lummis: how did y cut? mr. latta: wh we d, when we did our budget for the year, there arrtn thingsn ohio that mmissioners ar spnsible for. u thought,el do we have to -- we ve the dgetfor ings like bad weather? you have havmo orte. one of the things we hope never happenis we had capil rder case, we dn know how much that would cost us. all thesehings we h to sit down with oth elected oficials and say, we a had to ke cuts across the board, nd scale back because if w didn't, welre going to be in trouble. butgain, our constitution says, you shall balance your buet. m. lummis: will the gentleman yid? are you aware of my circumanince you've been inongress where the members f congress in the leadersh veeen called to the white house to down and talk about how we'rgoing to c spending? i yield back. mr. l: i thank the lady for yidi, and this is a problem we're fang. insteaof saying we're gog to increaseudgets by 12% over the year before, whawed to be doing is sayingwe have to gok maybe a budget befe that and say, 's where

lummis: my son di a project about a wyoming rancher's dision to stay agculture or leave agriculture beuse e know that in wyoming agriculture, especially be productiongriculture, of course there a no subsidies brief productiongriculture in wyomingand othestates as well. so, the largestroup inyoming are those that ma from 0% to 4% profit. e ond largest grp are the th make from 0% to -4 profit. and after log at many factorsf what was mote -- wha woultivate a pson s theusiness where the profit s that low, e answer foespeci sond and third and fourthenetion ranchers wathe abitypass it on to y childrentoive chdren a better life, tgive my kids the ranch now, mr. latta has mentioned two things that are of ccern if a person'sivation is toe their chiren a better standard ofiving, a bter lif, an opportunity, a shot tt maybe d and they jt want theirye chilen to haves well, you mentioned that next year the state tax is going to go back up ta mxim amount of 55% of the value of t eate, with only a $1 million exnsion, hereas this year there's no estate taxhaoever. ink about that d how that spntour entire

lummis: i thank the gentleean for -- topic. mrs. lummis: i thank the gentleman for joining me. as some of you were aware, america's -- americaspeakingout.com is a website where all americans can go to weigh in about their views on the american debt, deficit and about ideas to reduce the size and scope of government and right size it, make it more efficient, and anything else you have in mind about shaping the activities of this congress. we very much want to hear from you. it gives you a chance to share your ideas with members of congress and we very much commenn it to your attention. you know, i have a bill that i'd like to discuss, that i'd like you to put in a plug for on americaspeakingout.com and that's a bill called the federal work force reduction act. it is a bill that i'm sponsoring and that i've used this information to help explain. this year in congress when you add up all the spending we've done in the last 18 months, the great growth sector in terms of employment has been government. in fact, when we passed the stimulus bill and we were told that if we passed the

i yield to congresswoman lummis. mrs. lummis: the chart you have up does compare the u.s. to greece, but what is really frightening about that chart is in five years, our debt to g.d.p. will be at 115% where as right now, greece is 115 p, we will be where greece is right now. and that illustrates the type of nose dive that the gentleman said we are in. mr. akin, could i ask you to put up the chart there that's called "tidal wave of debt." the chart he's going to put up was prominently displayed on numerous occasions in the budget committee where we heard from ben bernanke. they made reference to this chart and it is the trajectory on this chart that dr. bernanke expressed such concern about. if you look at the line of 2010 and follow it through the year 2046, which is thend line of that chart, you see the enormous upward spiral of our debt. this is, of course, part of the unsustainable situation that dr. bernanke was asking us to address. and if we do not, we'll put our country in terrible financial straits. so we talked about a number of alternatives. one is americanroadm

lummis could see and understand just how important it is that we continue to be supportive of israel as a jewish and democratic state. and everyone i know that's traveled to israel comes back a stronger supporter and stronger pro-israel advocate and i commender fow -- commend you for doing just that. we began a friendship that i know will continue many years into the future. thank you so much. with that, mr. speaker, i am thrilled to be joined by my colleague, the gentleman from new york, mr. tonko, this evening and we're going to spend some time talking about our economy and talking about the evolution of our economy and that certainly -- there certainly has been some ebb and flow in that regard, but we are here tonight to talk about the success that we have had in turning the economy around, in beginning to see progress inch by inch, month after month. there is more and more progress as we move forward. this evening, though, i want to highlight, mr. tonko, the fact that if you look back, and i know we have a chart on this which i would love to go get in a minute, but if you look ba

lummis just so very capably showed us about government jobs going up, during the depression, though, as she just said, there was a lot of spending on infrastructure during that period of time. it did not take care of the unemployment if you look at the unemployment rate during the great depression, it stayed relatively flat, it went up and down some but it stayed up for a bit, then fell way off. in spite of all the big government spending and all the spending on infrastructure, back then, though, under the roosevelt administration they created the w.p.a. and c.c.c. camps and things like that and put people on government welfare to work building all that infrastructure. now we're paying people to not work. mr. akin: it's gotten even worse, hasn't it? mr. broun: it has. mr. akin: t charts you chose actually have a relationship to each other which you alluded to the mechanics of what that connection is. that is, when the government creates a job by hiring somebody, it does create a job. the problem is, it kills two other jobs in the private sector. so you think to yourself, hey if we ha

lummis: mr. speake wn you ani d the ameran pele want to st a siness, go to a bank and have to present a busess plawith income projecons and where we're going to get theoney to pay the debt we're requestg ba.whn statef wyoming doing a budget, it pojects its venue, andvery month we see much mon we've colltepursuant to thse ojections. d if we dot have enough ney we c our budgets. in washion we doeven have a budge first timeince974 this house does have a budet at's irresnsibleat's not leersh. mrspratt was right. if you can't budgeyou can't govern. and this is a peect example, mr. speaker. i eld back. the speaker pro tempore: th gelelaies ck the balan of heme. for whaturpose ds the gentleman fm iowa rise? >> addresshe house for one minute. the spe pro tempore: hout objecon. >>r. eaker, week ago i was in louisna for a fid hearing on the b.p. deepwater horizon oil dister. wheard compelling testimony om people whe lives re devastated, cludg two wids who lst tir husbands on that rig. we flew over the site

the chairman now recognizes the gentleman from wyoming -- the missewoman frop wyoming, lummis. >> a former mms director testified that, after requesting the ig to come in and do a review of mismanagement -- excuse me -- misbehavior within the mms that it took three years report.an-- get an ig's that happened twice. why should it take three years, when the director asks for an inspector general's report, and is told, stand at ease while we do our report -- they cannot even solve the problems that they themselves have identified and requested the ig to evaluate. how is that -- how does that advanced good government? -- advance good government? >> i am not aware of an incident or that has occurred, where mms has requested an investigation and it has taken that long. the other thing that puzzles me is that our policy is one where , as we find things, during an investigation, if there is something that the department can do management-wise to solve some sort of underlying, or any problem, we will communicate with the department at the time we find this information. we do not hold it until the e