mrs. 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

mrs. 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 millio

mrs. lummis: thank you, madam speaker. i'd also like to thank and congratulate the previous speaker for her outstanding summary of some of the issues that will be facing this house later this week. it is, as she said, a bill that will enhance big banking at the expense of small community banking, and her hard work on this issue is appreciated on both sides of the aisle. thank you very much to the gentlelady for that excellent summary of the bill. and there are so many issues where if we could work together on a bipartisan basis i feel we could come up with better legislation. what i intend to talk about this evening is an area where we've not had much bipartisan dialogue, and that is, of course, over the budget, our debt and the deficit. it is official now, we will not have a budget this year. this will be the first time since the budget act in 1974 was passed creating the system we have for budgeting and making expenditures now that we won't have a budget. very first time since 1974. every year

importance of israel in terms of its relative location to its neighbors, but so that members like mrs. 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, a

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

lewis: i thank the gentlemafor his courtesy to the previous group -- mrs. lummis: i thank the gentleman r his courtesy to the previous group, allowing them to act nong the importance of our ally there is. one of the issues we have to adss as we address this economic downturn we are in is the role of the federal government in exacerbating the problem. as we all know, federal employment and private sector employment are not the same thing. a private sector job pays for other people's jobs through taxes, whereas a public sector job consumes more than it pays in taxes. so it's important that we watch the relationship and the growth of federal jobs versus the decline in private jobs. this first chart that i have shows the federal government employment and how it's changed in the past number of years. i'd like to point out that years 2002, 2003, four, 2005, and 2006, where federal government employment was relatively flat. in fact, almost flat as a pancake. then we get into the pelosi congress d it's going up markedly with the year010 here on the end of this chart showi

without objeion.tempo: lum -- mrs. 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