To amend the Rules of the House of Representatives to provide for enforcement of clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor now for the next 60 minutes to address an issue that is of utmost importance to all Americans, and it is a very simple one: Where do my tax dollars go and why do I pay so much in taxes? We will see over the course of the next hour where some of the dollars go, and we will also see the fact that, quite honestly, it is hard to determine where some of those dollars go and what the Republican conference has tried to do to address that issue, to try to nail down some of what the facts are. I am referring, of course, to earmarks and transparency in the budget process because, as we all know for all too long, it has been a difficult issue to try just to figure out, when you send your taxes every April 15 to Washington, DC, where some of those hard-earned dollars go to.

These are important issues, as I said at the very beginning, to the American family because, as I have always said, I believe, as Members of Congress, that our focus should be on the family budget as opposed to focusing on the Federal budget, because when we focus on the family budget, the American family from the east coast to the west, the fact that they have to spend day after day working hard for their money, for their income, to pay for their expenses, when we focus on those facts and when we focus on the fact that the American family has to pay for their housing, their rent or their mortgage, the education of their children, their food and their clothing and other expenses and health care and the like, if we keep our mind focused on that, maybe we in this Congress and the administration will not be amiss as to where those dollars go in the long term.

If you may recall, it was just a week ago this Monday that we celebrated the 220th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers, brilliant men all, had wisdom probably beyond their years and beyond their ages when they crafted, in 1787, that document that lives with us today. It is our job, as Members of Congress, to read that document, to understand that document from an original intent point of view, and by that, I mean to understand what the Founders intended at that time for generations to come.

One of the hallmarks of that document was to understand a federalist system of government. And within that, the States were sovereign in the sense that they were to take care of many factors; people were supposed to have utmost responsibility for themselves and their family, and the Federal Government was to have very limited powers. And in that Constitution it specifically set out, article I, section 8 sets out much of the limitations on the powers that Congress has.

Just shortly after the enactment of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was created and added a portion of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. And the 10th Amendment to the Constitution says something that I think is important to our fiscal spending, and that is, ``All rights not specifically delegated to the Federal Government are retained by the States and the people, respectively.'' Those powers that are retained by the people, all other ones are by the people and the States.

So the Constitution, if you would look at it, basically just lists what the Federal Government is supposed to do. Everything else is in the hands of the people or the States. Now, over the generations, unfortunately, especially in the last 40 or 50-some-odd years, the Federal Government has grown expansively. And because of that, so, too, has the budget, and so, too, has the burden on the American family.

We come tonight to point out that the budget we have seen crafted by the other side of the aisle continues to grow out of control without constraint and, therefore, puts an additional burden in the form of higher taxes. Here we stand 9 months into this 110th Congress, and what have we seen as far as the budget is concerned? What has this 110th Democrat-controlled Congress wrought? Most specifically, the largest tax increase in U.S. history. Let me repeat that, and I will probably say that later on, the largest tax increase in U.S. history. And why is that? Well, for a couple of reasons.

One, you have continued to see excesses in spending out of the budget coming from the other side of the aisle. That, in and of itself, is bad for the American economy and for the American taxpayer. And secondly, those higher taxes are part and parcel of the Democrat plan. Why do I say that? Well, because part of their plan when they came in here, and this is something that they championed and they said was to be good, was something called PAYGO, pay-as-you-go. Now, in the heart of things you would think that that is not a bad idea to pay as you go. When you think about it, that's how every family in America really should be operating on their budget each week or each month when they pay their bills, figure out how much is in the checkbook, and before they can go on any further they have to make sure they have enough income.

But when the American family needs additional income to pay for additional expenses, where do they get it from? Well, they have to earn it through additional work, or that American family has another alternative, just don't spend the money in the first place. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle doesn't ever seem to want to choose that second option of decreasing spending or holding spending flat, and that's why we see spending continuing to grow out of control. And as that spending continues to grow out of control, how do they make up for it? Well, they, unlike the American family, are not out there earning those dollars for those PAYGOs. They do it the old-fashioned way; they tax it. And they take it out of my pocket and out of your pocket, out of the American taxpayers' pocket.

So we're here to discuss those dilemmas that are facing the American family. And I'm pleased to be joined this evening by a gentleman who has been fighting on this floor those very issues, fighting on the floor for the American family to make sure that the American family can retain as much of their hard-earned dollars as possible, and to address these issues that we've begun to address so far as far as spending and trying to constrain it. So right now I would like to yield the floor to the good gentleman from Texas.

Will the gentleman yield?

Because I think that's an important one.

Someone in my district, years ago when I first went into politics, said to me, Scott, when you deal with all these complicated issues that you will deal with, at that time on the State level, or now that I'm here in Washington, you have to translate it into, well, how does this impact upon me? And I remember that and try to bring it back home.

The point that you're raising here with regard to these Federal programs, SCHIP and what have you, providing benefits to illegal aliens, people coming into this country, breaking the law, and now looking to the American taxpayer to pay for their services I think is a critically important one. I think we're all too aware of the fact that there are a number of services that we would like to provide for our constituents at home, especially the low-income individuals, especially when it's something as critical as food, and many times, I'm sure you hear in your district that there's just not enough program to go around for your constituents as you would like to have them.

So when the Republican Conference said, as you suggested, that we should simply limit this program and limit American taxpayers' dollars to go to American citizens and not to illegals, that, to me, hits home as, how does that impact upon me? It means that those dollars will be going to Americans and to those who are most needy. Is that your understanding as well?

And if the gentleman could just refresh my memory, how did that vote come down when we tried, and I know you were one of the leaders on the floor at that time, to make sure that that limitation would take place? If you recall how that vote actually came down.

More importantly, I thank the gentleman from Texas for your work in taking part in this battle. I know that you do not simply come to the floor in these matters, but you are out there in committee process and you are on part of the team to make sure that the system is run the appropriate way and also to make the battle continuous as far as making sure the American tax dollar is spent as wisely as possible. Although in this climate, I must admit it is a difficult battle to be engaged in. Thank you for your efforts.

You raised a couple of good points. Let me just touch upon these to reiterate them. One is that we all do want the same thing, as least on this side of the aisle, and that is more transparency, more openness and an understanding of where the dollars are going to.

I know from the gentleman from Texas and myself, this is not something new that we just came to the game at the last minute and are saying these things. I am now in my third term in office, my fifth year in Congress. I have had the privilege and the honor of serving on the House Budget Committee during that time. In that committee, many times I would raise the battle and raise the questions as to where our tax dollars are going, regardless of which agency we are talking about or whether we are fighting the administration. Even though it is our own administration on these issues, I voted against a budget that has come before this House, even though it is one of our own budgets, because I thought we were spending too much. So I believe I come to the well here with a track record to stand on, as does the gentleman from Texas, as well, when it comes to saying we want to be fiscally responsible.

Likewise, to the issue of earmarks, let's spend a couple more minutes on that. Likewise in this area, I think the gentleman from Texas and myself come from the same place. And that is that even when we were in the majority, there were a number of us from this side of the aisle who were battling for, and eventually achieved what we were battling for at the end of the 109th Congress, and that was the issue of earmark reform and transparency. Unfortunately, that was lost at the beginning of the 110th Congress. You may recall the history. We had to come to the floor again and literally almost shut things down on this floor in order to compel the Democrat leadership to do what they had promised in their election of November of last year.

This may be one of the biggest ironies of the day, and we continue to see it go out on this floor night after night. I think it was just last week when the Democrat conference Chair was on the floor just in the podium to the right of me making basically the same campaign speech, if you will, that was made back prior to the November election. And what was that? Well, The Republicans are the party of big spenders, they were saying. They were saying that this administration was spending too much, signing on to all these budgets and signing on to all the appropriation bills that were passed out of both the House and Senate. Of course, at that time, it was under Republican control, and so all the accusations were against the Republic Party. Of course, what was being said was that Republicans were spending too much. You would think that the next line then out of the chairman's mouth would have been, and out of the other side of the aisle's comments would be, at that time, And we are going to do something about it. We are going to reduce spending. Or at the very least, as Republicans had in past years, freeze spending at the same level as last year.

But they did nothing of the sort. They did not freeze spending. They did not reduce spending. But they drastically increased spending over and over again in line item, after line item, after line item, appropriation bill, after appropriation bill. There is not a single appropriation bill that has come to the floor that you haven't seen what I am talking about: increasing in spending.

But when we bring it back to the issue of the earmarks, the same irony goes here. All during the last cycle, the 109th Congress, when the Democrats were in the minority, clamoring, saying that we were doing things wrong, saying that if they were in leadership or they were in power that they would do what? They would give us the transparency. They would give you openness. What happens once they came into power? What have we seen? What has this last 9 months wrought under Democrat leadership? Well, as the gentleman from Texas pointed out, we had to compel basically closing down the floor for a day at a time to compel them to give us some of that transparency when it comes to earmark reform. We thought we got some of that transparency, but it is really not there completely as of yet.

There was an editorial in the Las Vegas Review Journal saying: ``Democratic earmark reforms lasted just 100 days. The anti-earmark reforms are just for show. Mere window dressing.'' That was an editorial in the early part of the summer. They point out in there that these are just some examples of earmarks that would have been subject to an up-or-down vote on the House floor had the Republican earmark reform that we had talked about and that we had suggested and done in the last 109th Congress been in effect for the 110th Congress.

They go on to point out the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Representative Murtha. A drug intelligence center was included in the intel authorization bill. Cost to taxpayers: $39 million a year.

Now, we hear still to this day so much talk about the infamous, and I agree it is infamous, not famous but infamous, ``Bridge to Nowhere,'' a project

that some of us continue to rail against and say it was wrong. I am glad that Members on the Republican side on the Senate did all they could to see to it that those funds would not go there on a cause that truly was not worthwhile. But, you know, you hear about that in the news for around $267 million, I believe, the price tag was there. But here is a $400 million disaster, I think one of the papers called it. But you don't hear much about that. That, again, comes from the same gentleman, same program.

Quoting now from U.S. News and World Report, they criticized this program, the NDIC as a ``drug war boondoggle.'' A former official with the office of National Drug Control Policy said, None of us wanted it in Johnstown. That is from the gentleman from Pennsylvania's district. ``We viewed it as a jobs program Murtha wanted for his district,'' from U.S. News and World Report. The Washington Examiner I believe also commented on this earmark pork, as well. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called NDIC an expensive and duplicative use of scarce Federal drug enforcement resources. So by any rational standard, this $400 million disaster should have been shut down a long time ago according to the editorial in the Washington Examiner.

So there is an example of a way to get around the earmark reform that the other side was touting in the last election, as Republicans continue to this day to push for, and as the gentleman from Texas indicated, now that there is what we call a discharge petition being signed, at least by the Republican side of the aisle. I will wait to see whether anyone from the other side of the aisle joins on with us with that discharge petition to compel the additional reform, additional transparency, to come to the floor for a vote. Just to give a 30-second explanation of that, a discharge petition is a mechanism of this House so that when a piece of legislation, good reform legislation like this, is in the hopper, ready to go, but the controlling leadership will not post that for a vote, because the leadership party in power is the one who decides what bills get posted, there is a mechanism in the rules in order to provide a mechanism to get that up for a yes-or-no vote. That is called a discharge petition. The Republicans are doing everything in our power to make sure that does come up for a vote.

Now, you may ask, again, why is this important to me? As I explained before to the gentleman from Texas, what it all really comes down to, it comes down to your tax dollars and where they are going to and shouldn't you have the opportunity to know where those tax dollars actually go to and how they are spent.

One thing that you might not know is that when it comes to the transparency that the Democrat majority says they have given us and the American public when it comes to earmarks, and that really does not exist, is how the information is now being presented to the American public. Let me explain it in this manner: If it was our desire to make sure that information is being projected out to the Members of Congress in a useful fashion and also to the American public in a useful fashion, how could we do it?

Well, in the earmark reform package that the Republicans were able to compel the Democrats to accept, we said that what you have to do, very simply, is this: Give us a list of all the earmarks and give us a list of what the project is, how much money we are spending, and who the bill's sponsor is.

I should step back for a moment and say, just as the gentleman from Texas said, that we are not suggesting that all earmarks are bad, that all earmarks are extra-Constitutional; that is to say, outside of the bounds of what the Constitution says we should be spending it on. Not by any means. We are just suggesting that if we are going to have earmarks that are within the confines of the Constitution, what we should be spending our American taxpayer dollars on are on priority items. Shouldn't we have that basic information there, who the sponsor is, what the project is, and how much money is being spent on it? Three basic pieces of information.

That is what we achieved. But here's the rub. Here's the little secret that came about in the mechanism that the Democrat majority put together when they implemented that. Instead of putting all that information on one sheet or two sheets or three sheets, whatever you needed for all the many, many earmarks, and there are many, unfortunately, too many earmarks in one place, that we could basically, well, what, put it on the Internet so the American public and bloggers and anybody else who wanted to Google or Yahoo or use any other search engine look into it and find out what it is easily. No, they didn't do it that way.

Instead, here's what they did. They provided it in basically two sets of information. So over here you have a description of the project and how much money it is, and over here you have a description of the project and who the sponsor is. Now, these are two worthless pieces of information, unless they are joined together. Of course, we are looking at literally hundreds of pages of documents that you have to sift through in order to gather that information in one place. Basically, it would take an army of staffers, or of interns, or, maybe, and here's an idea, maybe of people out in the American public going through this, creating an Excel spreadsheet, if you will, to put all that information together so it is in one place.

You know what? That could have all been done on the first day that the appropriation bills came out of committee, by the committee staff themselves, and presented here before the House when these bills were voted on. All that information was there. It could have been done very cleanly, simply, so that Members of Congress and, importantly, the American public would have that information.

Unfortunately, that was not the transparent method that the Democrat majority wanted to use. Instead, we are still a case of obfuscation and trying to blur the information that is out there, and basically hiding from the American public what information should be readily available to us, information that the Republican leadership and those people who have been on the floor before and joining us now as well have been fighting for continually as far as transparency in these issues of our American tax dollars and where they are being spent.

What I would like to do in a moment, because we haven't got a chance to get into this yet, is take a look at the other side of the equation. We have spent some time now looking at earmarks and how money is spent. I think we also need to take a look at where the revenue comes from in the form of taxation.

I see I have been joined by another valiant fighter from Texas, a leader on these issues, who is also a leader of the Republican Study Committee, an organization of individuals who are dedicated to the issues and principles that we have been discussing on the floor tonight and in the past as far as adhering to the strict tenets of the Constitution and being concerned about where the American tax dollars go, and concerned about all the transparency issues, have been fighting both now under the Democratic leadership to increase the transparency and bring some fiscal constraint to these issues, but also, this is important, was also here engaged in the fight back in the days when the Republicans were the majority. There was a voice out there on the conservative right of the party.

I am pleased to be joined by my friend from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

On just your last point, you raised this a moment ago, and before I say this, happy birthday to your 4-year-old. But maybe if your 4-year-old knew exactly what the debt that he has is, he would not have been so happy at his birthday party.

You raised the point that the next generation for the first time in American history is not going to be as well

off as the previous generation. Before you came here, I said one of the things that I learned early on in politics from a Member from the other side of the aisle back in my county was: What does this do for me? Or in this case: What does this do to me?

In this case it really hits home for someone such as yourself or someone else who has a little one back at home. What does it do for my children? What does it do for my grandchildren? Or in this case, what does it do to them? Of course, in this case, it saddles them with a debt, an obligation, for something that they are not gaining any benefit from; but you and I and others in this generation may be gaining benefit from. But who is paying for it, your 4-year-old. And that, of course, is not fair.

So many times, so many times we hear Members come to the floor and say: here is my program. Here is my earmark. Fill in the blank for whatever it is. It is the compassionate thing to do, to spend this money on this program.

Well, I guess it might be compassionate if they were reaching into their pocket and pulling out their own money to pay for that particular program. But, gosh, in the 5 years I have been here, I have not seen any Member of Congress when they came with their program say they are going to spend for it. No, they are just going to saddle it onto America's debt.

As you said, if you have little ones out there, that debt is not necessarily paid for by you and I, the current American taxpayers. It is going to be passed on the next generation.

The question we should be asking the other side of the aisle, after they railed against the Republicans for spending so much, now they are spending even more. Now they are going to have to raise taxes under their PAYGO rules. We will get to that in a little bit. How compassionate are they when they transfer that burden, when they transfer that debt on to future generations?

Keeping to this issue of how to fix the problem, the gentleman from Texas, you might want to comment on the petition that is currently being circulated, a discharge petition which I explained earlier, and how that will address the issue of authorization language as well.

But before you do that, let me share with you a quote or two with regards to what the other side of the aisle said about this process last year when they were in the minority. This is actually something I had put forward last year to say when it comes to earmark reform, you can't just look at appropriation bills; you have to look at the authorization language. And as mentioned before with the earmark from the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the $400 million earmark, that was in essence done through authorization language. You have to do both of these.

The other side of the aisle agreed with us at that time. They said, ``You can't just have earmarks viewed as appropriation bills unless you take up earmarks in tax bills and earmarks in authorization bills. But if you are going to have earmarks and you are going to have transparencies, you have to do it in the appropriation bills and in the tax bills and in the authorization bills. I would put it in writing.'' Who said that? Representative Nancy Pelosi, California.

Likewise, ``To not do something about Authorizing Committee earmarks in the process is a joke, in my view.'' Who said that? David Obey.

So we knew where they stood last year when they had their positions on transparency. Now that they are in the majority, we wonder exactly where they stand this year, when they have the ability to do something about it. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, you raise a point: this is what they were saying last year but they are not doing it this year. We are hopeful that at least now that we have discussed this on the floor, the information is out there, the discharge petition is going forward, although that has not been a secret because there is a line every day that we are in session here of Republican Members standing down in the well signing the discharge petition, so they know it is coming.

But let me give you two other quotes of what folks from the other side of the aisle were saying last year about this. When they were talking about the measure that would only provide for appropriations and not authorizations last year, they said: ``It is a half measure at best that would do nothing to stop wasteful and unnecessary projects like the bridge to nowhere.'' That was the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Finally, ``My proposal requires the public disclosure of all earmarks, not just those of the Appropriations Committee, but authorizing and tax bills and much, much more.'' Who said that? Representative Slaughter from New York, now head of the Rules Committee.

So we seem to have some very important people here last year from the other side of the aisle starting with Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, to head of the Rules Committee saying they agree with our ideas as far as broadening earmark reform and transparency.

So maybe tonight, and I think we only have a couple more minutes, I would be willing to stay with you here on the floor if you would join me, if anyone from the other side of the aisle, leadership from Nancy Pelosi's office or the Rules Committee, to come and join me and say they will sign on to our petition, or if the Speaker would agree to move that piece of legislation since that is what they wanted to do last year when they were in the minority, and if they will do it now that they are in the majority. Will you wait with me if they indicate they will come to the floor?

I think our time is just about up, and I appreciate your efforts not only tonight, but throughout your entire time here. It has been a pleasure working with you in the House while you stand beside the American family and the American family budget.

Americans place much responsibility in the hands of their Representatives in Congress. The American public deserves to know where their hard-earned tax dollars go. They have a right to this information. If the Democrat majority is not going to literally open the books in a clear and concise manner so the American public and Members of Congress know where the dollars go, if the Democrat majority is not going to give us the transparency that the American public deserves when it comes to where their dollars go, then the Republican Party and the Republican minority will see to it that the job is done on behalf of the American public.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership at the Republican Study Committee, Congress's conservative caucus. It is a very timely issue that we are discussing today since, indeed, today is the first day of the fiscal year for the Federal Government. I think for many of us it is easy to sum up the actions of the new Democrat majority; that is, they spend too much and they tax too much. It bodes ill for the future of our Nation.

I think that it is important that we step back for a moment and figure out just how much of the people's money is being spent. And it is the people's money. It is not the government's money. It is the people's money. Today, right now, the last figure I saw is that the Federal Government is now spending $23,289 per family of four. This is just about the highest level that has been spent since World War II. Since I have been on the face of the planet, since I was born, the Federal budget has grown four to five times faster than the family budget. Ultimately, it is the family budget that has to pay for that. Since we have been in this 110th Congress with the new Democrat majority, rarely does a day go by that there is not a new opportunity to begin a new government program on top of the roughly 10,000 Federal programs spread across 600 agencies that already exist. It kind of begs the question: How much government is enough? Because we know that as government grows, our freedoms and our opportunities contract. This is supposed to be the land of opportunity. This is supposed to be the land of freedom. Yet, all we do under this new Democrat majority rule is add program after program after program.

Madam Speaker, unfortunately all of this new spending imposes a new tax burden on the American people. In the budget that the Democrat majority passed, they included in it the single highest tax increase in American history. When fully implemented over a 5-year period, this budget will impose approximately $3,000 of additional taxes on the average American family. Now, every single day we come to this floor and we debate. And our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, want to talk about great investments in education, great investments in housing, and great investments in nutrition that they are going to use all this money for. Well, the challenge is, though, that every time that they increase some Federal budget, they are having to decrease some family budget to take it, and right now to the tune of $3,000 per American family.

Madam Speaker, I often hear from people in the Fifth District of Texas that I represent. I take great pride in representing these people who have entrusted me with their representation in Congress. I hear from people like the Flores family in Garland, Texas. I heard this lady say, ``I am a divorced mother with a child in college and a child in day care. An increase in taxes of this magnitude would wipe out hope of the first college graduate in the family. Don't let this happen. Let's hold the budget down.''

So, again, what we have here is the Democrats are taking money away

from a family budget in order to give it to some Federal budget. We are not always debating how much money we are going to spend on these items, but we are debating who is going to do the spending. Democrats in Washington want the bureaucrats in Washington to do the spending. Republicans want families to do the spending, the people who actually roll up their sleeves and work hard. They work hard trying to make ends meet. They have got decisions that they have to make around the kitchen table. And this is just one example. I hear from lots of my constituents.

I heard from the Lopez family in Mesquite, ``I would like to let you know that if our taxes are increased, this may mean that we could not continue to finance our child's education.'' I heard from the Winters family in Tennessee Colony, ``Stop the wasteful spending. I am retired and disabled. I am raising three grandchildren. Sometimes I can't afford my own medicine.'' And here we are, this new Democrat majority wants to take $3,000 a year away from these hardworking families to fuel their budget, not these families' budgets, but the Federal budget.

Now, ultimately, though, it is not just the tax increase that we see right over the horizon that is so challenging. It is what is going to happen to future generations. And rarely does a day occur that somebody doesn't come to the floor and talk about the need to help the least of these. Well, I often think that the least of these are those who cannot vote and those yet to be born. They don't seem to have a say-so in this great debate that we are having today.

For example, don't take my word for it, but all this spending that we have seen in Washington, here is the result. Don't take my word for it, but we, right now, are literally on the verge of doing something to the next generation that has never been done before: imposing such a draconian economic burden on them, something that has never been done before, that according to the Comptroller General, the chief fiduciary officer in America, we are on the verge of being the very first generation in America's history to leave the next generation with a lower standard of living.

As the father of a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old, I will not sit idly by and let that happen.

Again, Mr. Speaker, don't take my word for it. Listen to the words of our Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who said: ``Without early and meaningful action to address Federal spending, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened, with future generations bearing much of the cost.''

Listen to the GAO, the General Accountability Office. They talk about government spending, particularly entitlement spending as a ``fiscal cancer'' that threatens ``catastrophic consequences for our country and could bankrupt America.''

Listen to the famous economist, Robert Samuelson, who writes frequently in newspapers all across the Nation. He says: ``The rising cost of government retirement programs could either increase taxes or budget deficits so much that they could reduce economic growth, and this could trigger an economic and political death spiral.''

The Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the General Accountability Office, the liberal Brookings Institution, the conservative Heritage Foundation, they all agree that spending is out of control: And what is going to happen is in the next generation either the Federal Government will consist of nothing to speak of but Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; or you're going to have to double taxes on our children and grandchildren just to balance the budget.

Now we see that hurricane coming over the horizon, we see it coming towards us, and yet this Democrat majority every single day adds to the problem. Just last week the Democrat majority took an insurance program, the National Flood Insurance Program, that is already going broke, was supposed to be self-sustaining through premiums, it's $20 billion in the red, and they add additional coverage to it that could expose the taxpayer to $17 trillion, $17 trillion of new liability in just one program alone.

So that is why it's so important that we start tackling the pennies and the nickels and the dimes, because we are talking about the priorities of American families, we are talking about their opportunities, we are talking about their ability to send their children to college, we are talking about their ability to save that nest egg, to launch their version of the American Dream and start their new business. We are talking about their ability to pay for their health insurance premiums.

Again, Mr. Speaker, every time you increase the Federal budget, you're having to decrease some family budget. I just often wonder when will the madness stop. When will we finally figure out that this isn't investment in the future, that is divesting our children's future by spending all of this money? The Federal budget should not be allowed to grow beyond the family budget's ability to pay for it.

That is why conservatives in the Republican Study Committee, the House Conservative Caucus, support a limitation on the growth of the Federal Government, to force Congress to decide amongst some of these priorities among these competing 10,000 Federal programs. Mr. Speaker, I defy any man, woman or child in America to tell me what they all do; 10,000 of them. It reminds me of what President Reagan once said: ``There is nothing as close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal program.'' They all cost money, and they take away from our children's future.

So that is why I am so happy that members of the Republican Study Committee have gathered here this evening to talk about the challenges of spending for the future generations and to get together to ensure that we let the American people know that we are working to hold the line on spending, to bring more accountability, to bring more transparency, to try to stave off this tax increase of $3,000 per American family, and that's for the families today. And we are fighting just as hard, if not harder, to ensure that the children and grandchildren of today's taxpayers are not saddled with a doubling of their taxation so that they would see a lower standard of living. That is not the America that we grew up in. That is not the moral obligation we have. We cannot be that first generation in America's history to leave the next generation with a lower standard of living.

That is why I am happy to join my fellow members of the Republic Study Committee who have come here to debate this important subject tonight. I especially want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her leadership in this hour.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and earmarks are a very important part of the debate about spending in Washington, D.C. We know that the people are overtaxed and are overtaxed because Washington spends too much.

Now, some people say, well, earmarks are just a small portion of the Federal budget. You know, that may be true, but Mr. Speaker, if you look closely at the numbers today under this Democrat leadership, more money is being spent on congressional earmarks than it is the entirety of our veterans health care system. Now, that's a travesty. This body should be ashamed of that fact, that more money is going to these congressional earmarks than they are going for our veterans health care system. There are still needs in that system, but instead, under this Democrat leadership, the earmark machine continues to roll.

Now, when they became the majority party, they claimed they would do better. In fact, our Speaker, Speaker Pelosi, was quoted as saying she would just as soon do without earmarks; though, I've noticed in the latest copy of Congressional Quarterly Weekly she's in the top 10 out of 435 Members when it comes to digging in the trough for more pork, for more congressional earmarks.

Now, people understand that earmarks too often represent a triumph of seniority over merit. Too often they represent a triumph of secrecy over transparency, and too often they represent a triumph of special interest over the public interest.

Now, again, I'm not here to say that all earmarks are bad, but the process is broken. The Democrats claimed they would clean it up, but instead, they've created huge new loopholes in the system.

If you want to go on a pork lean diet, you just can't cut out the sausage. You've got to cut out the bacon and the ham as well, and so when people hear about appropriation earmarks and authorizing earmarks and tax earmarks, what they need to know is what the majority said they were going to do and what they did are two different things.

So I wish I were eloquent enough to have thought of this myself, but to quote a colleague on the Senate side, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction. And that's why this fight is so important, and it's so disappointing when the Democrats, in some cases rightfully, criticized the Republicans in the last Congress, but we cleaned up the system. At a bare minimum, we brought transparency and accountability to the system, and they've rolled that back.

Now, it was mentioned earlier on the floor this evening that one of the first acts the Democrats had, they asked the entire House of Representatives to pass massive spending bills. They would hide in them earmarks and only later would they be revealed what the House voted on. Thankfully, under the Republicans, we came to the floor and we brought transparency to the debate, and the Democrats were forced to reverse themselves. So at least on a small portion of earmarks, known as the appropriations earmarks, there is at least a modicum of transparency now.

We need to have that great disinfectant of sunshine brought on to this system because earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction. They create the culture of spending, and we'll never be able to protect the family budget from the Federal budget until we deal with that culture of spending.

Earmarks, again by definition, have nothing to do with merit. They take merit, they take competition, they take competitive bidding out of the process, and instead what happens is senior Members, typically in smoke-filled rooms in the back of the Capitol, are somehow able to arrange these special earmarks.

Most recently, under the Democrat leadership, there was something like 30 Members of Congress managed to get a special funding stream for hospitals in their district that no one else, no other hospital in America was able to receive. Again, a triumph of seniority over merit, a triumph of secrecy over transparency.

It has to do with the culture of spending, and if we're going to save the next generation from having a lower standard of living than we have because we are on a pathway right now just with the government we have to double taxes in the next generation, unconscionable, immoral, and yet the Democrat leadership continues with this culture of spending.

The earmark machine is alive and well as represented by the cover story right here, Mr. Speaker, in Congressional Quarterly Weekly. I wish every American could read that to see what is happening in this earmark process.

Every time some Member of Congress comes to the floor requesting a new earmark, guess where that money is coming from, Mr. Speaker. Either they're taking it out of the Social Security trust fund, robbing seniors of the hard-earned money that they put into it, or it's going to be part of this $3,000 a year tax increase that the Democrats put into their budget, the single largest tax increase in American history. Or if they choose not to tax it, there's only one other thing they can do, Mr. Speaker, pass on the debt to our children and grandchildren.

And that's why I appreciate the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I appreciate

all the members of the Republican Study Committee coming to the floor tonight to add more transparency to this earmark debate, because unless we have transparency and accountability, we won't reduce the number of earmarks, and until we reduce the number of earmarks, we won't be able to change the culture of spending and be able to give the next generation greater freedom and greater opportunity than we've enjoyed.

Mr. Speaker, I hope people have watched this debate carefully, and for those who wish to know even more, I would invite them to go to the Web site of the Republican Study Committee that I have the honor to chair, at www.house.gov/hensarling/rsc, and learn a great deal more about the spending patterns of the Federal Government and how often the people's money is squandered and taken away from their future and their American dream.

But there's a better way. There's a better way under conservative principles to make sure that we do not allow the Federal budget to grow beyond the family budgets and be able to pay for it, that we don't pass debt on to future generations and that we reform these earmarks and make the Democrats remain good to their word.

So, again, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her great leadership in the conservative movement in the House, with her eloquent and articulate voice for her leadership on this subject.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 675 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman please state his point of order?

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 675 provides a rule for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

The rule permits the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to move that the House concur in the Senate amendments with the amendments printed in the Rules Committee report.

The rule waives all points of order against the motion except those arising under clause 10 of rule XXI.

Finally, the rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided among and controlled by the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today represents a defining historic moment for this House. Members of this body will be faced with the simple choice: Will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from the children who currently have it?

Today, over 45 million people living in this country woke up without health care. Millions of them are children whose families make too much to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to purchase their own insurance.

Studies have shown that the number of uninsured children jumped by 710,000

last year. That is unconscionable; and under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and the new Democratic Congress, we have begun to change it.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, currently provides health care to over 6 million children; but the program will expire in just 6 days unless we act to reauthorize it.

Historically, the SCHIP program has enjoyed bipartisan support. The bill before us today represents a careful, bipartisan compromise that enjoys the support of people like Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Orrin Hatch, Congressman Ray LaHood, and Congresswoman Heather Wilson.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, the bill before us does not go as far as I would like. I prefer the bill this House passed a few weeks ago. The House-passed bill not only expanded the SCHIP program to 1 million more children than the bill we'll be voting on today; it also leveled the playing field by adjusting the reimbursements for the Medicare Advantage Program, a program that is in dire need of reform. But I will not and I cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the very good, and this is a very good bill.

Under this agreement, health insurance coverage will be provided to millions of children who do not have it today. Quality dental coverage will be provided to all enrolled children. The agreement ensures that States will offer mental health services on par with medical and surgical benefits covered under SCHIP, and the bill also provides States the option to cover prenatal care, ensuring healthy babies and healthy moms.

Now, contrary to the White House rhetoric, the bulk of the children who would gain coverage are poor and near-poor children who are uninsured, not middle-income children with private coverage.

The President would like to suggest that SCHIP is Congress's way of socializing medicine and undermining private health insurance plans, which is interesting, considering that just yesterday this bill was endorsed by America's Health Insurance Plans, the Nation's largest insurance lobbying group. It is also important to note, Mr. Speaker, that this bill is fully paid for. This represents a sharp change from earlier bills that the President enthusiastically supported from the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill to the Republican energy plans to his tax cuts for the rich, which were all financed by massive amounts of deficit spending.

The President has threatened to veto this bill, Mr. Speaker. That takes my breath away. He didn't veto billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies that were gouging people at the pump. He didn't veto billions of dollars in no-bid defense contracts. But he will veto a modest bipartisan bill to provide health care coverage for millions of low- and moderate-income American children?

Now, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle would say that we should simply extend the current SCHIP program, but what they won't tell you is that the spending level supported by the President is not enough even to provide continued coverage for all the children who are currently enrolled. In other words, Mr. Speaker, those who support the President would take health care away from over 800,000 kids who have it today. That is not acceptable. That is cruel.

As the Catholic Health Association has said, ``Temporary extensions and/or inadequate funding levels will lead to children losing coverage. That would be an enormous step back for our Nation and a retreat from our collective commitment to cover uninsured children.''

Mr. Speaker, this is a defining moment for this Congress. With a ``yes'' vote on this bill, we can improve the lives of millions of children and their families. A ``no'' vote is a vote to take health care away from some of the most vulnerable members of the American family.

The choice is clear. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to our next speaker, I just respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying, he talks about this Republican vision for health care; but if my memory is serving me correctly, the Republicans were in charge of the Congress for many years, too many years, if you ask me, and they had the President of the United States of the same party while they were in control of both Congresses.

What they presided over with all their control, this Republican vision that the gentleman from Texas talks about, resulted in more and more and more, millions and millions more Americans falling into the ranks of the uninsured. And many of them are children. Too many are children. We are trying to fix that here. We think it is unconscionable in the richest country on the face of this Earth that millions of children go without health insurance.

Let me just say one other thing. The gentleman made an allusion, too, that this bill would make it easier to enroll illegal immigrants. I want to ask my friend from Texas to read the bill. Section 605, no Federal funds for illegal immigrants. Nothing in this Act allows Federal payment for residents who are not legal residents.

Now, I know that immigrant bashing is the last bastion of the politically desperate, but the fact of the matter is facts are facts. And on documentation, only my Republican friends would argue that poor children should have passports as though they are jetting off to Paris for the spring fashion shows.

The bottom line is, what the gentleman is raising on that level is totally unwarranted.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Loebsack).

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question of the gentleman from California.

We have all of our time scheduled. I'm sorry.

We are literally filled up.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that the gentleman from California wasn't impressed with the names of the Republican legislators that I met who, I think, have impeccable conservative credentials. But this is a bipartisan effort. In fact, unlike when he was the chairman of the Rules Committee and his party was in control of Congress, bipartisanship now means more than just one Member of the opposing party.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert in the Record a letter that's in enthusiastic support of this bill sent to Speaker Pelosi signed by 16 other Republicans, and there are many, many more who I hope will support this bill.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, September 19, 2007.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives, The Capitol, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, let me just say a couple of things with regard to process. The gentleman knows, everybody else knows, the gentleman should know that his Republican colleagues in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference.

The SCHIP program expires in 6 days, and we don't have time for a House version of a filibuster. A dozen States will run out of SCHIP funding if we do not act. Now is the time to act. So if you want to make sure that those currently enrolled continue to get the health care coverage, then you've got to vote for this. And if you want more children to be enrolled, then you have to vote for this.

On the issue of legal immigrants, I agree. I think all of us here agree that the legal immigrants should be included. The reality is there were not enough Republicans who agree. The Republican leadership has been awful on this issue. And the Republicans in the Senate have said that adding a legal immigrant provision would have killed the bill in the Senate. That is the gentleman's party.

Let me also remind Members of this House that you had an opportunity to vote for an SCHIP that covered legal immigrants. That is what we voted on here in the House, and you all voted ``no.'' You voted ``no'' on that. You voted not to extend coverage for those legal immigrants in this country, those children of legal immigrants. So I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do here, other than trying to delay this process so we don't get this bill passed.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

(Ms. MATSUI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, let me remind my colleagues that this program expires in 6 days and that the Republicans in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference. That's why we are here. The other reason why we are here is we want to make sure that 10 million children in this country get health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

(Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that this is a proud day for the House of Representatives. If we can pass the bill and send it to the President, that will guarantee 10 million children who don't have health insurance currently that they will get health insurance. That is something we can be proud of. That is an accomplishment. That is results.

We have heard a lot of excuses from the other side. A lot of my friends say, ``I love SCHIP, but I just don't want to vote for it. I love all of our children in this country. I believe everybody should have insurance, but I am not willing to vote to make sure that they have insurance.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, that doesn't cut it. The American people are sick of the stalling tactics. They are sick of the excuses. They are sick of the lack of results that they have seen in the area of making sure that everybody in this country gets health insurance. And that is one of the reasons why, I should tell the gentleman from Texas, why his party lost in the last election, because it was perceived by the American people that his party wasn't responding to the real challenges and the real needs of the American people, that they were indifferent to the plight of uninsured children across this country.

It is time to do the right thing, Mr. Speaker. As I said in the very beginning of this debate, the choice really is very simple, will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from children who currently have it? This is the choice. Voting ``no'' or voting for all the procedural motions that the gentleman from Texas has put forward will basically result in children currently who have insurance losing that insurance, because the President's plan doesn't provide nearly enough money to cover those who are already enrolled in the program. But we need to do better.

The bottom line is that we are the richest country on the face of the Earth. It is unconscionable that every person in this country does not have health care. It is even more outrageous that our children don't have health insurance. It is, quite frankly, outrageous that the President of the United States is holding a veto threat over this bill, a bill to guarantee that more of our children have health insurance. Of all the things he could possibly veto, this is where he draws the line in the sand when it comes to making sure that our kids get the health care they deserve? It takes my breath away when I think that this is the issue that he chooses to have a fight over, health insurance for our children. I am grateful that there are Republicans who are going to join with us on this vote.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

It is such a pleasure to come to the floor tonight as we start a new fiscal year for the U.S. Government.

A new year is a time where you get to look back at what happened last year, where you get to redirect your focus and talk about what your priorities are going to be and the goals that you want to set.

Now, we all do that with our families as we get to the end of the calendar year and start the new calendar year in January. It is a time that we enjoy.

I hope for each of us, as Members of the House, as we start this fiscal year, that we will put some attention on what we spend and how we spend.

Now, Madam Speaker, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to do a town hall with some of my constituents. We

got together yesterday afternoon after church over lunch. One of them said, ``Do you know, I have been reading Alan Greenspan's book. My goodness, it is amazing to me, absolutely amazing to me what Congress spends, how much money they spend. It is amazing to me that we have seen this debt skyrocket through the '70s, through the '80s and begin to level off through the '90s but still continue to grow. It is amazing to me that decisions are made that grow that debt. It is amazing to me that earmarks are out of control. Explain earmarks.''

My constituent posed this question before the group because, like so many, once he looked at the issue, he realized that every time we grow a program, every time some new program comes along, every time Congress stands and says, ``We must meet this need,'' that there are two costs to that program. Of course, there is the dollars cost, and then there is also the opportunity cost, because if Government steps in and meets that need, the private or not-for-profit sector is not going to step in and meet that need. So my constituent posed this for the group to talk about. I said, ``What a great discussion to have. This is the last day of the fiscal year for the U.S. Government. Tomorrow is a new day. They turn a page in the book and start a new slate with the new budget.''

Now, my constituent said that he would have loved to have seen the U.S. Government get to the end of the year and brag about how much money they had saved. But in reality, he knows that probably there is going to be more bragging done about special projects that go back home to the district in the form of earmarks.

So we talked a little bit yesterday, Madam Speaker, about priorities, about earmarks and about how earmarks came to be. When communities have trouble coming in and going through the process, they will say, ``Oh, can you help us, Member of Congress, to get this set aside in the bill? Can you help us to find this money?'' Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, we all know not all earmarks are bad. It is the abuse of earmarks that are bad. As I came back this afternoon, I found on my desk a copy of Congressional Quarterly Weekly. You can find this at cq.com if someone wants to pull it up. In the article, they are citing that there were 7,000 specific House-passed earmarks in just eight of the bills. There were 500 sought by the White House; roughly 1,000 were identified with more than one sponsor. That left 5,670 earmarks worth a combined $44.2 billion, each linked with a single House Member. And then it goes on and talks a little bit about how many and how much are here in the earmarks game and a little bit about who gets what. But it is the process and the abuse of that earmark process that has our constituents confused, frustrated and, rightfully, a little bit angry.

We know that many of us have pushed for greater transparency in this earmark process. We have pushed for changes, for knowing what is taking place in our earmarks so that people know what is in those bills when they come to the House floor, so that it is easy to find, to pair it up, to know who is asking for what, where it is going to be located or what program it is going to go to, and then how much of the taxpayer money is being spent.

Madam Speaker, it is not our money. It is not government's money. It is the taxpayers' money. So like my constituent who posed the question yesterday, ``Tell me how much you are spending and how you go about spending it and explain these earmarks,'' those are questions that, yes, indeed, they have the right to ask, and we as Members of Congress should be answering those questions and discussing what is in those bills, what is in those appropriations bills, and what we find in those earmarks.

Now, I will have to say that this is a year when we have started our fiscal year on what is called a continuing resolution, and we passed that last year. I will say that the new majority did a good job of bringing a fairly clean continuing resolution before us so that we were running today, so that we didn't have to shut government down. What the continuing resolution basically does is it takes last year's funding numbers and rolls them forward. A lot of people would like to see us hold everything at exactly the same spending level it was. That is not all bad. But the new majority was not able to get one single spending bill through both Houses and to the President to be signed, so that is why we are operating on the continuing resolution.

We have seemed to have time to talk about global warming and pass bills pertaining to global warming or conservation. We have named post offices. We have expanded programs. We have passed billions in new authorizations and new spending. But we did not get the budget done, so we are on a concurrent resolution.

It is our new fiscal year. We are going to spend a little bit of time tonight talking about how we spend that money and looking at what takes place through this earmark process and why we, as Republicans, and why we, as members of the Republican Study Committee, are continuing our push for earmark transparency and earmark reform.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) who is chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his remarks. He does such a wonderful job in directing the activities of the Republican Study Committee. You can find out a little bit more about the Republican Study Committee going into Mr. Hensarling's Web site, House.gov/Hensarling, and enter in ``Republican Study Committee.'' It will take you there to some of our activity and the work we are doing.

We also have a little ``money monitor'' that we use every single week, update it, to show you what the majority in the House is spending, show you how this is going to affect your budget. As he said, the priority is the family budget, to be certain that families have the opportunity to decide how and when they want to spend their money.

As the gentleman from Texas said, unfortunately, since World War II what we have seen is the Federal budget has grown four to five times faster than the family budget. The Federal budget growing four to five times faster than the family budget. That is exactly opposite of what our Founding Fathers would want.

I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will join us, join with us as we fight the growth of this budget, as we fight the growth of spending. When it is a new fiscal year, it is a good time to sit down and review this and say, okay, when we get to the end of the fiscal year, what do we want to look back and say we accomplished? Wouldn't it be a great thing if we were to say this is what we were able to save, this is how we were able to find ways to reduce the size and cut what government spends? So we invite our friend across the aisle to come over and join us and work on this issue.

I would like at this time to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.

Price), who has been a stalwart in working on the earmark issues, the earmark reform, and a real leader in the push for earmark reform, greater transparency and more fiscal accountability from the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia so very much. We have started our new fiscal year, and the new majority was not able to get one single spending bill to the President's desk, so we do operate on a continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, some of us who want to reduce what the Federal Government spends, holding the spending at last year's level is not such a bad idea. We kind of like doing that. But for a new majority who said we are going to have transparency and openness, to come in and continue to spend more and more and more, not less, but more. More of the taxpayers' money, putting more of it into earmarks.

The gentleman referenced the cq.com article which referenced 7,000 earmarks in eight bills; 5,670 of those earmarks with a combined worth of $4.2 billion linked to individual House Members. And the concern with that, as my constituent said, how much you spend and how you spend it and concern over the earmarks.

You know, we have seen quite a bit of hypocrisy from the new leadership. As the gentleman from Georgia said, we do have House Resolution 479. This is something people can go on and pull up on the Internet and take a look at it. We are trying to get that voted on, forcing the transparency issue and restoring those rules that we passed last year to make certain that an individual's name is there, that you can find what individuals are earmarking, not trying to hide this, but you can find it and know who is asking for what in that budget.

We have 193 signatures on the discharge petition so we can force it out of committee, force it to the floor, and force a debate for the American people so they know what is going to be spent here in the House.

I encourage our Members to take a look at that legislation and to come join us on this first day of the new fiscal year. Again, I encourage our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to embrace the issue of reducing what the Federal Government spends, to embrace transparency in these earmarks, and to work for earmark reform, to join us in continuing to work for earmark reform.

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to Dr. Virginia Foxx from North Carolina who certainly has conservative credentials and understands so very clearly how to work with earmarks, how to work with Federal budgeting and making certain that we remain true to our conservative principles as we address our Federal budget issues.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, and she is precisely on target with her remarks.

A year ago, we had some of the senior House Democrats that joined us Republicans in calling for earmark reform in Congress, saying new transparency rules should apply to all earmarks, not just on appropriations bills, but on tax bills, on authorizing bills, transparency for all earmarks of any kind. And House Republicans later delivered those reforms last year when we were still in the majority.

But now that we have the new Democrat majority, they have retreated from those promises. They've gutted the reforms implemented by the Republicans, and they are denying Members the ability to have a full debate on those earmarks.

As the gentlewoman from North Carolina said, this is so unfortunate that this is what they're doing in the House because the people do expect better from us, and as she said, there were promises that were made and there are promises that have been broken.

I want to yield once again to the gentleman from Texas, our Republican Study Committee chairman, Mr. Hensarling for a few more comments on the earmark issue.

I thank the gentleman from Texas, and Mr. Speaker, as we come to the close of our hour that we have had tonight where we put the focus on spending and put the focus on earmarks, I would remind my colleagues that a couple of months back Republicans successfully forced the Democrats to restore two critical GOP reforms from last year, and that was disclosing earmarks and their sponsors before spending bills are voted on on the floor and then the right to challenge those bills on the floor. Those were important changes we made last year, and we forced those to be reinstituted so that we could begin to have some debate. Now, they may try to cover up some of those. We're going to keep digging and playing hide-and-seek and figure out who all of those earmarks belong to.

I want to give you a couple of quotes that tie into this. From the AP, ``Democratic leaders gave in to Republican demands that lawmakers be allowed to challenge individual Member-requested projects from the final version of each appropriations bill.'' That's from June 14.

From June 18 of this year from the Charleston Post-Courier, ``A House compromise achieved Thursday night shows that the worthy cause of earmark reform is far from lost. When the Speaker recently signaled a retreat from her repeated vows to fix that problem, House Republican leaders cried foul.''

We called for that accountability. The cost to the taxpayer for earmarks not being disclosed is hundreds of millions of dollars of additional spending.

I hope that as we start this new year that our colleagues across the aisle will reach out to us, that they will join us in signing the discharge petition on Leader Boehner's bill, H.R. 479, and get the 218 signatures we need so that we can come to this floor so that we can have a debate and ensure the public that all taxpayer-funded earmarks are publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate on this floor. The future of our children, the future of this government depends on getting our spending under control.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time this evening. I thank you for the opportunity to address the issue of out-of-control earmarks and the need for earmark reform by this body.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this modified closed rule that shuts down debate in the House to every Member of this body, except the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, who has already had ample time and opportunity to modify this legislation, and to one token Republican amendment.

Two nights ago, in the Democrat Rules Committee, which over the last year has truly solidified its reputation as the graveyard of good ideas in the House of Representatives, we had a wide-ranging discussion from Members on both sides of the aisle about their

proposals to improve this legislation. We adjourned this meeting without reporting out a rule so that alternatives to subverting the Rules Committee jurisdiction, while sticking to the Democrat pay-for rule, could be studied. Unfortunately, when the opportunity came for the majority to make good on its campaign promises to run the most honest, ethical and transparent House in history by providing an open and transparent legislative process, Members of this House were, once again, silenced by the heavy-handed Democrat leadership.

While I am no longer surprised by the Democrat leadership's decision to allow politics to prevail over good government, I'm still disappointed, because as the sponsor of legislation to extend the TRIA program in the 108th Congress, I fundamentally believe that it has helped the private sector to stabilize our Nation's economy by providing a functioning marketplace for policyholders to acquire terrorism insurance and for insurers to provide it to them.

In fact, many of the positive aspects of this bill mimic policy proposals included in my legislation, and in legislation introduced last Congress by my good friend from Louisiana, Richard Baker. Like these Republican bills, today's legislation would extend the current program, providing both policyholders and insurers with the certainty needed for long-term projects and our domestic economic health to move forward.

And, like prior Republican legislation, today's bill would eliminate the false distinction between foreign and domestic acts of terror. As we have learned from the London bombings and from the recent foiled terrorist plots in Germany and in New Jersey, no country is insulated from home-grown terrorism, which can be just as destructive and as costly as terrorists from abroad.

Other aspects of this legislation, such as the inclusion of nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological coverage, mimic past Republican proposals without including market-based modifications that our proposals also contained in order to make this coverage both taxpayer friendly and cost efficient.

Unfortunately, there's one proposal in today's legislation that is unprecedented and that I simply cannot support. Written in the Rules Committee, without any consideration or debate in the Financial Services Committee, and then self-executed by the rule so that it receives no up-or-down vote, this rule contains language that skirts recent Democrat promises to abide by their own self-imposed PAYGO rules by shifting the responsibility of funding TRIA onto future Congresses.

By including this mandate on future Congresses, which the Supreme Court has roundly rejected as unconstitutional, the market stabilization benefits of TRIA completely evaporate.

Rather than helping to provide insurers and policyholders with the certainty that they need to manage their exposure to the financial costs of terrorism, this bill simply kicks the responsibility down the road and by and large says ``we will let somebody else worry about that.''

Rather than clearly signaling to the private sector what the Federal Government will spend in the event of another attack on the United States and what their own costs and responsibilities would be, this hastily drafted language, shoved in in the middle of the night, reintroduces political risk into this financial transaction by leaving these hard decisions up to the whims of a future Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I think this Congress should do better and they can do better than this. Instead of closed rules and artful dodges of the PAYGO rule, I think that Members and their constituents deserve the openness promised by Democrat leadership. Instead of procedural trickery and inserting language of a mysterious origin into this rule without any minority input or open debate, I think that Members and their constituents deserve transparency, which was promised by the Democrat leadership. And, most of all, instead of leaving the hard decisions and potential costs of this program to future Congresses, I believe that Members and their constituents deserve a bill that deals honestly with one of the most serious problems facing the American economy.

Unfortunately, this bill provides none of these things and is a far less responsible approach to dealing with the real-world economic problems posed by terrorism to our country, more than past Republican proposals. In fact, about the best thing that can be said about this bill and the process under which it is being considered today is the fact that perhaps it will spur the Senate to provide the American people with a more serious proposal in dealing with TRIA so that all of the flaws of this legislation can be worked out in conference.

I oppose this rule and encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am going to yield to the gentleman from California, who will help us to understand a little bit more clearly about the uncooked and, I believe, sloppy work that was presented to the Rules Committee such that many, many, many Members on a bipartisan basis questioned the decision that was made, and it will help us to reflect upon an opportunity about how it could be done better.

I yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from San Dimas, California, the Honorable David Dreier.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the gentleman for his fine remarks. As a matter of fact, I agree with him, that I do not believe that it is proper or correct to have a mandatory bill which requires mandatory spending, but discretionary funding that's available. And that is exactly what this new Democrat majority is doing. They are saying we would be absolutely required, mandatory, to spend the money, but discretionary as to whether we're really serious about providing that or not. And I believe that that is a serious question that comes under question today about the serious nature of the policy of this.

I don't attack the underlying legislation at all. The legislation does not bother me. I've supported this for years. That's what will be the underpinning of making our country stronger and better and preparing us for what may be in our future. But you can't require something and then not provide the money, especially under PAYGO rules that you had initiated yourself.

So this is simply a debate that the new Democrat majority is having within itself about whether they're really serious about their opportunity to bring to the table serious policy issues that face this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price.

(Mr. PRICE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman, once again, another speaker from our friends on the Democrat side, talking with us about how they are going to fix it. We appreciate that.

That is what we are asking for today. The best I can tell you is that the Republican Party is in favor of fixing it. We believe the best way to do it is on the floor of the House right now, because right now we could fix it where all the Members will understand what the ramifications are. The ramifications are either that we are going to say that terrorist attacks don't apply under PAYGO rules or that terrorist attacks would be in fine print, that now perhaps the Democrat majority wants to put in that all this spending applies but perhaps not under certain circumstances. I think we could craft a deal here.

But now what the gentleman is asking us to do is ``just trust me.'' Well, the first thing I would like to do is get a copy of the letter. It would be appropriate for me to ask for that. I know the gentleman, Mr. Ackerman, does not oppose my getting a copy of that letter. But what we are now being told is, ``now trust us that it will be brought back in a forum where there is debate, but it is either an up or down vote.'' We can't change that decision, nor can any other Member of this body change that. We have heard enough people talk today about how what is happening is wrong, should not happen, is bad policy. We ought to fix it today here on the floor if we are going to move forward and not say, ``trust me, trust me, wait for fine print or disagreement later.''

I appreciate the gentleman, Mr. Ackerman. I thought it was not only very nice what he did but well spoken, and I appreciate the gentleman very much.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, you know, I do appreciate my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, coming in and arguing, but his side has already given in on this point. They have already conceded that they don't like the way the bill is, the self-executing rule. There is already agreement on his side, ``Whoa, this is wrong. We don't agree with this. We will agree to fix it.''

So, I love the gentleman from Massachusetts, he and I are very good friends, but they have already conceded that point. They have already said, ``We think there could be a better way to do it. We agree to fix it.'' So what did we say on this side? ``Thank you very much, Mr. Ackerman. We appreciate this. That is what we have been asking for. We are pleased that we got it.''

I wish we had the agreement here today. I wish we knew what that deal was going to be before you brought the bill to the floor. That's why we held off in the Rules Committee for an extra day waiting for a better answer. Didn't get it, get to the floor.

I would say to my good friends on this side, if you want us to be a better minority, you are going to have to be a better majority. We took seriously what Speaker Pelosi said, ``honest, open, ethical Congress.'' We are still waiting for that through the Rules Committee. When she said, ``PAYGO is going to apply to everything,'' it implied that Republicans didn't do that. Then we took that at the surface of the words, not looking for fine print, not looking for how they are going to try and get out of it. So we are trying to make sure that we simply know what we are supposed to count on.

They have come to the floor today, and they have said, ``We are going to work on it.'' I am pleased we are going to do that. I am simply saying that it should have been done before it got here. That is sloppy.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I have no additional speakers on the rule. I yield to the gentleman from New York to run down his time, then I will make my closing statement.

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous question so that I may amend the

rule to allow for the consideration of H. Res. 479, a resolution that I have not heard talked about today but the concepts are in that that I will call the ``Earmark Accountability Rule.''

At the beginning of this Congress, a number of promises were made to the American people about the Democrats' supposedly new and improved earmark rules.

As the Congress has worn on, however, I have noticed that while the Democrats' rule changes definitely sound good, they have not really lived up to their promise and have not really accomplished much, since the majority has repeatedly turned their head the other way when it comes to their actual enforcement.

I acknowledge that the majority has given into the minority demands for enforcement of their own rules a handful of times when it comes to appropriations conference reports. Unfortunately, we continue to see non-disclosed earmarks in all sorts of bills, also.

This rules change would simply allow the House to debate openly and honestly the validity and accuracy of earmarks contained in all bills, not just appropriations bills. If we defeat the previous question, we can address that problem today and restore this Congress' nonexistent credibility when it comes to enforcement of its rules, like we have seen once again today.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material appear in the Record just prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.