mrs. christensen: but you couldn't raise any revenue. mr. scott: four provisions, 3/ 5's to pass the budget. 2 2/3 to raise taxes. if you are trying to balance the budget, having a 2/3 vote to raise taxes will obviously make it harder to balance the budget. this is called a balanced budget amendment. first two provisions make it harder to balance the budget. 2/3 to pass the budget -- if it's more than 18% of g.d.p. we haven't been that low since we passed medicare. that will put pressure on the medicare program. if you put these things together with the pressure on medicare, we know we can cut the benefits with a simple majority. 2/3 in the house and 2/3 in the senate. there is another little insulting provision at the end, 3/5's vote to raise the debt ceiling. and this year, it has been enough of a spectacle and want it to be an every day occurance. you have this balanced budget amendment that would put pressure on social security and medicare by allowing those programs to be cut with a simple majority. but to save them with new revenue lik

mrs. christensen: i yield back. the chair: under the speaker's policy of january 6, 2007, the chair recognizes mr. brooks from alabama for half of the time, 22 minutes. mr. brooks: america is the greatest nation in the history of the world. we enjoy a standard of living that is envied by most. we are a beacon of freedom by all. have you ever thought about why america is the world's leader? are we just lucky? no. i would submit there are substantive reasons for our greatness. we are blessed today because of the sacrifices of those before us and those who ensured a better future. history shows us that great nations rise and great nations fall, but they rarely fall from without, without first suffering weakness from within. today, the greatest threat to america is not a foreign power. no, america's greatest threat is washington's irresponsible, dangerous and their spending habits. admiral mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, testified before the house armed services committee that america's greatest national s

mrs. christensen of the virgin islands. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 370, the gentlewoman from the virgin islands, mrs. christensen, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the gentlewoman from the virgin islands is recognized. mrs. christensen: thank you, madam speaker. as i say i rise to introduce an amendment which would simply add a provision to h.r. 1938 to recognize that the keystone x.l. pipeline will make it harder to address global warming. allowing the transport of petroleum to the refineries in the gulf of mexico has serious environmental and economic ramifications. reports indicate that the production of fuel from tar sands can yield greenhouse gas emissions nearly three times as high as those produced from conventional extraction. while my colleagues and i last congress worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, canada has projected that their emissions will grow 25% by 2020 with those from tar sands being the single largest contributor. this is not something we should be workin

mrs. christensen: thank you. and i thank you for bringing the chart so that you can see very clearly how much money is lost from just not taking the tax cuts back to the clinton tax rates. and you can imagine -- i'm not doing any math on the floor either, but how much money we have lost in the time that those tax cuts have been in place and will continue to lose through next year. and the republican proposal that is being brought to us now, i don't see any investments for the future. no investment in education, no investment in relieving ourselves of our dependence on foreign fuel or continuing to invest in health care or creating jobs. there's nothing like that, it's just cut, cut, cut and the economists also tell us that this is not the time to be cutting spending. but we have our budget guru here with us this evening, the person who leads us every year in putting together a fantastic congressional black caucus budget, one that not only invests in the future and in all of those things i talked about but also ha

mrs. christensen: i rise to strike the requisite number of words. the chair: the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. mrs. christensen: i invite the ranking member to enter into me on a colloquy about health problems for our troops. lung cancer is the number one killer among those in every racial and ethnic group an the situation can be attributed to resource limitations and programs, dedicated to lung cancer research and the absence cancer research and the absence of a coordinated and

mrs. christensen: i'll yield. mr. dicks: i will work with the gentlelady on d.o.d. lung cancer research which we have $10.2 million in the budget this year and money for other forms of cancer. and treatment efforts in light of the serious problems facing military members. and this is a very serious problem and i'm glad that you've called it to our attention and i look forward to working with you on this important issue. mrs. christensen: thank you. with that i would yield back the balance of my time. thank you. the chair: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: amendment offered by mr. kinzinger of illinois. at the end of the bill before the short title insert the following, section, none of the funds made available by this act may be used to research, develop, manufacture or produce or procure a newly designed flight suit or integrated air crew ensemble. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for

mrs. christensen: thank you, mr. chairman. while we should be here by passion a clean debt ceiling and creating jobs, but in this time of high deficit and fragile economy, when it's critical that our limited spending priorities be focus on programs that can achieve results and encourage the creation of jobs and economic growth, the majority has instead bringing an unprecedented attempt to gut pollution controls and public health protections in order to bigger profits to big oil and other special interest polluters. by attaching more than three dozen policy riders to h.r. 2584, the house g.o.p. is attempting to use a spending bill to make back door changes to -- of 40 years of important federal laws. h.r. 2584 makes drastic spending cuts to the environmental protection agency , as you just heard, and the department of interior and has an assault on america's air, water, land, wildlife and public health and severely undermines the environmental integrity of the clean air act and the clean water act. in doing so, this legislation

mrs. christensen, for three minutes. mrs. christensen: thank you, mr. speaker. the republican leadership has taken us to the brink of a default crisis by holding the debt ceiling and our ability to pay bills hostage. their latest, cut, cap, and balance is putting the full faith and credit of our nation at risk and threatening critical safety nets for our seniors, people with disabilities and the poor, including our nation's children. medicare covers over four million african-americans, over four million latinos and close to two million other people of color. citizens with higher poverty rates, who have some of the most serious health problems. our seniors and people with disabilities relie on medicaid for long-term care and there are nine million dual eligibles, low-income citizens who are enrolled in and rely on both medicare and medicaid. nearly three in every four poor or near-poor african-american or latinos are covered by medicaid but 64% of low-income black chern and 63% of low-income latino children are in medicaid. medicaid also provides critically impor

mr. chairman ms. christensening a question about chairman genachowski's efforts to eliminate the outdated and unnecessary regulations and he had sent a letter to the subcommittee to you and to me outlining the efforts which noted that they eliminated 50 outdated regulations and identified 25 sets of data collection that are no longer necessary. mr. chairman i would like to ask ennis consent to that letter into the record. >> with the gentlelady let us take a few moments to review that? what is the date of this? i don't see the date on this. it doesn't seem to be -- [inaudible conversations] i would say at this point there is some concern that this really perhaps some of that there is concern on this committee we talked about earlier the fact that chairman genachowski was invited as chairman to come here. he said he could not come and so it's customary if he doesn't come we do not respectfully take his statement in the opening and put it as part of the record since he didn't show and we are a little concerned this