in this federal government. the chart alongside me, and i know there's a lot of lines in it and it's hard to read, but it has a very, very, very simple theme. i'm going to show variations of this on a couple of different boards. the red you see down at the bottom, that's what we call discretionary spending. that's what we substantially get to come down and vote on. and that discretionary spending, if you look at the next decade, on this chart, basically stays the same. so the military, the park service, the f.b.i., all -- education, these things that are programmatic, that we come down and vote for on the discretionary side of the budget are pretty much staying even for the next 10 years. do you see the blue lines? they doubled, just slightly shy of doubling, but they basically doubled over the next 10 years.

that is mandatory spending. that is medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt, veterans' benefits and now obamacare. things that are built in by ormula. and they grow and grow and fwrow and grow and consume everything -- grow and grow and consume everything in their path. that is what's going on here. when i do meetings back home in arizona in the district, you often get this question -- why do you all fight with each other? why do you all fuss with each other? and my answer is, it's about the money. and you get this look back saying, you must understand we come to this nor and we are fighting over, fussing over in many ways a shrinking pot of resources. even though today we have actually the highest revenues, highest revenues this federal government has ever received. so where's the money going?

it's going to that mandatory spending and we need to deal with the reality that the mandatory spending, the entitlements are consuming our future. so that's what this chart is basically saying. so we're going to roll on to the next one and see if i can do this without knocking everything over. thank you, sir. you always appreciate staff because we abuse them unmercifully. actually, could you give me -- this is the wrong board. can you give me the 2013 board? reason i'm going to put this one up is this is from 2013. so we actually know it's happened. it's a closed book. if you look at the blue areas, that's mandatory spending. you'll see social security, you'll see medicare, you'll see medicaid, you'll see other supplemental programs, food stamps, w.i.c., some of those types of programs. you'll see veterans' benefits down here and about 6% of our budget last year, of our money,

of our spending went to interest. 32% last year is what we as members of congress got to come own here and do policy on. understand in nine budget years -- and i'm going to show you that pie chart in a moment -- understand in nine budget years goes from 32% of our spending, it collapses down to 22%. and that 22% has your military, has the f.b.i., has education, has health care -- excuse me -- health research, all those types of things in that remaining portion of the pie. and this was something i picked up several months ago and i was shocked it did not get more discussion here on the floor of the house or around here in washington. we had the chief of staff of the united states army last september in a discussion

before congress was talking about the future of the army and what was actually going on. and in his quote he basically says, 46% of the army spending today is personnel costs. salaries, pension, health care. and by 2023 -- so nine years from now, by 2023 it's going to be 80%. so get your head around this. 80% of the army's spending in nine years will be personnel costs. it will not be equipment. it will not be things that fly fast and go kaboom or make our soldiers safer. it will be personnel costs. of that ears 80% army's budget will be personnel costs. you got to understand the demographic bubble our country

is in and the fact of the matter is these costs are consuming us. and, you know, we can have a debate of, well, it's uncomfortable to talk about, it's not politically correct. when you talk about medicare and social security, you can get yourself unelected, but if you care about these programs, if you care about the social contract, we as members of congress have with our constituents, you need to step up and understand the underlying math so you can save them. because it's math. but think about that once again. if i came to you and told you a branch of our service in nine years, 80% of their money is not equipment, not things that keep the soldiers safe, it's just going to be salaries, ealth care and retirement, you need to understand that the very thing we are discussing on our overall federal budget is now also hitting federal employees and our military.

ok. i'm going to rotate to the next board. remember on this one we're talking about right now -- actually, this was last year. 32% of all of our spending was discretionary. let me put up the next one. this is nine budget years from now. so 2024. nine budget years from now. we actually -- that discretionary portion falls to 22% of our spending, and this is still the military. this is still the -- the f.b.i. it's still health care. excuse me, health research. it's still education. so what's happening here? well, on the previous pie chart, interest was 6% of our budget. 6% of our spending. in nine years we predict it to be around 14%, and that is assuming that we stay with historic norms on interest rates. if interest rates spike, if we

ave 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 all over again, our interest exposure consumes huge portions of what's left in the discretionary budget. you must understand what we've done with the explosion of our deficits in this country. if we actually made this country rather fragile to interest rate exposure, something you need to understand is we now become re and more subject to the world's interest rate markets and our ability to constantly sell more and more of our debt. there was something i found sort of amusing and i didn't bring the actual numbers with me but two days ago this administration was announcing how happy they were that the deficit numbers and where they were at. problem was the deficit numbers

weren't that different than last year, and they were substantially higher than we were predicting last september. one more time demonstrating here in washington you can spend almost anything, and if you have a compliant press -- complicit press, whatever you want to use, you can make it sound like happy talk. the numbers are not getting better. so in our future, so nine budget years, 24% of our spending is going to be social security. w, on occasion i will have someone to the left that will show up to one of our working groups or town halls and demand a discussion on social security saying, social security -- fully funded. they have all these i.o.u.'s in it. basic math on social security. social security is holding of special illion

treasury notes from the treasury department. of course, obviously the treasury department, if they were to pay those back, which they will, they have to go borrow the money because they've already spent the money. that's the asset in social security. understand social security is sitting on about a $24 trillion unfunded liability. so they're holding about $2.3 trillion in special treasury notes, and they have $24 trillion -- excuse me -- $24 trillion in unfunded liabilities. and that's -- this is where it ties in. we talked about this couple weeks ago. over at george mason university, the very beginning of the year they did a study and they put together some data of what would happen if you took the u.s. debt, the u.s.

liabilities and put them on gap accounting just like your business, my business, everyone else when you're doing a large public statement you'd have to put them on gap accounting. what are your liabilities? what are your assets and if you offset them, what would you guess the united states shortfall is? and on occasion i'll hear many of my brothers and sisters even here in this body sort of quote the number that you can see at the bottom of the u.s. debt clock on the website as it's spinning and they'll say things like oh, it's $120 trillion, you know, shortfall. the study over at george mason university came in at $205 trillion. $205 trillion is our honest debt or honest unfunded liabilities if you actually use gap accounting.

go to the internet now and take look at what many predict, estimate, guess is the entire wealth of the world. you're going to find out what we oh, what we're going to oh, what we have promised is greater than the current wealth of the entire world. very asset in the world. i will make you the argument that even with the chaos we have right now through so many things in this country and so many things i actually hold this administration responsible for, the president's failure to tep up and say this is the systemic risk to my country, to your country, to our country, that not dealing with the explosion of the future entitlements that consume our future -- and it's in front of us. we knew baby boomers were going

to turn 65 for how long? i remember sitting in a class in 1981, a statistics class where the professor was putting up on the board talking about how much money we would have to have set aside in assets as we started to move into the baby boom retirements. we're now into year three. typical baby boomer, and my understanding, will have put $120,000 in 0, their lifetime and take out $330,000. they'll put about $110,000. they'll take out $330,000. now multiply that shortfall times 76 million. 76 million of our brothers and sisters who will turn 65 in this 18-year period and we're into year three of it right now. we've known this was coming. we've known this was coming for 65 years.

but it was politically dangerous to talk about. it was uncomfortable. it's easier as if you watch the debates here on the floor to talk about today's chaos, today's spending. being able to cover these promises, these social entitlements, these social contracts into our future, if you love your kids, if you love your grandkids, if you love your great grandkids that may not even be here yet, this is the question i beg of you to ask candidates who are running around this country -- what are your plans to deal with the crushing future debt, the crushing future promises that we've made that there's no money for? there is this almost path logic attitude --pathologic

attitude, we'll get to it one day when we have a senate that's willing to do work. we will get to it one day when the president is willing to do the math. the problem is every single day it ticks away the numbers get worse. an example of that two days ago, the congressional budget office came out with their annual sort of data. and you remember, you heard over and over on the media, oh, things are getting better. job situation is better. our numbers are getting better. well, if they're getting better, how did the fiscal scenarios get worse? go pull the congressional budget office's numbers that they just put out. now, we do two things. our congressional budget office does two scenarios. one is the standard and one is called an alternative. the standard is basically based on the concept of this is the law as it is today, here's the numbers it projects. of course, you got to

understand, the laws of today has things in it -- the common vernacular is doc fix. we refer to it as the s.g.r. doctors will take 73% less money, 73% less compensation to see a medicare -- excuse me -- to see a medicare patient. it's implausible. it's not going to happen. but yet here's how the scam works here in washington. . it's the law that doctors are going to have this much less, so we are going to calculate that as savings. all up and down our future budget projections, our future debt projections, we have things wovegen into those numbers -- woven into those numbers that are fantasy. go read the last three pages of the medicare, social security act wear report -- actuary report.

the head actuary, who i've never met but i hear is a stand-up person, basically says, oh, by the way, these numbers are implausible. but they're based on current law. and so you'll hear debates here on the floor saying, no, the number's this, the number's this. the number, often if they're using the standard projections, is a fraud. and there's the alternative scenario. which may overshoot a number of -- on the negative side, because it basically makes a projection of, what if g.d.p. isn't what we hope it to be? which as it has turned out the last couple of years is true. we will be blessed if we can breakthrough that 2% this year because of what happened with the first quarter. so the alternative scenario, we 100% of debt to g.d.p. in 14 years. how many of you remember what you were doing 14 years ago?

to help you put it into sort of perspective. when you get ready to take out that 30-year mortgage, understand, less than halfway through it your government, your country is going to be at 100% debt to g.d.p. and theoretically, that's when your sovereign debt becomes much more risky and this net interest figure potentially starts to explode on you. because getting sovereign nations, getting individuals, getting investors from around the world to buy our sovereign debt becomes harder and harder because we start to look riskier and riskier. and you say, david, i don't want you to use the alternative number, i want you to use the standard number. ok, add eight years. add eight years and so in 2036 we have 100% of debt to g.d.p. we can fix this. and we can fix it in a way

that's not terrifying, it's not -- it will be a little uncomfortable, but you'll save the future. and if you're a person of the left, and there's programs you care so deeply about, if those programs are in the discretionary side of this budget, if you're a person of the right or a person that cares a lot about the military, that is in this discretionary budget. every time you talk about those programs, you need to stand behind that microphone and talk about mandatory spending. social security, medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt, veterans' benefits and now obamacare. because they're all on auto pilot and they're consuming everything in their path. so, that's hopefully a little more detail of some of the numbers i put up a couple weeks ago. we traditionally will put these slides up on our facebook page, our website, so you can analyze them. if you want, all this data, and

a lot more, i mean, a presentation could go on for hours, is on the congressional set. office's data this is the issue of our time. we've made, as a government, as a people, lots and lots of promises and we haven't built the mechanisms to pay for them. so, with that i want to move on .o one other little thing let's take these boards down. now, as we get ready to talk about the secret science piece of legislation, i need to share with you, as i show you all these debt projections, and unfunded liability numbers, i'm actually more optimistic today than i've been any time in my three years here in congress. why? if i had come to anyone out there, 10, 12 years ago, and

said, hey, in 2015 the united states is going to become a natural gas exporter country -- exporting country, you'd have laughed at me. 10, 12 years ago you couldn't pick up the newspaper, you couldn't pick up the "wall street journal", "financial news" and not hear discussions, discussions here on the floor about this thing called peak oil. the world was running out of energy. remember? it wasn't that long ago. world's running out of energy. tomorrow, the next incremental barrel of oil, next incremental unit of fossil fuels that we extract will be less than the day before. you all know the problem with that. it was absolutely wrong. as of today we have more known fossil fuel supplies than any time in human history. , d if we use in the right way that is one of the legs on the stool that's going to support

us as we stand up and start to meet these obligations that we've made. the second thing is much more difficult to talk about and that's what's happening all around us. there's this hyperefficient economy that is breaking out. how many of you have ever ridden uber or used side car or used that hand-held computer you call a phone, to buy something, to sell something, to use it in a fashion to do something that's so hyperefficient that you couldn't have done it a couple years ago? does that new efficiency, if we embrace it and we do not egulate it out of existence, d please understand, the incumbents, and it's not competitive business, it's competitive businesses and incumbent tax systems, if you have a website that allows you

to rent someone's townhouse for the week, that becomes a great transaction for you and that person who owns the townhouse, but the municipality and the hotel are not happy. the municipality is not getting its bed tax. the hotel, with its capital expenditures, is not happy. but the fact of the matter is, this is an economic transaction that is efficient. over the next couple years, i believe in state legislatures, city councils, county councils and here in congress we're going to see the fight over do we regulate the new alternatives you have as a citizen to engage in this hyperefficient economy? do we regulate them out of existence? do we create some concept of, well, we need them to have additional tort liability shields or we need to have them engaged in this part of the tax scheme? a bit of economic chaos is normal. that's how you renew yourself. that's how you create the next

generation of economic growth. we need to embrace it. because if we cannot reach escape velocity in the energy renaissance and the economic renaissance, i do not know mathematically how we keep our promises to so many people in this country. a few months ago i introduced a piece of legislation and it's been through the science committee. and we gave it the title secret science. i'm not sure if i'm thrilled with the title. but it's a very, very simple concept. and the concept underlying it is, do you make public policy and not make the underlying public data available? simple concept. public can at that for public policy -- data for public policy. should your government be keeping the data, the underlying data, secret and then create a bunch of rules and regulations on top of you?

it's almost absurd to think we have to create a piece of legislation to get the e.p.a. to take its data sets and make them public. and there's this intense arrogance out there in the world right now, particularly at our agencies, saying, well, david, you gotta understand, only real scientists, researchers we think that are, well, that we deem qualified, should ever see this data. well, you don't want the unwashed masses to have an opportunity to see how we're developing our science and our regulations. it's absurd. it's -- it almost borders on orwellian. of what's going on in our bureaucracies today. they're going to create rule sets that cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars , that are going to affect how we live in future decades. nd yet the arrogance of saying the young man is a statistics

major, the left wing group, the right wing research group, the industry group, the activist group, just someone who's nutty enough to have a great stats package on their home computer, who wants to take the data sets and play with them and model them and see what's out in the tails and maybe match them up to other data sets that someone hasn't thought about, they're not worthy? now, i'm personally -- it's a personal fixation. but i actually believe that transparency is the ultimate regulator in our society. could you mantle if we had gone into -- imagine if we had gone into 2008 and we had transparency on that mortgage-secured bonds and knew what the impairment was and knew what was actually going on, would you have had an implosion on a single day or would you had a couple of years of, hey, these are having trouble, these are having trouble, we need to mark downs the -- down the prices? transparency is the ultimate regulator, the ultimate vetter, but it's also the ultimate exposure to bad acts.

and this hit my desk last week. it's a time led magazine with -- "time" magazine. with a cover that says "eat butter." scientists label fat the new enemy, why they were wrong. now, how many times have you heard, you know, the people at your gym, your wife, others saying, david, you need to be eating less saturated fats, you can't eat that butter, we need to go buy some of that artificial stuff and now i'm looking at "time" magazine saying, hey, we screwed up on data. how many times in our lives do we come here and say, well, we knew it except for the small problem, we got it wrong. remember we all knew the world was running out of energy, well, we got that wrong. we all knew eating butter was bad for you until we knew the data was different. and there's dozens and dozens and dozens of examples like where we were so arrogant that we thought we

understood the data. we thought we understood the methodology. we were so brilliant, except for the fact we weren't. we got it wrong. over and over and over. yet the fact of the matter is, you go back to my energy example. a dozen years ago and beyond that our military policy, our foreign policy, our environmental policy, our tax policy was all based on this concept the world's running out of energy. except we weren't. how much of our health policy are based on things like this? david, you can't eat butter. i saw a presentation a few years ago that the government was spending this astronomical amount of money to keep people from using salt. and the researcher was presenting that salt is only a problem for you if you have hypertension. that's different than the folk lore out there. how many things have we doped in our folklore that we make

policy? that's why -- developed in our folklore that we make policy? that's why the secret science bill is i think so needed. it gives every american, when the e.p.a. takes data, whether it be from industry, whether it be from a research group, activist group, right, left, internal, any group, and they use that data to make a policy, to make a rule, that underlying data belongs to all of us. it's public policy by public data and we all as americans deserve the right, if you're so inclined, if you so choose, to sit there, see it, touch it, calculate it, crunch it, compare it, understand it and, who knows, you may be the researcher that comes out, looks at the data, matches it up against other things and tells me i can eat butter. i promised in a couple weeks, and maybe a month, i'm going to

come back to this microphone because i have collected an entire binder of example after example where what we were absolutely positive about, what we absolutely knew, we got wrong. and how so many of those ings we made public policy on. and we got it wrong. so, with that i'm actually going to yield some time to my good friend from iowa, because i know he had a couple other things in this sort of same vein he wanted to share. and he may be the best person i've ever seen behind these microphones. i'm going to yield my remaining time -- i will stay behind the mike up here. oh, forgive me then. mr. speaker, i yield back to you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, is recognized for the remainder of the designee of the majority

leader. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank the gentleman from arizona for that outstanding transition that he made here. and i actually came down to chide him just a little bit. i was listening very closely to what he had to say and it was very valuable, the comments on energy that we need, and the direction this economy needs to go. i'm going to restrain the chiding that i came because of his outstanding transition that he made and let you know, mr. speaker, i came down here to address you and to talk with you a little bit about the things that are ahead for us in this congress, the things that are ahead for us in this country. and when our founding fathers shaped this country and filed our -- wrote our declaration and filed our constitution and got it ratified, it was an extraordinary accomplishment and those documents will live for the duration of civilization and they'll be in our memory, they'll be in our heads and hearts for the full duration of the time of civilization, whether it's

succeeding civilization years from now, they'll look back on what happened here. . when our founding fathers put together this republican form of government which is guaranteed to us in article 4, section 4 of the constitution, it also guaranteed protection from invasion. but they set up the house of representatives to have elections every two years so that we could be the quick reaction shock force when the public could see that this country was going the wrong direction, they wanted to make sure the house could be restored and filled with people that came from all across the country, the 13 original states, then, or the 50 states that we are now and the territories that send representatives here. we could reverse an erroneous course that could be taken by a congress going in the wrong direction. they set up -- that's the reason for two years, elections every two years. the senate was set up with elections every six years so they didn't have to worry about re-election for a longer period of time and they could take the

longer view. now, that was a theory or a philosophy that was generally untested, at least within the culture and the civilization at the time. and it's proven to be a fairly effective approach. but we saw what happened here n 2010 when we -- when, i'll say, an overexyou shall rant majority in the house and jeeto-proof in the senate by hook, crook and shenanigans down obamacare by -- the throats of the american people. i remember everybody that came here from hawaii to alaska to protect our god-given liberty and right, our god-given right to manage our health and our skin inside it. well, it was still crammed down the throats of the american

ople, that policy called obamacare, and it's called the patient protection and affordable care act. the patient protection and affordable care act. if i say that six times and you're having trouble going to sleep, it's a substitute for ambien. democrats recognized that and changed the name in their verbiage that they use, oh, it's offensive to say obamacare and then they realized that the president is the one that coined the care obamacare. 2009, so on february 25, at the blair house in that big square seating when they had a conference on health care and he acted like a professor and interrupted republicans 72 times that day. but he used the phrase obamacare and now when we use it they said that's per jor tiff. don't -- pergoritive. don't say that. it's socialized medicine. it's a takeover of our health

and skin. and then the democrats said, we'll embrace the word obamacare. they did for a while and realized they were adding fuel to the fire of the rejection of obamacare and said, let's find another way we can rename this. it wasn't nice and appropriate to use that. they would say it's the affordable care act. nots the patient protection and affordable care act. but the affordable care act. now, i get to this because i'm thinking about our founding fathers and george washington, who could not tell a lie. so i ask myself the question. this policy that's going to cost over $1 trillion extra for obamacare, that was promised it was going to cut our premiums per household by $2,200 a year and if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, if you like your policy you can keep your policy, those promises weren't true. the big promises of obamacare weren't true. many of the things that wasn't

advertised as highly as that didn't come true either. so now they want to say affordable care act, george washington could not utter those words, mr. speaker, because george washington could not tell a lie. that's why he confessed to chopping down the cherry tree. i'm not sure that the stomp exists out at mount vernon yet but i'm convinced that george washington could say affordable care act with reference to obamacare because it's not an accurate term, it's a dishonest term. it's not affordable and less care. maybe it's an act, mr. speaker. so that's my commentary on going down that path with our founding fathers. but they also had this vision and they hope that and they had a long-term vision. it was a wonderful long-term version vision of what kind of a country you could build if you just laid down god-given liberties, timeless principles and laid out the pillers of american exceptionalism,

articulate them, sell them to the american people, get them to support your declaration of independence, get them committed to doing what they knew they had to do, fight a war against king george. and they had to go through the winter of valley forge and march up and down the coastline and in the interior part of the united states, at least the 13 colonies, and take on the red coats wherever they were and won that revolutionary war, learned some lessons about that about how you field a continental army. you have to have a commander in chief and you have to have a centralized government if you're going to defend yourself against the global powers of the world. they set up a constitution to do that. and they envisioned and anticipated a lot of things in this constitution. one of them was a means to amend it, and they believed that the president of the united states would be a man of honor who would give his oath of office and they wrote his oath of office into the onstitution to ensure that the

nobility, the integrity, the statesmanship, the character that was part of the culture at the time would flow forth forever as long as the united tates exists through our presidents. and i noted the 210th anniversary of the duel that took place between three-time vice president aaron burr and the secretary of the treasury, alexander hamilton, was just last week, about a week ago. and they met out on an island and they shot it out. they fought to the death. it turned out to be the death of alexander hamilton because hamilton had insulted the integrity of aaron burr. and aaron burr was -- would defend his integrity and alexander hamilton would not retract his allegations so the two of them made in a duel. think of that. that their word was so important, their integrity was so important that the two faced

each other with dueling pistols knowing that one of them would die in that due ell, all over that -- duel, all over their word and they had written in the constitution the oath for the president of the united states and ratified. i do solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states. later on edited -- and to protect against all enemies foreign and domestic and later in added, so help me god. and in the constitution they call the take care clause in the constitution and the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. it's not actually the oath, but it is a component of the oath. i don't want to say implied. it's specific in the constitution that the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, mr. speaker. and so we had men of honor, statesmen, men of dignity, men of an attitude that their word and their integrity was more important to them than their very life itself.

when they wrote the oath for the president to take into the constitution and when they wrote in the constitution that the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, they never imagined that they would have a president who didn't have that same sense, didn't have that same sense of nobility, that sense of integrity, that sense of statesmanship. they never imagined we'd have a president that didn't think his word was worth more than his life itself. we come to this place in time in history, mr. speaker, and alexander hamilton went to his grave over a principle like that and aaron burr lost his political career because he sent alexander hamilton to his grave over that principle your word is your bond and when you get to a challenge like that, your word is more important than your life itself. now we're in a place that the president take place that the laws be faithfully executed and simply executes the laws

itself, wipes it out. immigration law in particular, mr. speaker, where the president with his deferred action for childhood arrivals, this doca, deferred action for criminal aliens, that policy and a number of other policies where the president has announced that he's going to ignore the law and he constantly hides behinds this phrase prosecutorial discretion. says he has prosecutorial discretion to decide not to enforce the law if a person is breaking it. now, he has a prosecutorial discretion, mr. speaker, but it's only on an individual basis. and his lawyers know that. that's why they wrote the doca memos, when we had janet napolitano, then secretary of homeland security testifying before the judiciary committee and i said to her, if you go forward with this you will be in court and you will be sued because the president of the united states' job is to stick

with his article 2 authority and that's to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. he is the commander in chief of our armed forces, and he's to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. this is a limited government, but all legislative powers belong here in this congress. that's article 1. all legislative powers. the president doesn't get to write the laws. he's compelled to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. that's his constitutional obligation. and instead, the president has said, well, i don't like these immigration laws. if the law requires our immigrationens enforcement authorities, i.c.e., when they encounter someone that's unlawfully present in the united states, the law requires that they put them into -- place them into removal proceedings. that's the law. the president has issued an order that says to i. cremplet, thou shall break -- i.c.e., thou shall break that law and thou shall not remove people in the united states unless they

ve committed a felony or three mysterious misdemeanors that are vaguely identified and not sure if they've executed that provision. although i'd say they've likely have, mr. speaker in all fairness. so the president had four different classes of people with his morton memos and with doca language. and by grouping people into classes of people, he's got a number of those exempted from the law. some number approaching 600,000 people who came into the united states or were in the united states illegally who are exempted from the very application of the law that requires our law enforcement officers, particularly i.c.e., to place them in removal proceedings. that's what the president has done. he sent the message back as far back as three years ago in midsummer and actually june, sent the message out to everybody in the world, if you get into america and you don't commit a felony -- and that's a little bit of a short end of the technicalities -- then you

get to stay and he's acted upon that. he's executed that all right. he's executed his executive edict but he's not taken care that the law is faithfully executed. he's defied the law. he's defied the law and his oath is to uphold the law, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. now, i have to put into the list the pillars of american exceptionalism, mr. speaker. what makes america the best nation in the world and it's the composition the pillars of american exceptionalism and you find freedom of speech, religion and assembly and the right to keep and bear arms and no double jeopardy, the property rights in the fifth amendment, you get to face a jury of your peers, quick and speedy trial, the ninth and the amendments, devolve to states and respectfully to the people. those are the many pillars of american exceptionalism but

there are many others. we have a free enterprise economy. the ability to invest capital and buy, sell, train, gain, get rich if you can and we like to cheer you when you do because it helps us when it happens. free enterprise economy is another pillar of american exceptionalism along with the root of this culture and civilization being a judeo-christianity, the work ethic it came from it, the value system that allowed that work to be prosperous and profitable and trustworthy so that we can do business with people in a way that we didn't always have to be checking up on them because we knew that god was looking over our shoulder. thaws one of the reasons this is why this is such a great country. another one, mr. speaker, when the statue of liberty went up, the image and the inspiration of that statue said to the world that if you can come here to america legally, you can achieve all that you're capable of achieving. all of the things that you might imagine that you're capable of achieving anywhere

in the world you can achieve in america because you have all of these other rights. and these rights aren't rights that government confers upon you as in every other country in the world, government confers any rights you might have. these are god-given rights. and god has given them to us and our founding fathers articulated that and put that down on the parchment and we have fought and defended it all of these years. so if our rights came from government, government could take them away. the reason they can't take them away is because they're god-given, and the inspiration that comes from all of these pillars of american exceptionalism that sends that message, beams it across the world in national geographic magazines that shows up all around the world or encyclopedia or through cyberspace today, the picture of the statue of liberty, of the washington monument, of the lincoln memorial, the united states capitol, the white house itself, american success across the world and all the places

where it's been, this record of achievement, this record of sacrifice of americans to expand the nobility of the human race everywhere around the world has inspired in every country and the people that came here, mr. speaker, were inspired by that image and those ideas and those ideals. . so we didn't just get a random selection of people who came to america, we got the cream of the crop. we got the vigor of the planet. if there were 10 cybillings in family and only one -- syblings in a family and only one had the inspiration to come to the united states of america, we got the superachiever. we got the can-do. we got the cream of the crop. we got the vigor of the planet from every donor nation on the planet to come to america. because they were attracted to the god-given liberty that's established here and they came here and they achieved and they embraced those principles and america embraced them and each

generation from that we taught our children the same thing. so it's descended down through the generations and it's brought in more. and america has gotten stronger. but we're not a stronger nation if we erode those pillar of american exceptionalism -- pillars of american exceptionalism. we're not those pillars if we lose faith with the core of our country. and we can't sacrifice the pillars of american exceptionalism for the sake of having our hearts overrule our heads. our founding fathers didn't let that happen. the principles that came through from the work that they did, the god-given rights and liberties that are there, they're timeless. and they index into human nature. all human nature. but they're embodied here. one of the other things i left out of that, another reason for american exception amalism, is that all of that settlement arrive -- exceptionalism, is that all that -- is that all of that settlement arrived here with a content that had unlimited natural resources.

at the dawn of the industrial revolution, we settled this content from sea to shining sea. and here we are today, mr. speaker, with a president who wouldn't agree with what i've just said. if he had the time or took the time, he would seek to rebutt the principles that i've laid out. and he would say instead, well, let's see, we really don't need to have borders in america. we don't have to have that. this country -- there's no reason for america to be a success -- as successful as we are. we're using a disproportionate share of the planet's resources, we're pumping co-2 into our atmosphere, that's turning the earth's thermostat up, even though for 17 years there's not any evidence of that happening. and we have watched as he has diminished america. he's diminished it in foreign policy, he's diminished it economically, he's diminished it socially and culturally. and today we're watching as he has established this policy of amnesty, he's pushing hard for the senate gang of eight bill.

the senate gang of eight bill is a matter of record, mr. speaker. it is instantaneous amnesty for the people that are here illegally, whether they overstayed their visas 40% or whether they came across the border illegally 60%. or it's instantaneous amnesty for them, for anybody that would come into america in the future it's silent. which means it is an unspoken promise that if you can get here, we haven't demonstrated the will to enforce the law if you came here. so if you come here, why would we think that we would -- why would anybody think that we would enforce the law on anybody that would come here after a senate gang of eight bill might potentially become law? and add insult to injury, they sent an invitation out to the people who have been sent home o their home country and it's, the we really didn't mean it clause, is what i call it. that means that anybody that's been deported in the past gets sent an invitation that says reapply. we really didn't mean it. that's how bad this is.

this gaping hole we have on our border, on the texas border, where we now have 57,000 unaccompanied children, have come into the united states, many of them hustled across 2,500 miles or more from el salvador, honduras, guatemala, through mexico. there's a significant number yet from mexico. coming into the united states. these unaccompanied minors that are hauled up here through coyotes that may live in those communities and recruit these kids. all of this going on. and a president who says, i need $3.7 billion to expand the bureaucracy to maybe buy a hotel to put them in and move them across the country and infuse them into our communities. people that are unlawfully present in the united states, who simply say, i am an unaccompanied minor and i've been promised that if i could get into america i get to stay in america.

57,000, mr. speaker. and what percentage of the unaccompanied minors have been sent back to their home country? .1%. .1%. and they sent joe biden down to guatemala, he landed in panama and then guatemala. he said he went down there to send a message which is, we're going to send your kids back, don't send them here. there's no record of that. they know it's not happening. so think of the difference. if we would take a military airplane and put a couple hundred gat malans on it, for example, unaccompanied minors, send that plane down the runway and up into the air, if the president picks up the phone and calls the president of guatemala and says, be on the tarmac in two hours, you're going to have 200 of your kids that are going to arrive there and you should greet them. that's what a leader does. send them back. if you do that and do that and do that, eventually they stop coming. because they will know they're actually coming back and they'll know that the money is waste thed. it's not happening -- wasted. it's not happening.

but this president is not going to secure this border, mr. speaker. he's demonstrated that. we have 2 1/2 more years of this president. and whatever we do in this congress, we can't make him secure the border. we can't make him do it, the congress doesn't have the authority to do that. there's only two constitutional provisions that can force the president to do anything and we've tried them both within the last 15 years or so. and neither one of them are proven to be effective. public opinion might push back hard enough, well, they kind of are. but we cannot allow, we cannot allow our border, especially right now the texas border, to be under invasion in the fashion that it is, by the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, which are by the way only 20% of the illegals coming in in that sector. and they're only stopping maybe at best 25% of those that are trying to come across. so we've got a number that's up there over a million people that are attempting to cross into the united states and 57,000 of those that we pick up on that are unaccompanied minor

kids. the president will not secure the border. we should come to that conclusion, we've got 2 1/2 years of open borders, or we find a way to secure it, maybe even against the will of the president of the united states. because i don't know if he's got the will to block it, if we do. this but who has the authority? i look around the whole country and the person that has authority to do so, the governors of the border states, i have a resolution, mr. speaker, that i'd like to introduce into the record that says so, calls upon the border governors to introduce or to call out their national guard and secure the border and says, this house of representatives will support the funding to do so. i call for that, mr. speaker, and urge that we pick this up, sign it. i'm going to introduce it tomorrow. i'd like to take it up real soon and send that resolution to the world and i would appreciate your indulgence and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentleman

from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. and i'm grateful to my dear friend, mr. king. i know we have a good friend here on the other side of the aisle that was rent lie -- recently quoted as saying something along the lines that mr. king and i have never met an immigrant we didn't think was a criminal, something of that sort. and i liked luis gutierrez. i think he's a good guy. i think he's got a big heart. but the truth is escaping him on such grandiose claims. he doesn't know my heart.

i know his. he's a good guy. he's got a big heart. but he doesn't understand the ole of government. and i looked at just one of the most beautiful little girls i've ever seen saturday night, wee hours. she'd been drugged -- drug clear across mexico, she's , you know, about home. were you anxious to leave home? she starts crying. she didn't want to leave home, she said. she misses her family. because dult decided the administration's policies with the people here

promise that they'll most likely be able to stay, then people are coming and the children are not afraid of violence in their home country, some adults may be, but they're adults making decisions to subject a beautiful child like that and so many of the others that our border patrolmen are processing, our border patrol men and women are processing out there, especially in the mcallen sector. that's a rough area. but it was interesting seeing wild st torrential in the -- trant la in the wild. i've seen plenty of rattlesnakes before in that area of texas but i've never seen any the last month that i've been down there. i know they're there. but i'd never seen a turantula in the wild like that. interesting.

but parents are choosing to send their children, bring their children, in some cases put their children in the hands of drug cartels, human traffickers, hoping that the tremendous money they pay will get them to the united states rather than make them sex slaves. some make it, some don't. some die on the way. some are raped. some are abused. and it's all because there is what under the civil law might be called an attractive nuisance. we learned in law school that if you have a swimming pool and you have no fence and a child comes over and drowns in your pool because you didn't have a fence, then you would be liable for civil damages for having an

attractive nuisance that lured a child to his or her death. well, this administration has created an attractive nuisance. under civil law. mr. speaker, you and i know the united states is not a nuisance, it's been a force for good, because it has applied the laws of the judeo-christian heritage. that's why george washington in the resignation he sent to the 13 governors as the first and only general commander to have led a revolution, led the military in revolution, won the revolution and then resigned and went home, asking nothing

further. but at the end of his resignation that he sent out to the governors he had a prayer for the nation. and praying that he hoped we would never forget those who have served in the field and i'm grateful that both sides of the aisle repeatedly are grateful to our military for their service. i have in past years heard someone say, you know, no liberal ever spit at anybody in uniform. well, they just don't know. because i served four years in the army after vietnam and it was not a good time to be in the army, as far as accolades for your service. i've been spit at and when i went through basic at fort riley, kansas, it was a standing order from our commander going through training that we were not to offpost our uniform

because, though kansas is one of the greatest states there is, wonderful people, there were people who didn't like the military and if they found you in one or two together, then you would likely get beat up, they'd had instainses -- instances and we were ordered, that's what we were told, we were ordered never to wear uniforms offpost or in basic. every now and then, even at fort benning, georgia, there would be indications, orders, you know, don't be wearing your uniform offpost this weekend. so, you know, it was not a good time. i thank god people have realized the importance and value of our united states military men and women who take an oath and are willing to lay down their lives for their friends, for their

ellow americans. but government has a different position from individuals and that's why some christians get confused and say, well, i'm a christian, i'm supposed to turn the other cheek, i'm supposed to love my fellow man, i'm supposed to, you know, reach out, help sojourners, all of that is true, the beatitudes jesus gave are the kind of things we need to be doing for anyone who is a christian and i would humbly submit for anyone who is an atheist, buddhist, buddhists practice many of the beatitudes and very noble in doing. -- but for a government it's different. the government's role, even when it's composed of christians, is to make sure the law is enforced

fairly and impartially. romans talks about the government being an agent for good, for encouraging good. but if you do evil, be afraid, because the government is not given the sword in vain -- if you do evil the government is not supposed to turn the other cheek, it's supposed to apply the law fairly across the board. so when i have an adult child of one of the wealthier families in all of east texas who was before my court, my predecessor had repeatedly given her probation, i couldn't give her probation because i knew i would not do that to anyone else in her situation so i sent her to prison. because i had to be fair and impartial despite knowing the parents, the family, and knowing that that family brought most of my contributors, the biggest

contributors i had, into my courtroom the day of sentencing. well it would be nice to do special favors for friends, and i realized that day there may be nobody in this courtroom that ever supports me for office again, and if that's the way it is, so be it. but i had faith in my friends that they would understand, some didn't, most did. but it's the job of the government to appellee -- to apply the law fairly across the board, whether it is a very wealthy person, as the girl i sentenced, or whether it is someone of no means whatsoever. the law is supposed to be applied impartially. in that case, it was some years later, i heard she had served

her time and been released and that she got involved in her father's business but he had pass aid way while she was in prison -- he had passed away while she was in prison. i knew her parents hated my guts and would probably never speak to me again but i heard she got off drugs, cleaned up her act, got involved in the family business after she got out and was doing well. when i was walking the neighborhood, i walked by her parent's house, and i thought, well, they may still hate me, but i want to let them know how proud i am of their daughter that's gotten out of prison, gotten drugs under control, clean, sober, and i knocked on the door, it took a while for her mom to come to the door, eventually she did.

i didn't realize her sight had gotten so bad. she asked who it was. i said, it's louie gohmert and she immediately opened the door and said, please, please come in and sit down. and he we salt down there in the foyer of their beautiful home -- we sat down there in the foyer of their beautiful home and she said, i feel a bit guilty. i said, i don't know why you would feel guilty. you an , because i owed apology and a thank you. i said, you don't owe me anything. i just stopped by to tell, i was hoping your daughter would be here, to let her know how proud i am that she was able to overcome her addiction, i know it's a daily fight, but that she's doing so well, i just wanted to encourage, and i was hoping you didn't still hate me like i knew you once did and she

said no, my husband and i were visiting our daughter on one of our trips to see her in prison. and we realized you gave us our daughter back. you saved her life. i didn't do anything special. i just stood up to those who anded me to act impartially give special favor to a very wealthy friend and i couldn't do that as a judge because i had the role of government, i had to treat people inimpartially, fairly across the board, and that's what i did. someone once raised the issue that perhaps judges, and i know they got it at a seminar, that maybe your judge -- since judges, even though they don't

select the grand jurors, that they select the grand jury foreman, the one that leads the grand jury, raised the issue, especially in death penalty cases, that the judges have been unfair racially in that there would be racial disparity in their appointments. so i got a subpoena to appear to but about my appointments, then the criminal defense lawyer got my grand jury records and found that there was great racial disparity in my appointments of grand jury foremen. men and women both. that i had appointed. and the great racial disparity was that i had appointed significantly more african-americans to be grand jury foremen, men and women,

than i had given the racial components of our district. so i was notified i was no longer needed and was not wanted to testify. i didn't pick grand jury foremen because of their skin color. could care less. i picked -- i looked at all of those people, the 12 that were on the grand jury each time, and i knew so many of them, and i picked people i knew were upright, good, smart, leaders. and each time i selected grand jury foremen, i would ultimately have people come to me that were on the grand jury individually and say, you really made a good choice for your grand jury foreman. it was because i did so fairly and impartially, without any

regard for their status in the community. they were good people and they were leaders and i knew they'd do a good job leading the grand jury without regard to their race. creed, color, national origin, gender. didn't matter. it was who would be the best. that's what government is supposed to be about. and it breaks down a government's effectiveness when the leaders of the government quse -- use partiality to make decisions. it may have been humorous but as is often said, humor usually has a little element of truth, but i sarcastically, cynically sent out a tweet yesterday that since basically we knew the president,

according to the united states c.i.s. said that the president had given amnesty to 550 -- 553,000 or so people who were here illegally, and that there recently had been another surge, we were told by sources like "the new york times," another 00,000, and then we hear yesterday that 38 people were being deported. nd so my cynical tweet was, in essence that the obama administration had dramatically lowered the chances of anyone coming in illegally being able to stay from 100% to 99.9955%. nd that should scare people. dana loach responded, the

administration must have found 38 republicans, which, rather funny, amusing, but the little element of truth is that this administration has been partial, they've been unfair. this administration through its internal revenue service, has gone after conservatives, republicans, even to the point of demanding to know the contents of their prayers, demanding to know information they had no business knowing, actually violating the law, committing crimes, turning over information to other entities that was a violation of the law. they did so knowingly. crimes have been committed and it is important we have a special prosecutor because this attorney general has made clear his justice department is about just us, it's more a department of injustice. so it's time to make a change. through all of this, the story

yesterday, from "the hill," by alexander bolton, senate majority leader harry reid, democrat from nevada, of tuesday asserted that the southern border is secure, despite the massive surge of illegal minors from central america that has overwhelmed federal agencies. the border is secure. that's a quote. he told reporters after the senate democrats weekly policy lunch, quote, senator martin heinrich, democrat from new mexico, talked to the caucus today, he's a border state senator. he said he can say without any equivocation the border is secure. well, it's not. and anybody who will be fair and impartial and the least semblance of objectivity who has

eyes to see and ears to hear will go to the border as i have a number of times now and find the border is not secure. that's how you have 550,000 people that this president gives mnesty to. -- byhis article from the robert romano, last tuesday, the national council of lara sa issued comments in favor -- of la raza issued comments in favor of regulation. under the regulation, in october the obama administration will be empowered to condition eligibility for community development block grants on redrawing zoning maps to create evenly distributed neighborhoods

based on racial composition and ncome. mr. speaker, this is exactly what i'm talking about, the bible warns against wise people throughout time have warned against, if you want to have peace in a nation, you must have a leader or a government that is fair and impartial across the board. that you do not look at people's race. you don't look at their income. ou do as i had to do that very rich lady, when i sent her to prison. why? she was white, she was rich, but i knew anybody else in her circumstance, i would have sent to prison so i sent her. she was able haps

to turn her life around. one of the saddest things i have ever heard during the sentencing was during her sentencing. they put on quite a dog and pony show, some impressive evidence about the family and the upbringing and she had never really had discipline growing up. never had to make up her bed, study for school, all kinds of things. . but at the end ed of hearing her lawyer basically said, is there anything left you want to tell the judge? she looked up at me with tears in her eyes, because she knew what i was going to do, because i was going to do what i would do to anybody in her situation, with the priors that she had, the chances that she had already had. she looked up at me with tears i just es and said,

wish someone had told me no before today. nd meant it. it was tragic. nobody had told her no before today. she was raised so wealthy, she said, i'm the first one that ever told her no because i was being fair and impartial and treating her like any other defendant. well, this government, now this administration, wants to look and e unfair and partial make decisions based on the color of people's skin rather than on the content of the character. and in fact this administration is taking us away from the dream of martin luther king jr. . he's the one that said those fantastic words.

and part of the dream was that people would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. we had made so much progress in america and the president that went abroad and criticized ,dy ica for being divisive rissive, dismissive -- derissive, dismissive, he's divided this country more than ny president in my lifetime. along gender lines, along racial lines, by playing artial politics. and it looks from this article as if it's going to happen again. in 2012 h.u.d. disbersed about $3.8 billion of these grants to almost 1,200 municipalities.

in favor of regulation, hispanic families often do not know their housing rights and have cited fear of deportation as reason for not reporting rights violations. h.u.d. elling, then implementation of the racial rezoning rule will benefit those who have cited fear of deportation. that is low-skilled, low-income illegal immigrants. either those who are outright its legal -- illegal the most they have set foot in the united states or have simply overstayed their visas. after all, who would fear deportation? therefore one of the sure affects of h.u.d.'s regime to be to flood unwilling communities -- will be to flood unwilling communities with a significant percentage of illegal immigrants. while the current relocation of thousands, including children, from detention centers on the

u.s.-mexico border has garnerered national headlines and the eye of elected -- ire of elected republicans, including the republican of illinois and of nebraska. the h.u.d. regulation has largely flown under the radar. but it is every bit as important. it's not enough to arbitrarily implement amnesty. whether through refusal to .xist -- resist there will be new maps of where the residents live, forcing local communities to make room, whether they like it or not. it is no secret that republicans, with their low tax message, tend to do better among the middle and upper middle classes while democrats, with their social welfare regime, tend to do better among the poor. the political effect of the h.u.d. rule will invariably be

to gerrymander republican districts at the local level. take a republican state like texas as a prime example of how this might work. houston currently controlled by democrats has accepted 38 -- $38.5 million of these community development block grants. harris county has accepted another $10.3 million. dallas, another democratic strong hold, has accepted $16.6 million. and dallas county took $2.1 million. austin, too controlled by democrats, took $7.5 million of the grants. republicans at the state level cannot block these grants going to these municipalities and now thanks to the h.u.d. rule, by virtue of accepting these grants, bureaucrats in washington, d.c., will get to redraw zoning maps along racial and income boundaries to include more affordable units and combat discrimination. that's in quotes. it has all the hallmarks of a

master plan. too conspiratorial? it does not take a cynic to see who the winners and losers will be in implementing the racial housing quotas. in the case of loraza,en illegal immigration amnesty proponents, the likely beneficiaries of the h.u.d. rezoning rule, will be democrat parties across the country. both u.s. and immigrant-born hispanics favor democrats by nearly 2-1, according to gal up. what emerges is a -- gal up. what emerges is plan to resettle more than 20 million illegal immigrants in specific communities as a pretext to tilt the political scales on the national and local political scenes to favor democrats. fortunately the house of representatives has already acted, passing an amendment to the transportation and h.u.d. appropriations bill, by representative paul gosar, republican of arizona. in a close 219-207 vote, to

defund implementation of the regulation. t anyway, keep coming back and rue peace in a country come from a government that treats everyone impartially and the great genius of america has been free enterprise. the ability of somebody like darrell issa, that's a captain in the united states army, who mes up with a brilliant idea of a door lock that would go up and down automatically, which the idea was apparently stolen, as i recall, and then he figures, well, i can spend 20 years in litigation or so or, if i could come up with something smart then, i could come up with something else smart. comes up with the idea of the .utomatic car alarm

and my friend darrel has done quite well with that. this is america. it's the genius of american free enterprise. let people profit when they have good ideas, when they work hard, do well, america's a stronger place to be. but the results of failing to enforce the law fairly and impartially, as it's written, also brought about this headline today from "brightbart." released alien from border crisis arrested for alleged murder, kidnapping in texas. an illegal immigrant who was released by u.s. authorities with a notice to appear has been arrested for thaled murder of a woman -- alleged murder of a woman and kidnapping of children on u.s. soil. it occurs after the man was released. and it goes on in the article and talks about the a.p.

actually reporting this, but they neglected to say the man was an illegal alien. it's time for the a.p., for the media, for this administration to start following and enforcing the law and in country will be a better place in which to live. and with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. rush, for 30 minutes. mr. rush: i want to thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i come to the of a serious se concern, a deadly concern even, that the people of my district, the first congressional

district of illinois, the citizens of the great city of chicago, and indeed those from around our country, that they are experiencing and that they have witnessed. nd that is the preponderance .f violence, killings young people killing each other , innocent bystanders shot down on the streets of my city. abies, victims of gun violence

. young men. by lder citizens, retirees, victims of gun violence in my city. ne would get the notion that is chiraq, y city this nickname that's been associated with my city. mr. speaker, i've come to the floor today to say that this , these ty that i love

people, worthy people of the first congressional district, , se hardworking americans who have contributed greatly to the greatness of this nation, they don't live in a place called chiraq. chiraq is not right. e wholeheart lid and determinedly resist and repudiate any references to our city with the inappropriate, grossly inappropriate name of chraq. -- chiraq. chiraq. embrace

a focus on e is the violence that occurs in our city. t, mr. speaker, i maintain in this functionality chicago, in other places across this country, is a direct long failed governmental policies, failed public policy, policies that have imnated out of this very

-- emanated out of this very institution, this federal vernment, policies that have emanated out of state capitols all across this nation. nd city halls, village halls ll across this nation. decades long. mr. speaker, we're not talking instances of lavery and that dark period of american history. e're not just speaking about

all of the abuses and all of that segregation has caused upon african-americans. 're not just talking about jim crow laws that were a result of public policy. mr. speaker, we're not just all of the policies that emanated out of this institution. the housing policies in my very 1970's until the

in my frican-americans city to actually acquire a and still is was the foundation of a middle class the tyle, a foundation for american dream. to get a ability mortgage, to own a home, the american dream becomes an american nightmare. that's what we've experienced

over these last decades. iniquities. structural discrimination. mr. speaker, i am hearing -- i evening thaty this that define ee d's -- tructural inequities iniquities, structural problems in my city and other cities. cross this nation.

the foundation of violence we are witnessing today and i would lead with anyone in this chamber, anyone who is doing this in any capacity -- viewing this in any capacity on any platform throughout the nation, please do not mistake anything an i say or feel as being , to pt to coddle criminals relief ive a sense of killing -- are

killing innocent people in our communities, they are just as wrong as they could ever be and i am not in any way trying to give them cover. we want to give some real -- we want to get some real answers, we have to ask the real questions. know ye the truth, the bible says. and it shall set you free. that uth of the matter is can be summed up in its causes by these three d's. discrimination.

years and years, decades and decades of discrimination. discrimination that has denied ardworking americans access to the best that this nation can provide. discrimination, not of the southern type, more subtle, more sidious, even in some ways more deadly. than anything that the ku klux klan could ever devise. is subtle, institutional discrimination that has been a

culture in my city for too long. nd that takes on different characteristics, is able to mask the good n within intentions of some of our friends. some people who will recall the thought that they might have mistakenly involved themselves a some point in time in being part of the problem rather than part of the solution. discrimination is alive and well n my city.

even today. that young ness eople find themselves facing year racing here in the 2014 in this nation, the that completely , gulfs their very existence every waking hour, they're confronted, every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year, year by ear by year by year. they're faced with total despair that ter hopelessness

tall. and stands in this institutional framework that is built upon discrimination. discrimination. types ofand causes all in those who are being discriminated against. discrimination, the first d. discrimination leads very quickly to disinvestment, the

econd d. you can discriminate against a community, against a people and therefore, thereby, you can disinvest in those communities. and on the south side and the of side and the north side the city, potentially on the -- particularly on the south and west side, my friend congressman davis is here, he can speak very, very appropriately and eloquently to the discrimination of people on the west side of the disinvestment, the stark disinvestment can't be denied and these patterns of

, innvestment in our schools our business districts, in our housing, in our recreational portunities in our parks, on ur streets, this rampant disinvestment, decades long, has led to a sense of frustrated rage. when there is no way out for milies, for neighbors, for neighborhoods, for communities, then psychologists will tell you of violence is a byproduct

that failure to believe and to hope and to be assured that off future, that you have a stake. when oses its meaning ere's no significant investment in the future of any of our citizens. particularly those who are young. and those who have easy access to guns. i agree r, i am -- with the national rifle

association on this one matter. guns don't kill people, people kill people. but i disagree with them and i want to take it a little further because that's only one side of the coin. we're not just talking about eople, we're talking about hopeless people. people who are without hope for the future. -- anybody without -- regardless, rather, of race, reed, color, or sex or nationality, anybody, when there

painted they feel into a corner with no hope of getting out, you're going to turn violent. that's part of the human makeup. your violence is going to be directed to somebody. so the n.r.a., if it's going to be truthful, then it just cannot deal with any kind of people, more pointedly t people who have no hope. a s disinvestment has led to staggering intergenerational nemployment. the bottom didn't fall out of

the economy on the west side and the south side of the city of chicago in 2007 and 2008 and 2009. the bottom fell out 25 years ago, 50 years ago. nd it never has been repaired. there's no safety net in my city. it's like a bottomless pit. and generations yet to be born are still facing those desperate conditions. till will face that despair. still will face this gross disinvestment.

hy are there -- aren't there jobs in my city, for my ommunity, for my district? we s it that in my city ve to fight the labor unions or rder to get employment abor jobs? why don't we have jobs for young people, summer jobs for young people?

government policies have . eated this nightmare and this nightmare that we find ourselves in keeping getting darker and darker and darker and darker. and deadlier and deadlier and deadlier and deadlier. discrimination, disinvestment. stands -- the leaders of my city, when the mayor stands proudly and takes 54 public losing

schools down, mostly on the south and west side of the city of chicago, that's nothing but decades' ion of the long disinvestment in good quality schools. and if you look back at the , some of our city most ferocious ballotles -- battles with the powers that be and centered around the inequities in the public school ystem. produced at an

alarming rate in my city. because of the disinvestments in public education. discrimination, first d. disinvestment, second d. and then, mr. speaker, in rapid times we have seen gross depopulation of my city. almost le have been an out of my city. public housing is a failed public policy in my city.

let me tell you, mr. speaker, what happened. public housing developments in my city, some call them projects. yes, and there were a lot of social yields associated with them. public housing or projects. and some of those public using buildings needed to be restructured, demolished, redesigned. which ike new york city, took its public housing developments and invested money in those developments, my city

didn't. and what you had, mr. speaker, is that former tenants, former esidents of public housing pushed into struggling lower ddle class communities and hat's when the disruption, hose here to for struggled mid -- those heretofor struggling middle class communities that could not sustain themselves against this average of former housing, public housing residents into those areas, and those communities start experiencing extreme dysfunctionality. meet in my city.

meet 624. this is the most violent beat in the city of chicago. in recent years two police fficers killed in that beat. day-to-day violence occurs in that beat. a onth ago, six weeks ago, brilliant special education time r who washinged part as a real he is -- who worked part time as a real estate agent stopped by to drop some temporarily in an office on west 79th street, and lost her life, shot in the head in beat y bullet fired 624. well, mr. speaker, i want to

ay this. beat 624 is in the heart of a community. when i was a young man growing it was the model of middle class lifestyle for the african-american community. xalted in many ways. everybody thought that living there was the place to be. when you lived there, you lived , manicured lawns, , an streets, garages, homes

good schools, good business districts, safe communities, stable communities. this was the area of my youth. long-ago atham is a emory now because of the isinvestment, because of the failed public housing policies that emanated out of this ederal government. , crimination, disinvestment nd lastly, depopulation.

i deprue up in an area called .- i grew up in an area .t no longer exists the investments, the public these last 20 years, 30 years, maybe even longer than that, have been away from the communities and in central city and the businesses around the

loop. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. rush: can i ask for extended time. there are no other speakers on the floor. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from illinois may claim time if he so chooses. mr. rush: and if i can finish this thought, maybe i'll give it to you. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognize uses the gentleman from illinois, mr. -- the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis, for 30 minutes. mr. davis: thank you, mr. speaker. i'll be pleased to yield additional time to mr. rush. part of that 30 minutes. mr. rush: i want to thank my friend, congressman davis. mr. speaker, i just want to say

that the central business district of chicago, the loop , it's known far and wide , an immediate closed-in circle around the loop. and they've created three communities. one is called the near north side. where public dollars and enormous investments have occurred. this is an area that used to house cabrini-green. the near north side. n recent times we've had gentlefication occur on the

near west side. when i was a young man growing up in chicago, there was never such a community, never such a name, never such an identity called the near west side. and, mr. speaker, there's something now called the near south side. of f these are gems sentfication. -- sentryfication. but if you go further west, a stark uth, you see difference in the englewoods, other ield park, the places. stark difference in investment, capital investments in these communities.

hopelessness and despair minate the lives and the thoughts and the culture. that's where the violence emanates from, as we deal with these issues we will never, ever be able to deal with the violence and the increasing murders that are everyday news in the city that i love, the city of chicago. i want to thank the gentleman for his time. mr. davis: i thank you, mr. rush, for calling this special order this evening, to put a different kind of light on the whole estion and the issue of violence in chicago. which is really the center point of america. and those of us who live in chicago say that so goes

chicago, so goes america. what i came -- when i came to icago, it was known as the jobs capital of america. every place that you looked, there were help wanted signs. you could find a job. as a matter of fact the word was that if you couldn't find a job in chicago, there was basically no jobs for you. so i agree with you, epresentative rush, that the of ce of hope is a part the formula for violence. and if you never ask the right questions, of course you'll never get the right answers. there are those who talk about law enforcement, more police officers.

i've even heard people talk about bringing in national guards and bringing in paramilitary outfits. those are not really the solutions. e solutions are to provide people with hope. because if they have hope, then they don't find or feel the necessity for certain kinds of actions. there used to be so many businesses in the district that i represent. over the last 50 or more years, 've lost more than 100,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs. so when representative rush alks about disinvestment, when

business and industry decided to series roebuck, hot point, motorola -- when sears roebuck, hot point, motorola, what's now navista, international harvester, allied radio, speigel's, montgomery ward, all those entities were in the neighborhood where i live and work. i could just walk down the streets and see them. western electric, not far from where i lived, you could see hundreds of people go -- going to and from work every morning. when you woke up. of course things split off to -- split off and all of that changed. so chicago used to just beckon people for jobs.

come oto chicago -- come to chicago. as a matter of fact blues singers would have songs, going to chicago, sorry, but i can't take you. and they were like pied pipers, people were coming, but then as so many people came and as communities and neighborhoods began to change and as some people began to leave and others would come, there were levels of deterioration and i remember me the riots that occurred after the assassination of dr. martin luther king. many of those areas that suffered the aftermath of the riots have never been rebuilt. as they the same today

were in the 1960's, as the riots occurred. nobody has been willing to of t in the redevelopment those communities. housing ly did deteriorate, but also the social rvice structure that existed also left. so when bobby talks about disinvestment, there was every kind that one could investment -- that one could imagine. in some of those community it's hard to find a boy scout troop. it's difficult to find the resources for a girl scout program. or for activities that individuals can be engaged in

after school. and so yeah, there is a level of violence, but there is an even eeper level of hopelessness. without hope, it's like people being pressed up against the wall. pressed up against nowhere. trying to figure out how do they get out. but i can tell you that whatever darkness exists, there is light that comes. and so i think that there are indeed solutions. what are the solutions? job creation. job creation. job creation. you know, if we look at history, and when times were difficult

during the 1930's, there was the utilization of federal to rnment as a resource create work opportunities with the understanding that if people are working they are reinvesting because they're paying taxes, they're spending money, they are exchanging services and goods with each other. that also gives a boost to the economy. and so i never take the position that wherever we are, that's where we have to be. gun control legislation, let me tell you the people who are shooting don't necessarily make the guns. the people who are shooting don't necessarily sell the guns.

the people who are shooting tually acquire the guns from someplace and somebody else. some of could take away the opportunity for the guns to exist, i remember a song i used to listen to about a place called black mountain, and part of the lyrics said, i'm going to black mountain with my razor and my gun, i'm going to find that man of mine, shoot him if he stands still and cut him if he uns. well, you've got to run after somebody, that's a little more difficult than being able to have an oozi where you drive by and mow them down. i don't know when we're going to get real serious in this country

about diminishing the number of guns. that people have access to. i was disappointed when the supreme court said that people could actually carry weapons. that's one thing in some communities and some places but i can tell you that's another thing in other communities and other places. i would hate to go into a situation where i felt that everybody there who wanted to were carrying a weapon because they had the right to carry a concealed weapon. i used to be in the chicago city council and many of the people there were former police officers. plus you could carry a gun anyway because you were considered law enforcement.

and sometimes when you go to lunch, you'd see a number of people who might take their jackets off and you'd see a number of guns and weapons and you almost might be too afraid to eat. you know, kind of take away lunch because all these weapons are around. be ld urge our country to willing to make the kind of investments that you must make, and they're not spending -- there's a difference between just spending and investing. if you're just -- if you just spend, you don't necessarily get a return. but when you invest wisely, you expect a return. we need to invest in education. we need to invest in more social

development activity, and we need to reinvest in urban communities like those on the southwest side and near north side and suburban areas of chicago. congressman rush, i thank you again and commend you for calling for this special order but i've got a feeling that where there's life, there is hope. i have a feeling that we will arrest the violence problem not only in chicago but in other places throughout america and i'm pleased to join with you this evening and share a few moments talking about the issue. mr. rush: thank you so much, congressman davis. i know that you have a response to what i'm going to say, i'm sure you share the same feeling.

you know, one of the -- i talked about discrimination earlier, and one of the aspects of probably ion that's little noticed, you have these youngsters in your community and my community, your district, my real, notand they are -- they're shepherded to a great extent, to these prisons across the state. and most of these prisons are located in small towns. and these prisons are the economic engines -- mr. davis: part of the economy. mr. rush: for these small towns. and so young people inside the city of chicago, your district or my district, they're actually

the raw material for a lifestyle, middle class lifestyle for these small towns that's around these prisons. and so because they are in the prisons, their families, parents are working for the prisons, their college education is paid by the salaries from the prison, their homes and mortgages, so they're creating an economic boom for these small towns but we're suffering on the issues. it's an unending -- mr. davis: no doubt about itism took 31 children to see their fathers in prison the saturday before father's day. and i can tell you, it was one of the most emotional gatherings that i've ever participated in. and so we've got to put a stop to it and we've got to start counting individuals, not in the

places where they are imprisoned, but in the communities that they come from so that the resources come back to those communities and not to the places where they are imprisoned. so again, i thank you for shedding light this evening and for being able to join you and we'll just have to keep on working on the issue and i think we'll get to the bottom of it. so i yield back, i thank you, mr. speaker, and i appreciate the courtesy of giving me the opportunity to acquire time that had not been acquired before. thank you very much. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair will recognize a motion to adjourn. mr. davis: i move that the house do now adjourn.

the speaker pro tempore: the motion is on adjourning. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. accordingly, the house if democrats retake a majority empty house in the 2014 midterms, they have a 100-day action plan they're calling

middle class jump start. good morning. are you all ready? because we're ready. i have the privilege of being the chairman of the house democratic caucus. and we are gathered here today to send a very clear message to america. you can either sue the president of the united states or you can do your job here at the house of representative and pass laws that help the middle class and working families. you can shut down the government taking 800,000 workers and $24 billion taxpayer dollars with you, or you can enact the president's job agenda. you can vote more than 50 times to tear down america's new health security and patient law, or you can make the law even better so every working family in america has a doctor and a peace of mind that comes with it.

you can pass stop gap measures that merely kick the can down the road on our nation's budget, or on the construction and repair of our radiosed -- of our roads, rail and bridges, or you can do it the right way and pass stable, long-term laws that give our businesses and employers the confidence to hire and grow. you can do nothing other than block a vote to fix a broken immigration system, or you can pass the bipartisan fix that days nate voted out 384 ago. americans don't have the luxury to watch the house of representatives waste time and taxpayer dollars. it's time to give americans who ork hard and earn only $7.25 a raise. it's time to pay women the same as a man for the same work. it's time to reward companies that grow jobs in america, not ship them overseas. and it's time to make colonel affordable once again for the middle class. democrats have a straightforward, ambitious

agenda. but we will not waste america's time or taxpayer dollars. give us a chance to lead the people us a house and in 100 days -- the people's house and in 100 days we'll accomplish the work of america, putting the middle class first. let me now introduce our friend and chairman who helped us put together the agenda that will put america back to work, chairman steve israel. >> thank you very much. thank you. the defining issue of our time is middle class economic security. t's all about who's got your back. and the house republican majority has turned its back on the middle class. it's time for somebody to stand up for the middle class and get to work for the middle class. that's house democrats, that's what we're going to do. house republicans have stacked the deck for the special interests, they have turned their back on the middle class. they have stalled the middle class. today behind these doors they will waste an entire day and taxpayer dollars plotting to sue the president of the united states.

meanwhile we are out here announcing our solutions to support the middle class. this is the middle class jump start. it is jump start middle class. 100 days of action to put the middle class first, ahead of the special interests. now, you couldn't have a more vivid contrast in priorities. they have passed maximum subsidies for the special interests. in the first 100 days, we will increase the minimum wage for america's workers. first 100 days. they have protected the profits of the big banks. in the first 100 days, we will allow every student in the middle class and working families to refinance their student loans. in their house majority, they have supported putting bosses in charge of women's health freedoms. in the first 100 days, we will require bosses to pay a woman the same as a man for equal work. that's the difference between them and us.

100 days. putting the middle class first. more jobs, not more subpoenas. more jobs for the middle class, not more jobs for partisan lawyers. supporting women and families, supporting affordable and accessible education. today the middle class, they feel stalled. they do feel stalled. we do not need on that same day another republican lawsuit to advance their partisan aims. we need solutions to protect the middle class' pocketbooks. that's what jump start middle class is all about. you give us this majority, we will protect the middle class first and stop house republicans from putting the special interests ahead. thank you very much. let's jump start the middle class. we need solutions, not more politics. thank you, mr. chairman. and let me turn it over to our distinguished minority whip, who as the majority whip will make sure that these first 100

days we produce solutions and results for the middle class, as majority leader, steny hoyer. >> thank you so much. the middle class needs a jump start. the middle class knows they need a jump start. and they know they need a congress that is on their side, not a congress that says you're on your own. that's what the american people want. that's what we're going to give them. democrats have a strong agenda for the 114th congress. the republican majority has squandered their chance to create jobs and grow opportunities. they have wasted taxpayers' time and money with costly government shutdowns and frivolous lawsuits. it's time for a change. a new democratic majority that will hit the ground running, with legislative agendas that supports a strong and growing middle class. the make it in america plan is a broad agenda for jobs and competitiveness and is a central part of this jump start the middle class.

we want to provide tax incentives to encourage companies to bring jobs home ather than send jobs overseas. we want to invest in increased exports, improved infrastructure and skills training programs to help attract jobs and support a strong manufacturing base. democrats, democrats have a real plan to get things done. and if we have the majority in january, as i fully expect us to have, we will be introducing he 21st century make it in america act. i really garbled that, didn't i? >> say it again, say it again. >> we're going to introduce the 21st century make it in america act. [cheers and applause] they knew i could do it. americans are tired of a republican do-nothing and

do-bad-things congress focused on simply partisan divisions. they want a congress that helps everyone make it in america. and jump starts the middle class. now i want to introduce my colleague, a real leader in the democratic party, and in this country, my friend, the congressman from south carolina, and the assistant leader of our party, jim clyburn. >> thank you, thank you very much. mr. whip, thank you, mr. chairman, mr. chairman. thanks to all my distinguished colleagues. i'm pleased to join the house democrats today to unveil our 100-day action agenda. house republicans have stacked the deck for the wealthiest few at the expense of working

families. in the first 100 days of 2015, a democratic house majority will act to jump start a middle class agenda. an agenda that starts with jobs . good jobs. jobs with livable wages. jobs that will expand the middle class. and move the families of hardworking men and women into the middle class. democrats, steny, democrats will pass the 21st century make it in america act. to provide tax incentives to companies that create good-paying jobs here at home. republicans voted to give tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. house democrats will pass the

build america bonds act, to boost job growth and modernize america's infrastructure by building roads, bridges, broadband technology and investing in clean energy. and we will pay for it by closing corporate tax loopholes. republicans have blocked legislation to make long-term investments in our nation's aging highway system, and opposed creating clean energy jobs for the future. house chems -- democrats will raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and pass the tax fairness act, to deny c.e.o.'s the ability to claim tax deductions for pay over $1 million, unless they give their employees a raise.

republicans refused to raise the minimum wage but give massive tax giveaways to corporate special interests and the ultrawealthy. america needs an economy that works for working people. house democrats are ready to deliver on that vision with our 100-day action plan. and with that it is my pleasure to yield now to the chair, soon to be chair, of the house budget committee, chris van hollen. >> thank you. thank you, mr. clyburn. as we work to shut down those special interest corporate loopholes that encourage americans, companies to move jobs overseas, as we shut those down and invest those savings in jobs here at home, we need to make sure, as mr. clyburn said, that those jobs pay a

decent wage, a living wage, a wage that can support american families. because when american families succeed, all of america succeeds. so there are two things we're going to do. in that first 100 days. the first is end the scandal that in america you can work 40 hours a week, all year long, and still have to raise your family in poverty. that is simply wrong. we need to make sure we raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and get that done once and for all. but we cannot stop there. we need to make sure all of america has a shot at a wage. what we've seen over the last several decades is large increases in worker productivity. we have seen skyrocketing increases in c.e.o. pay and bonuses. what we have not seen is increases in the employee pay. they have been left behind.

even though they are working to boost that productivity and boost those corporate profits. so we have a very simple proposition. we have a proposition called the c.e.o. employee pay fairness act. and that is this. if you're a corporation, you cannot give your c.e.o. and top executives, you cannot take a deduction for their pay over $1 million unless you're going to give your employees a raise. it's pretty simple. it's pretty fair. after all, the taxpayers should not have to subsidize big corporate c.e.o. bonuses for corporations that are not providing their employees with a wage and pay increase. so let's get the job done, let's invest in jobs here, let's make sure they're jobs that pay a decent wage for all americans and with that i'm very pleased to turn it over to mr. tierney who has taken the

lead on making sure every kid has a shot at the american dream. mr. tierney. >> thank you, chris. i want to thank leader pelosi and all of my colleagues for including my bill in the house democratic economic agenda. it is simple and it is straightforward. what this bill does is provide existing student loan borrowers the opportunity to refinance their debt at a lower rate. banks can do it, businesses can do it, families can do it with their home ownership and students should be able to do it. it would save students and parents and graduates thousands of dollars on their loans and that savings no doubt will be will get spent right back into the economy, giving it a boost. the nonpartisan congressional budget office states clearly that it would reduce the deficit by $22 billion in 10 years, so taxpayers also benefit from it. right now the house republicans are in there trying to find out how to sue the president. we're out here making sure that we're fighting for tens of millions of parents and students and graduates, to make sure that they have an equal

chance. this is all about whose side are you on and we're on the side of students and graduates and parents. so again i want to thank the leader and my colleagues for putting this bill in the plan. we're going to make sure it passes. with that i turn this microphone over to my colleague and cheap chief deputy -- chief deputy whip, mr. crowley. >> thank you. education doesn't start at college. we also know that our children only have one real shot, one real shot at a quality education. and it's imperative that they get off to the right start. the right jump start. decades of studies have found that quality preschool not only leads to higher academic achievement and stronger job benefits, but it also lowers crime and delinquency levels and more importantly it reduces poverty. which really is the cause for the prior two issues. so while house republicans voted to limit access to early childhood education and

essentially squashed the hopes and dreams of america's children, house democrats will pass legislation to expand access to education and make the investments needed to set our children on a path of future success. our legislation, the strong start for america's children act, led by ranking member orge miller, is a bold 10-year -- george miller. we look a lot alike. it is a bold 10-year federal state -- federal-state partnership to expand and improve early learning opportunities for our children. this will expand access to preschool for 4-year-olds and make critical investments to improve the quality of child care for infants and toddlers. we want to jump start the middle class. and that must include jump starting our children's education.

not when they're going to college, but from day one. and with that now, let me introduce to you our leader, a leader for all working class men and women in america, leader pelosi. >> thank you very much. good morning, everyone. >> good morning. >> thank you all for being here. our middle class jump start is a tribute to the middle class. the most productive workers in the world. it has policies, our jump start middle class, jump start has policies that reflect make it in america, thank you, mr. hoyer, building in america, a and b, american-made, build it in america, infrastructure, small businesses. this is a tribute to american entrepreneurship. to the innovation that keeps america number one. it is the recognition that that innovation begins in the classroom, that's enabled by

congressman tierney's bank on student refinancing act, that kids can have a shot at the american dream and make their contribution to our economy. and as mr. crowley says, that education begins at the earliest time in a child's life. children learning, parents earns. but one of the best actions that we can take to increase and then grow our economy is to increase the role of women in our economy. our agenda for families, women and families, is when women succeed, america succeeds. this is not just the title of our agenda. this is a statement of absolute fact. and our agenda presents a stark contrast to what the republicans have done to roll back women's rights and limit women's opportunities. you heard our three categories.

one, make it in america. two, affordable education, to keep america number one. this is all about our country. and three, when women succeed, america succeeds. when republicans have refused to ensure equal pay for equal work, reduced access to affordable child care, and voted against paid sick leave for men and women. when we unleash the full potential of women in our economy, we strengthen the middle class and empower families to thrive. and that's why we have legislation to make this happen. thanks to congresswoman rosa chief , the sponsor, the sponsor of when women succeed. and the oughter of legislation -- author of legislation, paycheck fairness act, ensuring equal pay for equal work. we've heard about the miller-harkin bill on raising the minimum wage.

we saw what mr. van hollen discussed about giving america a raise. if we're going to give the c.e.o. a raise. again, rosa delauro's healthy family act, to guarantee paid sick leave for men and women and of course, as mr. crowley discussed, george miller's bill, to increase affordable child care. this is so important. children learning. parents earning. it's about men and women, it's about families. house republicans have voted to weaken domestic violence laws and threatened to shut down government rather than fund planned parenthood. democrats will strengthen the violence against women act and expand women's access to comprehensive health care planning. as we gather on the steps of the capital, as my colleagues have referenced, republicans are inside wasting time and taxpayer money on partisan lawsuits against the president.

republicans are about process, democrats are about progress. republican process, democratic progress. [applause] thanks to our colleague from kentucky, mr. yarmuth, where are you, mr. yarmuth? thank you, thank you, mr. yarmuth. he has kept us disciplined on a path of a middle class jump start, instead of the stalling that the republicans have done at every effort to increase jobs in our country. good-paying jobs in our country. today with this action plan, we reassert the truths of our history. and this is not just about better jobs, about more employees. this is about entrepreneurship and our women and our middle class initiatives for entrepreneurship, to create more employers, to create small

businesses and that entrepreneurship, that innovation's connected to education and opportunity by the make it in america and the build america brings us all together. so today, with this action plan, we reassert the great truths of our country, of our history, and of our future. when the middle class succeeds, america succeeds. when families succeed, america succeeds. and when women succeed, america succeeds. thank you all. now i'm pleased to yield back tower distinguished chairman -- back to our distinguished chairman. >> thank you. we want you to have a choice. continue the shutdown, do-nothing politics, or move to jump start the middle class. come join us, america. let's jump start the middle class together. thank you all very much. [cheers and applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> leader pelosi! >> leader pelosi! >> leader pelosi! will you answer questions? [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> on tomorrow's "washington journal," republican congressman steve king of iowa joins us to discuss unaccompanied children crossing the border and his views on immigration into the u.s. then democratic congresswoman eddie bernice johnson of texas. she'll also discuss immigration, as well as evertses to find money for the highway trust fund, which will

go bankrupt later this summer without congressional action. "washington journal" live on c-span with the day's headlines, your phone calls, tweets and facebook comments every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. and at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning on our companion network, c-span3, general motors' c.e.o. goes before a senate subcommittee to testify about g.m.'s recall of nearly 26 million vehicles. also testifying at the hearing, kenneth feinberg, who's advising g.m. on how to compensate victims killed or injured in cars the automaker is now recalling. again that gets under way tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span3. and today on capitol hill, federal reserve chair janet yellen testified before the house financial services committee. here's an exchange she had with an -- with a congressman about the nation's housing market.

>> i wanted to ask what forces are contributing to this lackluster housing economy? >> house zg seem to be recovering throughout most of the recovery and it looked like it was on a reasonably solid course, recovering from a very low level. and then we saw essentially a cessation of progress when mortgage rates rose significantly last year. i think my expectation was that that would be a temporary setback for housing and with mortgage rates higher but still at very low levels, and with a period of very weak household formation, i expected that, you know, we would see a rebound by now, a pickup in the housing sector. and frankly it continues to be sluggish and i can't give you a

precise reason why that's occurred. we're certainly aware of the fact that mortgage credit remains very, very tight. as i've said several times this morning, for a wide range of borrowers. and that may be part of it. we also hear about some supply constraints that builders face, perhaps that's contributing. but i have to say that i'm somewhat surprised. >> so what more do you think the fed can do to help stimulate recovery in the housing sector, both for those homeowners who are upside down in the values, as well as to help new entrants be able to qualify for homes? >> housing prices are continuing to increase and they have increased substantially and i think particularly in the markets that saw the worst booms and busts. so i know particularly in nevada there are a very large

fraction of homeowners who are underwater but i think if you look at the aggregate numbers, just the increase in house prices we have seen, and i think that is in part reflecting our accommodative monetary policy, many fewer borrowers are underwater, the numbers have diminished substantially. i know the las vegas area particularly is one of the most hard-hit and still has, you know, the highest -- about the highest numbers on this. but i really think, i think that's helping and i think eventually we will see greater progress in the housing market. but there are many impediments that servicers face in the aftermath of the problems, the foreclosure problems we've had during the crisis. things have not yet settled out there. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone, any time, with c-span radio on audio now. simply call 202-626-8888 to hear congressional coverage, public affairs forums and today's "washington journal" program and every weak day listen to a recap of the day's events at 5:00 p.m. eastern on washington today. you can also hear audio of the five network sunday affair programs beginning sundays at noon eastern. c-span radio on audio now. call 202-626-8888. long distance or phone charges may apply. >> so we're here at salisbury house in des moines, iowa. and it's a home that was built by carl and edith weeks in the 1920's. carl weeks was a man of many and varied interests. one of the most notable legacies of his interests are his amazing collections that both he and edith amassed in terms of artworks, sculpture, the library collection is an

amazing collection of rare, limited first-edition works. medieval manuscripts. it's incredible. so carl weeks collectsed the books that he collected not only because they're important historical works, but also because he believed that books themselves were works of art. and just beyond the words on the page. so he collected almost every edition of "leaves of grass." that changed over time. wittman added poems. to but for carl it was sort of the art of collecting. carl also collected a variety of first editions of earnest hemingway's work. so this is the "green hills of africa" by hemingway published in 1935. and this is a great piece because it illustrates the personal relationship that existed between carl weeks and earnest hemingway.

so this inis description, to carl weeks, instead of a drink at penas, with very best wishes, ernest hemingway. >> explore the history and literary life of des moines, iowa, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's book tv. and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on merican history tv on c-span3. president obama today announced new sanctions on russia in response to that country's military intervention in ukraine. the new sanctions announced this afternoon at the white house targeted banks, energy companies and defense terms -- firms in russia. "the new york times" reports the new measures will severely restrict the russian companies' access to investment money from the u.s. you can see that announcement from the president tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. also today, the house of representatives approved a $21 billion spending bill for the treasury department, federal

courts and the district of columbia. the bill removes funding for the affordable care act and it cuts funding for the i.r.s. by 3%. because of those two provisions, the white house has threatened a veto of the legislation. here's some debate now from earlier today. democrats offered a motion to change the bill just before the house voted on it. mr. speaker, the final amendment to the bill. it will not kill the bill or send it back to send it back to committee. if adopted, the bill will move to passage, as amended. mr. speaker, today the proposal that i offer, is a modest proposal, but it has potential for great gain for this country. mply asking -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the gentleman may proceed.

mr. nolan: thank you, mr. speaker. my amendment provides for $5 million additional dollars for the small business development centers across this country, and additional $5 million for the consumer product safety commission. the simple truth is, it's small businesses that drive this economy. 28 million of them, half of the work force in this country comes from the small business community in this country. 2/3 of all the new jobs that e created are created by small businesses. we don't want to be a part of having missed the next great idea, because not only do small businesses create jobs and drive the engine of this

economy, they are the genesis of the next great new idea that will revolutionize the world, change and improve and better our lives. but guess what, i'm an old business guy myself. i don't know that -- as a matter of fact, i'm quite sure i've never had any ideas of genius, but even if you do, that doesn't mean you know how to run a business and that's what the small business centers do. they do it for veterans. they do it for women. they do it for minorities. they teach them how to put together a business plan. they teach them how to put together a finance plan that will resonate with a crurmudgeon old banker. they -- curmudgeon old banker. they show you how to put together engineering and design and production plan. they show you how to do sales

and marketing and export plans to export your products overseas. i have a woman in my district created a great little company, alicia overby called baby elephant ears. in two years she grew her company from $12,000 to $1.5 million in income, producing all kinds of wonderfully good-paying jobs. and all she needed to do that was to get a little help from the small business administration. as a business person, i don't mind telling you when times are hard, times aren't good, you don't start cutting across the board. you look to where maybe you need to spend a little bit more money to get a little more efficient production system to maybe do a little better sales and marketing, to learn how to put together a finance plan so

your banker will give you the working capital that you need to grow and expand and create jobs. my friends, that's what this is all about. the small business administration serves over 500,000 clients. yes, that's right. 500,000 clients, generates $4.5 billion in private capital that otherwise wouldn't get invested in new business, creating new jobs for people in this country. that's what this motion is all about. additionally, it provides some additional moneys for consumer product safety. and what has that commission done? oh, it's only saved hundreds of thousands of lives, saved children from poisoning, saved children from dying in crib deaths, saved children from uffocating in refrigerators.

4.5 million foreign-made consumer products have been enied entry in this country. is that worth an additional $5 million? save the life of someone's loved one and children? you better believe it is. this amendment is all about creating jobs, creating business, creating opportunity for women, for minorities, for entrepreneurs. why? because it works, that's why. and you know why? you want to know why it also works? i'll tell you. because when women and minorities succeed in this country, what happens? when entrepreneurs and businesses succeed in this country, what happens?

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. nolan: when workers get ood-paying jobs, what happens? the speaker pro tempore: the entleman's time has expired. the gentleman's time has expired. mr. nolan: and last but not ast -- the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the

gentleman from florida seek recognition? mr. nolan: oh, you want to listen to this one. you want to listen to this one because when -- the speaker pro tempore: the entleman's time has expired. the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? mr. crenshaw: i rise to speak in opposition of the motion to recommit. the speaker pro tempore: is the gentleman from florida opposed to the motion? mr. crenshaw: yes, i am. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for five minutes. mr. crenshaw: thank you very much. let me just tell the gentleman that he'll be happy to know that we have taken all of his concerns in this bill. and we've got a pretty good

bill that we worked on, mr. speaker. the bill's been on the floor now for three days. this is the first time this subcommittee bill has actually been to the full house since 2007, and so all the members of the house had a chance to look at the bill. they had a chance to offer amendments, and after that process we now have a good bill hat's even better. the speaker pro tempore: please lear the well. the house will be in order. the gentleman from florida will suspend.

the house will be in order. members, please take your conversations off the floor. the house will be in order. members, please take your conversations off the floor. the gentleman from florida may resume. mr. crenshaw: well, i thank the gentleman for clearing the ell. as i said, we got a good bill that this process has actually made even better, and it's a strength bill and we know -- it's a spending bill and we know government needs money to provide services. government needs something more right now, and we've tried to provide that. government needs discipline to rein in spending. government needs courage to

make decisions even when they're hard. and government needs the commitment to make sure that very task of government is accomplished more effectively than ever before, because i tell you, if life is going to change in america, life has to change here in washington, d.c. and this bill takes a giant step forward in making that change. first of all, we rein in this out-of-control spending that's for so g on in this long. ow, we say for four straight years we're spending less money this year than we spent last year and that's quite an accomplishment in itself. and how do we do that? well, we do it just like every american business does, every

american family. they sit down, they take the money they have, they set priorities. then, they make some tough choices, and that's what we've done. we take agencies and programs that are no longer vital to the operation of the federal government or if they have a history of wasting taxpayers' resources and in some cases we get rid of them. nine agencies are gone under this bill. but we also take things like the small business administration, who actually support small business, they assist in private sector job creation and we add money to them because they're going to elp turn the country around. now, another thing we do is that we rein in this out-of-control administration and out-of-control bureaucracy. how do we do that? well, let's just take, for instance, the i.r.s. i think most people in this house would say the i.r.s. has

betrayed the trust of the american people. and they got a long way to go before they restore that trust. and so what we've done in this bill, we said we're going to rein in that out-of-control spending because your funding's going to be reduced, send you back to the core issues. and we're not going to give any more money until you prove to us that you can be a good steward of the money we've already given you. and we also say to the i.r.s., no more wasting money on lavish conferences and silly videos. we say no more intimidating individuals and groups of individuals based on their political philosophy. no more. and we say no more drafting rules and trying to shut down freedom of speech, which is guaranteed by our constitution. and we say, no more meddling in your everyday life and your

health care. if you're like me and you're tired of seeing taxpayer dollars go down the drain, if you're like me and you're tired of seeing nameless, faceless bureaucrats invade your life more and more and more, well, then join with me in saying we want responsible spending, we want reasonable regulation, we nt to unleash the individual responsibility that's made our >> for over 35 years, c-span brings public events to you. offering complete gavel to gavel coverage. .ll is a public service we are c-span. created 35 years ago and brought to you as a surface. watch us and like us.

>> 40 years ago, the watergate scandal led to the resignation of an american president. throughout this month and august, america history tv revisits 1974 and the final weeks of the nixon administration. opening statements from the house judiciary committee as they considered articles of impeachment. the selection of a president occupies a unique position. it is the act in which the entire country for dissipates. the outcome is excepted and the office stands as a symbol of unity and commitment. of the people is to be reversed and the majority will is to be on don -- undone, it must be for substantial and not trivial offenses supported by fax. -- facts.

>> watergate, 40 years later. >> coming up on c-span, president obama announces new sanctions against russia. the house rules committee considers a lawsuit against president obama over his implementation of the affordable care act. controlers of disease testified on capitol hill about an accident that exposed employees to anthrax. the pentagon reported that russia has amassed 12,000 soldiers on the border of the ukraine, in violation of the pledge to de-escalate in the region. in response, president obama proposed additional sanctions against russia. he made the announcement at the white house and discussed the israeli-palestinian conflict.

iran.uclear talks with >> good afternoon, everybody. i want to briefly discuss the actions that were taken today in support of the ukraine. before i do, i want to take a few minutes to update the american people on foreign-policy challenges. i like to thank secretary kerry and our outstanding civilian and military leaders. thanks to the efforts and, of course, thanks to the afghans and the cordage -- courage of an candidates, they have internationally supervised audit that will review the ballots and form a unity government. if they keep their commitments,

afghanistan will witness a democratic transfer of power. the progress will on her candidates who put the interests of a united afghanistan first. afghans defied threats to vote. our troops sacrificed so much. even asinds us that, the combat mission in afghanistan and this year, the commitment to a sovereign, united, and democratic afghanistan and tours -- edures. -- endures. second, john update me on the negotiations with iran. the last six months, iran has met the commitments. they have halted the -- and rolled back the stockpile of nuclear material. meanwhile, we are working with

our partners to reach a company heads of agreement that ensures us that the program will be noteful and they will obtain in nuclear weapons. we haveear to me that made real progress in several areas and that we have a credible way forward. as we approach the deadline of significantre is gaps between the international community and iran. we have work to do. we will consult with congress and continue conversations with iran and our partners to determine if additional time is necessary to extend the negotiations. we continue to support to the medic efforts to end the --lence between israel and diplomatic efforts to end the violence between israel and hamas. right to defend themselves from rocket attacks that terrorized the people.

there is no country on earth that is expected to live under a daily barrage of rockets. i am proud that the iron dome system that americans helped israel develop and fund has saved many lives. over the past two weeks, we have been heartbroken by the violence, especially the deaths and injuries of innocent civilians in gaza. men, women, and children caught in the crossfire. to pursue a working cease-fire and protect civilians on both sides. israel agreed to a cease-fire and hamas continued to fire rockets at civilians. thereby, prolonging the conflict. the palestinian people do not want to live like this. they deserve to live in peace and security, free from fear. we continue to encourage diplomatic efforts to restore

the cease-fire and support egypt to bring this back. contactstay in close with our friends in the region and use all of our diplomatic resources and relationships to support efforts closing a deal on a cease-fire. in the meantime, we continue to stress the need to protect the civilians in gaza and in israel and, to avoid further escalation. nuedn the conti provocations in the ukraine, i have approved new sanctions against some of russia's biggest companies and financial institutions. i have repeatedly made it clear the flowia must halt of weapons and fighters to cross the border into the ukraine. russia must urge separatists to release hostages and pursue a cease-fire.

russia needs to pursue internationally-mediated talks and agreed to monitors on the border. i have spoken to mr. putin. we have made it clear to him. we have emphasized our preference to resolve this issue diplomatically. we have to see concrete action and not just words. tot russia is committed ending the conflict along the border. so far, russia has failed to take any of the steps that i have mentioned. in fact, the support for the separatists and the violations of ukrainian sovereignty have continued. the sanctions, we are targeting designated sectors as eligible for sanctions. we are freezing the assets of defense companies and blocking new financing of some of the banks and energy companies. the sanctions are significant

and targeted. they are designed to have the maximum impact on russia and mitigate spillover effects on american companies. actions inng these consultation with our european allies. we are meeting with brussels to discuss the next steps. the we expect is that russian leadership will see, once again, that the actions in ukraine have consequences. russiang, weakening the economy and increasing diplomatic isolation. aswill stand with the people they seek to determine their future in the midst of this crisis. they have made remarkable progress. they have held democratic elections and collected a new president. they are pursuing important reforms and signing an association agreement with the european union. the unite states will continue to offer support. -- the united states will continue to offer support.

the ukrainians deserve the right to forge their destiny. i will point out that we live in a complex world and in a challenging time. these challenges lend themselves to quick and easy solutions -- none of these challenges lend themselves to quick and easy solutions will stop -- solutions. if we stay patient and determined, we will meet the challenges. thanks. >> can you talk about merkel? >> on the next washington journal, discussing immigration and the influx of unaccompanied children from central america with two members of congress. steve king and bernice johnson. washington journal begins at 7:00 eastern.

>> here at the house, it is a home that was built by carl and edith in the 1920's. carl was a man of many interests and one of the most notable legacies of his interests is the amazing collections that he and edith amassed. it is an amazing collection of limited first edition works all stop -- works. it is incredible. he collected the book that he collected because they are important historical works and because he believed that books are works of art and had worth beyond the words on the page. collected every edition of

leaves of grass by walt whitman. walt whitman added columns. for carl, it was the art of collecting. he also collected a variety of first editions of ernest hemingway's books. this is the green hills of africa by ernest hemingway. it illustrates the personal relationship that existed between carl and ernest hemingway. this is the inscription. >> is for the history and literary life of des moines , iowa. >> john boehner and other republicans are asking congress

to sue president obama and claiming that he exceeded his authority in implementing the affordable care act. legal analysts discuss the merits of the lawsuit. this part of the hearing is two hours and begins with pete sessions.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> good morning. we are holding a hearing. the resolution in question will be referred to the rules committee because it commits -- creates an authority within the rules of the house. we are here to discuss the unwarranted c-span1. >> specifically we're here to discuss an unwarranted ongoing shift of power in favor of the

executive branch. under president obama the executive branch has increasingly gone beyond the constraints of the constitution. in fact, in a number of instances the president has gone beyond his article ii powers and has infringed upon article i powers of congress to write the law. today's hearing is an original jurisdiction hearing, so instead of having members of congress here to testify before us today, we have four expert witnesses who we have welcomed to the rules committee this morning and all of whom have constitutional law scholastic understandings. their expert testimony will be in response to questions and will allow this committee to better understand the questions at hand as well as our role in rebalancing and carefully understanding the separation of

powers. first, we have jonathan turley. second -- excuse me, and he's the jb and maurice c. shapiro professor of public interest law at george washington university law school. thank you very much for taking time to be with us today. i know you are busy and have schedules that you've got to attend to this afternoon, and as you have previously been a part of our discussion, we're going to try and make sure you're an on time delivery there, professor. thank you very much. second is professor elizabeth price-foley from florida international university school of law. professor foley, thank you for taking time to come with us -- to be with us today, and we look forward to your testimony. third, we will hear from simon lorantz, senior counsel at the constitutional accountability center. we thank you for taking time, and i've enjoyed our discussions

before we walked in today and we're delight that had you're with us. finally we have walter dellinger, the douglas b. maggs professor emeritus of the school of law at duke university. we did not bring a basketball for you this morning, but we have a goal in mind today. professor is also a lawyer at o'mevley and myers, and thank you very much for joining us. today's hearing will be structured as follows. i'll share an opening statement before turning to our ranking member, louise slaughter, so that she can provide us with her opening statement. i will then ask each of our witnesses to provide us with their testimony that will help these members of the rules committee to better understand their thoughts on the issues that are before us today. as we hear each witnesses' testimony, we'll then open up the hearing to questions, and i encourage each member of the committee to make an opening

statement as they choose at the time they have their question. we need to remember that we are attempting to ensure that the members as well as each of our guests have an opportunity to fully vet and give their ideas, but i would ask that we stay after the mark of understanding that we're trying to make sure that we stay after the timing that we have previously discussed. additionally, members should feel free to enter longer statements into the record allows us to stay after this agenda. at the beginning of this congress each of us took an oath of office in which we swore to support and defend the constitution of the united states. similarly at the beginning of each presidential term, the president takes an oath to faithfully execute the office of the president of the united states and to the best their ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the

united states. while these oaths are different on some of the margins the crux of each oath is the same. the president and members of congress each have an obligation to follow and defend the constitution of the united states. the text of the constitution that we have sworn to defend provides separation of powers for each branch of the federal government, article i, puts the power to legislate, to write laws into the hands of congress. article ii, on the other hand, requires that the president take care that the laws be faithfully executed. the difference is important. the founding fathers knew that by giving one branch the power to write -- both to write and to execute the law would be a direct threat to liberties of the future of this young and fledgling nation when it began.

the separated powers between these branches are there in order to ensure that no one person would trample on the rights of others. my fear is that our nation is currently facing the exact threat that the constitution is designed to avoid. branches of government have always attempted to exert their influences on other branches, but the president in my opinion has gone too far. rather than faithfully execute the laws as the constitution requires, the president has instead selectively enforced the law in some instances, ignoring the law in other instances and in a few cases changed the law all together, all without going through the required constitutional law-making exercise. the law as written by congress and signed by the president must be enforced by the president as

written. if the president wishes that the law be changed, article ii of the constitution provides him or her with the power to recommend to congress consideration of such measures as shall be judged necessary and expedient. the constitution does not, however, give the president the power to re-write the law by himself. if the president wants a change in the law, the federal government must follow the process as outlined in the constitution and understood under the rule of law that the american people count on. any approach in which the president can ignore, selectively enforce or unilaterally rewrite the law tilts the balance of power away from legislation and rule of law to the executive.

presidential overreach also undermines the rule of law which provides the predictability necessary to govern in a functioning and fair society. when the executive branch goes beyond its constitutional powers and begins exercising the role of the legislative branch, it is important that the remaining branches of government, in our opinion, the judiciary, play its role in rebalancing the separation of powers. after all, the constitutional limits on government power are meaningless unless judges agree and also help us to enforce the limits. it is vital that the judiciary engage with the constitution and play its essential role in the system of checks and billioalan

think that were crafted in the original constitution thought of by our founding fathers. it is important, i believe, that we acknowledge that this is not a political issue. this is not an issue that should pit republicans against democrats. this is an issue where we must hear testimony from constitutional experts who are able to give us the guidance, and the testimony that we hear today will look deeply into the crux of our constitutional system and the rule of law. any person interested in our constitution, and what i believe is our brilliant system of separation of powers, should be worried about what is currently happening in this country, and that is why we are here today. i look forward to the testimony of each of our witnesses and have assured each of them that their obligation to this committee is to give us the very best of their thinking, and they are here exactly to do that.

i want to thank each of you again. at this time i'll yield to the ranking member of the committee for any opening remarks she would choose to make. the gentle woman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and let me also welcome our witnesses here this morning, mr. jonathan foley, elizabeth foley and to mr. walker dellinger and simon lazarus. we're happy to have them here and their collective wisdom about the constitution i'm sure will serve as well. the rules committee doesn't often have outside witnesses so this is a very rare occasion for us because we have two of the premier constitutional scholars in the united states with us to give the testimony for the minority, and i'm so happy to have them here. mr. dellinger has testified before this committee before, so this is a return visit. among other laudable achievements mr. dellinger served in the white house as an adviser to the president on constitutional issues in 1993,

served as acting solicitor general, assistant attorney general and head of the office of legal counsel. from 1993 to 1996. he knows how we work here as well because he has testified more than 25 times before committees of congress. mr. simon lazarus is currently serving as senior counsel at the constitutional accountability center, served as associate director of the white house domestic policy staff from 1977 to 1981. he has extensive background in lawsuit surrounding the affordable care act, and mr. lazarus writes frequently for the american constitution society which has published several of his issue briefs including, quote, mandatory health insurance, is it constitutional?" which was released during the senate health care reform debate in december of 2009, and the health reform law lawsuits unraveling a century of

constitutional law and the fabric of modern government published in february of 2011. both very highly received. and i'm pleased they have both agreed to appear here today as well as our other two witnesses and we're delighted to hear from you all. i know that we'll have some illuminating arguments against what we believe on this side, despite the fact that the chairman has stated otherwise, we think this is purely a political exercise that we have before us. the jurisdiction of the rules committee includes this resolution, and we will be the only committee to hold hearings and to mark up this resolution. that gives us a special responsibility to weigh these issues carefully. the lawsuit is preposterous. it is a political exercise, and if history is our guide we'll have little chance of surviving in the court. it is based on two false premises, first, that the president acted outside of his authority with respect to the

affordable care act is the firm opinion of the rules committee minority that he did not act outside his authority, and, second premise is that a lawsuit against the president brought by half of congress is possibly the correct way to resolve a political dispute which it certainly is not. and, in fact, if this suit were successful, the result would be to implement the affordable care act faster which would be contrary to everything the majority has been fighting and messaging against for the past four years. the whole exercise is incongruous. perhaps alice in "alice of wonderland" said it best, quote, sometimes i believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast, end quote. not only was there no single vote from a member of the majority party to pass health care reform, but they spent four years trying to kill it, to repeal it, to derail it and now they are suing the president to

implement it faster. it makes no sense. the lawsuit is clearly being used to appease members of the republican party who will not rest until president obama is charged with articles of impeachment. this is a partisan political stunt, time to peak in the house of representatives in november right as the mid-term elections are happening. the house majority is suing the president simply for doing his job. this incredible waste of time will also be a colossal waste of money. the rules committee will mark up the resolution and before we do we will want to ask and have asked for a full account of the cost of this exercise, and would i like to insert a letter from congressman robert brady, ranking member of house administration committee to house speaker john boehner which addresses this need for transparency. i'd ask unanimous consent. >> without objection. >> thank you. if outside counsel will be

employed, how much will they charge? how long is the process expected to take? cost is not a hypothetical question. there are real consequences, and, remember, that the majority's legal efforts in support of a discriminatory defense of marriage act cost the american taxpayers $2.3 million. what will this lawsuit cost? is it just another example of the house majority squandering the taxpayer funds to investigate the non-existence benghazi scandal, there have been more than 13 hearings, 15 briefings, 25,000 pages of documents produced, and the majority came up with nothing and even after they came up with nothing they created a select committee on benghazi with a $3.3 million budget. and let's not forget that the government shutdown was foisted upon the country as another attempt to delay the affordable care act, costing the united

states economy $24 billion. republicans took the american people and the economy hostage because they did not want to give the people health care coverage. the house is more that be 50 votes to repeal or dismantle the affordable health care alone has cost an estimated $79 million. all of this to repeal a health care law when the polls last week from the commonwealth fund found that 77% of people were pleased with their new coverage. the republicans polled had a 72% satisfaction rate with the new plans that they had bought. the house majority is spending billions upon billions of dollars to stymie a law that their own party members support which is truly a classic case of obstruction, and further evidence of the foolishness of the whole pursuit. furthermore, the constitution gives the congress the power to write the laws.

this legal -- the legal theory put forward by the republicans to explain why this lawsuit should prevail relies on the notion that somehow president obama has nullified the house's legislative power. this is simply not the case. speaker boehner is not proposing to sue the president because he has not let congress introduce, hold hearings on, mark up or pass bills. the speaker is proposing to sue the president because he hasn't executed the law in precisely a certain way. remember, the president implemented this massive health care law by phasing it in which is not illegal in any manner. it has been done by numerous presidents in the past. it bears repeating that the legislative branch consists of two houses and only those two houses together can pass laws, and the president does the executing of those laws.

this lawsuit has it backwards. re republicans want one-half of the legislative branch to run through the judicial branch to tell the executive branch how to enforce the law, a responsibility the constitution clearly commits to the executive. congress's legislate power be nullified itself if we were somehow prohibited from passing bills that repeal, bills that overturn regulation, bills limiting the use of appropriated funds for certain purposes and for going to war. and the fact that the bills that the house majority pass do not usually become law is not because the votes have been nullified, it is because they do not have the votes in the senate, and one of our witnesses, former acting solicitor general walter dellinger argued the leading case in this issue raines versus byrd in front of the supreme court and i trust him as much as i know anyone to know what is

and what is not vote nullification. it's also important to note that the house is not the congress. congress is a branch of government that has the legislative power. the dividing line in this frivolous lawsuit is not the legislative versus the executive. it is republican versus democrat, and i hope that the courts will see that. future historians and legal experts will examine this haphazard congressional action, and i want it to be perfectly apparent on behalf of the people who sent us here that we deplore on our side, the democrats, what is happening. we're wasting precious time and resources. republicans are causing us to fritter away billions of dollars that could go to high speed rail, infrastructure, schools, a thousand other things instead of this ridiculous waste. the rules committee has a duty to reveal this lawsuit for what it is, and i believe we will do

that today without witnesses' help. thank you, mr. chairman. >> miss slaughter, thank you very much for your opening statement. i'm delighted that you are here today. you look marvelous. >> thank you. >> we now would turn to our panel, and mr. turley, you're our first witness and the gentleman is now recognized without objection. anything you have in writing will be entered into the record. >> thank you chairman sessions, ranking member slaughter and members of the committee, it's a great honor to appear before you on such an important subject. it's a particular honor to appear with three friends of mine who i have tremendous respect for, and while we don't agree on this subject, i found even the opposing testimony to be very compelling. it's an honor to speak with you with what could be an historic moment. there's a growing crisis in our system, a shifting of the balance of power within the tri-part hide system in favor of a now dominant chief executive. while both congress and the courts have lost authority over the decade, it is this body, the

congress, that has lost the most in this rise of a type of uber presidency. frankly it's difficult to discuss these quaint constitutional issues in what is often a poisonous political environment. as a people we've become -- we've come to the point where we can't just simply disagree. we have to despise each other. we subscribe to the worst motivations of our opponents and elevate our own proposals over process, and put it simply we emigresed what the queen mother said in richard iii. we think our baby as sweeter than they were and he who slew them is fowler than he is. i don't believe the president has a desire for trap call authority. i don't question his motivation. i question his means. our system is changing. and this bodied is the one branch that must act if we're to

reverse those changes. we're seeing the emergens of a different model of government, a model rejected by the framers. a dominant presidency has occurred with very little congressional opposition. indeed, when president obama pledged to circumvent congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. now many members are contesting the right of this institution to even be heard in federal court. this body is moving from self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis. the president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. when a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself which is precisely the dangers the framers sought to avoid. what we're witnessing today is one of the greatest crises that i expect the members of this committee and this body will face. it has a patina of politics that

is hard to penetrate. it did not start with president obama. i was critical of his predecessor, and certainly this goes back long before george bush, but it has reached a tipping point. i've long advocated action by this body to aggressively seek to regain the ground that has been lost over decades. as many of you know, i represented members of this body, democratic and republican, in opposing the libyan war. given that history, to quote dorothy boyd from jerry maguire, "you had me at hello" when you asked if i think a lawsuit would be a good idea. i do. i think it is a good idea to recommit the judiciary to a core function of defining the lines of separation. indeed, i think that is something that all members should ultimately agree on, even if you disagree on the interpretations over the aca. what is important to remember is that people misconstrue the

separation of powers regularly. it is not there to protect the institutional rights of the branches. it is there to protect individual liberty. it was created by the framers to prevent any branch from aggregating enough power to be a danger to liberty. it is not about you. it is about the people that you represent. ultimately what we're debating here is something the framers were very much familiar with. before we came together as a nation, we had history of our predecessors in england with king james who argued that he had a royal prerogative in terms of how laws would be interpreted, how they would be executed, insisted he could use natural reason to change laws. that is precisely what the framers rejected. if you look at the testimony of myself and some of my colleagues, you'll see the framers repeatedly objecting to that type of notion, that the executive has the right to

essentially rework legislation, to use what we would call an executive prerogative. that is why we have the take care clause. the national reason cited by james i is very close to the reasons you're hearing from the administration, that the changes make the law better, make it more efficient and more fair. that's not the issue. i happen to support most of the changes that president obama has ordered. i voted for him in 2008. this is not a question of what should be done. this is a question of how it should be done and more importantly who should do it. the president suggested he can go it alone, but there's no license in the maddionian system to go it alone. he said he'll resolve the deadlock in congress, the division in congress, by ordering changes on his own terms as a majority of one. that's what makes it dangerous.

now for those that remain silent in the face of this, i will say what is obvious. this is not going to be our last president, and in a couple of years there will be someone else in the oval office and the arguments that are being made today could be used then to nullify or suspend or change environmental laws, employment discrimination laws. that's what happens when you have an uber presidency. now, i can't speak as to what will happen in this litigation. i can speak to what should happen. in my view congress should have standing. to me, that's the most important thing in this case is for this body to reinforce the right to be heard in the judicial branch. the courts have removed themselves from this process, and the result has been the dysfunctional politics that we see. i don't believe that the challenges in front of this lawsuit is an excuse to do nothing. we are and we will remain a divided country.

when we are divided fewer things get done. you have a choice in our system. can you compromise or you can change the makeup of congress. you don't go it alone. i believe the aca is a great example of the problem with this. this is probably the most important program in my generation in terms of size and impact. it happens to be something i support of national health care, but it should be unencumbered by questions of legitimacy. it should go forward with the court's defining the line of separation, so this body taking a stand is a welcome change. as much as i respect the president, the arguments he is making over presidential authority are extreme, and they are devoid of the limiting principle that characterize our system. for generations we have been bound by a covenant of faith, and i'll simply end with this. that covenant of faith has been no matter what our divisions are, that we will remain faithful to the limits that we imposed upon ourselves and the

branches. it's that very covenant that members of this committee reaffirm when they lift their hand and give the oath of office. what we are seeing today in my view is a crisis of faith. we seem to have lost faith in our system. we've grown impatient with the constraints of the system. these arguments seem quantity and antiquated when you look at immigration or health care or other pressing problems, but it is always tempting when one person steps forward and says that they can get the job done alone. that's the siren's call that the framers told us to resist. we remain a nation of laws, and the place for those questions, the united states courts, and that is where this authorization will take us, and that's why i think it's a worthy effort. thank you. >> mr. turley, thank you very much. professor foley, you're now recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member slaughter, members of the committee, my name is elizabeth price foley. i'm a professor of law at

florida international university college of law, the public law school in mime, and i'm honored to be here today. i believe that the house would in fact have standing to litigate the constitutional claims against the executive branch, and i also believe that the house would have an excellent chance of winning on the merits of a claim that the executive branch has failed to faithfully execute the laws, especially the affordable care act. in the interest of time i'm going to limit my reparticular, to the issue of standing. i provided a detailed legal analysis to the house judiciary committee when i appeared before them earlier this year, so i've included that analysis as an appendix to my remarks before the committee here, but to summarize. existing case law indicates that the house would have standing to a certain institutional injury if the following four elements are satisfied. first, the house should explicitly authorize the lawsuit by a majority vote.

second, the lawsuit should assert as an injury in fact the nullification of a specific act of congress, such as the aca. third, the lawsuit should be carefully tailored to target a constitutional transgression for which there is no private plaintiff available. and finally, the lawsuit should target an executive action for which proportionate and tailored political self-help is unavailable. now, let me back up and -- and talk about the big picture of legislative standing. i'm somewhat amused by the critics who suggest that the house sin capable of suffering an institutional injury recognizable by courts. an institutional injury cases, courts are understandably demanding. they want to make sure that the plaintiff that's before them is speaking on behalf of the institution. they are not open to lawsuits that are brought by an ad hoc

group of legislators who lack authorization to speak on behalf of the institution. that's why most of the attempts have failed. and, of course, this is common sense. it's why institutional authorization for litigation to allege institutional injury requires that authorization. the courts are also rhett isn't to adjudicate inner branch disputes that can be resolved by other means, so if there's like a private plaintiff waiting in the wings to bring the lawsuit, the courts sort of prefer to wait for that case to arise. that was the situation, for example, in raines versus byrd, a supreme court decision in 1997, where the supreme court was acutely aware of the fact that the line-item veto act that was being challenged by six congressional plaintiffs was a law that would injure private individuals and those individuals would have standing to sue. and, indeed, the following year in clinton versus new york, a

private plaintiff brought such a lawsuit, and the supreme court declares the line-item veto act unconstitutional. all branches are capable of suffering an institutional injury of having their constitutional prerogatives trenched in some way, and all branches should have standing to vindicate their power under the right circumstances. states, for example, have standing to challenge federal intrusions into their constitutionally reserved powers. in fact, they have been quite successful in a series of supreme court cases, including new york versus united states, prince versus united states and most recently the health care decision by the supreme court, nfib versus sebelius. even more to the point, state legislators have standing in federal court to assert institutional injury when their state executive nullifies their legislative acts. this is evidenced by the supreme court's decision in coleman

versus miller and also by unanimous circuit panel decisions from march of this year called kerr versus hickenlooper, but let's go beyond states. article ii, our executive branch, is the very entity that seems so offended by the prospect of being a defendant in a house lawsuit. but article ii is not shy about resorting to the courts to vindicate its own constitutional prerogatives. article ii re tuny will sues states for violating federal laws claiming preemption of those state laws in cases like arizona versus united states decided by the supreme court in 2012. in these preemption cases article ii is vindicating an institutional injury inflicted on both congress and the executive. likewise, federal agencies routinely have standing to litigate against entities that don't comply with their lawful orders, agencies like epa, nlrb,

on and on. the essence of these lawsuits is that the agencies have standing because non-compliance with the statutes under their jurisdiction injures or diminishes those agency's institutional powers. institutional standing is routinely granted to article ii in all of these standings. it's part of the executive's duty to faithfully execute the laws and the executive branch can resort to litigation but it's important to realize that the take care clause itself not s not a grand of jurisdiction to federal courts. standing is something the supreme court has made abundantly clear, something that emanates from article ii section 2 case or controversy language and something all litigants, all branches of government have to satisfy to litigate in federal court. the standing requirements, are the same for all branches of

government. litigation certainly isn't the only way that the executive branch can enforce the laws, but it's a very good and freely available option, as it should be. so why wouldn't litigation also be an available option to congress when it suffers an institutional injury? members of congress are expected to defend congress' law making prerogative by all means available. in fact, your article xi oath demands this, and litigation may be the best and most tailored proportional remedy when the executive branch fails to faithfully execute one of your laws. now, you may not want to impeach. you may not want to cut off appropriations for unrelated programs that you otherwise actually support. in fact, those are more drastic remedies, and frankly they won't remedy the problem. they won't force the executive to faithfully execute the laws. if all you want is congress is

for the executive to faithfully execute your laws, peaceful judicial resolution may be the most tailored and appropriate response. so all of this reveals a glaring deficiency in those who criticize the committee's draft resolution. states can sue to preserve their power. the executive branch it sue to preserve its power but somehow magically congress can't. i guess under this logic congress is some sort of institutional orphan that's uniquely incapable of being injured enough to establish standing to sue. the absurdity of that position is belied by extensive case law that recognizes that subdivisions of congress in the form of committees have standing to assert institutional injury caused by the executive branch. these cases, most of which have been litigated here in the footprint of the d.c. circuit, span numerous administrations and congresses. they include cases like united

states versus at&t, house judiciary committee versus buyers, committee on oversight versus holder. these are cases that all involve instances where the executive branch has refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, and in all of these cases the house has passed a resolution that authorizes the chairman of these committees to initiate litigation to enforce these subpoenas. and in all of these cases the committees had standing to vindicate the injury to their investigatory and oversight power. for those who may think litigation-enforcing subpoenas is somehow special or different from litigation enforcing a law like the aca, would i just say respe respectfully the supreme court disagrees. the supreme court has made it clear that subpoenas are, quote, an indispensable ingredient in law making. in other words, a failure to

comply with the legislative subpoena is an injury to the law-making power of congress itself. so either all these subpoena cases have been wrongly decided or the obama administration will have to argue that when the executive branch injures congress' ability to investigate by not honoring a subpoena that's sufficient injury to establish standing but somehow when the executive branch suspends a statute or a portion thereof and in fact writes new statutory language all by itself, there's suddenly no standing. this would be an absurd result. if ignoring a congressional subpoena is sufficient to establish standing, ignoring a law should be sufficient as well. thank you for your time. >> miss foley, thank you very much. mr. lazarus, you're now recognized. >> thank you very much, chairman sessions.

>> having counsel here -- >> thanks to my colleague for helping me out with these challenges. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your exceptional cordiality and welcoming all of us this morning. >> yes, sir. >> thanks to you and ranking member slaughter and the other members of the committee for inviting me to testify into this -- in this inquiry into the resolution that speaker boehner has proposed. >> can you please pull the microphone forward. >> boy. >> okay now? >> i think that is better. >> all right. >> you missed my thanks to you all, but i won't repeat it. thank you. the resolution that we are supposed to address here would authorize a lawsuit that would seek relief from alleged illegal or unconstitutional conduct in

quote, implementation of any provision of the affordable care ability, and speaker boehner limited the focus or limited his focus when he introduced this resolution, when he announced it, he stated that the lawsuit would specifically target administration decisions to postpone and adjust effective dates for requirements relating to the so-called employer mandate. that's the requirement that large employers provide their workers with health insurance or pay a tax. i am senior counsel to the constitutional accountability center which is a public -- >> the microphone appears to be leaning up. if you maybe lean it directly, there, i think that may help. >> okay. >> let's see if that helps as all. >> is it working now? >> is this one on? >> let's turn -- >> let's see if we can maybe put them both. your testimony is very important

and we want to make sure everybody can hear you. now aim that a little bit closer, and we'll try that. now we'll turn this one off that's right here. >> how are we doing now? >> better. the gentleman is recognized. >> i mean, i certainly heard your testimony. >> the deck isn't stacked if we're using the same deck which we seem to be using. in any event, what you missed wasn't terribly important, so i'm going to just go on. presumably the lawsuit -- i guess i want to just clarify that my colleague's testimony here on my right sometimes addressed issues other than the aca employer mandate. my remarks are not going to do that. if -- if -- if members wish to raise questions about that, i'd be more than happy to respond. i must say i do think that none

of the areas in which the president has been charged by his opponents with violating the law or violating his constitutional duty to take care of the laws being faithfully executed, i don't believe any of those charges that i have seen to date really hold up but i'll focus on this one but that's what the resolution before us is about. so in any event, lawsuit that's contemplated by the resolution programbly will assert frequently heard claims that we've heard over the last year, that postponing the employer mandate as well as other provisions of the aca constituted abuses of the president's discretionary authority and hence these arguments run. those actions violate article ii section 3 of the constitution which is the take care clause that we're all now quite familiar with. my testimony will primarily

address the merits of this claim. my co-witness, walter dellinger, will primarily address the questions whether the house of representatives would have standing to pursue such a claim or whether the claim would otherwise be judicial. regrettab regrettably, mr. chairman and members of the committee, i must observe as i did before the house judiciary committee in december of last year that these claims of wayward executive conduct import the constitution into what are in reality political and policy debates. they mock the text and original meaning of the take care clause. they flautt long-standing supreme court practices and --

exercising presidential judgment in carrying laws into execution is precisely what the take care clause of the constitution requires. it is precisely what the framers expected when they established a separate executive branch under the direction of a nationally elected president an charged him to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and this is precisely what the president and the members of his administration are doing in implementing the aca. it's important to note the simple fact, and it is a fact, the president is not refusing to enforce this law that will constitute his signature legacy. he is phasing it in in a manner that is best suited in his and his administration's judgment to ensure its long-term effectiveness for all the stakeholders who will benefit from the implemented -- the successful implementation of that law. the treasury department's

announcement that it was going to postpone the employer mandate's effectiveness a year ago provided for transition relief to continue working with employers, insurers and other reporting entities to revise and engage in real world testing of the implementation of aca reporting requirements, to simplify forms that are used for this record, coordinate public and private sector information technology arrangements and engineer a smooth r smoother transition to full implementation in 2015. the department stated its intent at the time to publish final rules after this dialogue with stakeholders was complete, and on february 10th of this current year the administration, having completed that dialogue, issued its final set of results. in these final rules the administration further refined its phase-in procedures with further provisions to assist

small businesses. i won't read out the details of what the -- what the final rules provide, but i'm perfectly happy to address that if any members wish to ask questions about it. the administration's approach to phasing in the aca is neither unprecedented nor a partisan practice. indeed, michael levitt who served as president bush's health and human services secretary said that this decision was, quote, wise, unquote. so if it was wise, is the current postponement illegal? on the contrary. treasury explained such temporary postponements of tax reporting and payment requirements are routine, and the treasury cited numerous examples of such postponements by both republican and democratic administrations. for example, and it's an important example, when the bush administration implemented the medicare prescription drug

program in 2006, it waived enforcement of the unpopular late enrollment period -- late enrollment penalty for one year for some beneficiaries. it delayed key elements of the law's method allergy for calculating the share of premiums paid by some beneficiaries to reduce premiums, and it limited enforcement of the law's medication therapy management requirement to ease the burden on insurers. now, it bears emphasis that there is simply no material difference between these decisions by the bush administration and the obama administration's approach to implementing the aca. all were reasonably considered necessary temporary adjustments, and as such they were certainly legal and constitutional, and i think i just should note that the medicare prescription drug benefit was controversial in partisan terms. many of my progressive friends and experts on health care were

very much opposed to it for various reasons. the fact is, however, after the bush -- and it had a very bumpy run at the beginning. it was very unpopular. it had a lot of transition problems just like the aca has had at the beginning. the fact is the medicare prescription drug benefit is a huge success, and -- and the steps that secretary that secre and president bush took evidence evidently were well based and i think it's important that the affordable care act also appears that it is becoming already well respected and appreciated. now, i do want to note that the take care clause is not a blank check to presidents intentional to implement laws, such as governor mitt romney's pledge to

terminate implementation of the aca as soon as he took the oath of office. that would violate the laws and that would violate his constitutional obligations. but good faith, prudent, reasonable phasing in adjustments are routine and appropriate. i should emphasize briefly in these remarks that applicable judicial precedent places these kinds of timing adjustments well within the executive branch's lawful discretion. agencies are compelled to initiate required actions when they have been unreasonably delayed. courts have found delays to be unreasonable only in rare cases where unlike this one interaction lasted for several years and the agency could offer neither a persuasive excuse nor a credible end to its dithering. in the leading case, the late