bergdahl to come back, but they feel like they did not get proper notice and it is possible that the five members who are now under house arrest in qat quest we will leave this here. -- >> we will leave this here. now, the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., june 9, 2014. i hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the

house of january 7, 2014, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip but in to five minutes, no event shall debate continue beyond 1:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, for five minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, in may the citizens of ridgway, elk county, pennsylvania, experienced a devastating flood. i rise today to express my sincere appreciation to the first responders, the employees and the ridgway citizens that came to the aid of their neighbors. on the friday, may 23, following the flood and upon my return from washington to the

fifth congressional district of pennsylvania, i was in ridgway for a briefing by borough manager, colonel kim zimmerman. our mission was to analyze the scope of the damage, determine the best and most efficient path forward to bring relief to those in need. the colonel, his staff and the fire department did an outstanding job. considering that the river rose from the normal three feet level to greater than 21 feet in a few hours, despite record flooding, there was no loss of life and no injuries. this fact is remarkable given that 100 citizens had to be evacuated by boat. a total of 500, including land evacuation. when i returned to ridgway the next day to walk the streets, to talk with residents and offer my supports to the residents and businesses dealing with the losses and damages caused by this devastating flooding, during my two days on the scene i

witnessed heroes in action. fire department volunteer who is had been on the job almost 48 hours with little or no sleep. employees who refused to be sent home after multiple shifts. neighbors who took time from their own cleanups to assist their neighbors. and church organizations that traveled from surrounding counties to help the community begin to put the pieces back together. mr. speaker, the actions i observed those days in ridgway is one of the many reasons that i'm proud to call this area my home. i'm proud to represent the pennsylvania fifth district. i want to thank the governor for his immediate presence and the work of the pennsylvania emergency management agency long with the visit by lieutenant governor colley. based on the recommendations, the governor made a disaster declaration on may 29 and also requested a loan and grant assistance from the small

business administration. fortunately, the disaster designation was granted and my staff to assist businesses and homeowners who had been affected, the resources to assist with their claims. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern, for five minutes. mr. mcgovern: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. r. mcgovern: mr. speaker, over and over again house republicans complain about federal spending, especially when it comes to our nation's premiere anti-hunger safety net, program known as snap. they say the program is too big, that it's bloated and full of fraud, waste and abuse. these claims are patently false and have been dispelled over a and over again. but there's something else missing from the house republicans' attack on snap,

trying to shrink the program. they want to make it harder and more costly for states to administer the program. they want to prevent people who have served their time in prison from being able to receive snap benefits and they want to prevent those struggling with drug addiction from being able to receive snap benefits. in other words, they want to deny food to hungry people. not one of these ideas are thoughtful or responsible. mr. speaker, there is a way to reduce snap spending in a responsible way that doesn't take food away from hungry people. it's simple. it's noncontroversial and it makes a lot of sense. mr. speaker, the best way to do this is to raise the minimum wage. we know that hunger is the subset of poverty. if people earned enough money they wouldn't need help making ends meet. they wouldn't need medicaid, snap or housing assistance. the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 and hasn't been raised in five years. the real value of today's minimum wage is less than 2/3

of what it was in 1968. the result of such a low minimum wage is that many full-time workers live in poverty and have to rely on public assistance programs in order to make ends meet. now, i'm a co-sponsor of the bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. doing so wouldn't just result in increased wages for american workers, although that's the most important result, but raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would cut snap spending by $4.6 billion a year. $4.6 billion a year. that's an amazing figure, mr. speaker, and that reduction in spending comes simply because people would earn enough money to buy their own food. imagine that. by increasing people's wages we reduce the number of people relying on federal assistance. a study -- a recent study commissioned by the center for american progress documents this. it shows that snap benefits

declined 30 cents for every $1 increase in family earnings. this report goes on to show that a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduces snap enrollment by between 2.4% and 3.2% and reduces snap spending by 1.9%. that means that 3.5 million americans would be cut from snap, not because of some arbitrary and hurtful policy, but because they earn enough so they don't need snap any longer. mr. speaker, this is just good, plain common sense. we should be doing more to bridge the income inequality gap. we should be doing everything we can to make sure that people are earning as much as they can so that they do not need to rely on federal programs like snap or medicaid. and quite frankly, we should be talking about a minimum wage, mr. speaker. we should be talking about a living wage. just look at my hometown of worcester, massachusetts. the minimum wage is $8 an hour, but a living wage for two childless adults is just under

$15 an hour and it rises to $18.30 for two adults with run child. while i support an in-- with one child. while i support an increase to $10.10, that's not going to cut it for a family of three. the city of seattle responsibly raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour, an increase phased in over the next six years. that is essentially the average national living wage. what i believe our -- while i believe our effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 is a good one and is the right policy, i believe we need to think bigger and bolder. seattle passed this increase with a coalition from the business area. it will have impacts on the lives of poor families in this country. it will cut snap benefits $4.6

billion a year and 3.5 million will have to stop relying on snap simply because they're earning more in every paycheck they are earning. it will help end hunger now. this is a good, commonsense way to reduce snap spending and make people's lives better. we should increase the minimum wage today. i call on the republican leadership to schedule a vote. increasing the minimum wage is the right thing to do. if we want to end hunger now, we need to make sure that people who work ought not have to live in poverty. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. holding, for five minutes. mr. speaker, yesterday i had the honor of attending the apex high school graduation ceremony where 556 seniors received their diplomas. i was impressed, mr. speaker, to hear their accomplishments. these seniors played on sports teams that were part of 18 conference championships and

five state championships, including men's basketball, men's and women's lacrosse, volleyball, swimming, track and field. their achievements were not limited to sports. the marching band, chorus and orchestra and theater have all been recognized for their talents. the deca club, which prepares students with unique leadership in their future careers have been recognized statewide and nationally, mr. speaker. apex high's academy of information technology was also named as the top academy in the country by the national academy foundation. the graduating class was outstanding academically as well earning over 3.9 million dollars in scholarships to some of the best universities in the country. this time of year, mr. speaker, there are hundreds of thousands of graduates across the nation. this is a very special and significant time for many, for these students it means ending one chapter and beginning a new

one. i congratulate all the seniors of apex high school and across the country on their commendable achievements and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 p.m. today. today, the white house president obama set to issue an executive order and helping to east student borrower debt loans.

expanding a 2010 law covering those who started borrowing after october 2007 and kept borrowing after 2011. it allows those who borrowed earlier to take part, extending the benefit to more borrowers. the senate expected to debate legislation next week but faces significant obstacles. live from the white house 1 gets eastern.at:45 eatt 1:45 holding a hearing looking into u.s. border security from u.s. customs and border protection. the national border patrol council will have that live a canning at3:30 on the c-span3. if you wait until the thing shows up, it is a cheaper alternative. you waited too long.

it is better. and less expensive. navigation of example, we have tom-tom and garmin and magellan. it was possible that someone google, apple, someone else could launch a navigation app but said we do not see a threat yet. out it did respond, it took -- took off. businesses need to start looking much earlier into the lifecycle of new technologies. recognize even before there is a new product there will be experiments going on, many very visible. things like kickstart her.

people to see how they are playing with new technology. what we say is that is the moment you should get worried. >> arotech alla g is changing the way we do business tonight on " the communicators" on cspan2. >> the brookings institution recently hosted a discussion on the future of europe following the results of the european union elections. a look at the economic challenges facing member countries, including -- including the future of the eurozone. >> i am with the codec and

international strategy at brookings. i am particularly delighted to chair the first panel and look like to thank the on that and jeremy schapiro to ask me to do it. it is a particular privilege to do it at a conference in honor of what i knew for the past two years. a wonderful calling. think she would be very interested in the topic, not just because of the events in ukraine but also because she has such a strong passion for european union foreign-policy and europe. we are very fortunate to have panelist for the topic of what is going on inside your rep. the second panel looks at europe's role in the world. at not justg europe's economy but everything that goes on inside the box. is euro prepared to get out of the financial crisis and ready

to return to robust growth in take on a greater role in the the projectmplete of monetary innovation by adding fiscal federalism and all the things that economists and others over the last decade said they need to do in order to be stable and competitive or are we the beginning of the japan lost decade where the worst of the crisis is over but going to be very hard to get the political support to do what is necessary to really fix the fundamental flaws of monetary integration. and after the parliamentary elections of last week am a what does that mean for the future of european federalism? are we seeing the popular backlash whereby the politicians and the famous phrase know what they need to do but do not know how to get reelected once they do this, and maybe they won't be able to get the reforms through. and what are we looking at in

terms of the commission president and some of the key positions. what i would like to do is turn to each of the panelists. will have a conversation and open it up for a conversation with you all for about half an hour. so if i could start with you, aboutyou begin by talking europe economic prospect. by talking about europe's sort of economic prospects? are we really out of the worst of the crisis? and where do we go from here in terms of, you know, ensuring there isn't a new crisis and we see some sort of growth, and getting out of deflationary sort of spiral and europe can, you know, sort of begin to punch its way economically in the world again? >> i'm sorry, i should add, as well, i apologize for not introducing properly, simon, but simon is the deputy director for the center for european reform

that specializes in the euro zone and european fiscal policy. >> thanks, tom. and good morning, everyone. thank you very much to brookings and to kings for inviting me to speak today. i think it's a lovely gesture to dedicate this conference to clara and see all of us are very, very grateful to brookings and kings to all of the help you've given us in setting up the fellowship which we hope will run for many years. to the subject, i used to argue about this point a lot with clara. she didn't disagree with my analysis. but i think for clara, it was close, almost a heresy for a colleague to argue that the euro, which is a huge symbol of europe and integration could actually become a threat to the eu and a threat to european integration. we would have lengthy discussions about this. i'm going to start off by outlining why i think the

economy, the eurozone economy in particular is in poor shape. why this situation poses a threat to the eu as a whole, and why the choice really does now come down to more or less europe. now, despite the talk of economic recovery that one hears a lot of in europe, and despite claims by eurozone policy makers that the crisis is over, the eurozone and by extension, the eu remains in a very serious mess. it's worth remembering that the eurozone economy is still 3 percentage points smaller than it was in the beginning of 2008. now, even the u.s., which is supposed to be pretty more abundant at the moment is six percentage points bigger. and if one breaks down the eurozone into the constituent parts, we see truly, truly terrible numbers. the spanish economy is 7% smaller. the irish one, 8%, the greek one

over 20% smaller than it was six years ago. now, eurozone unemployment has come down a touch, largely because of people withdrawing from the labor market and emigrating, but it's still 12%. and much, much higher than that. in places like spain. youth unemployment, this is the number that shocks people on this side of the atlantic is that about a quarter, over 40% initially, over 50% in spain. so we're seeing truly shocking numbers, still. now, the myth persists that these are the result of countries mismanaging their public finances. this was the case in greece, but aside from greece, it wasn't the problem. the central problem in europe was huge capital flows from the core of the euro zone, places like germany to places like spain in the periphery of the eurozone.

this was interbank lending. that combined with the absence of so-called adjustment mechanisms in the eurozone is the crisis, not mismanagement of public finances. basically, interest rates in the run-up to the crisis were far too low to the likes of spain, ireland, other countries and too high for germany's economy. inflows of all of this money led to booms in those economies, pushed up their wages and costs. when the financial crisis hit, the capital inflows stopped overnight. resulting in bank crises. the capital stopped, economies bombed, the public finances hit the banks because the banks were sitting on all the government bonds. and then that depressed economic conditions and rebounding on the banks. the so-called sovereign bank doom loop. now, the failure to predict this

was forgivable. no one spotted this. this link between governments and banks on what it could do. but the weakness of adjustment mechanisms within the eurozone was predicted. this is a very large and very diverse currency. it comprises very, very different economies. so a shock, the economic shock will hit some of them very differently to others. euro members cannot devalue their currencies as everyone knows. and they don't have what economists have a lender of last resort. they essentially borrow in a foreign currency. there's no bank that will step in and buy their debt in the way you see here in the u.s. so without a currency and without a fully central bank, something else has to be flexible. now, this means that markets for goods and services, capital,

labor have to be highly integrated. so resources move to where they can be moved most productively. within the eurozone, there is a market, a market for goods. there wasn't much integration when it comes to services which comprised most of economic activity. capital is very slow to be allocated or to be used in the most productive fashion. so it's very slow, productive capital. frankly, slow to move from one part of the eurozone to the other. labor mobility is very low. we have seen a lot of people emigrating from spain and ireland, portugal in recent years. but a lot of those people, the majority of those people have gone to countries outside of the eurozone. so the irish have been to britain, here, australia, canada, spanish have gone to latin america and british america. very few have gone to other members of the eurozone.

the second factor is that the european central bank has hampered adjustment by allowing inflation to collapse in the eurozone. the inflation rate is 0.5%, which makes it hard for countries such as spain and italy to engineer declines in the real exchange rates while getting on top of their debt burdens. why this is such a risk. european central bank has also acted in a nakedly political manner. for example, by backing fiscal austerity in a slump, which ignores economic theory and history. and for exaggerating the likely impact on economies of structural fault. three, the eurozone lacks any mechanism to transfer resources between constituent members. so with no federal budget to smooth asymmetric shocks, fiscal

austerity has been the weapon of choice. the problem with this, it's so-called pro cyclical. what it does is exacerbates, makes everything worse. now adjustment based on austerity and internal devaluation, which is what europeans now call deflation is dangerous. first, low inflation, let alone deflation makes it hard to reduce real wages. take spain, they need to reduce their real wages. but if inflation's very low, that's hard to do because nominal wages do not fall. it's almost impossible to cut nominal wages. you need a bit of inflation. two, deflation increases the real value of debt both public and private. raises real interest rates. and this -- can lead consumers and businesses to delay purchases if they expect prices to fall further.

and third, fiscal multipliers the impact of cuts in public spending. very large when interest rates are close to zero. so spending reductions by governments tend to have a very big negative impact on demand. now, what is needed against that kind of backdrop? well, in the short-term, looser management policy and accommodative fiscal policy. so asset purchases basically quantitative easing, big program of quantitative easing and i would argue higher inflation target at least temporarily. >> what would you put that on? the inflation target? >> temporarily 4%. this would help prevent countries sliding into insolvency and facilitate the exchange rate adjustment. more investment, more government investment by countries that have the fiscal scope to do so would also help underpin demand. that's the short-term. in the longer term, it's hard to

see how this can work without a proper banking -- rather than the truncated one that's been agreed. but a proper one that includes fiscal backstops. so making the banks, removing the responsibility from banks from the national level to the federal level. the backstop at the federal level and a common deposit insurance system for bank depositors across the eurozone. another safe eurozone asset, some kind of bond. this would help break the doom loop between the banks and the government by making it easier for governments to restructure sovereign debt. problem they can't do that at the moment because the banks are sitting on so much of that debt. and by restructuring solvent debt, they threaten to implode the bank. you need this kind of safe euro zone asset. and i would argue an element of fiscal union beyond what is implied in a fully fledged banking unit. upon eurozone unemployment insurance system could form the

embryo of such a fiscal union. and finally, more democratically accountable central bank for the broader mandate, something akin to the mandate of the u.s. fed. so responsibility for price stability but also growth and unemployment. the problem with everything i've just said is that that requires more, not less europe. as time goes on, it's becoming harder to make the case for more europe. anyone following europe and political scene can appreciate that. europe increasingly is now defined by the constraints that it places on governments. rather than the opportunities it provides them with to improve the lives of their electorates. and the longer this continues, the greater the likelihood that we see a serious european backlash, not just europe but the eu more broadly. i think there are two solutions.

one is to jump forward to a more federal politically europe within the euro zone with politics resuming at the federal level. or a return to a european union without a single currency and let individual countries manage their economies as they see fit. the problem is that the latter option will be hugely destabilizing. it would require capital controls, defaults in several countries, measures to deal with the ensuing financial crisis, and an agreement about how to deal with legacy debt and contracts. hugely complex stuff. it'll be a very big crisis. but if a more federal europe is impossible, it will be better to get on with this before the politics turn seriously nasty. thank you. >> thank you. fascinating. simon, you said that, you know, you outlined what i think is a good sort of solution for

europe's problems in a number of areas. everything from the monetary policy to fiscal policy to some of the politics. and you said that one of the reasons that can happen is because there's not enough support for more europe. another reason maybe it can't happen is because germany in particular, but also the ecb and many of the leading thinkers in europe want more europe, but they actually disagree with those steps. so they disagree about a eurobond and disagree about quantitative easing. and there's been this significant philosophical gap in economic policy that's opened up between germany on the one hand and the united states and some other countries on the other hand. so i think it's a -- it's a tough question. even if there is support for european integration and even if there are people in key positions who want to be forward leaning, there is this deep philosophical, you know, gr