wasserman schultz: thank you so much. first of all, let me say that it has been such a breath of fresh air. i know speaker pelosi likes to say that each new congress breaths in new life from the trenches, new people who have just come from having their finger on the pulse of their communities and both you, mrs. dahlkemper and mr. tonko, reflect that statement really to a tee. i know that you are in your districts constantly working hard to make sure you can come back and fight hard for the people you and your district care about. i know i never tire of hearing you talk about over and over whether or not we're doing is working, whether a policy decision has the desired outcome, but you can see. i mean, the proof is in the pudding. here's retail sales that mrs. dahlkemper talked about. the consumer confidence numbers comes out every month for i think the last seven months we've had consumer confidence on the rise. we've had another jump in consumer confidence, and this is a chart that talks about the increase in household w

wasserman schultz -- ms. wasserman schultz: we invite our colleague on the other sidd of the aisle to join us to create jobs and restoring the prosperity americans have enjoyed for our entire history. with that, mr. speaker, we yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. . of january 6, 2009,, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa mr. king. mr. king: i look at the data and looked at the poster, here is the economy as we know it and a very short snapshoo and billions of chain dollars. i never discussed an economy within chain dollars. i have not discussed it ithin trends that are compressed down within the few quarters that is presented in this graph within the floor of the house. here's what i would present. let's back up little bit. 1929 and think about what has haapened. this nation has been challenged over anddover again to come forward and determine where we are with this economy. are we the managed economy proposed by the democrats on the other s

wasserman schultz: add on top of that, the republicans allowing the pay-go statute and the pay-go rules to expire so that under -- a big part of the reason under the budget that was passed by president clinton, we adopted under a democratic administration, demooratic leadership, a pay-as-you-go that said that we aren't going to spind more than we take in. just like people have to do in their own household. when we came back into the majority, we re-adopted those rules. and what we need to make sure we continue to do, except for emergency spending, which in an economy which is as dire as this one, we have had a number of different emergency situations, but we have to make sure that we pay for the llgislation that we are passing, whether it's including the war costs in the budget and actually having it be real numbers instead of pretending that we don't have an ongoing obligation when it comes to war funding. we included the cost of the iraq war in the budget, unlike the republicans who pretenn year to year that we weren't go to go have that expense. . we have been trying to be responsibl

wasserman schultz: it was an absolute pleasure to join you on the trip to israel in january where we learned quite a bit about the progress of the peace process and it has been noted by a number of our colleagues this evening that we cannot allow, in spite of all the recent controversy, which is unclear to me why a country that is defending its borders, its territory and people, is controversial, but that we could not allow it to take our focus off the threat of a nuclear-armed iran. one of the things that's unbelievable to me, mr. wiener, has been the criticism and the questions, the questions that have been thrown at israel, first that they, supposedly boarded this flotilla of ships in internationawaters as if they didn't have the right to do that. that this is a legal blockade there isn't any disputing that. that they are well within their rights and understandably defending their borders and their people because what country, what country would not make sure that items coming in from a ship to an area that is run by a hostile terrorist organization would not be checked to make su