Telework Enhancement Act of 2010

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1509 and ask for its immediate consideration.

For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx. All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members may be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1509.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1509 provides for consideration of H.R. 1722, the Telework Improvements Act. The rule provides 1 hour of debate controlled by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill except those arising under clauses 9 and 10 of rule XXI. The rule makes in order the substitute reported by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as modified by an amendment printed in the Rules Committee report. The rule also provides one motion to recommit the bill with or without instructions.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this rule and in strong support of the underlying bill. Even in this July heat, it is hard to forget the historic snowfall that blanketed the Washington region this past winter. OMB estimated that for each day the Federal Government was shut down during the storms, the government lost $71 million worth of productivity. Had some agencies not allowed their employees to telecommute, the cost of lost productivity would have been $100 million.

With today's mobile technology, we can do better to ensure that Federal employees can effectively telecommute regardless of weather conditions. The Telework Improvements Act will provide a framework to expand the current telecommuting program so that all Federal employees can enjoy the benefits. Telecommuting also helps to reduce traffic congestion. I don't think you will find too many Federal employees complaining about missing out on rush-hour traffic in metro D.C.

Now, some may argue that telecommuting will just allow lazy employees to sit at home and pretend to work. That's simply not the case. This bill requires agencies to establish a telecommuting policy that authorizes employees to telecommute to the maximum amount possible only to the extent that it doesn't diminish employee performance or agency operations.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the General Services Administration have already established efficient and effective telework policies.

For those concerned about the deficit, the bill is deficit neutral and, therefore, PAYGO compliant. CBO's estimated cost of $30 million over 5 years pales in comparison to the $71 million per day the government lost due to snow last winter.

Madam Speaker, I want to remind all of my colleagues that a bipartisan majority of them supported this bill when it came to the floor under suspension in May of this year. I urge them to once again support this rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, the gentlelady mentioned the deficit and how concerned she is about the deficit. It's somewhat puzzling to me then that she hasn't been out front wanting to pay for the Bush tax cuts that cost hundreds of billions of dollars, that there's been no effort on the other side to want to pay for the George Bush prescription drug bill which cost hundreds of billions of dollars all on to our credit card, that there is no effort on the other side to want to pay for these wars which have now cost $1 trillion--$1 trillion in borrowed money.

I should say, with one exception. The minority leader, Mr. Boehner, suggested that we could pay for the wars with the Social Security Trust Fund, that we should raise the retirement age and whatever savings we have should not go into the Social Security Trust Fund, should go to pay for our wars so our senior citizens who have paid into the system year after year after year should be robbed of a solid program and, instead, that money should go to pay for the wars.

When they talk about deficits and debt, it is laughable, because they inherited from Bill Clinton one of the biggest surpluses in history and they squandered it on tax cuts that weren't paid for--mostly for the rich, mostly for their big contributors--and on wars that were not paid for.

And what this President and this Congress is trying to do is clean up their mess. And I'm sorry that that bothers some of my friends on the other side, but we're going to clean up their mess, and we're going to move this economy forward.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My friends on the other side of the aisle can pull out all their charts and artwork that their Republican National Committee wants to put together for them; but some facts are undeniable, and that is, that when this President came to office, he inherited from George W. Bush the worst economy since the Great Depression. That is undeniable. This economy was in a tail spin, and if it wasn't for the stimulus package, this economy would have continued to go further down the tubes. There was no question about that.

When they talk about deficits, they conveniently leave out the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit spending went to pay for their tax cuts for their rich friends. That's what they did when they were in power, tax breaks, tax loopholes, all kinds of special interest breaks, for oil companies, for the wealthiest people in this country, and we went deeper and deeper into debt and they didn't care.

Two wars, none of it paid for. None of it paid for, and it should be paid for. The only people sacrificing in these wars are our soldiers and their families. The rest of us are asked to do nothing, and the only possible solution to that that we heard from the other side of the aisle came from the minority leader who said that we should raise the retirement age for those receiving Social Security and take that money and pay for the war. Our senior citizens should pay for these wars? Shouldn't we want to protect Social Security, and shouldn't we find other ways to pay for these wars?

In today's Washington Post, the editorial entitled, ``GOP has no problem extending tax cuts for the rich,'' let me quote from a couple of lines in this editorial: ``Senate Republicans, committed as they are to preventing the debt from mounting further, can't approve an extension of unemployment benefits because it would cost $35 billion. But they are untroubled by the notion of digging the hole $678 billion deeper by extending President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.''

And this is how the editorial ends: ``The issue is whether the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be extended, adding another $678 billion to the deficit over the next decade. The tax cuts, it's worth remembering, passed originally in 2001 with the argument that the surplus was so large that rates could be cut with budgetary room to spare. Now that the fiscal picture has deteriorated so badly, the questions remains: How are you going to pay the $678 billion? And if you don't, how are you going to justify the added damage to an already grim fiscal outlook?''

I insert this article in the Record at this point.

[From the Washington Post, July 14, 2010]

GOP Has No Problem Extending Tax Cuts for the Rich

Senate Republicans, committed as they are to preventing the

debt from mounting further, can't approve an extension of

unemployment benefits because it would cost $35 billion. But

they are untroubled by the notion of digging the hole $678

billion deeper by extending President Bush's tax cuts for the

wealthiest Americans. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked

Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) about this contradiction.

Mr. Kyl's response is worth examining because of what it says

about the GOP's refusal to practice the fiscal responsibility

it preaches.

Mr. Kyl's first line of defense was to dismiss Mr.

Wallace's query as ``a loaded question'' because ``the Bush

tax cuts applied to every single American.'' Mr. Wallace

pointed out that he was only referring to the top tax

brackets, but Mr. Kyl persisted in his refusal to answer.

``So let's, first of all, start with those that don't apply

to the wealthy. Shouldn't those be extended?'' Never mind

that no one in a policymaking position--not President Obama,

not Democrats in Congress--is arguing against extending those

tax cuts, at least temporarily. So when Mr. Kyl contends that

``all of that goes away,'' he is just blowing smoke.

Eventually, Mr. Kyl trotted out the tired and

unsubstantiated argument that the tax cuts for the wealthy

must be extended because otherwise ``you're going to clobber

small business.'' Mr. Wallace persisted: ``But,

sir, . . . how are you going to pay the $678 billion?''--at

which point Mr. Kyl descended into nonsense. ``You should

never raise taxes in order to cut taxes,'' he declared.

``Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right

to, if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy,

not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs.

You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and

that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have

to offset [the] cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax

rates on Americans.''

Huh? No one's talking about cutting taxes on the wealthy to

stimulate the economy. The issue is whether the tax cuts for

the wealthiest Americans should be extended, adding another

$678 billion to the deficit over the next decade. The tax

cuts, it's worth remembering, passed originally in 2001 with

the argument that the surplus was so large that rates could

be cut with budgetary room to spare. Now that the fiscal

picture has deteriorated so badly, the questions remains: How

are you going to pay the $678 billion? And if you don't, how

are you going to justify the added damage to an already grim

fiscal outlook?

Madam Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle have been fighting with all their might to deny Americans who have lost their jobs, mostly through no fault of their own, they have been fighting with all their energy to deny them unemployment benefits during this very difficult time where people who can't get these benefits and whose savings are drying up are not going to be able to afford to pay their bills, be able to keep their home; and my friends on the other side of the aisle say we can't afford that, we can't afford that, notwithstanding the fact it's a one-time expenditure.

But you know, when it comes to the wars, let's vote to add another $33 billion in borrowed money on to our children's credit card and no questions asked.

I'd like to do a little nation building, Madam Speaker, here in the United States. I think we have an obligation to take care of the people here in this country, and so I'm all for working on trying to reduce our deficit and our debt. That's what the Democratic Party is dedicated to. The President is dedicated to that. He's formed a bipartisan commission, but to come on the floor and to say that somehow the policies of the previous President, the tax cuts for the rich, billions and billions and billions of dollars in added deficit spending, the war, the prescription drug benefit bill, not even paid for, to suggest that that didn't occur is ludicrous.

The bottom line is that you delivered to this President, my friends on the other side of the aisle delivered to this President, the worst economy since the Great Depression and he has been working overtime to try to dig this country out of the ditch that the Republicans dug, and we need to continue to move forward.

I will add one other thing, Madam Speaker, and that is, during the first year of President Obama's administration more jobs were created than during the 8 years of George W. Bush, and that's a fact.

I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me remind my colleagues, Madam Speaker, that when President Obama came to office, he inherited an economy that was losing on average 750,000 jobs a month. That is what President Obama was left with.

My friends talk about the fact that the economy is still struggling. It is still struggling. But the June numbers, as much as we wish they were better, we were told that 83,000 private sector jobs were created and 9,000 manufacturing jobs. I would rather be creating jobs, again, I would like to create 100 times more jobs than we were able to do in June, but I would rather be creating jobs than going back to where we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month.

My friend mentioned job fairs, all my colleagues are doing job fairs. What I find particularly ironic is that my colleagues are hosting job fairs touting stimulus money. The distinguished minority whip on the Republican side from Virginia has been one of the Recovery Act's most vocal critics, uniformly whipping the Republican Caucus into opposing the stimulus. But despite his withering attacks and despite the withering attacks of others on the other side, they continue to host job fairs filled with employers hiring directly because of stimulus grants and programs.

We are told that over half the GOP Caucus, 114 lawmakers who voted to kill the stimulus, then took credit for its success, hosting job fairs, touting the stimulus, doing press releases every time a stimulus award was announced.

So, I guess they want to have it both ways. They want to be out here criticizing the Recovery Act, but when they go home, they are standing and posing for pictures, handing checks to their constituents and small businesses with stimulus money.

So I would again urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to at least be consistent. If you are going to oppose the Stimulus Act, the American Recovery Act, don't go home and take credit for it. Don't go home and say ``I did this for you'' when you were here in Washington and you voted to deny your communities the very money that is helping to create some jobs.

I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I think the gentlelady from North Carolina kind of just summed it all up. The Republican message to workers all across the country is, We don't want you to have good wages; we don't want you to have good benefits; we don't want you to have good retirement. We want to go back to the days when you get paid less; when one job doesn't earn enough for you to be able to support your family. I've never heard anybody get up before and talk about and advocate lower wages for people. They're all upset that a researcher at NIH trying to find a cure for cancer or a cure to Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease is somehow being overpaid. I've heard a lot of things on this floor, but I've never had anyone come out and

decry the fact that workers in this country should be paid less.

My friend from North Carolina always likes to talk about the fact that government should act more like a business. Well, I want to remind her that the bill that we are talking about here today, the telework bill--telework practices have been adopted by the private sector all throughout the country. I will give you an example. Teleworking allows IBM to reduce office space and save $56 million per year every year. Well, it works in the private sector. Why don't we take that example of where the private sector is able to save some money and bring it to the government sector where we may be able to save some money. If we can save tens of millions of dollars each year, that is a good thing. Maybe we can take that money and put it toward deficit reduction. But the idea to come out here and to be against this bill because of unions and all this other stuff, I think, is ridiculous.

This is a commonsense measure that's going to save the American taxpayer a lot of money. I urge all my colleagues, Democratic and Republican alike, to support this commonsense measure.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this is laughable. If we're talking about trying to reduce the deficit and get the debt under control, this is the best that we can get, you know, not putting up signs? I mean, how about paying for the tax cuts for the rich that my friends on the other side of the aisle passed? Hundreds of billions of dollars in debt that you put on the backs of my kids and my grandkids so that the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country can get a tax break? Why don't you pay for that, if you want to get this deficit or this debt under control? Signs, that's the best we can do?

Again, with respect to the distinguished minority whip, who I heard again beat up on the stimulus package, it's funny that he beats up on the stimulus package here, but when he goes home, he holds a job fair that so everybody can take advantage of the of the stimulus package. Employer after employer after employer in the gentleman from Virginia's district has received money from the stimulus package so they can create more jobs, and the gentleman takes credit for it, and so do a great many people on the other side of the aisle.

I find it somewhat hypocritical that on one hand we're here saying, ``We don't like it,'' but when you go back home, you tell everybody, ``Oh, this is what I'm doing for you.''

But if you want to get serious about reducing our deficit, we have a bipartisan commission set up to try to make recommendations to this Congress. We need to do it holistically. It's going to be tough. We all want to do it. But to come up and say, ``Oh, you know, our suggestion is to eliminate the signs on projects that benefit from money from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act,'' I think that's just silly.

I would urge my colleagues again to remember the underlying bill that we're talking about, this telework bill, will save tens of millions of dollars for the taxpayers. Those tens of millions of dollars I would bet is a lot more than the signs and could be put toward deficit reduction or could be put toward what I think needs to happen right now, which is that we need to extend unemployment benefits to those who are struggling in this difficult economy. Unfortunately, my Republican friends don't agree to that, and they are blocking it in the Senate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, again, I am always interested in what my colleagues have to say today. But where were they when President Bush and the administration sent out a press release on the prescription drug bill that they didn't pay for that cost millions and millions of dollars to all the senior citizens of this country? There was silence. And if we want to have a serious discussion about deficit reduction, which I think we should, this is where we begin? Why don't we talk about paying for the Bush tax cuts for the rich? Why not offset those tax cuts? Why not pay for them? Why not have that discussion? My friends talk about the deficit, but they didn't have any problem adding hundreds of billions of dollars onto the credit card for the prescription drug bill. They didn't think it was important to pay for it.

Under the Democratic leadership, we're abiding by PAYGO. We're paying for things as we go forward. My friends on the other side of the aisle, when they were in charge, they didn't do that. That's one of the reasons why we're in such trouble right now. But if you really want to reduce the deficit in this country, if you really want to get at the debt, if you really want to do this right, then we need a serious discussion; and the President, I think, has taken the first step toward that discussion by putting together a bipartisan commission to figure out how we do this.

And you know what? The recommendations are going to be such that none of us are going to like them, and we are going to have to make some tough decisions, and hopefully we'll do it together. If not, we'll do it alone. But I think the fact of the matter is getting the deficit under control is a priority. But I'll tell you this: You're not going to get the deficit under control unless you get the economy back on track, unless you put people back to work.

And I really regret that my friends on the other side of the aisle, every chance they get, try to undercut this President's economic agenda to try to create and incentivize more jobs. Every chance, every single chance, they object or they try to obstruct. Again, I will go back to what I said earlier. They come on the floor and they decry the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but then they go back to their districts and they do press conferences and they do press releases and they take all kinds of bows for all the money that they voted against. A lot of that money, Madam Speaker, is creating jobs in their districts. And the reason why, I guess, they're taking bows is because they see that some of the help to some of the small businesses and to some of their manufacturers and to some of the States and cities and towns for building their infrastructure is important to job creation.

So, again, let's get back to what we're here to talk about, which is this telework bill, which I think will save the Federal Government a great deal of money. I'm not the only one who thinks that. There are others in the private sector and in the public sector that have made the argument that if we do this right, we could save not just tens of millions of dollars but maybe hundreds of millions of dollars, and I think that's a good step for us to take. If my friends on the other side of the aisle don't want to take that step, fine. They can do what they usually do and obstruct everything. But this is good for the taxpayers of this country, and I hope that it passes with an overwhelming margin.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I'm a little bit confused. I don't know whether the gentleman supports the stimulus package or opposes the stimulus package.

On one hand, you know, Pennsylvania was one of the top recipients of aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A lot of bridges are

being repaired; a lot of highways are being fixed. Does the gentleman want to take that money back? Does he think that the people who worked on constructing those bridges and building those roads are somehow, those jobs aren't worth it?

The fact of the matter is, you know, it's another example of where, on one hand, my colleagues are saying we want more money for bridges and roads and infrastructure. And the very bill that delivered a lot more money for bridges and roads, they all voted against.

So I would again urge my colleagues to be consistent. And I would also urge them to support the underlying bill, this telework bill, which I think will save the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.

I'm happy to yield to the gentleman.

I reclaim my time. But the fact of the matter is a lot of infrastructure projects are going on in Pennsylvania right now. And the people who are working on those jobs are happy to have a job. And the people who run the State are happy that they are able to make some improvements because States have been suffering greatly as a result of this economy.

So, you know, I would also point out again that, for all the talk of jobs, when they were in charge, we were losing on average 750,000 jobs a month; 750,000 jobs a month we were losing when they were in charge.

We're now gaining jobs, not as many as we would like, but we're moving in a different direction. I don't want to go backwards. I don't want to go backwards to 22 consecutive months of job loss.

Barack Obama has created more jobs in 1 year than George Bush created in 8 years, and that is a fact. And so to all my colleagues who are talking about jobs, here's your choice: you can go backwards and experience once again historic job losses, or you can stick with this economic agenda, get through this difficult time, put people back to work, get this economy moving again and start paying down our debt.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlelady an additional 20 seconds to finish her statement.

Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I won't take the full 8 minutes, but I again want to point out a couple of facts to my colleagues here. We are faced with a very difficult economy, and this is an economy that President Obama inherited. He is trying to dig this economy out of the ditch that my friends on the other side of the aisle dug us into. It is not easy, and it's not going to happen overnight.

But it is a fact that Barack Obama has created more jobs in 1 year than George Bush created in 8 years. We were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs on average each month when President Bush was in office. We are now gaining jobs; not as many as we would like, not as fast as we would like, but we are moving in a very different direction. We're moving in the direction where we are creating more jobs, and we're moving toward a healthier economy. That is just the fact.

And the question is, Do we try to work with this administration to get this economy back on a strong footing, or are we going to try to obstruct everything and root for failure?

I mean, my friends on the other side of the aisle, their whole kind of, their whole platform is based on this President failing, on this economy failing. How cynical can you get?

The fact is, we have a lot of work to do, and we need to focus on jobs. Jobs is the issue. We need to extend unemployment benefits to those who have lost their jobs, mostly through no fault of their own.

We need to help them get through this difficult time. I regret that my Republican friends in the Senate continue to obstruct the extension of unemployment benefits. I hope nobody goes home for an August recess until unemployment benefits are extended.

My friends say we can't afford to pay for it. Can't afford to pay to help people in our own country. Yet last week $33 billion in borrowed money for nation building that supports a corrupt government in Afghanistan. They all support it. No questions asked. All borrowed money. And I get it. You know, if you think it's important, fine. But if nation building in Afghanistan is important, a little bit more nation building here in the United States of America is important.

We have to take care of our people here who are experiencing very difficult times because of the troubled economy. We just can't sit here and bicker and bicker and bicker and let people lose their homes and let people not be able to pay their bills or put food on their table.

The fact of the matter is, Madam Speaker, this President has accomplished a great deal in a very short time. And my expectation is that if we continue to follow his economic agenda, that we will see this economy get on stronger footing. The bill that's before us, the telework bill, I think is a good bill. It will save the taxpayers lots of money. IBM, a private-sector company, says it saved them tens of millions of dollars each year. If it can save IBM tens of millions of dollars each year, it ought to save the Federal Government hundreds of millions. Let us take that money, put it toward deficit reduction or put it toward helping our people who are in deep trouble as this economy tries to recover.

Madam Speaker, I would close by urging my colleagues to support the rule. I would urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question on the rule.

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

I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for yielding time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, as has become routine in this Congress, it's my sad duty to come before you yet again today to speak in opposition to spending this House's valuable time to consider a bill that would do absolutely nothing to respond to the very real concerns facing Americans every day.

Here we are with a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, the largest deficit in our history, and the national debt at almost $14 trillion. The response of the

liberal Democratic leadership? A bill making it easier for Federal employees to stay at home to work and creating more government union jobs.

Here we are with a financial crisis of global proportions resulting from an unprecedented expansion of government. The response of liberal Democratic leadership? A resolution recognizing National Train Day.

Here we are with a torrent of oil gushing into the gulf day after day, depriving untold numbers of people of their livelihoods. The liberal Democratic response? A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of RV Centennial Celebration Month to recognize and honor a hundred years of the enjoyment of recreational vehicles in the United States.

In fact, this Congress so far has considered no fewer than 73 bills naming post offices, 36 measures recognizing sporting events and achievements, and 145 designations or recognitions for various days, weeks, months, or years.

Despite these very real problems, the liberal Democrats ruling Congress are running around the country trying to convince the American people that everything is just fine and they don't need to worry because the Democrats are solving their problems. While government employees and their union handlers might be satisfied with the liberal Democrat jobs agenda, try asking the small business men forced to close their doors or the 7 million private business employees who've lost their jobs since the liberal Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 and want to get back to work. This is the wrong bill at the wrong time.

And with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

As I have said before on the floor here to my colleagues who want to rewrite history, they can't blame everything on President Bush. They can't continue to do that. And they want to give President Clinton all the credit.

But, of course, the Congress was controlled by the Republicans for 6 of the 8 years that President Clinton was in office. It's the Congress that controls the spending. Our Democratic colleagues know that. They simply choose to ignore it when it suits their arguments.

Let me quote from the Wall Street Journal article of the 13th of July. It's very recent, so my colleagues may not have seen it.

The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth--and I won't read the entire article; but, Madam Speaker, I insert the entire article into the Record.

I would be happy to yield to my friend from California.

Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague for pointing out the very important issue of the percentage of debt to the GDP because it is an important issue and our friends across the aisle have created much of that problem along with our President. They have been in charge since January 2007, and that's where the problem comes from.

[From the Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2010]

The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth

(By Brian Riedl)

President Obama and congressional Democrats are blaming

their trillion-dollar budget deficits on the Bush tax cuts of

2001 and 2003. Letting these tax cuts expire is their answer.

Yet the data flatly contradict this ``tax cuts caused the

deficits'' narrative. Consider the three most persistent

myths:

The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), for example, has long blamed the

tax cuts for having ``taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and

turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see.'' That

$5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by

the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to

cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic

growth and the stockmarket bubble (which had already peaked)

would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues.

It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no

natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would

fall to 1930s levels.

The projected $5.6 trillion surplus between 2002 and 2011

will more likely be a $6.1 trillion deficit through September

2011. So what was the cause of this dizzying, $11.7 trillion

swing? I've analyzed CBO's 28 subsequent budget baseline

updates since January 2001. These updates reveal that the

much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just

14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits

(and that is according to a ``static'' analysis, excluding

any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by

the cuts).

The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical

revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on

the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts

(3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those earning more than

$250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there

were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors

would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over

the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except

2007.

The next decade's deficits are the result of the previous

administration's profligacy. Mr. Obama asserted in his

January State of the Union Address that by the time he took

office, ``we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and

projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most

of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax

cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.''

In short, it's all President Bush's fault. But Mr. Obama's

assertion fails on three grounds.

First, the wars, tax cuts and the prescription drug program

were implemented in the early 2000s, yet by 2007 the deficit

stood at only $161 billion. How could these stable policies

have suddenly caused trillion-dollar deficits beginning in

2009? (Obviously what happened was collapsing revenues from

the recession along with stimulus spending.)

Second, the president's $8 trillion figure minimizes the

problem. Recent CBO data indicate a 10-year baseline deficit

closer to $13 trillion if Washington maintains today's tax-

and-spend policies--whereby discretionary spending grows with

the economy, war spending winds down, ObamaCare is

implemented, and Congress extends all the Bush tax cuts, the

Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch, and the Medicare ``doc

fix'' (i.e., no reimbursement cuts).

Under this realistic baseline, the 10-year cost of

extending the Bush tax cuts ($3.2 trillion), the Medicare

drug entitlement ($1 trillion), and Iraq and Afghanistan

spending ($515 billion) add up to $4.7 trillion. That's

approximately one-third of the $13 trillion in baseline

deficits--far from the majority the president claims.

Third and most importantly, the White House methodology is

arbitrary. With Washington set to tax $33 trillion and spend

$46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine

which policies ``caused'' the $13 trillion deficit? Mr. Obama

could have just as easily singled out Social Security ($9.2

trillion over 10 years), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion),

other Medicare spending ($5.4 trillion), net interest on the

debt ($6.1 trillion), or nondefense discretionary spending

($7.5 trillion).

There's no legitimate reason to single out the $4.7

trillion in tax cuts, war funding and the Medicare drug

entitlement. A better methodology would focus on which

programs are expanding and pushing the next decade's deficit

up.

Declining revenues are driving future deficits. The fact is

that rapidly increasing spending will cause 100% of rising

long-term deficits. Over the past 50 years, tax revenues have

deviated little from their 18% of gross domestic product

(GDP) average. Despite a temporary recession-induced dip, CBO

projects that even if all Bush tax cuts are extended and the

AMT is patched, tax revenues will rebound to 18.2% of GDP by

2020--slightly above the historical average. They will

continue growing afterwards.

Spending--which has averaged 20.3% of GDP over the past 50

years--won't remain as stable. Using the budget baseline

deficit of $13 trillion for the next decade as described

above, CBO figures show spending surging to a peacetime

record 26.5% of GDP by 2020 and also rising steeply

thereafter.

Putting this together, the budget deficit, historically

2.3% of GDP, is projected to leap to 8.3% of GDP by 2020

under current policies. This will result from Washington

taxing at 0.2% of GDP above the historical average but

spending 6.2% above its historical average.

Entitlements and other obligations are driving the

deficits. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

and net interest costs are projected to rise by 5.4% of GDP

between 2008 and 2020. The Bush tax cuts are a convenient

scapegoat for past and future budget woes. But it is the

dramatic upward arc of federal spending that is the root of

the problem.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I just want to quickly respond to two things that my colleague from Massachusetts said.

He talks about the fact that the Federal Government is paying for wars. Well, let me say that the Constitution of the United States says, ``We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,'' et cetera. It is the role of the Federal Government to protect us in this country. It is the only entity in our country who can do that. It is our role.

The other comment he makes is ``tax cuts for the rich.'' My colleague, just like almost all my colleagues across the aisle, have an assumption that all the money that is generated in this country belongs to the government and that if there is a tax cut provided, that that is a gift from the government to the people getting the tax cut.

No, Madam Speaker, that is not right. The government is not in control in this country. The people are in control. And for them to have that assumption is the biggest part of the problem that we have here right now.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee (Mr. Dreier).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I can assure my colleague across the aisle that I wasn't one of those people who went home to take credit for the Stimulus Act. So he needs to take that issue up with those who have done it and not paint us all with the same brush.

Madam Speaker, the underlying bill proposes spending $30 million creating a variety of initiatives promoting telework opportunities to allow Federal employees to work at home. This bill would require each Federal agency to create a teleworking managing officer. But there are many people who wonder if creating this kind of a situation is going to improve efficiency among Federal employees, and it may even reduce the productivity of the Federal Government.

While the 3 million Americans who have lost their jobs since President Obama took office are asking, Where are the jobs we were promised, the Congress is pushing this initiative to make it easier for Federal employees who already have it much better than the rest of the country to avoid coming to work. So why is this bill so popular with the ruling liberal Democrats? Perhaps it has something to do with their longstanding subservience to labor unions.

New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that a majority of American union members now work for the government. That's 52 percent of all union members now work for the Federal, State, or local government, representing a sharp increase from the 49 percent in 2008. A full 37.4 percent of government employees belonged to the unions in 2009, up six-tenths of a percent from 2008. This shift toward representing government employees has changed the union movement's priorities, as unions now campaign for higher taxes on Americans to fund more government spending.

These changes in union membership are certainly not surprising, as unionized companies do poorly in the marketplace and lose jobs relative to their nonunion competitors. Government employees, however, face no competition, as the government never goes out of business. The recession has left union bosses looking for new membership targets--and where better to look than in the government, which they see as having the deepest of all pockets and a host of sympathetic liberal Democratic politicians eager to please their political base. In fact, as reported by USA Today, overall, Federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,000. These salary figures don't include the value of health, pension, and other benefits, which average $40,785 per Federal employee in 2008 versus $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. So the average Federal employee's benefits are worth four times what the average benefits are worth in the private sector.

A March 26, 2010, Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ``The Government Pay Boom'' reveals that ``the real windfall for government workers is in benefits.'' And it goes on to talk about how these benefits are growing, growing, growing. We know that the number of Federal employees making over $100,000 has increased by almost 5 percent since 2007, since the Democrats took over in Congress. Currently, there are more people in the Federal Government making in excess of $100,000 than those making $40,000.

Since the recession began in 2007, public worker pay has risen 7.8 percent, while private-sector wages remain stagnant. The 2010 pay increase for Federal civilian employees was 2 percent. In 2009, the average Federal employee received a pay raise of 3.9 percent, and an average pay increase of 3.5 percent in 2008. In 2007, the Department of Transportation had only one employee making over $170,000. At the end of last year, it had 1,690 employees making that amount.

Madam Speaker, we are growing the Federal Government while we have a 9.7 percent unemployment rate in the private sector. This is unacceptable to the American people. That's why we should vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on this bill, because we are not heeding what the American people want us to do.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Republican whip, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Madam Speaker, I will invite my colleague from Massachusetts, when he speaks again, to give us the citation for the study that he's talking about that shows that this bill will save tens of millions of dollars. I have done a little research on it myself, and I will be talking about that study. But I would invite him to prove to the American people that this will save money.

And I want to point out to him that he's poking fun at Republicans on recommending that we save money on signs, but what he was really doing is poking fun at the American people. It wasn't the Republicans on this side of the aisle who came up with this. It's the American people who voted on this, and the American people understand the biblical admonition, If you are a good steward of small things, you will be a good steward of big things. We should start where we can save money. And I agree with the people. This is a good place to start.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Schock).

Madam Speaker, I just want to point out to my colleague from Massachusetts that the Republicans can't obstruct the President's effort because we are in the minority. And we don't have to obstruct him anyway because they've all failed. Nothing has worked that the President and our friends across the aisle have tried, and so they're going to fail of their own weight.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster).

Madam Speaker, my colleague again is very selectively using statistics. He knows that he cannot back up the data that says that in the first year of President Obama's administration he has created more jobs than in all the Bush administration.

I have this chart which shows the unemployment rate under President Obama, under President Bush; and, again, we had many more jobs created under President Bush than have been created under President Obama, because all we've done is lose jobs under President Obama and create government jobs.

That's the whole issue here, Madam Speaker. We've lost four million jobs since President Obama took office. That's it.

And, you know, my colleague across the aisle says we need to be consistent. Well, he should be consistent. This will bring savings immediately, what we're proposing. What he's talking about might bring savings 30 years down the road. In fact, the study that I asked him to talk about, there's no study, Madam Speaker. I asked for a copy of the study. You know what it is? An article that was in the newspaper last February when we shut the government down, or the Democrats shut the government down for a week. They were losing $100 million a day. But they found out 30 percent of the people were logging into their computers, so they call that a savings of $30 million per day.

Listen, the American people are tired of that kind of thing being passed off as a study. There is no study.

Madam Speaker, this bill does not need to be passed. This rule does not need to be passed.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment and extraneous material be placed in the Record prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise with serious concerns with H.R. 1722, the Telework Improvement Act. This began as a bipartisan bill, and if our one opportunity, a motion to recommit, is passed, it will have an opportunity to end as a bipartisan bill. There is no

question in my mind that telework is the future. It, in fact, is the present. Virtually every Member of Congress has remote access. Virtually every Member of Congress and many of their staff carry BlackBerrys and use other tools so that we can work here and around the world. It would be just about impossible for a Member of Congress and their key staff to bounce back and forth between their far-away districts, here on the Hill, and various meetings if we didn't have the ability to be portable in our information access. So we are not here to talk about telework as though it is a bad thing, because it can be an extremely effective tool.

We do have concerns. One of our specific concerns in the underlying legislation is, at a time in which we're borrowing nearly 40 percent of the operating cash of our government--put in another way, once you get past entitlements, everything we spend is borrowed--it would seem ridiculous that something that can save money, that is argued to save money, in fact, is not required to be at least neutral in its expenditure. This bill is expected to cost millions of dollars per year and, like most government estimates, is likely to cost far more than that if it's expanded to its logical conclusion.

So, Madam Speaker, it is my hope that as we begin offering what we were not allowed to offer under the rule, which would be any amendments that would curtail the millions of dollars in costs over 5 years or to deal with the reality that if you're going to claim that you can save the construction of office buildings, you should be required to show that you are saving it. If you claim that you are going to be more efficient by not having a commute time, you should at least be required to show it. Additionally, we are very concerned that recent discoveries have shown that there are vulnerabilities which have not been properly cared for in this bill. The bill authorizes it but does not require it.

I am, however, pleased that in a number of areas, the majority has made improvements and has taken many suggestions. The committee did work, as you would expect us to, in favor of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal workforce in getting this bill as far as we could go. It is my sincere hope that one and only one opportunity to further amend would be accepted and that this will be a broadly bipartisan bill at the end.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), one of the cosponsors of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The chairman and the majority leader both make good points, and I would like to address them for just a moment. The chairman, who I have had a good working relationship with, made the point that this passed out of committee without anything left unresolved. And to a certain extent I would agree with him. Except of course we didn't have a score on this. We never do. We didn't know what this bill was going to cost. And when we discovered that this was going to cost millions of dollars every year, we made it clear before the last round of a request for a vote that we would have to find an offset or we would have to modify the bill to ensure that it would not cause the taxpayers to look at this as simply a perk for government.

Because ultimately we can talk about morale, but the Federal workforce makes on the average $60,000 more than their private-sector counterparts. So morale should already be good in an organization the size of the government that has added a quarter of a million new workers since we went into a recession.

There is no question that telework can justify this if it's done properly. Our amendment is going to seek, our one motion to recommit-- we weren't allowed any amendments--to try to at least trim around the edges to have our Members be able to go home and say of course we supported telework, but we made sure there were some safeguards of the American people's money.

The amendments that we tried to offer to what was known in advance to be a closed rule, a please do not suggest, create a process problem that I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will be sensitive, along with the American people, to. Our committee has 40 or so members. That's roughly one-tenth of the Congress. So 9 out of 10 Members of the House never get an opportunity to be there. As a matter of fact, including the Delegates, it works out just exactly as 10 percent. So 400 people didn't have input when we were working this through committee.

Some may have noticed the bill, but as the majority leader said, he has been working on this for 20 years. Who would have thought it would come to the floor now? So can we as a body deny the process of 400 people, 400 voters, if you will, or representatives of voters, including yourself, Mr. Speaker? How can we deny you the ability to look at something when it's going to become a bill on the floor and offer constructive amendments?

The process of the Rules Committee is supposed to deal with germaneness. It's supposed to deal with whether or not your amendment is properly written, whether it seeks to amend a portion of the bill allowed to be amended. That's not the way it is here in the House right now. We had amendments perfectly allowable, and they simply were ruled out because you could. So we will use our one opportunity, our motion to recommit. We trust that we have written it properly, and that it will be found to be in order. And we trust that both sides will see that it is modest, it's moderate, it's intended simply to deal with cost and other concerns in the bill.

There is no killer in this bill. There's nothing the American people would not be happy with in this bill the way it is. And there is nothing they will be unhappy with if the motion to recommit passes. We structured it that way. We would like to have something that started off as bipartisan end as bipartisan.

Mr. Speaker, I truly believe we are going to have that opportunity. I would hope that everyone in this body will view it that way, look at it carefully, come to the same conclusion, and we will leave here today on a bipartisan basis.

I reserve the balance of my time.

If the gentleman would yield, that's correct.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. It's pay and benefits.

At $175,000, one Congressman to another, yes. The typical American making $35,000 or $40,000 understands we make a lot more.

In pay and benefits.

Even though it's not germane to today, I'll be glad to make that available to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I note the gentlelady acts as though already everybody teleworks. It's very clear that the people who were able to telework, that, quote, saved us $30 million during that snowstorm, were the people who have redundant activities, for the most part, people who had a duplicate computer, duplicate capacity. That costs money. That is an item that we simply want to make sure is cost justified.

You know, many people on the other side of the aisle, including the next speaker, have talked about the private sector. Well, I, for one, came from the private sector, and I very much understand that we do a cost benefit.

The previous speaker talked about insurance salesmen. You don't care where they are. That's right. An insurance salesman is usually a commission person. It's somebody who's very accountable for their pay because it's earned and justified against revenue. More importantly, even their package of perks is figured into that.

So, in the private sector, if somebody costs, if you will, $190,000 dollars--or as the average Federal worker costs, nonuniformed, $119,000 per worker versus $59,000 in the private sector--in the private sector they know what their sales or revenues or profits are relative to that cost. In the public sector, we don't.

All we're seeking to do, all we're talking about here today is we want telework to be used and rolled out extensively where it can be at least revenue or cost-neutral relative to alternatives of bringing people in. That's all we're asking for. We believe it's reasonable.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself just 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Virginia was accurate in almost everything he said, but the one part that I'd like to correct is we don't need more time. We had sufficient time, once the scoring was in, to figure out what needed to be changed among the various hundred or so Republicans who were not on the committee, and we offered them. And the gentleman from Virginia is not on the Rules Committee so he's not part of that hidden hand that simply doesn't allow any dissent or any amendments or any corrections once a decision has been made by the majority. So, you know, I appreciate the fact he has been good to work with and that he is not somebody who would have limited that, and we would be happy to share all of our amendments if we had a chance of having them ruled in.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

As I begin, my staff is bringing over to the chairman a copy of something I am going to include in the Record from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce. The chairman may recognize the Department of Commerce is part of the administration and part of government.

Their assessment in 2008--and it has only become greater--is that we have as Federal workers against average--this is not against average of job per job but just against the working stiff, whatever they do in the outside world versus the working stiff in government, $29,169.63 of additional wages. What makes the huge difference the American people don't always see is that in the private sector, a typical benefit package is about $9,881. Well, a civilian Federal Government employee has a benefit package on the average worth about $40,784 or $30,900 more.

So, Mr. Speaker, we do have the Department of Commerce currently, during the Obama administration, telling us very clearly--not that engineer versus engineer. I appreciate the way

you can match up various jobs, but the Federal workforce is a highly skilled and highly paid workforce, and we should understand that if we are going to have telework go greater and greater--and I approve of it doing it--we have two reasons to do it.

One is continuity of government, and sometimes continuity of government can cost more. It can be for redundant computers, redundant centers and so on, no question at all. But often it is, and as it is justified in this bill by many of the people speaking on it on both sides of the aisle, it is also about avoiding traffic, avoiding building new buildings, avoiding heating and air conditioning, avoiding costs. All the minority would like to make sure is that this expansion meets one of those requirements or the other. If it is necessity and it costs more, fine. Of course you can have redundant facilities; but if it is intended to be cost savings, let's make sure it's cost savings.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, although we have 12 minutes left on our side in debate, I don't intend to use it. I also don't intend to continue to have the American people hear haggling on the House floor about how much one side gets paid or another. For that reason, I will today post at republicans.oversight.house.gov the Department of Commerce report in sufficient detail for people to realize that $60,072.97 is roughly the additional amount in pay and benefits that Federal employees receive than the average private sector.

But the interesting thing about the Federal workforce versus the gentleman who was talking about commuting from Bridgeport and other parts in his State, is they are not laid off. They are not suffering. As a matter of fact, they have been net-hired. The growth that has occurred over the last 2 years has been in government. The pay increases have been in government. The benefit increases have been in government.

Now, we are not talking about telework as a benefit, although some speakers have talked about family time because you can telework and so on. We are talking about telework for one of two reasons that are justified, and Republicans will today, I hope, vote for the motion to recommit and then vote for final passage, because it either is part of the job of government, the sustainability, the continuity of government, and we want to make sure we use telework in order to advance that, or remote access, if you will, or it saves the taxpayers dollars.

If someone doesn't drive for an hour and they work an hour more remotely, that is a good thing. But if we are simply improving quality of life, having redundant computers at a cost of several thousand dollars plus several more thousand dollars in maintenance and overhead and renewal and software support, Mr. Speaker, we are not doing what the American people expect us to do.

The American people expect us to start being safeguarders of their precious money, which isn't even current but the money we are going to have to take from them in the future to pay back what we are borrowing today.

If we don't start counting the pennies, the nickles and the dollars and make sure they are well spent, then it is very clear we will never get to any kind of an affordable government, a balanced budget, and there will be an inevitably that the United States will look too much like Greece and not enough like the country that we were so proud of this past Fourth of July.

We have a great tradition, a tradition of small government and large private sector. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that our government works more efficiently so we can have a smaller government that meets the basic requirements, not that we simply expand government with one after another programs.

With that, I fully expect that we will make this bill better, that we will continue to work on telework being to the advantage of the American taxpayer and not simply an additional item to be spent.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, this is a straightforward motion. It is a motion that, if passed, will cause the Republicans to vote for this, if not unanimously, virtually unanimously. If we take out the $30 million in cost by insisting that there be reasonable offsets, then we will in fact have fixed one of the problems that was unnecessary in the bill. Additionally, as was so well read by our Clerk just a moment ago, it is very, very clear that there are some small areas but meaningful areas. We do not want the American people to believe that telecommuters are downloading pornography full time the way $200,000-plus executives at SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, were doing.

Now, I wanted to include in the motion to recommit that if you're found downloading while telecommuting, you'd be fired, but it turns out, Mr. Speaker, the rules of the House prevent me from offering that. I am not allowed under the rules to insist on behalf of the American people that somebody be terminated if they've downloaded endless pornography while telecommuting. So instead we have simply said in the motion to recommit that if they're found downloading pornography, they can no longer telecommute.

Likewise, on a number of other areas we feel that the American people should know that there is accountability. Accountability as to the Presidential Records Act. Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Presidential Records Act is extremely important. That if somebody is working offsite, we want to ensure that they do not use a Gmail account or in some other way go off system and have that lost for the rest of eternity. It is too important and it is too uniform a law to not make sure it is included in this Act. Additionally, the question of official business.

Now, often motions to recommit include poison pills. This is not one. We wanted to make sure that if there's a union contract in which there's union negotiation or other time allotted--official time--that it not be done clandestinely around telecommuting. The fact is that if a union leader who is also a Federal employee has a right to have so much time spent doing that, this would not stop them, but it would make it very clear that you can't simply be working out of your house and use that as collective bargaining time or other work that would not be manageable.

It's very clear that we were limited in this. This does not fix everything, Mr. Speaker. This does not fix everything I'd like to fix, but it simply makes the bill revenue neutral and in a couple of important areas assures the American people that their taxpayer dollars are not being misused while someone is telecommuting.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my colleague from New York for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

After their thorough drubbing on Election Day, it makes sense for the Democrats to revisit this metaphysical question. Despite the abundance of evidence and warnings from pollsters, from authorities across the political spectrum and from the American people, the liberals maintain their losses were due to miscommunication and voter ignorance, all resulting from the sour economy and nothing more.

They refuse to acknowledge the reality that voters rejected the liberals' government takeover of health care and the process that accompanied its passage. They refuse to recognize that their endless bailouts of megabanks, automobile manufacturers and unions could have possibly led to the historical election results. Stubbornly clinging to their failed prescription of bigger government and ever-increasing taxes, the liberals continue to defend the stimulus and their extravagant spending as cornerstones of their futile efforts at healing the economy.

So perhaps the question should now become: If American voters roundly reject the failed liberal agenda, will any Democrats notice? By continuing to spend hard-earned taxpayer money in an irresponsible fashion, it appears obvious that the answer is ``no.''

Republicans have been listening to the American people and warning the ruling liberal Democrats of the consequences of their Big Government overreach. However, those who think of themselves as liberal elites in Washington seem to have been the only ones in the country to have missed the writing on the wall and the message of November 2. The ruling Democrat regime ignored the clear evidence of voter discontent, and they continue their march lockstep with a liberal agenda which would embarrass many European states.

Their minions blindly followed further expanding government with nearly every bill they passed. Then, on November 2, the voters showed their feelings by removing the gavel from the grip of San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi. The liberals' response to an election of such historic proportions: Blame voter ignorance and the marginalized minority congressional Republicans. Voters rejected unconscionable spending and deficit increases. They rejected a government takeover of health care. They rejected the Federal ownership of any industry deemed too incompetent to fail, but they also rejected the heavy handed, autocratic rule of congressional liberals.

If we accept as truth liberal claims that unemployment is the exclusive issue of concern to all voters, one must wonder what the liberals plan to do about the stalled economy now that the voters have forced them to refocus.

The answer to reducing the unemployment rate: Pass flawed legislation that makes it easier for Federal employees to stay at home and get paid for work.

There it is, folks. The liberal Democrat elites have found the solution that has evaded them for so long. It is not to keep tax rates for small businesses from rising. It is not to look at ways to cut spending so that more capital is available to the private sector. It is not pushing for improved trade agreements that will increase exports and help restore our balance of trade. It is not to shrink the size and number of Federal regulations that are slowing job creation in the private sector.

No. Madam Speaker and ladies and gentlemen, they bring us an opportunity to reinvigorate America's strength by spending $30 million more to make it easier for Federal employees to work from home.

On September 30, 2010, the Senate passed H.R. 1722 with an amendment--adopted by unanimous consent--stripping out almost all of the provisions added to the bill by the House under a successful motion to recommit offered by Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Issa. The bipartisan House MTR provisions that were stripped out by the Senate are provisions which would:

require each agency to certify that the telework program will save money before authorizing any employees to telework; prohibit employees from engaging in any union or collective bargaining activities while teleworking; require employees of the executive office of the President to carbon copy their official email accounts on any official business communications that are made on personal email and social media accounts; make employees ineligible for telework if they have fraudulently applied for and received low-income home energy assistance payments for which they are ineligible or have seriously delinquent tax debts.

The removal of these provisions by the Senate will raise the cost of this legislation and will provide a teleworking benefit to individuals who clearly should not be entrusted with increased latitude and autonomy. Absent these provisions, telework becomes another perk for Federal workers whose salaries and other compensation already surpass those of their private sector counterparts.

The American people have grown tired of waiting for real solutions to

their problems. Fortunately, help is on the way. In January, this House will set a new course towards protecting individual liberties and shrinking the unending expansion of the suffocating Federal bureaucracy. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I just point out to my colleague from Oregon that telework already exists. Federal employees can do it already. What this bill does is allocate $30 million and create more bureaucracy. We're not stopping telework. We're not creating telework. We're expanding it and spending more money.

Madam Speaker, with that, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Madam Speaker, our colleague from Oregon has just given us another example of how out of touch our colleagues across the aisle are. If he thinks that public radio is balanced and unbiased and our taking away that funding will have serious consequences, he is obviously not in touch with the American people. Republicans are in touch with the American people. That's why we're making this proposal. I live in a rural area, and I understand that.

Again, you're blaming the victim. You're blaming the voters. Please, don't blame the voters. That's not what they're looking for.

I now would like to yield 1 minute to my colleague from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

You know, before we took our recess to be at home for the elections, every bill that was brought here was about jobs. That didn't work, obviously, because our unemployment rate is still very high. Now, are we to believe that all the bills are going to be about national security? I hope that Osama bin Laden has been put on notice: This is going to improve our national security, and he'd better watch out.

Madam Speaker, the underlying bill here spends $30 million to create additional opportunities for Federal employees to work at home. The American people are suffering because of our unemployment rate. Because of the failed policies of this Congress and this administration, the American people are learning to do more with less. Why can't Federal employees learn to do that? They are soon going to have to do that.

This is a travesty, to come here with our economy in the situation that it's in and say, We're going to appropriate $30 million more in order for Federal employees to stay at home. H.R. 1722 requires each Federal agency to create a teleworking managing officer, even though some agencies may not be big enough to warrant such a position.

So, again, the Democrats' answer to the 9.6 percent unemployment rate that has persisted for almost 2 years and the $1.3 trillion deficit is to create more Federal jobs and require that some of those Federal Government workers be allowed to work from home. Give me a break. The nearly 4 million Americans--3.811 million--who have lost their jobs since President Obama took office and over 6 million who have lost their jobs since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker in January 2007 continue to ask where are the jobs that they were promised.

The Congress is pushing this initiative to make it easier for Federal employees, who already have it much better than the rest of the country, to avoid the office. So why is this bill so popular with the ruling liberal Democrats? Perhaps it has something to do with their longstanding subservience to labor unions. According to the latest figures available on OpenSecrets.org, big labor donated $49,710,561, or 93 percent of its total campaign contributions, to Democrats and $3,444,042, or 6 percent, to Republicans in the last election cycle. Surely money like that isn't going to be wasted pushing legislation good for private sector employees.

It's true that a majority of American union members now work for the government, as 52 percent of all union members now work for the government, representing a sharp increase from the 49 percent in 2008. A full 37.4 percent of government employees belonged to unions in 2009, up 0.6 percentage points from 2008.

These changes in union membership are certainly not surprising, as unionized companies do poorly in the marketplace and lose jobs relative to their nonunion competitors. Government employees, however, face no competition as the government never goes out of business.

The recession has left union bosses looking for new membership targets, and where better to look than in government, which they see as having the deepest of all pockets and a host of sympathetic liberal Democrat politicians eager to please their political base.

In fact, according to the Heritage Foundation, when accounting for wages and benefits, the total average annual compensation for a private-sector worker is $60,078, as compared to $111,015 for the average Federal worker, representing an astonishing 85 percent compensation differential.

A March 26, 2010, Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ``The Government Pay Boom'' reveals that: ``Nearly this entire benefits gap is accounted for by unionized public employees. Nonunion public employees are paid roughly what private workers receive.

``The union response is that government workers deserve all this because they're more educated and highly skilled. That may account for some of the pay differential, but not the blowout benefits. The unions also neglect one of the greatest perks of government employment: job security. Short of shooting up a Post Office, government workers rarely get fired or laid off.''

The Republican Study Committee released a policy brief recently indicating that the number of Federal employees making over $100,000 has increased by almost 15 percent since 2007. Currently, there are more people in the Federal Government making in excess of $100,000 than those making $40,000.

Since the recession began in 2007, public worker pay has risen 7.8 percent. While private-sector wages remain stagnant, the 2010 pay increase for Federal civilian employees was 2 percent. In 2009, the average Federal employee received a pay increase of 3.9 percent, and an average pay increase of 3.5 percent in 2008.

The average Federal salary, including benefits, is set to grow from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 in 2010.

In 2007, when the Democrats took over the Congress, the Department of Transportation had only one employee making over $170,000. At the end of last year it had 1,690 employees making that amount.

The Federal pay premium exists across all job categories, white collar, blue collar, management, professional, technical, and low skill.

Again, the public is asking, where are the jobs? Why aren't the Democrats who are in charge of the Congress doing something about private-sector jobs instead of focusing on creating more perks for Federal employees?

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Madam Speaker, the evidence is in. The liberal Democrat agenda has failed. They need to go back to the drawing board and come back to the American people with real solutions to their real problems. This isn't the time to dither and blame the Republican minority for the disappointing collapse of governance we've seen since the liberal majority seized control of Congress in 2007.

I urge my colleagues to take this opportunity to force the ruling liberal Democrats to rethink their misguided proposals by rejecting this rule and underlying bill to protest the liberal agenda that continues to distract from private-sector job creation and getting the economy back on its feet.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment and extraneous material be placed in the record prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so I can amend the rule to allow all Members of Congress the opportunity to vote to cut spending.

Republicans recently launched the YouCut initiative, which gives people an opportunity to vote for Federal spending they would like to see Congress cut. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have cast their votes, and this week they have directed their representatives in Congress to consider H.R. 5538, which is a bill that would prohibit Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent organization of National Public Radio, after fiscal 2012.

According to the Republican Whip's YouCut Web site, National Public Radio's recent decision to terminate commentator Juan Williams' contract because of comments he expressed on another station have brought newfound attention to NPR's receipt of taxpayer funds.

NPR receives taxpayer funding in two different ways. First, they receive direct government grants from various Federal agencies, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Department of Commerce, Department of Education, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Over the past 2 years, this direct funding has totaled approximately $9 million.

But NPR also receives taxpayer funds indirectly. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting makes grants to public radio stations. While some of these grants can be used for any purpose, some can be used only to acquire and produce programming. Often this programming is purchased from NPR. Indeed, programming fees and dues paid by local public radio stations to NPR accounts for approximately 40 percent of NPR's budget, or about $65 million last year. A portion of these funds were originally Federal tax dollars provided to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to the local public radio stations.

NPR receives a significant amount of funding from private individuals and organizations through donations and sponsorship. For example, in 2008, NPR listed over 32 separate private donors and sponsors who provided financial support in excess of half a million dollars that year.

NPR officials have indicated that taxpayer funding makes up only a small portion of their overall budget. Therefore, eliminating taxpayer support should not materially affect NPR's ability to operate while at the same time saving taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

In order to provide for consideration of this commonsense legislation, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentlewoman from California for the extension of the time, my friend from the Rules Committee, whom I enjoy working with very much.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and the underlying bill.

Yesterday in the Rules Committee, the Democrat majority once again shut out good Republican ideas while rolling 15 Democratic amendments into the manager's amendment. These were 15 Democrat requests to add into the bill, and the Rules Committee saw fit to get that done for those Members of the Democratic Party. This is not the way to have an open, honest Congress, as our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, promised in 2007.

Madam Speaker, what Republicans are going to talk about today is a number of issues, but perhaps key among them is the priority items that are on this floor today that is about more spending, more deficit spending, and against the ideas that this Speaker and the Democratic majority have talked about, about paying for bills.

I think what we are going to learn today, and as we move forward, is the Democratic Party is having problems making a decision about how they will pay for these bills because we have had so much massive spending, so many new programs, that this majority is incapable of setting any priorities. In other words, if you want something else, the public was sold, that the Democrats would be open to taking it from somewhere else and constantly making prioritization. In fact, that's not true. What it's all about is just adding in more spending and more debt without regard for making tough decisions.

I disagree with that. I think it's a bad policy. I think if you say you are going to require bills to be paid for under PAYGO, you should do that. Once again today we see where that is not true with another bill on the floor that is about spending more money. One hundred percent deficit spending in this bill.

Today I am also going to discuss other issues. And it's really about the bill. This bill is too costly. It raises serious questions about the Department of Energy's ability to effectively implement this program. And it will allow the Federal Government to pick winners and losers in the private sector while all of these companies are trying to take care of making us more efficient, but then picking the winners and losers.

H.R. 5019 would authorize $6.6 billion for what I am going to call a cash for caulkers program, $6.6 billion of new deficit spending. This bill would provide tax rebates to participating contractors and vendors who would perform qualifying energy-saving measures that meet efficiency and insulation targets in Federal standards. That's a whole lot of words for a program that in essence is too expensive, unnecessary, and I believe a waste of taxpayer dollars, especially at a time when growing deficits are causing this country to have failing markets and confidence in this government.

Republicans strongly support legislation that promotes effective energy efficiency. But 150,000 jobs, as are being talked about, for $6.6 billion on the back of the American taxpayer is not a good deal. It's not a fair trade. And to that point, the Democrats on the Rules Committee all voted against allowing my colleague Mr. Latta, the gentleman from Ohio, from even offering his amendment on the House floor today, which would have suspended the provisions of this bill if it added to the Federal deficit. This majority doesn't even want to have a conversation about controlling spending. And that's why they will continue to shut out Republican Members as they come to the Rules Committee with wise, prudent, and conservative ideas.

This 2-year program will be administered through the Department of Energy, which has already proven to be a terrible manager of the $4.7 billion from the economic stimulus weatherization program in which only 30,297 homes have been weatherized, about 5 percent of the stated overall goal of more than 600,000. These are all, I am sure, great ideas and lofty goals, but it's taxpayer spending, taxpayer money, and more deficit spending.

The Home Star Energy Retrofit Program will undoubtedly experience the

same administrative problems, implementation problems, and oversight problem for the Department of Energy. What a shame we just didn't give it directly to consumers rather than creating a program that then must be administered following Federal standards, Federal rules, and more and more and more participation from Washington, D.C. Allowing the Federal Government to get bigger and bloated and to control this process is not an efficient way to run this government or spend the American people's tax dollars.

Additionally, this legislation is not technology-neutral. It is not the role, I believe, of the Federal Government to pick winners and losers in the private sector, yet that's exactly what this bill does. This legislation lists 13 energy-saving measures that qualify for rebates of varying dollar amounts. That's right, we are going to tell people exactly how to do this and what qualifies.

There are many energy products that were left off the list or that will not qualify because of what are considered technical requirements. These are so numerous that we simply cannot effectively have a good program. It should be about effectiveness, saving energy, and allowing a consumer to be engaged in making these decisions so that we assure that the real cost and the delivery of that product was known and understood by the consumer, not just ordering something that came from the Federal Government, having somebody show up at your door, and then being reimbursed by the Federal Government, with the consumer being left out in the cold rather than a demand about what they were after and knowing what their needs are.

Over a year ago, Speaker Pelosi and the President promised that unemployment would not reach 8 percent or above. Since that time, 4 million Americans have lost their job. And that was a promise. We have now reached a 10.2 percent record unemployment rate, and continue to hover well over that promised 8 percent figure.

Madam Speaker, I believe the American people understand what this change has meant. It has meant a bigger Federal Government, record spending, and incredibly high deficits for as far as the eye can see and over the horizon. This is another example of the kind of political agenda that adds to that of the Speaker and the President that will, if all implemented, net lose over 10 million American jobs. Losing 10 million American jobs from a political agenda is a problem to the Republican Party.

We believe that the ability to make progress and work here in Congress for the best effort of the American people in the creation of jobs, not net loss of 10 million jobs, should be what this Congress should be focused on. You see, Madam Speaker, we think that America should be the employer nation. We believe that America has always led the way, the leader in the world to making sure we are competitive, and to make sure that we have a smaller, more efficient Federal Government, with unlimited opportunity for freedom for citizens back home. This bill effectively takes the citizenry, the consumer, out of the equation and puts the Federal Government central not only in people's lives, but central in paying the bill.

We should work with the investor and the free enterprise system. That is what has made us the global leader for our grandparents, our parents, and this current generation. We only have unemployment and this horrible high debt because of the political considerations of the Democratic Party and their agenda. And the Republican Party is on record again today as saying enough is enough.

The national debt continues to grow rapidly towards $13 trillion, yet our Democrat majority friends are spending billions of more dollars again today on an excessive program that sets burdensome technical requirements, picks private sector winners and losers, and hands the reins over to the Department of Energy to dole out the funds as it sees fit. Shuttling our responsibility, not allowing the amendments in the Rules Committee for commonsense legislation, rolling 15 Democrat amendments into the manager's amendment, and a $6.6 billion cost that will come directly from deficit spending, which means we have to go borrow and once again go to the world or the Chinese or others to say ``please help us'' is a bad way to run this business.

Madam Speaker, it is obvious to me that the political agenda is more that the Democrats want than the commonsense attributes of saying, enough is enough, let's know what we're doing.

So I am going to urge a ``no'' vote. I am going to urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and a ``no'' vote on the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, jobs are the issue, and so is debt. And taking debt of $6.5 billion to add to this deficit that we have got to pay for should be a priority. Spending five or six generations' worth of money in a year-and-a-half is not a good way to pass on a better America.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Bowling Green, Ohio (Mr. Latta).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 additional minutes to the gentleman from Ohio.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Ennis, Texas (Mr. Barton).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 2\1/ 2\ minutes to the gentleman from Auburn, Washington (Mr. Reichert).

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Clarence, New York, (Mr. Lee.)

Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire, if I can, upon the time remaining on both sides.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I will continue to reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The facts of the case are out on the table today. The Federal Government is going to run this program. It will determine the winners and losers. It will decide which of the technologies will be reimbursed. It will decide how this

program is going to work. We in essence take the consumer out of the equation. The taxpayer of this country, as the bill is written, will have $6.6 billion in new deficit and debt that will be on the future of this country, our children and our grandchildren. We will continue to have less ability to effectively have jobs in this country as a result of the continuing debt.

We have heard this story before. We heard about how great the stimulus was. Well, the stimulus, which was called a jobs bill, was about anything but jobs. It was about big government and diminishing the size of the free enterprise system.

The health care bill, oh, it's all about jobs. And we found out just days after that was passed, whoops, you better add another $600 billion to what the real cost will be because it was not included, despite the debate and all of the time on the floor. The health care bill was as much about health care as the stimulus was about jobs.

Here we are adding another promise from the Democrat majority: this is about jobs. But what this party fails to talk about is, okay, 150,000 jobs for $6.5 billion worth of spending, new debt not paid for, not adequately enumerating the things that will really happen in the marketplace. We have already talked about the promises that were made during the stimulus, and of that only 5 percent has materialized out of the Department of Energy. The reason why is because people don't have money. People do not have money because they do not have jobs. We do not have jobs in this country because of the Democratic majority who has made a decision that their political agenda to diminish the size of the free enterprise system is just fine for them.

The three largest political agenda items of this Democratic Party, the Speaker and the President, net lose 10 million American jobs. That's why people do not end up having jobs and why people will not be able to buy into this plan either. Because people are unemployed. They are hurting. They are concerned about how they are going to take care of themselves. Quite honestly, Madam Speaker, this country is afraid. They are afraid of the massive debt, and we are going to pile on another $6.5 billion today.

We talked about how and when the Democrats took control of this Congress, they promised little job loss, lower deficits, and we have only seen the opposite. Additionally, little to no progress has been made to providing real solutions to the high unemployment rate; 150,000 jobs won't cut it. We are getting ready to lose 300,000 more teachers' jobs because communities can't afford to have the teachers. They can't pay for them. And we are here today to vote on another $6.6 billion, a spending spree for the Federal Government to manage and pick the winners and losers in the energy saving sector. It is bad policy.

Where are the jobs? Where is the ability of people to make decisions? Nope, we are going to let the Federal Government decide this.

Madam Speaker, Congress, the Democratic Party, believes we can just spend our way out of this economic crisis. We need reforms. We need to work together. We need America to be an employer nation again. Ah, the old days with Republicans, all that debt they caused, not a drop in the bucket compared to what this 4 years of Democrat control has done.

I once again stand up for my party and say no, we are not going to participate in this. We K-N-O-W exactly what this Democrat majority is all about. One-party rule is bad for this country. Not accepting amendments from the other party is not good for the country.

I encourage a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying legislation.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.