developed at los alamos, procter and gamble has saved $500 billion. half a billion dollars as a consequence of the simulator. now, through the new partnership for setting up, procter and gamble is offering its powerful fluid dynamic simulator to smaller manufacturers and doing it for free. this is not just because procter and gamble wants to do good. they have thousands of suppliers, and they are thinking

to themselves, if we can apply this simulation technology to our smaller suppliers, they are going to be able to make their products cheaper and better and that will save us even more money. it has a ripple effect throughout the economy. starting this summer, federal agencies will partner with industries to boost manufacturing in areas critical to our national security. i just saw an example backstage. the defense department scientists, the folks who brought us stealth technology, and by the way, who brought us the internet, wanted to see if it was possible to design defense systems cheaper and faster. they found a small company in arizona called global motors, and they gave them a test. you have one month to design a new combat support vehicle and

three months to build it. there ceo is here today and as an ex-marine who lost a couple of buddies in combat, understood the importance of increasing the speed and adaptability and flexibility of our manufacturing process for vehicles that are used in the header -- in theater. it built and brought the new vehicle here ahead of schedule. we just took a look at it. not only could this change the way the government uses your tax dollars, because think about it. instead of having a 10-year lead time to develop a piece of equipment, with all kinds of changing specs and a moving target, if we are able to collapse the pace at which that manufacturing takes place, that could save taxpayers billions

of dollars, but it also could get products out to theater faster, which could save lives were quickly and could be used to transfer into the private sector more rapidly, which means we could get better products and services that we can sell and export around the world. so it is good for american companies, american jobs, taxpayers, and it may save some lives in places like afghanistan for our soldiers. so that is what this is all about. as futuristic and as cool as some of this stuff is, as much as we are planning for america's future, this partnership is about new, cutting edge ideas that create new jobs, spark new breakthroughs, reinvigorate american manufacturing today, right now. not somewhere off in the future, right now. it is about making sure i

workers and businesses have the skills and tools they need to compete better, faster, and smarter than anybody else. that is what we are about. we are america and we don't just keep up with changing times, we set the pace for changing times. [applause] we adapt, innovate, and lead the way forward. it is worth remembering, there was a time when steel was about as advanced as manufacturing got. when the namesake of this university, andrew carnegie, an immigrant, by the way, discovered new ways to mass produce steel cheaply, everything changed. just 20 years after founding his company, not only was it the largest, most profitable in the world, america had become the no. 1 steelmaker in the world.

imagine if america was first to develop and mass produce a new treatment that killed cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. or solar stills it -- solar cell is you could brush onto a house for the same cost as paint, or flexible this blaze that soldiers could wear on their arms, or a car that drives itself. imagine how many workers and businesses and consumers would prosper from those breakthroughs. those things are not science fiction. they are real. they are being developed and deployed in labs and factories right now. they sprang from the imagination of students, just, an entrepreneur like all of you. the purpose of this partnership is to prove that the united states of america has your back, is going to be supporting you, because that is the kind of adventures, pioneering spirit that we need right now.

[applause] that is the spirit that has given up the tools to overcome every obstacle and adapt to every circumstance. if we remember that spirit, combine our creativity, innovation, and our optimism, we come together in a common cause as we have done so many times before, then we will try again. we will get to where we need to be, and we will make this century the american century, just like the last one was. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you, and god bless the united states of america. ♪

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>> next, two house floor debates, the first on continuing action in libya, the second to limit funds for operations there. then michelle obama speaks in south africa. based more on "washington journal," of financial times report examines the greek and european debt crisis and u.s. financial markets. and the discussion on the new labels for tobacco products. "washington journal," live at

7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the house overwhelmingly rejected a measure giving the president the authority to continue u.s. military operations against libya. the final blow was 123-295. the congressional action will have -- the final vote was 123- 295. the floor debate on the issue. this is an hour and 15 minutes. may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. the gentlelady will suspend. the house will be in order. the gentlelady may proceed. ms. ros-lehtinen: i thank the speaker. mr. speaker, i do not support a complete u.s. withdrawal from nato's operation unified

protector. i believe that it is necessary for u.s. armed forces to remain engaged in a limited capacity. however, i cannot support an authorization which constitutes our current level of engagement for an entire year. this is what is proposed in h.j.res. 68 offered by my friend from florida, mr. hastings, and i therefore must rise in opposition to his resolution. this resolution not only authorizes u.s. military engagement in libya, far beyond even the 90-day nato extension, but it justifies u.s. military engagement in libya as undertaken to enforce a united nations security council resolution and at the request of the transitional national council the gulf -- national council, the gulf council and

the arab league. where is the united nations in this equation? if an authorization resolution had been put forward in february i might have been able to support it. i understand the mission, but in the intervening period, conditions have changed significantly on the ground in libya within nato, with our nato partners and here in the u.s. decisive action with congressional authorization at the outset might have solved this problem quickly. but now we have drifted into an apparently open-ended commitment with goals that remain only vaguely defined, and that is at the heart of the problem, mr. speaker. the president asserted, quote, these strikes will be limited in their nature, duration and scope, end quote. well, it is now day 97. 97 of our involvement of u.s. armed forces in hostilities regarding libya, yet, gaddafi

still clings to power and the opposition appears to be no closer to a decisive victory. command for the military operation has been transferred to nato. yet, the constrained role the president has said is being played by u.s. forces in libya still includes nearly one quarter of the total planes flown in libya, suppression of enemy defense through strikes, strikes by unmanned predators on gaddafi targets, nearly 70% of the mission's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and over 75% of all airline -- aerial refueling. yet, the president has yet to explain just what the interests are at staveg and what outcomes he's hoping to achieve. the resolution offered by our speaker, speaker boehner, and adopted by this chamber on june

3 posed specific questions that required straight answers. instead, we received a letter and accompanying documents from secretary of state for legislative affairs and secretary of defense for legislative affairs which stated that u.s. action in libya were, and i quote, taken in response to direct appeals from the libyan people and acting with a mandate from the united nations, end quote. let me repeat, quote, a mandate from the united nations, end quote. the administration proceeded to justify its current policy by asserting that u.s. military operations in libya do not constitute hostilities. this argument is so incredulous that even the attorneys in the office of legal counsel do not agree. therefore, i am not optimistic that the reporting provisions in the resolution we are

considering today which calls for, quote, a full and updated explanation of the president's legal and constitutional rationalse for conducting military operation -- rationales for conducting military operation in libya will not be for congressional prerogatives. again, i must underscore i do not support a complete withdrawal from our commitments concerning libya. that would be dangerous. that would be ill-advised. a complete withdrawal of all u.s. military assets from the libya operations would undermine our intelligence efforts and our foreign policy goals and would all but assure a victory for gaddafi. it can lead to greater instability, which could affect nato operations in iraq and afghanistan, and a critical stage of transition. there is also proliferation concerns at stake, particularly as an increasing number of weapons have moved into the region and reportedly fallen

into the hands of extremist organizations, including al qaeda and the islamic magram. the gaddafi regime is an unpredictable regime which has chemical weapons, including mustard and possible serum gas. while a complete withdrawal is unacceptable, the resolution before us is unacceptable. it ratifies that all of the president has done and it would grant him the blessings of congress to continue on its present course. the resolution before us would enable mission -- rather than u.s. engagement. i must, therefore, oppose this resolution, and i reserve the balance of my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves the balance of her time. the gentleman from california. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i rise in support of the resolution, and i yield two minutes to the sponsor of the resolution, the gentleman from florida, mr. hastings. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from florida is recognized for two minutes. mr. hastings: thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, howard. it's hard time that congress asserts its authority and engages proactively with the administration on this los serious question of war. i just kind of wonder where my colleagues have been all these years that we have had presidents in war. it will be interesting to see a matchup of their votes with this one. mr. speaker, the underlying legislation authorizes the limited use of united states' forces in support of the nato mission in libya. this legislation is a bipartisan effort to prevent the kind of open-ended, indefinite military commitment we have elsewhere in the world. register that as afghanistan and iraq. this resolution is the companion to forward-leaning senate legislation introduced by senators kerry, mccain and cardin and durbin. immediately after they introduced the legislation in the senate, i brought it to the

house so we can make progress on this very important debate before us. if i had my way, and i don't, mr. chairman, we wouldn't be in libya at all. but i don't have my way, and here we are and the solution now is going to be to cut off funding and suddenly walk out. we have a responsibility to our allies. as long as we are continuing to supply logistics, materials and critical intelligence and operational capabilities and no boots are on the ground, we must support our allies who are carrying out the direct combat operations. we must stand with nato. again, mr. speaker, if i had my way, and i don't, there are revisions to this resolution that i think congress ought to consider. i maintained that a better date to end the authorization would be in september and certainly no later than december. the one-year authorization in this one limits the president's ability to engage our armed

forces indefinitely so that we don't find ourselves neck deep in another war. at the same time this authorization prohibits the use of ground forces and -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. berman: i yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds. mr. hastings: and i won't use all of that. at the same time, this authorization prohibit the use of ground forces and requires the president to continually report to congress. i would rather us use some of libya's frozen assets so that we could have them pay for the mischief they began. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you so much, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from texas, dr. paul, a member of our committee on foreign affairs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. paul: i thank the gentlelady for yielding and ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. paul: mr. speaker, this is a resolution that endorses the

policies that have been going on for four months. not only is the congress basically been pretty strong in opposition of what's been going on, the american people are even more so. so what this resolution does, it endorses exactly what has been going on, another unconstitutional war, involvement and justification under nato, the united nations, doing it secretly. there's an attempt to restrain the funding of this effort over here over in libya, but why and how can we restrain it because we never authorized it? restrain unauthorized funds? the president just goes and does it. . the challenge on the congress looking at the unitary president. the unitary president has been around for quite a few years and that means presidents do what he they want. the congress just acknowledges it. so that is what we are doing. this is what this resolution does.

it acknowledges and gives the authority to the president to pursue what he has been doing. so obviously h.j.res. 68 for me is a very, very strong no because the last thing we need to do is be giving explicit support and authorization for the very policies that so many people now think are taken ill-advisedly. it says this resolution also says you don't send any ground troops. that is fine. no ground troops. but in this day and age war can go on for a long time without the ground troops, and just think it happened in -- to a degree in bosnia. but today -- it didn't exempt to such things as show the forces, the c.i.a., the c.i.a.'s been in libya. i'm sure they will be as it's in many, many hundreds of other countries. contractors, when we can't send in troops we send in contractors. we have as many contractors in afghanistan as we do in the

military. so a couple thousand troops out of afghanistan and not to change the contractors, nothing ever changes. but this whole idea of legalizing this effort, to legalize the bombing, at least give the authority to the president to continue this is foolhardy. how many more wars can we withstand? what mum is this? this is number five and today in the paper is number six coming? how long will it be before we are in syria? go into syria tomorrow and in 90 days we'll start talking about syria again. instead we in congress have allowed us to give up the responsibilities. because responsibility of going to war should have been and still remains actually mandated that the congress makes these decisions. the president is not supposed to get us engaged in anybody and say whatever you need, we'll endorse it, we'll do t but we have another resolution coming

up shortly and unfortunately -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. paul: i am convinced the next resolution -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. mr. paul: unfortunately, i think the next resolution, h.r. 2278, doesn't do much differently because it has too many exemptions. it says denies funding and it has too many exceptions and it allows the very things the president is doing. both resolutions have deep shortcomings. both resolutions should be defeated if you are opposed to this war in libya. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. berman: i'm pleased to yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from washington, mr. mcdermott. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. without objection. mr. mcdermott: mr. speaker, i rise in support of the president's response to libya. a week after it started, i

received a phone call from a professor at the university of washington who had left, a very distinguished professor, and was back in libya. he is now the finance minister. he said to me, please give us air cover. if we can protect us from the air, we can take care of it ourselves on the ground. and as i listened to him i thought of an experience i had with president clinton. i flew to africa and met with people who had been part of the massacre, the maimed, and then i saw the president go into the hangar and speak to 500 rawandans and apologize for not having responded to the rawandan massacre at the first day. this was a situation where the libyans were asking for it. it was one where the arab league was asking for it. this is not something that was cooked up in the white house and

created and sent out. this was done in response to people on the ground. my belief is that these kinds of situations require the president to act decisively and he did, and i support him. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you so much, mr. speaker. i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from texas, judge poe, vice chairman of the foreign affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for three minutes. mr. poe: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the chair lady yielding me time on this issue. mr. speaker, going to war is a big deal. that's why our forefathers put in the constitution that when america is to go to war, it is congress that is to lead that charge. it is congress to authorize america going to war.

and that's been the law in the constitution since it was written. then came the war powers resolution. and congress decided that it would give a little of that constitutional authority to the president for a period of days until he justified his action before congress. we can argue whether war powers resolution is constitutional or not, but any event congress has not led america to war in libya. the president has. the president made that decision. and as james madison, the author of the constitution, said to a letter to thomas jefferson, i paraphrase, it has been the history of peoples that it has been the executive branch that has led a country to war. and that's why our constitution prevented kings and dictators and even presidents from leading this country to war.

it must be authorized by congress. but now we find ourselves in america's at least third war in libya. the president took us to war and now on this day we are being asked to support and justify that war in this resolution. i vote no on this resolution. we have no business in libya. even the administration has said it's not a national security interest of the united states to be in libya. so why are we there? we are there because we don't like omar gaddafi. there are a lot of bad guys in the world and if we start picking them off one at a time we'll be at war with most of the world. because most of the world is led by rogue dictators or bad guys. we have no business being in libya. we have no business justifying this war on the house floor. it is congress' responsibility to defund any further action in libya. and that is what we should do. it's unfortunate we don't have

that up or down vote. i wish we could vote up or down today on that issue and let the house decide if we should be at war in libya. $700 million has already been spent in the war in libya. it's hard to figure out where that money came from. i get different answers from different people about where the president got that money. but maybe we should spend that $700 million in the united states building america rather than blowing up libya. i think that would be a better use of funds. we need to take care of america. we shouldn't be involved in somebody else's civil war in libya. who are the rebels? we are not sure who they are either. they may be extremists, they may be patriots, they may be a democratic philosophy. we have no idea. i'd ask for another minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. ms. ros-lehtinen: the gentleman has an additional 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 30 seconds. mr. poe: we don't know who the rebels are. they may be worse than omar gaddafi, isn't that a lovely situation, if they take control.

we replace an oppressive regime with an extremist radical regime. that's all because we are in a war that was unauthorized by this congress, cut off all funds, vote against this resolution. that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. berman: i'm pleased to yield two minutes to a gentleman of the opposite view of this issue than i have, the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. kucinich: what? we don't have enough wars going on? the war in iraq, war in afghanistan. we need one more war. we have to wage war against another nation which did not attack us? we have to wage war against another nation which does not represent an actual or imminent

threat to the united states? mr. speaker, i have to tell you i have been all over this country and i haven't had a single person come up to me to tell me, you know, dennis, what america needs is another war. the last thing we need is to be voting to go to war. there are plenty of reasons to oppose the war in libya. it's unconstitutional. article 1, section 8 has given the congress the power to declare war. it's illegal. the war powers resolution was passed over presidential veto to allow the president latitude where there is an imminent threat to the u.s. or retain the constitutional duty of congress, even the president's top legal advisors at the pentagon and department of justice determines that the war powers resolution applies to the war in libya. another reason is americans don't want this war. a poll taken at the beginning of

the month by cbs found that six in 10 americans do not think the united states should be involved in conflict with libya. just 30% of americans in that poll thought the united states was doing the right thing by taking part in the current military conflict. a majority of republicans, democrats, and independents alike think the u.s. should not be involved in libya. next, this war is a distraction. our flailing economy demands the full attention of congress and the president. the american people have little patience for less, especially for war of choice. the cost of the war, mr. speaker, we spent $750 million so far. if we keep going on it will cost billions. we have to end this war. vote against this authorization. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from florida. miss ros-lehtinen: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger, a member of the committee on energy and commerce. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. miss kinzinger: i thank the

gentlelady for yielding. i stand today in support of this resolution. the world is watching our actions today. the world is asking what are we going to do? we talk all the time about allowing europe to take the lead in certain areas. allowing natea -- nato to take the lead and they have done that. now will we today pull the rug out from under them simply because we have a dispute between the legislative and the executive branch? i think the president should have come to this chamber, too, but he didn't. but the wrong thing to do is to pull funding and the right thing to do is to give him the authorization to go into libya. a slaughter almost occurred and we were able to stop it by our presence there. the house -- the vote we take in the house today will have implications far beyond our shores and far into the future. finally i'm reminded of a quote by george washington which states, liberty when it begins to take root is a plant of rapid growth. i support this resolution and would urge all my colleagues to

do the same. in doing so we will be supporting the planting of freedom and liberty in the middle east. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. whereman -- mr. berman: i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to the ranking member of the house appropriations committee, the gentleman from washington, mr. dicks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. dicks: i strongly support the hastings amendment. in my judgment the president's initial commitment of u.s. airpower and naval forces to support the international effort was appropriate. and certainly within his powers as commander in chief. u.s. effort was undertaken in concert with a broad coalition of nations and it followed a resolution adopted in the united nations security council authorizing all necessary measures to protect libyan civilians attempting to overthrow the oppressive regime of muammar gaddafi. the gaddafi government's response to the uprising inspired by arab spring was to

use force against civilians in opposition forces and the brutal measures prompted the international outcry in the u.n. action. in march, the president clearly outlined the rationale for our involvement in this military action. while the direct u.s. leadership of this effort lasted a brief time, u.s. forces remain engaged in the nato operation and in this chamber today we are considering both the resolution authorizing the continued use of limited u.s. involvement in this effort or an immediate withdrawal from it. while i believe it would have been more appropriate for the president under the terms of the war powers act to come to congress earlier, i believe the language offered by hastings of florida similar to the language introduced in the other body by senators mccain and kerry, is the appropriate course of action at this time. the language preserves the understanding between the administration and congress that u.s. ground forces are not appropriate at this time and were not asked for by the rebels. the strict limitation of funds in the resolution offered by mr. rooney of florida would end our involvement unilaterally.

i believe this action would be unwise. and that it would materially harm our relationship with nato allies. . when i hear many of my colleagues on the other side of the house chamber speaking in favor of abandoning the cause, i'm reminded of ronald reagan who attacked libya with airpower and called gaddafi the mad dog of the middle east. and i yield back the remaining of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from florida. you reserve? the gentleman from california. ms. ros-lehtinen: continue to reserve. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. levin: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. levin: we should learn from the past. there are indeed times when american national interests should overtake political or partisan political interests. i remember the debate on kosovo

12 years ago. congress refused to authorize american action by a split vote. that was a tragic mistake. house republican leadership opposed that resolution. 187 noes against 31 yeses. i believe it was clear then that republicans would not have opposed the kosovo resolution, at least in those numbers, if george bush had been president. today there are echoes from kosovo on this libyan resolution. the republicans should not make the same mistake again. we should join together to support the hastings resolution that's consistent with the war powers act.

i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california. mr. berman: i'm going to yield -- mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to the gentleman from minnesota, mr. ellison. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from minnesota is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. ellison: mr. speaker, i rise in support of the hastings resolution. i think it's important to remember that u.s. military force is a very awesome thing and should only be planned parenthood in very select circumstances -- should only be used in very select circumstances. we have used that in an improper way for too long in afghanistan. when people are being slaughtered by dictators around the world where massive loss of lives are at stake. i think it's important for the united states to step up and

protect those people. yes, we have business in libya. we have a business of protecting mass murder from happening -- stopping mass murder from happening all around the world. we need to stop the destabilization of regions like africa. we have a business in making sure that the peaceful resolutions in egypt and in tunisia are not undermined. we have business of making sure that dictators, like ali salah in yemen and the one in syria are not embolden and the signal does not go to them that they can continue to wipe out their population and nobody cares. i believe if i was in this congress when rwanda or serb or darfur were helping, i think the people needed protection and the most powerful nation in the world should stand by while innocent children and women are being mowed down. and i hope today that colleagues will in -- join in

that and i think it's the right thing to do. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. berman: mr. speaker, how much time is remaining on each side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california has 10 minutes remaining, and the gentlelady from florida has six minutes remaining. mr. berman: ok. mr. speaker, i'm pleased to -- automatic' pleased to yield -- i'm pleased to yield 90 second to the gentlelady from texas, ms. sheila jackson lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas is recognized for a minute and a half. ms. jackson lee: i thank the distinguished speaker and to the distinguished members that are on this floor. what a heck of a position to be in, and let me make it very clear this is a set of circumstances that frames itself around the constitution, the war powers resolution that indicates that congress must be

consulted. but i am in the middle of my actions that took place months ago or many weeks ago as the crisis and the murderous acts of colonel gaddafi began to seize his people and we went to the libyan embassy to ask for colonel gaddafi to step down and we then joined with the then ambassador in his courageous acts. colonel gaddafi is known to oppress his people, deny freedom of press and speech as well as association to train dictators in oppression and intelligence and the murderous acts still go on. but it is a crisis when we have an administration, unfortunately, that is not seem fit to undertake the consultation that is necessary. yet, i believe that we should finish the task, and it is different from iraq and it is

different from afghanistan. we have a time certain, and as well we have the arab league that has asked us to stand with them against the oppression of one of its members. this is a door opener to say to the people that we have asked to be with us, to go against terrorist acts to stand for democracy. so this is a devastating position to put the members of congress in, but we must do our duty today, and i believe that it is good to say that the hastings amendment is -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. ms. jackson lee: i prefer six month, and i hope there is an opportunity to -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. ms. jackson lee: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to the gentleman from california, mr. garamendi. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for a minute and a half.

mr. garamendi: mr. speaker and members, apparently the house has debated for more than almost 40 years now the war powers agreement or war powers law. what we have before us today is a way in which we can effect that and put it into position. there are four reasons. first, there is a humanitarian issue here, and that's why we went into this in the first place. the united nations resolution on the obligation to protect, and indeed there was a threat. secondly, this particular intervention is supported by the united nations, by nato, by the arab league and the most unusual situation asking for support of the european and the united states in an arab country. finally, we must continue our support of the effort, and we must do it in a very limited way. the resolution does that. it provides for a very limited

scope and a limited period of time, and, therefore, it is in order and it appropriately puts the congress, both houses, if it passes the senate, in support of the operation thereby fulfilling the war powers act. i'd ask for an aye vote on the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks time? ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased and honored to yield three minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. smith, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, subcommittee on africa, global and human rights. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: i thank the distinguished chairwoman for yielding and thank her for her leadership on human rights issues. let me just say, mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to h.j.res. 68. you know, when the u.s. intervention in libya began last march i raised and i was among many several still unanswered questions about our involvement. they included questions about the identity and the aims of the rebels, the varying

presidential statements that seemed to shift like the wind, the level of u.s. involvement, the possibility of gaddafi retaliating against american interests outside libya and whether u.s. ground troops may be requested at some point, though the resolution seems to clearly say that that would not be authorized by congress. in the course in the debate about the constitutionality and the viability of the war powers resolution, these questions have remained unanswered. the president has refused to seek congressional approval of his action or even to provide a full explanation of his decisions. and the nato campaign continues, new questions arisen of new participation of what nato's involvement in libya. let me say a statement was made a moment ago about kosovo and somehow the republican opposition to kosovo was political. i remember because i was very involved in the balkan situation. i visited there many times. visited with any lohse vick, the dick -- with miloshivic, in

croatia, to the attackers coming into serbia. so frankly the statement that was made earlier i think it did a disservice to those that were not supportive of the kosovo operation. there was no man for the kosovo albanian. if members may remember, that country was literally, literally pushed out into macedonia and elsewhere. especially macedonia, because there was no plan when any lohse vitch sent in the ground troops and killed thousands of people. the revision this was somehow a political calculation falls very, very far from the truth. i actually held hearings during it and stated my opposition based on principle as did other members. i would hope there would not be that lookback that does a disservice to republican opposition. who exactly are we backing in

libya? what is the justification on international law? it is therefore directing both u.s. foreign governmental assets to a rebel entity that is not democratically elected and therefore not necessarily representative of the people of that country. we don't know. in addition, a senior nato official told cnn on june 9 that gaddafi was a legitimate target of the bombing campaign. even though it was expressed as a nato position, are we now to understand that the obama administration is sanctioning the killing of foreign leaders, again, pursuant to what international criteria or legal justification? mr. speaker, again, i call on my colleagues to vote down this resolution that is offered in h.j.res. 68. and i yield back to the distinguished the gentlelady. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks time? the gentleman from california. mr. berman: yes, mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield a minute to the gentleman from new york, a member of the foreign affairs

committee, mr. meeks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for one minute. mr. meeks: thank you, mr. speaker. today i say that we have an opportunity. the camera of history is rolling. it's watching what we do today. we can authorize the president to continue the limited use of the united states' services working in conjunction with nato today. today, we can show that we're united with our allies. think about what history will have 50 years from now. we have an individual who was going to massacre his individuals, and by us stepping in, working in conjunction with our nato allies, we are saving thousands of lives. what would have taken place? historically if we allowed the annihilation of the libyan people? let's stick together on this. let's look at how this -- how we're together. from its inception this has been an international initiative to enforce u.n.

resolution 1973 and the response of the request of libya's transitional national council, the gulf cooperation council and the arab league. president obama deployed u.s. assets early, said he will continue just what we have our special asset and then have no troops on the ground. it is transitional government. let's work together. let's pass this resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. does the gentleman from california -- mr. berman: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield a minute of time to the gentleman from virginia, mr. moran. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized for one minute. mr. moran: mr. speaker, we were asked to come into libya by the libyans, by the arab league, by the gulf cooperation council, by the european union and by the united nations security council. today we are standing with those who believe in freedom, in human rights and in the rule

of law. but also today as we debate this issue, muammar gaddafi's forces continue their merciful assault on combatants. in cities throughout central libya. the libyan transitional national council, which needs our support, is grossly short of weaponry, money, training, but they are the boots on the ground fighting -- dying to dislodge gaddafi who is a bad guy. we need to be on the other side, not giving a comfort to gaddafi so that he can thank us for the resolution and this vote. we need to make clear, we don't support him. we do support people who are fighting for the same values that detype our country. 30 years ago people were killed just this week. the cutoff of operation and funding for the nato operation is to aside with gaddafi against the forces who are

fighting for those values which define us. you know, the idea we haven't been -- this hasn't been explained sufficiently by the president, we have minds of our own. we know the facts. we can make a judgment, the right judgment is to side with the president and to continue this until america shows that it's true to its own values and principles. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. berman: could you provide us the amount of time remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california has five minutes remaining. the gentlelady from florida has three minutes remaining. mr. berman: i yield a minute to the gentleman from vermont. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from vermont is recognized for one minute. mr. welch: i thank the gentleman. there are two issues before congress. one is the reassertion of its responsibility under article 1 in the war powers act. number two is a decision on the limited use of force for humanitarian mission in libya.

the hastings resolution accomplishes both. it reasserts our authority under article 1 and the war powers act. number two, it says, yes, we do support limited intervention with a role for the u.s. in saving lives in libya. that mission is necessary to avert a humanitarian disaster. two, the mission has broad international support, including from the arab league. three, the u.s. role is limited in scope. no boots on the ground. and, finally, we are by acting asserting our responsibility under the war powers act in our -- and our responsibility under article 1. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: who seeks time? the gentleman from california. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance

of his time. the gentlelady from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: sir, i reserve the right to close, mr. speaker. so i will hold until the -- until they're done and then i will reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. bedroom interim is the gentlelady saying she has no other -- interim interim is the gentlelady saying she has no other -- mr. berman: is the gentlelady saying she has no other speakers? we have members who want to speak who are not yet on the floor. ms. ros-lehtinen: so sorry but -- not my problem. mr. berman: on whose time is this dialogue? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california seek time? mr. berman: i think in this case i will yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. for four minutes.

mr. berman: mr. speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i yield myself one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. berman: mr. speaker, we're 90 days into this operation and the majority is bringing up this resolution in order to embarrass the white house. let's just call it for what it is. they know it will fail. they want to continue to play games with u.s. national security. let's be honest about what's happening here. the republican leadership allowed this resolution to come to the floor for one reason and one reason only, they know it will fail and they think its defeat will be a political defeat for the white house.

if that type of trifling and toying with national security appeals to them, so be it. mr. speaker, i think our commitments to nato and -- i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlelady from florida reserves her time. does the gentleman from california seek time? ms. ros-lehtinen: there is additional time if i could tell my good friend. if the gentleman would yield, there is additional time on this resolution immediately following ours with armed services. so if there are any folks who come in later, perhaps they could speak during that time. mr. berman: in that case -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. berman: all right. so i yield myself the remainder

of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has three minutes remaining. mr. berman: mr. speaker, i think our commitments to nato and the humanitarian crisis that created the nato operation in libya are too important to be exploited for cynical political purposes. in my view the perfect authorization would have been a six-month authorization for a limited purpose with a limitation on that authorization with respect to a position the house has stood for the entire time, as has the president and that is no boots on the ground. but the republicans didn't give this side the choice of the resolution for authorization, they told us what the resolution for authorization would be and that's a very unfortunate kind of a situation. so we will go through this process and perhaps at the end of the day, after this

resolution fails, we will get another letter to the house of representatives, sent to the speaker, thanking us from colonel gaddafi for once again demonstrating that we want to send a message that he is going to prevail in this conflict. and when that happens what do we think the dictator of syria is going to think? faced with a choice of change or quitting he will hear the message, the way to survive, the way to hold on for power is for him to continue to kill his own people without the rest of the world doing anything. there are critical alliances at stake, there are critical interests at stake, the national security question is far beyond simply what is going to happen in libya but in its neighbors, egypt and to you initialia,

throughout the middle east -- tunisia, throughout the middle east and throughout the entire world, the message of trying to say that we're going to pull the plug on this particular operation and we could spend time talking about the way the administration has handled it but right now we have a choice, to pull the plug on this baby or to let it play out in a limited and responsible fashion to achieve our goals and send a message that the civilized world is not going to stand for this kind of mr. barrow:ity and brutality. i urge -- kind of brutality and and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentlelady from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you so much, mr. speaker. to wrap up on our side, i'm proud and pleased to yield the remaining time, three minutes, to the gentleman from arkansas, mr. griffin, a member of both the committees on foreign affairs and armed services. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arkansas is recognized for three minutes.

mr. griffin: thank you. i rise in opposition to house joint resolution 68 which authorizes the president to continue military operations in libya. i appreciate all the policy arguments that i have heard here today, but the question for me is, is it illegal or not? if it's a question of law, then all of the arguments about making this group mad or not being a good ally, etc., those are very persuasive, but those are not legal arguments. those don't change whether the actions in libya are constitutional or legal. those are policy arguments. the president continues to be in violation of the war powers resolution which requires congressional approval for military action within 60 days of the initial use of our armed forces. that deadline expired long ago. the president continues to involve the u.s. military in this illegal conflict and has

continually ignored requests to gain congressional approval. what's so hard, mr. president, about coming to the house and consulting with the congress? what's so hard about that? the other presidents who may have their doubts about the constitutionality of the war powers resolution have still gone through the process to respect the people that are represented by this body. reportedly the president ignored advice from his top lawyers at the pentagon and the justice department who said that he no longer had the legal authority to continue military action without congressional authorization. furthermore, this is not a legal argument but i think it's relevant, we're broke. the price tag of the military action in libya has already cost the u.s. government over $750 million. this resolution would authorize

the president to continue military action in libya for up to a year. that could result in billions of dollars of funding by the american taxpayer that we just can't afford. we cannot spend precious taxpayer funds to support this military action while the president flouts the law and constitution. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair will remind the members to direct their comments to the chair. the gentlelady from -- ms. ros-lehtinen: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. all time has expired.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to the bill and yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mckeon: mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to this bill and yield myself such time as i may consume. the president's initial justification for our military intervention in libya was that it was necessary to prevent the massacre of libyan civilians by government forces in ben gazzy and that this would be strictly a humanitarian mission. as i noted back in march, deploying american warriors to protect civilians from a brutal dictater is a noble cause. yet i also express my

reservations at the time because i feared that the mission could result in a protracted stalemate. although the president promised the american people that our involvement would be limited, a matter of weeks, not months, we find ourselves past the three-month mark with no end in sight. this bill would authorize operations for up to a year. we're currently engaged in a war that is vital to our national security. in afghanistan we're fighting extremists who sheltered the terrorist organization that killed 3,000 americans on september 11, and would again provide them with a sanctuary if given the chance. we're in the process of consolidating our victory in iraq and still have 50,000 troops there in harm's way. indeed a clear strategic vision is required to make any military intervention successful. since this operation began, the connection between strategic

ends and operational means has been lacking. consequently unless the nato mission departs from its initial mandate, it appears that our only recourse is to hold that gaddafi will voluntarily leave his country. i cannot support a long-term commitment of u.s. forces to hostilities when success is based on hope. furthermore, the president failed to seek congressional authorization for this operation on the flimsiest of legal rationale. it's not appropriate for this body to cover his laps with a blanket altogether zsh lapse with a blanket authorization. i therefore -- lapse with a blanket authorization. i therefore encourage my colleagues to vote no and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. >> thank you. i rise in support of this resolution. this is congress exercising its authority as is appropriate. mr. smith: and i agree with the

people who say that congress should do this and i just wish we would understand that congress has a certain responsibility in that regard. yes, the president should have asked us but it's been over three months and this house has chosen not to act until now. i think it's appropriate that we are, i think we should authorize this mission in libya and strongly support that mission. like most americans, when this issue first came up, when the people in libya started rising up against their oppressive dictator, i was very reluctant about the idea of u.s. military involvement, as i think we always should be. i think in the past we have been too overanxious to use the u.s. military in places where it was not a good fit. we need to think carefully about this. and in every instance we need to strike a balance. on the one hand, what is the positive impact that our involvement could have? and on the other hand, what are the risks of that involvement? and i think there was a unique set of circumstances in libya that made this make sense. first of all, our involvement could have a very positive impact. we had international support, the u.n., nato, the arab league, everybody in the world wanted

gaddafi to be stopped from slaughtering the civilians who were rightfully standing up and asking for the basic rights that we take for granted in this country. and in addition to that our military, our military budget is roughly equivalent to the entire rest of the world's combined. that gives us a unique set of capabilities. that set of capabilities was critical to stopping gaddafi from crushing, again, the legitimate democratic aspirations of the libyan people. if we had not acted they would be crushed, many more civilians would be dead and gaddafi would be back in power. we cannot walk away from that responsibility and say, yes, we don't like gaddafi, we wish the people there would do well, we simple low don't want to support the action that is necessary to give them that opportunity. in this case i think the mission did make sense for that reason. the united states is in a position to make a difference and stand up for people who were asking for legitimate

rights. the broader question is, what does that have to do with the united states? that may be true but true in a lot of countries. the reason this is so important is because of the broader movement that's going on, the so-called arab spring. people in muslim countries rising up, demanding representative rights. that has an incredible impact on us. the greatest threat we face right now is from al qaeda and their ideology. that ideology arose in part because of a whole bunch of repressive governments across the muslim world that weren't providing for their people. a number of oppressive governments, by the way, which the united states in the past has supported. we have the opportunity to do the opposite, to stand up for muslim people. let me tell you in the history of this country i don't think we've ever gotten as much positive press in the muslim tv stations and muslim media as we got for standing up to gaddafi. this has been enormously helpful to us in that broader ideological effort. we have national security interests for standing up.

now as a house i don't want to stand up and say we are going to back down from that commitment that we made. make no mistake about it, if we defeat this resolution and pass the rooney resolution, we will stop the mission in libya and empower muammar gadoofy, something i know nobody -- gaddafi, something i know nobody wants to do. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from indiana, mr. burton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from indiana is recognized for three minutes. mr. burton: i thank the gentleman from -- i thank the gentleman for yielding. i heard a number of people say, well, the constitution does give the president latitude, but during the nixon administration, congress passed the war powers act. and then when the president vetoed it, congress overrode

his veto, and so the war powers act became law. now, whether or not you believe it's constitutional, it has never been tested in the courts. and so it's the law. and the law says, as well as the constitution -- at least this is what most people who looked at the constitution believes is what it stands for -- the constitution and the war powers act says the president cannot do what he did without the support and approval of congress. now, he's gotten us into the war in libya, and it is in effect our war. people say, well, no, it's nato. well, we are providing over 8,000 of the military personnel on the ships and in the air. the majority flights taking place where they are doing the bombing are done by our airmen and our aircraft. over 90% of the missiles that

are being used at over $1 million per copy are american missiles. and this is going to cost billions of dollars. if this were to pass and we were to stay there for over a year, you could count on it costing $2 billion or $3 billion. now my colleague from arkansas a few moments ago talked about us being broke. the american people know if congress doesn't we're $1.4 trillion, $1.5 trillion short this year and we're $14 trillion in debt. we're printing money that our kids are going to have to deal with because they are going to have to pay for the debt down the road. some of us will pay for it if we live long enough. certainly our kids will have to pay for the debt. so we're adding to the debt by going into a war we shouldn't be in and without the approval of the congress in accordance with the war powers act of the constitution. now, my big concern is -- and i'm going to talk on the other bill that's coming up later on

-- my big concern is not just libya. my big concern is this president, unless we send a very strong message to him, may take us into syria. there's humanitarian problems in syria right now, and the reason they went into libya they said was because of the humanitarian problems. he talked to the french, the english, the nato, united nations and the arab league for about two weeks before we went into libya, but he didn't have time to talk to the congress who appropriates the money and authorizes this stuff. he's the commander in chief once we go to war, but he needs the authority from congress to go into it and he didn't do it. so there are a lot of wars of opportunity. the president could go into syria. key go to the ivory coast. may i have one more minute? mr. mckeon: i yield the gentleman an additional minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. burton: there are a lot of places to go to war if we choose to do it.

there are humanitarian problems around the war, but unless it's a threat to the united states or an attack to the united states, the president does not have the authority to do what he did without the support and approval of congress. president bush came to congress before he went into iraq. president bush came to congress before he went into afghanistan. and that's as it should be. and this president should not overstep his boundaries. and what i wish we would do which would exceed the legislation we're going to be talking about today is to pass legislation to cut off all funds for libya. now -- i know it would not pass the senate. it would send a signal to the president and the white house that we won't allow him to go into war without the american people and without the approval of congress. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i now yield three minutes to the distinguished minority whip, the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from maryland is recognized for three minutes. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. the previous speaker deludes himself and he's my friend, if he thinks the message we send today goes only to the president. the message will go to all over the world. the message will go to muammar gaddafi. the message will go to our nato allies. the message will go to every nation of the world that america does not keep faith with his allies. america must lead. we must not equivocate. such a course would encourage the enemies of peace, the bullies of the world, people around the world look to our country's strength in their struggle for democracy and basic human rights. as it happens, i said that in 1999 when clinton sent troops to stop the genocide in bosnia and he did so, and the authorization lost on this

floor shamefully 213-213. one of the darkest days i have served in this institution. let us not repeat that mistake. let us not repeat that message to our nato allies, to our european allies, to all the world that america cannot be counted on. at the same time congress was voting to undermine their mission as they flew to kosovo. in recent months people across the middle east have bravely stood to demand that their government respect their fundamental rights. i have stood with the gentleman from indiana on behalf of human rights around the world. the libyan people who have been subject to the dictatorship of muammar gaddafi has more blood on his hands of american bloods on his hands than any other person than osama bin laden in the last three decades. we're among those who insisted that enough was enough.

gaddafi responded by unleashing widespread violence and threatening countless lives, publicly promising to go door to door and kill those who stood against him. in response to this threat against gaddafi against those civilian people, the european union, the arab league, united nations security council and a unanimous nato called for action to protect libyan civilians. the united states is participating in this action both in order to prevent brutal attacks against civilians and in order to stand by our allies. president obama has made clear from the beginning that our allies needed to take the leading role in libya. we can't do it all, but that does not mean we can't support those who choose and take the responsibility of leading. nato has done that and to this point the campaign against

gaddafi has proven successful. his exports of oil have ceased. he's running short on funds. cabinet and military officials continue to -- from his regime. china has just hosted the opposition in china and they control eastern libya and is making progress in the west. i believe that the wrong decision today will significantly compromise that progress. gaddafi wrote us a letter in the last debate some weeks ago and thaad the house of representatives for its debate -- and thanked the house of representatives for its debate. is that the message we want to send to gaddafi? i think not. it would stop the growing movements of democratization across the middle east and across the world and it would severely undermine our nato alliance as we all know. if we want our allies to stand by us in our time of need in afghanistan we have to stand by

them in places like libya. we're either in an alliance or we're not. i do believe that president obama could and should have done a better job of consulting with congress at the outset of hostilities, and i do believe we are involved in hos -- hostilities. but i believe we must, we must as a faithful ally and defender of freedom defeat the rooney resolution and support the hastings resolution. america ought to do no less, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: mr. speaker, i yield 1 1/2 minutes to my friend and colleague, a member of the committee on armed services, the gentleman from florida, mr. west. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. west: i thank you for yielding. the war powers act of 1973 states the president can send u.s. armed forces into action

abroad only by authorization of congress or in case of a national emergency created by an attack upon the united states, its territories or possessions or its armed forces. so as we look at the mission or the perceived mission that we have in libya, it does not even meet this criteria. i stand here today as someone who has been set forth on these shores in the 22 years that i served in the united states army, i stand here as the son of a man who left these shores to go defend this great country in world war ii. i stand here as a younger brother of a man who left these shores to go defend this country and fight in vietnam. and i stand here today as the nephew of a young man, a captain who has already done two tours of duty in afghanistan. many of my friends have called me. some call me as colonel. some call me as allen and say, we need you to do one simple thing. understand that the oath they take is to support and defend the constitution, to support

and defend the laws of this country. they need us to stand up and be the guardians of the laws of this country. just before i came here today, i promoted jerry lee stern to be a major and i read him that oath of office that he would greatly take what we must do now as this body, as legislators of this great nation is uphold the laws and not send our men and women into undefined and unspecified mission. they want to fight. they want to stand up for us. let's do the right thing by them, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for one minute. mr. cohen: thank you. i appreciate the time. i'm going to vote for the hastings resolution and against the rooney resolution for one person in particular. three words. jane ann morgan. a high school friend of mine in pasadena, california, who was on pan am flight 103.

she and 177 other americans lost their lives 23 years ago and we should not forget them. gaddafi was osama bin laden before there was osama bin laden. and we cannot stop until he is out of power and the 178 americans who died and the soldiers who died in the berlin discos's lives are remembered. i support the resolution and vote in thinking of jane ann morgan today. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: just for the record, mr. speaker, the original mission was not to get gaddafi. the original mission, as explained by the president, was to help for humanitarian purposes those civilians that gaddafi was threatening. at this time, mr. speaker, i yield one minute to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized for one minute. mr. kucinich: i want to thank

the gentleman and associate myself with his remarks right now. we were told this is about protecting civilians. this has become a cover for regime change. just because we can change a regime with military power doesn't mean we should do it and using military action doesn't mean that you're going to achieve the objectives that maybe you haven't even clearly defined. furthermore, if our allies make a mistake, do we follow them? if our allies are going out of the war, why should we go in? right now you have china's foreign minister saying, we hope the two parties in the conflict can attach importance to the country and the people's interests and ernestly consider the international community's relevant resolution plans, quickly cease hostilities and resolve the crisis through political challenges. the outgoing head of the arab league said this two days ago, now is the time to do whatever you can to reach a political solution. that has to start with a genuine ceasefire under international

supervision. the president of south africa said a few days ago that this about regime change, political assassination and foreign military occupation. vote against this resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. sherman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. sherman: i have said that i would vote for a resolution granting authority to the president if it was appropriately limited in conditions. i would like to see conditions that require the benghazi government to remove from their midst the al qaeda fighters and the islamic libyan fighters group. i would like to see the conditions that we use the gaddafi money that we seized, some $30 billion, rather than taxpayer money. but put those conditions aside. the one thing we almost all agree on is that we want to -- that we would want to limit this to air forces and perhaps a ground rescue mission if necessary. that's not what this resolution

does. section 1 grants authority to the president to do whatever he decides to do including armor divisions on the ground in support of the nato mission. don't be fooled by section 2 which provides the president with nonbinding, unsolicited advice that we think that we should limit our ground operations to rescue missions and diplomatic security. this is a grant of authority to the president to put armored divisions on the ground if that's what he chooses to do. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i will yield my final minute in a moment. consistent with the policy in here it says congress does not support deploying, establishing or maintaining the presence of members of the united states armed forces on the groupped in libya. the resolution -- ground in libya. it clearly prohibits ground forces.

with that i yield my final minute to the gentleman from iowa, mr. king. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from iowa is recognized for one minute. mr. king: i thank the gentleman for yielding. and i would start out first to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, who i think laid this out clearly. this is a message that goes globally, this is a destiny message. the speaker of this house understands his role, he understands that all of america is watching us today and even though if i'd had a vote i would have said no, don't go into libya, if i had an opportunity to amend this resolution i would say, let's extend the authorization -- or let's limit the authorization to a shorter period of time so that the president can come do what he should do. but i believe that there are scores of americans in their graves today because this congress sent the wrong message in several conflicts that encouraged our enemy, the object of war is to destroy the minute's will and ability to conduct war.

and i would shorten that up to say, if you can destroy their will it doesn't matter what their ability is, you've taken their ability with it. but this message, it encourages our enemy, this resolution says that congress stands with the constitutional authority of the president to be commander in chief and to conduct our foreign policy. we should conduct our disagreement with the president domestically, not in our foreign policy and not by limiting an activity that could abrogate our nato treaty. i appreciate the gentleman yielding and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: might i ask how much time is remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has one minute remaining and the gentleman from washington's time has expired. mr. mckeon: mr. speaker, i again urge my >> the house turned back a republican-led effort to cut off military operations in libya. the funding measure would have barred from attacks and air

strikes but allowed the united states to continue actions in support of nato. this floor debate on the measure is an hour and 15 minutes. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, on march 19 of this year the president sent us into kinetic military activity or war in libya. within 48 hours the president notified the congress in accordance with the war powers act of his decision to do so. for 60 days the president under the war powers act had the opportunity and chose not to come to this body and make the case as to why being in libya was important. on the 60th day he wrote a letter to this body saying that he would welcome authorization but he's n asking for it. time and time again on the armed services committee we were presented with speakers om the administration who would give certain updates on various matters to which i would ask

you, are you here to -- i would ask, are you here to ask authsizationnd the witnesses would say no. -- authorization and the witnesses would say no. after 90 days and the president has not seized activity or hostilities in little bit -- ceased activity or hostilities in libya, the time has come and gone and we've sent our indication over to the administration time and time again that we disapprove. but because the war powers resolution by some either in the republican or in the democrat or in the house or the senate is questionable whether or not they consider it constitutional or not, the president has operated in what we now know is called thzone of twilight as to whether or not he even needs our approval. so what are we left with? mr. speaker, we're lt with today our option under our ability under the power of the purse to restrict funds from ongoing operations in libya. without it and without the supreme court weighing in on whether or not the war powers is

unconstitutional, in my opinion the president is breaking th law but he is being restricted by nobody and being able to coinue unfettered. some have said that the war powers resolution isn't worth the paper that it's written on. to that i say, based on what supreme court decision? based on what precedent? there is none because the cour haven't weighed in on it. i know some of my colleagues here have a pending case before the court and i wish them well. but what if they don't accept the case? what if they say these members, as they have said before, don't have standing? then we're right back to square one. mr. speaker, today we have the opportunity to send a message to the executive branch and this transcends party, but it exerts our power under the separation of powers to say we, the house of representatives, are relevant, we the house of

representatives are exercising our ability that the founding fathers gave us in the ability to declare war, because they wanted us to have this deliberation, this debate that we're having here today, arguments that have been made on both sides that have been very good. because the last thing that we want as americans is for some president, whether it's this president or some future president, to be able to pick fights around the world without any debate from another branch of government. it's the most difficult thing we have to do as government officials and that's send our kids into harm's way. so it has to be a long debate and the president had 60 days and chose not to engage in that debate. so here we are today saying, if you chouse not to come here and get altogether -- choose not to come here and get authorization, we are going to stop it until you do. the president always has the ability in the future to come and try to get authorization for what he's doing in libya or anywhere else.

so, mr. speaker, i rise i support of my bill to withdraw funding from future engagement in libya and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from washingto mr. smith: tnk you, mr. speaker. i yield myself three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. smith: thank you. the bottom line with this resolution, and i think the gentleman made a lot of very fair points, i certainly think that the white house could have handled it better in terms of communicating with congress, but what this resolution would do that he has presented would be to end our mission in libya. so all of the debates and arguments that you heard from the previous discussion apply to this just as well. it has some limited options in terms of what the president could continue to do in support of nato, but ivery specifically disallows any effort at air support, any

effort at suppressing opposition fire. it does allow for aerial refueling, it allows for rescue missions, but what the military has made clear is they will not do that without all of the other assetshat are necessary to suppress enemy fire, enemy fire. we are not going to send off our aerial refueling apparatus if we know we can't protect them from being shot down. so the effect ofhis resolution is to again end the mission in libya and people have different opinions about where they should come down on. that i don't believe we should end the mission in libya -- on. that i don't believe we should end the mission in libya. i do believe that congress' voice should be heard on this issue. that's why i supported the previous resolution that would have authorized that. i don't think we should stop what we're doing in libya and getting back to the previous debate, there have been some comments that have been made that i want to be sure and correct. i think we have a much better idea of who the forces in libya fighting against muammar gaddafi

are than has been said and we know this because they control roughly half the country right now. what our mission was able to do is stop muammar gaddafi from being able to crush the folks who are rising up against him and retake the territory that they have. so in benghazi and in most of i think it's eastern libya, it is controlled by these opposition forces. and by all accounts they are running a very sensible government. it is not an islamic state, it does not have al qda influence, it has a bunch of people who are simply trying to exercise free expression that they have been denied for narly 40 years by muammar gaddafi. we have a very good idea who these people are. they are precisely the type of people that the united states of america should be supporting. and as mentioned before, in our great struggle against al qaeda, one of the centerpieces of it is ideological. the ideology that bin laden and many others advance is very

antiwestern and their biggest government is that the west has consistently supported governments that have repressed the muslim people. we have not been good for them. and there are at least one or two instances when that argument actually has some facts to back it up. and now we are presented with a chance to support a legitimate group of people who want basically what we have, democracy. they want the ability to vote for their representatives, they want a voice in their government and we are going to pull the rug out from under them. and keep in mind, this is a very limited mission. it is nato-led, but we are offering critical support to make it possible. and if we vote for the rooney resolution, we will pull all of that away and right at the moment, in fact there was a newspaper story this morning about how gaddafi is talking about leaving tripoli because the pressure is getting too great on him, we have had continual members of the libyan government abandoning gaddafi, he is ready to fall and those

voices of libyan people who want the very freedoms that we all say we want for them are ready to rise and we are going to reverse that by pulling out this minimal level of support that we are offering. that is the effect of the rooney resolution and therefore i oppose it and i serve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to my friend from texas, mr. mccaul. the chair: the gentleman from texas is recognized for three minutes. mr. mccaul: i thank the gentleman from florida for yielding time and commend him for this legislation. mr. speaker, i rise today in support of this bill and in defense of the constitution. the founding fathers clearly intended for congress to have the power to commit this nation into armed conflict. article 1, section 8 of the constitution states that congress shall have the power to declare war. our first commander in chief, george washington, knew that when he said the constitution vets the power of declaring war in congress, therefore no

offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure. that is exactly what this bill is about. and president obama, when he was a senator, knew this when he said that the president does not have the power under the constitution to authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. he went on further to say that no law can give congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as a co-equal branch the constitution made it. i couldn't agree more with him. but unfortunately as president mr. obama appears to no longer agree with hiprior interpretation of the constitution. and in reviewing the war powers act, we can argue that it is unconstitutional. but that is for the supreme court to decide. in applying the war powers act to the facts here in this case it is clear that the president failed to comply with the

requirements to get congressional approval. and when we examine the merits of the case for involvement in libya, this administration has wholly failed to define a clear national interest, mission or goal. why are we there? are we there to kill gaddafi? or to provide humanitarian aid? and since when does humanitarian aid come from a missile launch from a predator drone? and who are these rebels that we are supporting? the administration has failed to provide congress with a clear answer to this question. . we do know some are tied to terrorist organizations. the bill introduced by my good friend from florida, mr. rooney, reasserts congress' role as a co-equal branch of government and sends a clear message to the president that he must get congressional approval before he commits this nation to war. as he stated when he was in the united states senate. with that, mr. speaker, i urge a

yes vote on this bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield three minutes to the gentlelady from texas, ms. jackson lee. e speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas recognized for three minutes. ms. jackson lee: let me thank mr. smh and let me thank him for his leadership and for characterizing where we are today as a conflicted and, if you will, highly uncertain posture. i'm looking at the vote count and it looks as if 225 republicans voted against a time certain to get out of libya. if you read the resolution, h.r. 2278, and i'm looking over and

over again, there really is no print as to a time certain. there is a nebulous statement about limiting funds for such things as sech and resc, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, aerial fundi, and operational planning. that can go on ad infinitum. we can take the american people's money forever and ever and continue in this effort. i don't like where we are today. actually it is true, it is congress' right to declare war and the war powers resolution which my good friends on the other side of the aisle are now debating on this constitutionality, and of course they used it in the past, does indicate that it was done in order to track the constitution and allow congressional consultation. there was a letter sent by the president. there has been a report sent, but there's no doubt that this was not handled right. but in the iraq war, an

unnecessary war, no arab league states asked us to join with them. there was no defined threat to the united states in the iraq war as we said. we left the afghanistanar to dilly-dally in iraq and lose 4,000 soldiers. so where is the lack of hypocrisy here? right now the arab league has asked us to join them. right now our nato allies are engaged in trying to get rid of an oppressive abuser and a person who has killed his own people. where is the dignity on this place? it's nothing but politics. and i respect my colleagues who want to make choices about which direction they want to go. but i will tell you i'd much ratherave to be able to vote for something that is time certain, ending in on year and before, and if there is not a definitive end, then i will offer a briffed resolution to get out of libya, but i don't want to abandon my friends in the arab states who are now

struggling for democracy. why is syria different? why is yemen different? why is bahrain different? you are absolutely right because other forces are engaged in syria, yemen, and bahrain. and the arab states are attempting to negotiate. so i'm not interested in willy-nilly going into all kinds of wars. i'm not interested in going there but i am interested in being consistt. we now have an operation and we can tell that there is movement by those who are rebels and i'd like my friends to document for me if they have got a documented presence of al qaeda, then they can tell us that. but right now we have an obligation and we can't play politics. and this resolution is nothing but politics because it does not end when we are supposed to get out. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. smith: additional 15 seconds.

ms. jackson lee: it is a continuous, unending obligation to be able to be in libya. i would much rather have a definitive act which is to say that we have no more than a year ani would offer to the white house that we would like reports sooner than that and some of us may wish to go forward with another resolution to move us out. i will not be supporting politics today. i have to support those who are fighting for justice in libya. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich. mr. kucinich: i would beg to -- prior to the distinguished gentlelady from texas, because there are those of us who oppose this bill principle an we believe we are fighting for justice as well. i want to state that if you believe the war should end, then at least believe we should limit it today. that's what mr. rooney does. i oppose this war, it's unconstitutional, it's in violation of statute, and there's a way to end the war, vote for rooney step one

. . amendment which defunds the d.o.d. bill, you can do that when we come back. but to claim that the arab league is somehow asking for us to continue this attack on libya is plain false. the fact of the matter is we have . and outgoing head of the arab league have called for a halt to hostilities in libya. it was reported that two days ago, the outgoing head of the arab leagu said now it's time to do whatever we can to reach a litical solution and that has to start with a cease-fire under international position. you don't have the arab league here saying come on, go for, it prosecute the war. bomb libya. they are not saying that at all. we have to be very clear about that. even china who is eating our lunch financially, they are not involved in this war. they are saying there ought to

be a political solution. that from the chinese minister two days ago. we have to be careful about our intentions here. and our intentions should be to end this war and we can do it with rooy's bill. the resolution isn't perfect. it doesn't end the war in its entirety immediately. but it does make clear that the united states will not take over the war as european support continues to diminish. the kucinich-amash amendment is compliment complementary. we want to end u.s. involvement in the war in libya. vote yes for mr. rooney's bill which ends direct hostilities immediately and support kucinich-amash when it comes up in two weeks. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman'time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i yield three minutes to theentlelady from ohio, ms. kaptur. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from ohio is recognized for three minutes. ms. kaptur: thank you. i thank ranking member smith for yielding me the time and ask unanimous consent to place extraneous materials in the

record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. kaptur: i rise in support of this bill as the prior resolution, better late than never. here again in libya, congress follows in the wake of major executive branch military action absent congressional authorization. i sent a letter to president obama on march 22 regarding what was then called operation morning dawn and never gotten an answer. when one looks at the duration of u.s. military engagements in the middle east, north africa, and central asia and what the future might bring, these are the longest wars and military actions in u.s. history. our nation has fallen into deep debt directly connected to our expenditures of over $1 trillion in the past decade on wars that have not been paid for. and creeping defense commitments in that region and globally now consume over half of the u.s. discretionary budget annually. it is an astounding predicament 20 years after the end of the cold war. as jobless americans question whether our federal government

sees their plight. we all know freedom is not free but it is largely the american people that are bearing this military burden more and more each year. what is most striking that other nations in the region in which we are fighting are simply not carrying anywhere near their fair share of the load of boots on the ground nor have they measured up terms of putting their treasuries at risk. unless an alliance of nations in that region fight for freedom themselves, they won't own it and we can't transfuse it. sadly compared to the mol justification for world war ii which historians termed american's most just foreign war, our nation in the current period is drawn into resource wars in far-flung place that is history is likely to judge as morally indefensible. the world is full of bad dictators but it always seems the dictators america's most interested in are those that sit atop huge oil reserves. libya has the world's nine largest oil reserves and exports 1.5 million barrels a day. i'll be placing several articles

in the record that document west europe's dependence as well as canada's reliance on libya. the west utter and growing reliance on imported petroleum has twisted our foreign policy and crippled our domestic economy time and again. as we import half of what we consume, until americans clearly e our predicament, our nation will keep repeating these same mistakes. let us be clear the nature of the libyan econo. 95% of its exports are oil. 80% of its government revenue derives from oil sales. oil represents 25% of libya's g.d.p. and its most important industry. and libya is africa's third largest oil producer. the jor powers involved in this military operation have vast interests at stake to the multinational oil coorations that operate in libya. whether it's from italy which gets 22% of its oil from libyan operations through firms like

aimee or canada whose nato general is leading operations while canada's second largest corporation has major oil operations in libya. might i have an additional 15 seconds? miss smi: additional 15 seconds. miss -- ms. kaptur: the son of colonel gaddafi warned that in the event of a civil war, libya's oilt wealth would be burned. -- oil wealth would be burned. one can see why global powers took note. history will judge whether these resource wars and selected dictatorisposals are justifiable, but the answer for america is to invest here at home and to restore america's energy independence. and to extricate ourselves from all these foreign oil involvements. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: i yield two minutes to my friend andolleague, the chairman of the subcommittee on strategic forces, the gentleman from ohio, mr. turner. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is

recognized for two minutes. mr. turner: thank you,r. rooney. i appreciate theime and also your advancing this resolution. the president has not made the case for committing our military to the conflict in libya. the president claims that these military actions do not constitution hostilities. however the american people know otherwise. the president is engaged in military action against libya and the gaddafi regime without congressional approval. in addition to ignoring congress, many believe that the president has exceeded the scope of the u.n. security council resolution imposing an embargo, a no-fly scone zone, and authorizing civil protection of the libyan people. the president has told us who we are against, gaddafi. but he cannot tell us who we are for. secretary gates has indicated that we know little about the opposition or rebels. we do not know their geopolitical view, their neighbors, or us. we do not know their commitment to domestic diversity. are we going to have atrocities?

we do not know their idlogy or preferred form of government or if they have a commitment to nonproliferation of weapons of mass destructi, an issue that is incredibly importan in the area of libya. the president has used the united nations approval of liffle protection to wage an all-out war on gaddafi without congressional approval or american support. u.s. admiral lockleer in charge of the nato operations recently stated that ground troops would be needed to provide stability inibya once the gaddafi regime falls. and yet the president has not provided us any informatio about what a post-gaddafi libya will look like ouour involvement. he is committing us to an extended military action and for congress to be relevant, the voices of this body need to be heard. i support the passage of mr. rooney's resolution limiting the use of funds appropriated in the d.o.d. in support of u.s. activities in libya unless otherwise authorized by law. this passage of this resolution is an important step to limit the role of the u.s. military.

i urge passage of h.r. res. 2278. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i now yield three minutes to the gentleman from virginia, member of the appropriations committee, mr. moran. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia is recognized for three minutes. mr. moran: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, if this resolution passes and we weaken nato's mission, gaddafi may very well prevail. his forces will then kill, rape, and torture all those libyans who oppose him as he is already trying to do. gaddafi has reportedly kidnapped thousands of people, including young students to serve as human shields and march at the vanguard of his forces. if any of his own soldiers refuse to gun down unarmed innocent civilians, they are shot immediately. once he's done with his own people, he'll turn his attention to those nato and middle eastern nation that is attacked him and seek revenge.

remember, this is a man who is already responsible for the deaths of 189 innocent passengers on pan am 103. let's face it, this is not about whether the obama administration has been fellow enough in explaining the libyan rationale to congress. members understand why the president intervened. we can read. we can think. we can decide. the real question is, will we politicize this effort in the same way that the republican congress politicized president clinton's successful intervention in a nato-led mission in bosnia 15 years ago. . the limited action we're taking to support the nato mission in libya does not rise to a level of conflict meant to be governed by the war powers resolution. presidents of both parties have initiated similar actions. in granada, pana, somalia, bosnia, hatey, kosovo.

-- haiti, kosovo. you know, what this really is about, the purpose of this mission is to seize an opportunity to show the world, particularly the young majority of the arab and muslim world, who are thirsting for economic and political freedoms, that we are on their side. we have the opportunity to show the arab world at every -- and every nation on earth who we are as a people. it shouldn't matter who's in the white house, we should be united in the cause of democracy. we should debate, but when the debate is ov, litics should take a backseat to policy. the legacy of america is that we will fight tyranny and defend innocent people as best and as forcefully as we can. and good economic -- in good economic times and bad. this date should come to an end. we know what's at stake. if gadda is allowed to violently suppress the uprising in libya, it will mean many more years of rule, isolated by his repulsive acts of repression and

he would have nothing to lose by aiding violent, subversive groups in neighboring country, including those with vulnerable fledgling democracies like tunisia and egypt. that wouldn't only be a defeat for democracy in the region, it would be a death blow for nato, the most important military alliance the world has yet achieved. imagine if just two weeks after secretary gates -- one more minute. do you have one more minute? mr. smith: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. mr. moran: thank you, mr. chairman. imagine if just two weeks after secretary gates put some of our nato allies for skipping on their commitments to the structure that is a key to our economic system and the open societies that safeguard our prosperity and our way of life, imagine if now we turned our backs on nato. what a global embarrassment. now is the time to stand together against a murderous dictator, to give democracy and opportity in a part of the world that has not experienced

it. a part of the world which is vital to america's security. that's why i urge my colleagues to reject this legislation. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to my friend and colleague, mr. lynch from massachusetts. the eaker pro tempore: the gentleman fr massachusetts is recognized for two minutes. mr. lynch: thank you, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. i rise in support of mr. rooney's resolution. mr. speaker, it's it's a sad irony that at the same time that we're committing our sons and daughters to an armed conflict in libya in support of democracy and the rule of law that we are also hear at home trampling on the fundamental principles of separation of powers and the plain language of the united states constitution which is the supreme rule of land in -- law in our land. i've heard several times n that this is an gument about politics. well, politics i to congress like wet is to water. we cannot avoid that.

but the united states this issue is really within of substan and the united states constitution clearly states that president'power as commander of chief to introduce armed forces into hostilities may be exercised only pursuant to three circumstances. first, a declaration of wa secondly, a specific statutory authorization, a number three, a national emergency created by an attack on the united states or its territories. none of those circumstances is in evidence here today. so despite my great admiration and respect for our president, a lawful premise for this libyan operation does not exist. i've also heard the argument that we have to join with our international neigors, that we can't dessert them. well, as a matter of fact -- desert them. well, as a matter of fact i've been to iraq 13 times, i've been to afghanistan 10 times. when i first went over to afghanistan after hostilities started, it used to be 50%

united states and 50% the rest of the world. now when i go it's about 75% the u.s. and 25% the rest of the world. so they have migrated out of afghanistan. at the same time they're asking us to pick up the load in libya. i also on my trips, i don't meet any of our kids on their first tour of duty anymore. when i meet our kids they're on their third, fourth, fifth tour of duty. we're stretched very thin, our military families are stretched very thin and i think we should allow our international neighbors to pick up this load. so i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support mr. rooney's amendment and i yield back. the speaker o tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield two minutes to the ranking member of the appropriations committee, the gentleman from washington, mr. dicks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington is recognized for two minutes. mr. dicks: the strict limitation of funds in the resolution offered by mr. rooney of florida

would d our involvement unilaterally. i believe this action would be unwise and that it would materially harm our relationship with nato allies from whom we will undoubtedly require support in the future. it would also undermine the worldwide effort to protect the people of libya. now, in this amendment there are exceptions, search and rescue, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, aerial refueling and operational planning. and i ask the majority if they would put in suppression? because you can't conduct these other missions without suppression. and if we don't have the ability to suppress enemy air defenses, the allies will not be able to continue the bombing campaign. so all of these things that the gentleman says he wants to do and have exceptions for will be undermined by not having suppression. to date, f-18 growlers go in on these missions, they suppress

the enemy ray doctors a so that the bombing can -- radars so that the bombing can continue. i think this is fatefully flawed because of the lack of suppression and i think that we now have to vote against this because of that fact. and i tried to offer this as an amendment but i s told that they weren't interested. so i just hope you understand that you really are undermining this mission. you are really undermining nato. and this deserves to be defeated. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from new yo, colonel gibs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for two minutes. mr. gion: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman for --he gentleman from florida for yielding me time to speak today. i've been opposed to this operation in libya from the start. in terms of tional security priorities, we should be focuses -- focusing on completing operations in iraq and afghanistan, reorganizing the national security establishment to more effectively wage

counterterrorism operations against al qaeda and resetting the d.o.d. to defend our cherished way of life in a manner consistent for a republic. not an empire. going forward we need to learn from these experiences and exercise more discipline. not getting involved in operations like libya where vital national security interests are not present. we should cease our involvement in libya immediately. i'm supporting this resolution to cut off funds for combat operations. i view this as a good start. but i want to be clear. i will not be satisfied until all funds are cut off for this operation, no exceptions. then we need to revise the war powers act to make sure we never again end up with a president taking this country to war without proper authorization. we need to rediscover the founders' intent on this critical issue and i've introduced legislation, the war powers reform act, to make it so. the war powers reform act clarifies when the president may deploy forces into hostilities or imminent threat of hostilities.

one, declaration of war, two, statutory authorization or, three, a national emergency created by an attack on the united states or an imminent threat of an attack on our country. if none of these circumstances are met, the president must first come to congress to obtain authorization before deploying forces. the key change in the war powers reform act is that without prior authorization, the president may not obligate or expend funds to deploy troops into combat. congress must act to restore constitutional balance in the voice of the american people. we need to reform the war powers act and i urge my colleagues to support both this bill and mr. rooney's resolution on libya that we are voting on today. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized for one minute. mr. kinzinger: thank you, mr. speaker, and thank you for yielding. america is a beacon of light around the world. and in a time when many were cowering in their house,

wondering if this genocide that gaddafi was bringing to their doorstep would come tomorrow or the next day, american fighters came in and pressed gaddafi's forces back and pushed him bk into tripoli. america has stood for the side of fedom in this arab spring. america has stood for people that don't have a voice for themselves. don't let a dispute between the legislative branch and executive branch result in us pulling the rug out from standing up for freedom. america has a responsibility to finish this through. to stand with our allies. to leave now means gaddafi wins. period. i urge a no vote to this resolution and i thank my colleague for yielding and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to my friend from oklahoma, mr. cole. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized for two minutes.

mr. cole: i thank you, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. i rise, mr. speaker, in reluctant opposition to this amendment. of this resolution. it's well intentioned, without question. it's meant to limit our involvement in libya, it's meant to support our allies and it's meant to rein in a president who in my opinion is conducting an illegal and certainly unauthorized war. it does both too little and too much. it does too little, frankly, because even after it's passed, the president ll continue essentially to be able to operate as he's been operating for several weeks. and it does too much because it gets us into a situation where we effectively micromanage the military by literally listing what missions they should take. the resolution needs to hold the president -- neither holds the president accountable nor ends our involvement in libya and it essentially leaves things exactly where they are. congress should reassert its constituonal authority, mr. speaker, by either authorizing the use of military force or ending it. this resolution avoids either course. it postpones a decision and in doing so, in my view, it erodes

the constitutional war making authority of congress and enhances an executive branch that is already overreaching. we will appear to do something and we will actually do nothing. and so for that reason i reluctantly urge the rejection of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. andrews. the speaker o tempore: the gentleman from new jerseis recognized for two minutes. mr. andrews: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. andrews: thank youmr. speaker. when the president of the united states went to the united nations security council to urge intervention in the libyan civil war, he frankly missed a stop. he should have come here first. and this congress should have debated the wisdom or lack thereof of that effort. knowing what i know about this, had that debate taken place here, i would be one who would have voted against authorizing

the use of force here because i do not believe we have a vital national security interest in the libyan civil war. i'm going to oppose this resolution, however, because i think that two constitutional wrongs do not make a right. again, i believe the president should have come here and sought the authorization of this congress before he initiated these hostilities. and they are hostilities. but when we have people at risk, when we have lives on the line, i think this resolution raises a practical and a constitutional problem. the practical problem mr. dicks alluded to a few minutes ago and i can think of another vary yags. if a nato -- varation. if a nato ally is sending people into libya on an intelligence gathering function and asked to us provide air cover for that

function, is that an intelligence operation or isn't it? i don't know. there's a good argument on either side, but it's an adjudication that i don't think a u.s. commander in the field ought to have to make. i think it's a practic confusion that does not serve us well when people are at risk. and then secondly just as the president has the obligation, i believe, to seek approval of thisody and the other one before he initiates hostilities, he also has the responsibility to conduct those affairs once they begin. our role is to oversee and fund or not fund such activities, but it is not to interfere with them. i think this is an impractical interference so i'm going to vote no. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from floda. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, can i inquire as to the time remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida has 14 minutes remaining and the gentleman from washington has 12 minutes remaining. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to my friend and

colleague from california, mr. sherman. the speaker pro mpore: the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. sherman: this bill defunds libya unless authorized specifically by law. if it passes long before it's passed by the senate the president will come to us and ask for authorization. and i for one would want to grant limited conditional authorization. . we just rejected a limited authorization. all authority and no limbation. that's how it would be interpreted by the white house legal counsel given how it was drafted. the house should consider real binding limits and conditions. because democracy and rule of law for the people of libya is

important, but democracy and rule of law for the people of the united states is more important. there are those who regret they cannot offer an amendment to this bill. yes, they can. the motion to recommit will be in order just as soon as we end debate. i know that we have had important resolutions from the arab league, the u.n., and nato. those are not substitutes for congress. the war powers act is the law of the land and if we don't stand up for it now, when will we? and if this president won't obey it, which president will? the speaker pro tempore: the gentlen's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from georgia, member of the foreign affairs committee and also a member of the nato parliamentary assembly, mr. scott. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for one minute. mr. scott: thank you very much. thank you very much, mr. smith. what we have here is two essential arguments. one is more of an intramural argument between congress and the white house.

but it is a misplaced argument because there is no president that's come to this congress for a declaration of war since world war ii. and granted we have been in seven or eight major conflicts. so this much greater than this conflict between the white house and this congress. unfortunately i believe that this measure is just an attempt to rather in a strong way get the attention of the president. maybe to chastise the president a bit. so surely. but i think if you look at the record there were communications here, but there is a larger profound message here. it's not a message that this is to send to the president. this is a bad time piece of legislation because it sends the wrong message to the world. ladies and gentlemen of the congress, we are the leaders of the free world. america is a great country and

our standing is at stake and this move, this bill will pull the rug out from under nato at precisely the time when we need to be sending a strong message of encouragement. the united states is in a support role here. so it is very important that we defeat this amendment and make sure that we send the right message to our allies that we will not pull the rug out from under them. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to my friend from massachusetts, mr. frank. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for one minute. mr. frank: mr. speaker, i want to send a message to our allies, and i don't think we are pulling the rug out from under them. look at these wealthy populous nations of western europe. i believe it's a good thing to get rid of gaddafi. does america have to do everything? people say we are the indispensable nation. that's a terrible burden to

impose on ourself. we cannot afford it and it cannot be done effectively. let's get people who can dispense with it. my friend, the ranking member of the appropriations committee said, we have to do this because nato can bomb but they can't suppress. what a great bunch ofllies, they can bomb on armed people but if they shoot back they got to come running to as you. yes, i want to send a message to nato. gaddafi's a bad guy. if england and france and italy and germany and spain and the netherlands and scandinavia can't together muster the military force for this weakened poor nation, then let's re-examine the value of this ally. there was in the "king and i" when he says, if the allies are weak might not -- it's time for them to step up. this is not to protect gaddafi. it's to say that america can no longer be asked to be the one that does everything, everywhere, every time our allies have to step up. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired.

the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank y, mr. speaker. i now yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. paul. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for two minutes. mr. paul: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i really speak on the house floor -- rarely speak on the house floor and almost never have i come to the floor two times in one day to speak on one issue. but this is my fourth trip to the floor today on this issue because i consider it so important and so serious. if i could rename this bill i would call it a bill to authorize the use of force in libya. that is what we are doing. we should not kid ourselves. we are authorizing the use of force. we are endorsing the obama war in libya. some see this as weakening our presence over there. but there is no doubt if you read it carefully we are expanding and giving authority because of the exceptions. the exceptions include search and research, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance,

refueling, planning, contract labor can still go in, the c.i.a. is in there already, special forces. and paying for it. how can you do that without paying for it? we are there, this will be the first time the president will have received any information from the congress that it's ok to pursue what we are doing. we are supposed to be sending the message that we are in charge of when we go to war an ene pay for this war. we are not supposed to lie over an capitulate to what the president wants as we have been for too many years. so there is no doubt that i think the proper vote here, the proper constitutional vote, the proper vote for the best of our national interest, the best vote for peace is to vote this resolution down just as we voted the previous resolution down. we should prohibit the use of funds. a lot of us complain on this house floor because of theay the president went to war. he didn't come here, he went to nato. but this supports nato. one of the arguments in favor of

this bill is we have the exceptions so we don't want to break tiesn our aleaningance to nato -- allegiance to nato. that's what we are supposed to be doing. we are supposed to be claiming the sovereignty and responsibilities in the house. we are not supposed to roll over for nato and us united nations. we are supposed to stand up for this country. we are not supposed to go into war under these conditions and under those circumstances. i strongly urge a no vote on this resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to my friend from indiana, mr. burton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from indiana is recognized for two minutes. mr. burton: somebody said a while ago we ought to be supporting the arab spring because there is movements towards democracy over there. we went into libya to help in a humanitarian effort and get rid of muammar gaddafi. who are we supporting? nobody at the white house has come down here and said we are supporting this group of people. we don't know if it's the muslim

brotherhood. we don't know if it's al qaeda. we do know there are al qaeda operatives that came from afghanistan fighting with the rebels in libya. are we supporting al qaeda? are we supporting the muslim brotherhood? the muslim brotherhood in egypt has opened up the border, the government of egypt, whatever that is right now, has opened up the border between egypt and gaza. which provides a mechanism for weapons to get into gaza to fire on israel. soefore we start supporting a rebel movement and goinafter somebody like gaddafi, we ght to find out who we are r. we are spending billions of dollars before this is over in a war where we don't even know who we are supporting, and it's in violation of the war powers act in the constitution. this is something we should t doing. the president should have come down here and made his case. he should have said what our goals are. he should have said who we are supporting and why are we supporting them? we are in a war against terrorism and we may very well

end up with terrorists controlling libya and egypt. and that is a tinderbox we don't want. we get about 35% of our energy om that part of the world and if all hell breaks loose because we have gone with the wrong guys, we've got a real problem in this country economically. and the president ought to be thinking about all that and making his case to the congress in accordance with the constitution and the war powers act before he does it. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california recognized for one minute. mr. mcclintock: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, this bill purports to cut off funding for combat in libya. in doing so it simply forbids what the constitution already forbids, the waging of war without explicit congressional authorization. but then it specifically grants to the president what up until now he has completely lacked.

congressional authority to engage in every conceivable belligerent act short of actually pulling the trigger. refueling bombers on their way to targets. identifying and selecting targets. guiding munitions to their targets. logistical support. operational planning. these are all acts of war in direct support of belligerence at war and this bill authorizes them. the house has just considered whether to auorize war with libya. it has specifically, categorically, and decisively rejected it. the president's now on notice at he is in direct defiance of congress. that is the message we need to send today. t's not enter a war through the backdoor when we have already decided not tonterer it through the front. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the geleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to my friend from texas, judge gohmert. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for two minutes.

mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. it is true gaddafi's a bad guy. he needs to go. but the problem is for those who say will this mean the end of the bush doctrine? i don't know this president been enforcing the bush doctrine, but the problem is as my friend, mr. burton, pointed out, we don't know who is going to replace gaddafi. it's not in our national interest to help what may be another iran with khomeini and ahmadinejad come to power. d especially when we are releasing oil at a time when that oil should be saved in case it all goes to blazes in the middle east and we don't have any cong from there. now, i'm not crazy about the exceptions, either. the search andescue, intelligence surveillance, and reconnaissance, aerial refueling, operational planning because this administration is probably going to describe everything they do as falling into those exceptions, but it's

a step in the right direction. and some have said, and i know their hearts and i know they mean well, we want to support our troops and i don't like it when people say let's back out and cut funding when troops are in harm's way. i have talked to enough troops who want somebody in washington to say, this is insane. don't get us iolved. because they are good soldiers and when they get their orders, they are going to salute and go follow through on the orders. we are the body that must step forward and say, enough. mr. president, we are not responsible to the arab league, to nato, or to the u.n. we are responsible to the american people. so though i don't like the exceptions i will vote for this. it's taking a step in the right direction. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to the gentlelady from michigan, mrs. miller. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from michigan is recognized for one minute.

mr miller: mr. speaker, i intend to vote no othis resolution. we just voted on a resolution on whether or not to authorize in libya and this house overwhelmingly voted no. no to authorizing that. i have been opposed to this action in libya. i have not been persuaded the u.s. has a vital interest there. by the way we were not attacked by gaddafi. i spent two hours in a tent with gaddafi in 2003, we were the first congressional delegation, over 38 years, to be there. in fact we were there because he was voluntarily giving up his nuclear arms. i will say there are probably few dictators who are going to do that again after watching what happeningver there. he is a bloody dictator. one of the things i learned, he hates al qaeda. i also think this action vividly demonstrates the weakness of nato, quite frankly. it's a great organization. we appreciate their partnerships, of course. they are our allies, but it's an antiquated organization. the united states is paying 75% of t cosof nato and nato can't even take out a two-bit dictator like gaddafi? why. because we have enabled our allies, providing their defense

for them, for decades. and instead of spending money on their defense as they said 2% of their g.d.p. they are spending the money on social programs, their money on lower corporate tax rates, etc. i would say yes, gaddafi is bloody dictator. he's a terrorist. he did not attack us. let us remember who left the lockerbie bomber out early as well. we need to get out of libya the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: i yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from ohio, the speaker of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio, the speaker, is recognized. the speaker: let me thank my colleague for yielding. let me say that i'm disappointed that we have reached this point here today. mr. speaker, it didn't have to come to this. nearly 100 days ago the president initiated a strike against libya. went out in consultation from -- without consultation from the congress and without prior explanation to the american people. then as now we all supported the removal of the regime of libya,

a regime that was slaughtering and is slaughtering its own people. yet rather than seek regime change from the start, the president chose to follow not lead. and pursued a strictly humanitarian mission under the banner of the united nations with no plan for colonel gaddafi's removal. so at the outset we asked some very straightforward questions of the president. why is it removing can caffey a part of this mission? what if he doesn't leave? . who are the rebels that we're there helping to fight? how long is this going to last and at what cost and what does success look like? these were questions that the administration would not or could not answer. under our constitution the commander in chief has authority to take actions necessary to protect our national security.

this is an authority of which i in this house respect. but does not free the president from accountability to the american people, to this congress or to the rule of law. now, whatever your opinion of the war powers resolution may be, the fact is it is the law of the land and mply cannot be ignored. so three weeks ago this house overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolutioasking the president to explain how this mission is consistent with our national security goals, to justify continuing this operation without authorization. he responded by telling us he didn't need congress because there arno, quote, hostilities taking place in libya. well, we soon found out that even his own lawyers don't buy that argument. now, if the commander in chief is going to take our forces into war, he must take ownership of it.

if a president believes that missile strikes and drone operations taking place in libya are critical, it's his responsibility to explain to the american people and to seek authorizatn from this congress. because the president has failed to do that, because he's failed to fulfill his obligations, we are here today. now, make no mistake. i support the removal of the libyan regime. i support the president's authority as commander in chief, but when the president chooses to challenge the powers of the congress i, as speaker of the house, will defend the constitutional authority of the legislature. this bill represents, i believe, a reasonable approach. by allowing our forces to continue playing a limited support role, it would not undermine our nato partners. it would, however, prevent the president from carrying out any

further hostilities without congress' approval, and it would exercise congress' constitutional power to provide some much-needed accountability. i believe this is a responsible approach, and i believe this house should support it. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i now yield three minutes to the gentleman from california, the ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee, mr. berman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for three minutes. mr. berman: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker of the house has made some very legitimate points, but then his conclusion is so contrary to the points he made. the proposition before us today, mr. mcclintock is right. it is an authorization of a series of acts of belligerence, acts of war that by their own

definition cannot ssibly help us eitherchieve the humanitarian goal of this mission or achieve the goal of the true humanitarian goal of removing gaddafi from power. we are authorizing intelligent-sharing, aerial refueling, operational planning, intelligence gathering, but we are denying the only aspects of this operation that can allow us to achieve that goal, the suppression of air defense systems and the utilization of drones with missiles to stop gaddafi from resuming his effort to massacre his own people. i understand the argument, you don't buy my notions of our national security interests, you don't see the context of bringing this -- operation to a halt in terms of what it does to the stability of the democracy movements in egypt,

in tunia. you don't see any consequences in terms osyria, the larger middle east, or the damage to the alliance. i understand and accept that argument, but mr. rooney doesn't -- he tries to have it both ways, but he comes up with a proposal that ensures that the mission is allowed to continue but by definition cannot achieve its goals. it is the worst, it is not the reasonable proposal, it is the worst of all solutions. if you're going to authorize an operation that hopes through airpower and other methods, you don't exclude the only parts of that that could possibly achieve this success. if you're agnst the operation you stop the funding of the operion. mr. rooney and apparently a number of other members of the majority want have it both ways. we don't like gaddafi so we want to do something, but we don't want to do anything that could work but we don't want to come against the operation.

but the fact is you're ending the operation if this were to become law because our european friends have said very clearly that those parts of this operation that this amendment prohibits, those parts of the operation we cannot undertake if you are not doing it. so why not be straightforward? why not do what a number of colleagues on the other side have called for, stop funding the operation, don't try to have it both ways, ensure the operation deat and end the operation while still being interested in seeing gaddafi go and the operation succeed? i urge a no vote from anyone who cares about consequences of what they vote on. the speaker o tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to my friend and colleague, the chairman of the committee on armed services, the gentleman from california, mr. mckeon.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for three minutes. mr. mckeon: thank you, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, i rise in support of h.r. 2278. my colleague has set forth the responsible plan that would effectively limit the united states' role in libya. this bill would allow u.s. forces to continue to conduct search and rescue missions, aerial refueling, intelligent, surveillance and reconnaissance and provide operational planning asstance. mr. speaker, this is what nato has told us would allow them to continue to carry out the mission. these are very critical functions. that is all that they have asked us to do as we move forward, and it helps the presidt be truthful in saying that we're not engaged in hostile actions. this bill would clearly end funding for all other military missions in libya. of particular concern to many

members is the united states' continued engagement in strike and suppression of enemy air defense missions. the president has repeatedly stated that the u.s. is not engaged in hostilities, and the congressional authorization is not necessary to continue our role in this operation. i share with many of my colleagues the view that firing missile at a target in a foreign nation does indeed constitute hostilection. this disagreement is at the root of the issue at hand. h.r. 2278 would put an end to that debate by explicitly defining the connelly authorized scope of the u.s. military mission in libya. the administration has yet to present congress and the american people with a clear strategic objective for our involvement in libya. furthermore, to date we have not been informed of a specific end goal under which the military operations would cease. this teatens the effectiveness of our mission

and could soon create an unjustifiable strain on our military. while they remain engaged in two other theaters of operation critical to our national security interest. mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill, and how much time do i have left? the speaker pro tempore: one minute remains. mr. mckeon: how much do i have left? the speaker pro tempore: the geleman has one minute remaining. mr. mckeon: i'd be happy to yield. mr. dicks: wouldn't you feel better if we could add as the fifth item in this list of things suppression of enemy air defenses? the reason i say that is i think we're going to have a difficult time doing any of these other missions unless we have suppression, and the -- i was just over there and we were told by the navy that the allies do not have enough suppression to deal with

continuing to do these bombing missions without u.s. help. if wcould clarify -- mr. mckeon: you just about used up my whole minute. there are -- my good friend from washington, there are a lot of things that would make me feel better. if we could go back and start this whole thing over, there are a lot of things that would make me feel better, but the president has said we are not engaged in hostiliti. i think we would agree that when we're firing missiles, when we are having -- 30 seconds? missions with our fighter planes suppressing ground fire, i believe that would be -- most of us would agree that is hostile. and the nato people, we met with the military from great britain, they told us what we have in here would allow them to continue successfully their missions. so i would --

the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman from california has expired. the gentleman from -- mr. mckeon: i ask my colleagues to support this bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington. mrsmith: may i inquire of the sponsor, mr. rooney, i am the last speaker. then i will yield myself the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. smith: thank you. there are a number of arguments about this issue, arguments in favor of ending the mission in libya. and i think the speaker articulated one which is basically we support the idea of the removal of gaddafi and they support the idea of supporting the people in libya who are asking for a representative government. they just don't like our present process. but that argument really doesn't make sense because if in fact their big complaint is

that congress hasn't had the opportunity to authorize this, then the speaker of the house has had by his own admission 100 days to offer that voice, to come up and say, no, we support the mission but here's how we want to limit it and they have not done that. and i agree very strongly with mr. berman's statement, you can't have it both ways. you can't say we would like to remove gaddafi, we'd like to support the libyan people but we are going to offer up resolutions that's going to stop that from happening. now, we can argue back and forth about that process, but clearly the speaker of the house had an option in front of hito deal with that process issue. and this isn't it. as has been pointed out, this will stop what we are doing in libya. if you support that -- let me just say, i support mr. kucinich in the sense that he's very honest. he don't like what's going on there. he would like it stopped. that's a legitimate position. to stand up and say, yes, we have to support the libyan people, yes, gaddafihould go,

we are just going to cut the legs out from underneath the efforts to do that because of a complicated process argument is not legitimate point. i want to point out, people are legitimately concerned of the u.s. being too militant in our approach. i agree that. we cannot be the policemen for the war. we should not always carry the load. but in this case it is a very, very limited mission that we have. for once, nato is actually carrying the balk of the missions. while i agree with one statement that nato should step up and do more, nato is now stepping up and doing more and we want to pull the rug out from the tiny piece we are giving to help to make this mission possible. this is a limited role and we must recognize that. the speaker also emphasized we would like to have all the answers going in. we want to know what the mission with gaddafi is. initially our mission was clear, stop gaddafi from crushing the forces who were

trying to rise up and have a voice in their own government and we did that. incidentally we do have some answers about who these rebels are. you want to know who they are? look at benghazi. the place that's controlled by the people in opposition to muammar gaddafi. it's not the muslim brotherhood, it's not al qaeda. it's the people of libya who wants a representative government who is running that place. so let's stop acting like we don't know who these people are. we do have a very good idea who they are and they are deserving of our support. we have a clear limited mission. if we vote for rooney we pull the rug out from under that mission. we put gaddafi in a position to stay in power, and we undermine a group of people who are asking for a legitimate voice in their government. and keep in mind, again, this is a very limited use of u.s. power and in a very positive way. whatever the process arguments are that brought us to that point, don't let them have an

united states look like we don't support people, standing up for the very values that we tunally espouse throughout the world. i urge defeat of this resolution and support what we're doing in libya and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, can i inquire of the time remaining on our side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida has four minutes remaining. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i'd like to yield one minute to my friend and colleague from nebraska, mr. terry. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from nebraska, mr. terry, is recognized for one minute. mr. terry: thank you, mr. speaker. and i have during my tenure here voted twice to empower our litary to take aion. the first time was with afghanistan, and the president came to the congress and made a powerful case that it was in our national security interest to do so, and i supported that. . then with iraq, the president came to congress, spent a significant amount of time providing evidence, making a case that there was a national

security interest. this time however, it was a surprise to me and most of my colleagues that this mission was occurring. there's been no attempt to define what the national security interests are, the united states interest in this military action. and so without that, i can't look my constituents in the eye and tell them why we are in libya right now. and active in military strikes against that nation state. so, the one constitutional power that congress has explicitly is the pursestrings. we are exercising that right. i support that effort to hold -- pull those strings tight and let's stop the flow of mone into this action. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, at this time i'd like to yield one minute to the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich, is recognized for one minute. mr. kucinich: i want to thank mr. rooney and thank my colleagues. i think this has been a very important debate for this country and for our constitution. i'm opsed to this war and want to end it. i think mr. rooney's bill is a powerful stp in the direction of ending the -- step in the direction of ending the war, but it's not the only step we should take. it's the purse step. the first step is a vote for mr. rooney's. you limit the war, stop the combat ops. then the second step would be to vote on a defense appropriations amendment that would strike all nding for the war. so we take two steps here. the first step today. and we have some of the best people in this congress have been in this debate today and they d't agree with mr. rooney's bill, but what they have said is that this bill would end the mission in libya. and it's said if you don't have the ability to suppress, you couldn't continue with the

bombing campaign. so these are people on our side of the aisleho want to defeat this bill. they have made the argument, i think, as to why we should pass it. i want to thank mr. rooney for his leadership and i urge a vote in favor of mr. roey's bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, i yield myself the balance of the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. rooney: mr. speaker, we have heard a lot argument today and we had the great debate. a debate we should have been having over the last 100 days or so. one that could have been spurred on by the administration for coming here and making the arguments why we should authorize or should not authorize hostilities -- >> the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house is not in order. those members in the back of the chamber please discontinue your conversation so we can complete this debate. the gentleman from florida. mr. rooney: the president had the opportunity to come and make

the case to this body and chose not to. the war powers act is clear, he's violated that law. some have said it's unconstitutional, but the courts have never weighed in on it. so it is the law of the land and one we have to abide by. but we can send resolution after resolution to the senate saying that we don't agree, we don't authorize, in the end the power that we have is the power of the purse, as mr. terry just said. we have to exercise that power in this house and say we aren't going to spend money for hostilities in libya. we heard the mission, if you want to take out gaddafi, or if you want to free the libyan people and give them the liberty we deserve, nuer one, it was never the mission to begin with to take out gaddafi. that has somehow mored of -- morphed over time. we don't even know who the people are that we are supposedly setting free. without that debate and without that argument the president has failed to make, and i appreciate the debate we have had today

because i think it's been very helpful. all we can do is say until the president comes and makes that case and gets authorization, he won't get funds. at the same time, responsibly saying to our nato allies, we'll support you in the rear, but we are not engaging in hostile acts. wi >> members voted down a limited presidential authority for one year and a bill to cut funding for the operation. for a breakdown of the votes, go to our web site and check out the congressional chronicle at c-span.org. the palace is home now until the july 4 holiday. the house recently debated and voted on two measures related to military involvement in libya. lookor