Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act

Mr. Speaker, I guess I rise at an appropriate time to follow the dialogue that we just heard.

It amazes me, as I'm here now on my 44th day in the House of Representatives, and it seems like on each and every day I've heard the other side of the aisle do nothing but blame a previous administration for the failings of today. It is my hope that at some point they will begin taking responsibility for some of the policy actions.

But what we're here to talk about tonight are positive solutions. We've heard a lot of blaming and name calling here over the past several weeks, and we're here tonight to talk about positive solutions to some of the difficult challenges.

So to the colleagues that were just speaking, we're here to call your bluff. You said come call your bluff, well, here we are, and I've got some good gentlemen that are going to join me. But what I want to start out with today is we're going to talk about the kitchen table solutions.

As you may have heard, we have had a program here where we've been actually going out and seeking solutions from the American people, not from our leadership, not from a political party, but from the American people; and it's called America Speaking Out. And there have been more than 12,000 specific ideas generated from the American people, more than 600,000 votes cast on these ideas as to what is most important.

And so the top concerns from the kitchen table all across America: number one, jobs--and I think we've been saying, where are the jobs? Number two, spending. Why isn't the Federal Government balancing their checkbook? And then health care, ObamaCare itself. So that's what we are going to talk about tonight.

As we move through this, I know we have some colleagues that are going to join me. My good colleague from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is going to be with us and also Mr. Thompson from Pennsylvania. But first we're going to talk about the number one issue facing America: jobs, jobs creation.

We have a few quotes here. One--this is, I guess, just from last year, it says: ``Our stimulus plan will likely save''--``likely,'' key word--``save or create 3 to 4 million jobs. Ninety percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector and the remaining 10 percent in the public sector.'' But now the public sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs in the last 2 years; government has gained 656,000 jobs. So when our colleagues from the other side of the aisle stood here a minute ago and said jobs have been created, they were in fact true; but they were created in the public sector, not the private sector.

And then it also says estimated unemployment without the stimulus would be 8.8 percent this year. Well, with all of the stimulus bailouts, buyouts, Cash for Clunkers, you ring it all up, unemployment in May was 9.7; far exceeded their expectations. So obviously the plans are not working.

So what have been the job killers? Excessive taxation, insufficient liquidity, economic uncertainty, and red tape and government mandates. So over the last year we've seen nearly double-digit unemployment, the debt is continuing to grow, we've got a job-killing agenda, and according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, one in six small businesses are concerned about the uncertainty of the future. Fifteen million people out of jobs, out of work right now, unemployment at its highest rate in 25 years, and the private sector, again, has lost 8 million jobs.

So we heard a minute ago, stimulus: that was creating all the jobs, that was going to take care of America. Well, I think about stimulus and health care and all that we saw last year, and it brought Americans to the National Capital last year. If you will remember, on September 12, Americans from all over this Nation rode on buses here, flew on airplanes to celebrate--was it to celebrate or to speak out against what has been done? And we all know the American people are not happy right now.

So what is coming up next? 2011, 5 months away, under the leadership here in Congress, we will see taxes go up on each and every American. We heard ``middle class tax cuts'' just a few minutes ago. There aren't going to be any middle class tax cuts; in fact, every tax rate goes up for every American all across the country in so many different ways. Every individual tax bracket goes up. We have a marriage penalty, the Child Tax Credit will be cut in half. It doesn't sound like a tax cut to me; it's actually a tax increase. And then farmers, small business owners will see their tax rate go up to 55 percent in the States. And then of course capital gains and dividend taxes will rise as a result of the leadership here in Washington.

So much to do, so much to do. The good thing is that we have positive solutions. That's what we are here to talk about tonight. I know my good friend, Mr. Thompson from Pennsylvania, is a good leader on job creation and is working hard in that area. I would love to have you join us, if you

would like, to share with us some positive solutions here to get Americans back to work. And does that include public sector jobs or private sector jobs?

Well, let's get to some simple facts, because you're right. America has been speaking out. The main thing they've been asking is: Where are the jobs?

Just in the last year, we know there have been 2.5 million jobs lost here in the United States. So, you know, I guess a great admittance to that is the fact that the Democrats were pushing through the expansion or the extension of the unemployment benefits. If, in fact, their policies were to work or were working, there would be no need to extend unemployment benefits. The truth is they had to extend them because their policies aren't working.

Let's get to some simple facts here real quick. I'm a finance major. You know, the problem is not that difficult. The challenges are certainly great, but the facts are simple. There is a commonsense equation here.

We have total employers in the United States of about 24 million. The unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. We have about 14.6 million unemployed Americans right now. So there is a simple equation, which is, if one in three businesses hired just one employee over the next year, the unemployment rate would be 4.4 percent. That gets it to reasonable, sensible, easy-to-understand ideas.

Here is the equation: If one in three businesses adds one new hire in the next 12 months, unemployment is down to 4.4 percent.

So the question is: How do businesses get to this point where they hire that next person? Right now, they're not doing it, and there is a reason for that. It is called ``uncertainty.'' It is the uncertainty of what is about to happen to them next--and I think we know the tax increases that are coming and things like that. It's certainly scaring businesses.

So what are some of the solutions?

I guess the broader solution is getting government out of the way of job creation and fighting the efforts here, you know, that we've seen as they're pushing through the largest tax increase in the history of this country, and it is coming in 5 months.

Yet today, here tonight, right before us, stood Members of the other party, saying, Oh, middle class tax cuts. That's not what is happening.

In 5 months, we will have the largest tax increase in the history of this Nation. We need to return to spending levels that were from the 2008 levels and then roll back taxes. You know, we often hear them say, Oh, those big corporate tax breaks. Well, guess who hires Americans? Businesses. Wouldn't it be sensible to relieve them of some of the tax burdens here in the United States instead of increasing taxes like they're going to do? Then, of course, there's rolling back the regulatory burdens that we see. There is so much to do, so much to do.

We heard them a few minutes ago say, Well, Republicans have voted against these job-creation packages. Well, I don't know that any of those packages have been successful, so it's probably a good thing that Republicans have voted against them.

The fact is they have a majority that is far greater than the Republicans. They can push through anything they want to push through, and they have certainly been doing that against the will of the American people.

Yes, sir.

Thank you for joining us.

I think we'd be going backwards a little bit. You're right.

I mean the fact is we need to empower the business community. We need to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit. We need to equip them with lower burdens of regulation, and we need to lower tax rates. We do not need to be creating jobs as a government. Instead, we need the private sector to be creating jobs. It's a zero sum game. There are only so many employees in the United States, and if more of them are shifting to the public sector, it is only taking intellectual capital and wealth out of the private sector.

I would love to turn it over to my good colleague from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Thank you for joining us on this late evening to talk about getting this country back on track.

Well, let's take a quick glance at where we are from a perspective financially, and then the positive solution of balancing the budget. Imagine that, balancing the budget, balancing the checkbook here at the Federal Government.

Well, here's the truth of where we are. And we heard earlier when our friends from the other side were talking about how good it was since the new administration has taken over. Well, here's some facts. The facts don't lie. I mean, the truth is that the deficit under this current administration and leadership has just blossomed tremendously since they've taken charge.

Now, we've heard a lot. In my 44 days, I've heard so much about President Bush, President Bush, the last 8 years, his administration. But you know what? I think they've had a little bit of amnesia, because they took the majority in 2006, swore in their Speaker in 2007, and look what happened. From that point forward, the deficit bloomed and unemployment increased.

It all works together simultaneously, but yet they want to look back over the full decade and forget that, You know what? They're responsible. They were in a governing position, and yet they don't want to accept the responsibility of governing.

So that leads us to where we are right now, at a point of lack of governing, because for the first time since 1974 no budget has been presented here. And the question is: Where's the budget?

And right here you can read the quote. It says, Skipping a budget resolution this year would be unprecedented. And we've seen a lot of unprecedented things over the last several months, but this, in itself, is unprecedented. The House has never failed to pass an annual budget resolution since the current budget rules were put into place in 1974. And that's reported here back in April.

But budgets are necessary, according to the leadership here. Steny Hoyer, our current majority leader, said, enacting a budget was the most basic responsibility of governing. That was the year they took over, the year they took over. And since then, look what's happened.

And then, of course, from the House Budget Committee chairman, if you can't budget, you can't govern. Right there it is.

Well, that leads us to today. I believe it's time to let the American people know that we have solutions to balance the budget and actually have a proposal in place, and that, I can tell the American people, hasn't got a hearing. I wonder why. I wonder why.

H. Con. Res. 281, which I know many of the colleagues here have signed on to it--I'm not sure if one would want to speak to it in its specifics, but it provides tax relief, returns to 2008 spending levels, makes no changes to the Social Security laws as they currently are, provides spending increases equivalent to the inflation growth in Medicare and Medicaid, requires each committee in this House to find savings equal to 1 percent of the mandatory spending, repeals the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, repeals TARP, repeals ObamaCare, and then also provides medical liability reform, freedom to purchase health care across State lines, repeals Davis-Bacon, so many other things, great concepts there. And I'm sure you'd like to speak to some of those and the need, the importance of balancing the budget here in the United States Congress.

You know what's so exciting about this America Speaking Out program is that we're getting ideas from Americans that are sitting around the kitchen table and they're talking about what would they do if they were in charge. What would they do if they were making these decisions. As they're watching the TV, and oftentimes in disgust seeing what comes out of Washington, D.C. The ideas that they have proposed and the thousands of connections that have been made.

And I took that to my district and somewhat implemented a program much like that and developed an economic advisory council of business and community leaders from each and every county in my district to seek input from them to tear down that wall. Because for far too long Washington has not been listening. And so we just took that wall down and said, hey, we want your ideas so we can push them up and present them here to the full House as the ideas from Main Street itself, not from Capitol Hill. But we need the ideas from the hills of north Georgia, are where the ideas come from, and the hills from all over this great Nation.

But you know, balancing the budget is a great start. Every American family has to balance their checkbook. But yet right now, here, leading by example, a terrible example is a Federal Government that is so far outside of its bounds with deficit spending and increasing its debt, it's unsustainable.

So I guess the Republicans have a solution right here. House Concurrent Resolution 281 balances the budget, cuts taxes, and cuts spending, something that's unheard of here in Washington, D.C. When every State and local government all around this Nation's cutting spending right now, every family's cutting spending out of their personal budget, here on the Federal level we just keep spending, spending, spending.

Mr. Thompson, you looked like you had something good to add to the conversation here.

Let's stop there for a second. You're talking about the marriage tax. Now, those are the people, the wealthy married people or is that all married people? That's everyone, right?

And now the individuals with children are the ones getting the penalty here, the ones who are the wealthy, or is it everyone who has children?

It is everyone. So the fact that they stood over here, what, 40 minutes ago and said, oh, these are tax cuts for the middle class, that's not the case. The largest tax increase in the history of this Nation will occur in 5 months. But we have a bill that we've introduced, and I am sure y'all have cosponsored it, I cosponsored it, to block that, to block that tax increase, and to allow the taxes to remain at the level they are today. And of course we would want to see them lowered. But it's not a tax cut. We're just saying, hey, keep it at the level it is. Don't raise them. Because that's what they are doing. They're raising taxes.

Let me finish this balance the checkbook thing real quick, and we'll talk about confidence in a minute. So balance the checkbook. Republicans, we're saying let's cut spending. Let's stop this excessive spending that's going on here in Washington. We can do that by repealing the unused portions of the stimulus bill. They talk about how great it's been, the grand fanfare of the stimulus, when in fact a third of it hasn't even been spent, which means, again, it's not working.

We need to end the bailouts. And then of course the big one, repeal ObamaCare, which is a nearly $600 billion tax increase on all Americans and businesses all over the United States.

Billion, right, that's nine zeroes.

This is what Americans are saying right here. Americans did not go to AmericaSpeakingOut.com--and this is nonpartisan, it's confidential--Americans did not go to that Web site and say increase spending. They did not say increase the stimulus and do another one. They did not say continue the bailouts or keep ObamaCare. They actually said stop all this stuff. Stop it. That was America speaking out right here.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. You are absolutely right.

Now, let me summarize. We've been talking about solutions here tonight. First one we were talking about was job creation. Certainty was mentioned by Mr. Thompson there. Uncertainty being the problem; certainty being the solution. So some certainty would be let's pass this legislation that blocks the largest tax increase in the history of our Nation. Let's get some of this regulation out of the way. Let's empower the small business owners and just embrace and ignite that entrepreneurial spirit. The solutions to job creation.

The second component we were talking about is the spending and balancing the budget. It's time to cut spending. Let's say enough is enough here in Washington. All of America, all businesses, all State, all local governments are cutting spending, whereas here we are, we're raising spending. But we've even gone a step further, taken a bold step and said, we've got a plan to balance the budget here for the Federal Government.

And now the third category, which I think really involved the American people last year, not in a positive way because they weren't engaged in the process, because it was a process that was behind closed doors, but it raised the awareness of the abuse of the process and the abuse of the rules and abuse of the system right here, and that was health care.

As we've talked about America Speaking Out, repealing ObamaCare was one of the top items mentioned or indicated out of the--what did we say, nearly 12,000 respondents, 12,000 specific ideas and 600,000 votes cast for different ideas. We've got an interesting chart here, and this will be the debut I believe of it publicly to show the health care plan as passed, the health care plan as passed.

It was approached or presented as a plan that was patient friendly, right? Isn't that what it's called, the Patient Protection Act? This is the ObamaCare health care plan in a schematic of what occurred out of the 2,000 pages of legislation. They're still today figuring out that portions of it were in there that they never expected or knew were in there, including new additional taxes.

But let me point out as we discuss this, and I know, Doctor, you've probably got a lot of insight into it because we do have an alternative plan. We had one then, it was presented then, but it's still in committee right now.

But let me point out to those watching. Here's the physician at this point. Here's the patient down here at this point, and all of this government is in between. How is that better for the American patient, for the young boy

that's needing care? How is this better for that young single mom who's just trying to get care for her child? This is not better. This is a mess, a governmental nightmare right here, and this is as it's passed and has been signed into law, the Obama health care plan.

You're right. This is the doctor. There's the patient. You would think the patient and doctor would be in the center, right? That should be the center of this diagram, but it is not. It is this newly empowered Secretary of the Health and Human Services that is in the center of which all of this spirals off of, and all of this is documented and all the code sections are outlined on here how it was created, and it indicates new mandates, new taxes, new programs, new processes. All of this is in this new health care plan that is going to be a mess for Americans right here.

The great thing is, though, that as we stand before America tonight, we don't stand here without an alternative, without another idea. We come before America boldly with another alternative, and the first step, in my opinion, is we have to defund this mess. Let's just put the brakes on it. We don't need another, what, $600 billion in new taxes. We need to defund this, and we have introduced legislation that is H.R. 5882, which each of you are probably cosponsors of and I'm the sponsor of the legislation to just defund it altogether, and let's start over because the process was broken. The policy is flawed.

Let's get a patient-centered, patient-driven health care plan in place of which we've got good alternatives. Would you like to share a little bit about the proposal that's out there, or do you have some ideas yourself?

You are absolutely right. So you presented a solution. H.R. 3400 would be the Empowering Patients First Act. We have talked about deauthorizing the funding for this mess here, and you talk about surgically removing some items here. I mean, this is a mess.

You wonder why this component would be in a health care proposal. The IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, is part of a health care plan; although, I think we all know that the American people do not want to have to go through this maze in order to get their health care taken care of here in the United States.

We have a couple of opportunities. One, H.R. 5882, for those whom are viewing this tonight, could encourage their Members to sign on to, and that would not allow any funds to be authorized or spent towards this here. Then there is the Repeal It proposal that repeals this altogether, and there are two of those out there. There is a letter or petition to have one voted on here on the floor, and that's H.R. 4972, by Mr. King. That's the Repeal It legislation.

Then you have spoken about the alternative, the replacement. So you have defund it, repeal it, and then replace it with H.R. 3400, which is a free market, capitalistic solution to health care for Americans to allow them to be empowered, empowering them.

Would you like to add some more to this? I know we are getting close here before we need to stop sharing the truth here.

Last August, the American people were pretty upset about that. They were fired up 1 year ago as the leadership of this Hall went out all across America and avoided town hall meetings because they could not defend this 2,000-page spaghetti plate here of mess, because the American people know that the government taking over their health care is not the best option. The best option is the patient, the individual that is being empowered.

Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I want to thank you for joining me tonight, because here at this late hour here on the east coast, we are standing before the American people presenting alternatives, solutions to these challenging days.

We started off by talking about the economy and jobs and job creation, and that's empowering the private sector, not empowering government, creating certainty in the marketplace as opposed to the uncertainty that is out there today by standing in the way of the largest tax increase in the history of this Nation, which is about to be unfolded here in the next 5 months. And then also the reduction of capital gains. The reduction of the corporate tax rate and just igniting that entrepreneurial spirit once again to allow that entrepreneur, the American business owner, to dream, and to dream big and to go work hard.

Then next we talked about spending and spending cuts, balancing the budget. Very difficult items here on the Federal level, it would seem by the majority party. But, instead, we have proposed positive solutions to balance the budget like has never been seen before.

Then lastly, the health care. And all of this comes as a result of America Speaking Out, the Web site in which 12,000 responses were given and over 600,000 votes were cast on different ideas and concepts. Listening to the American people about jobs and the economy, about spending, about balancing the budget and the health care proposal, which leads us to defunding it, repealing it and then replacing it with a patient center, patient-driven concept that provides affordability, portability, and accessibility to Americans.

But this is not a time in which we stand and point fingers as we have heard over the past several weeks. My 44 days being here, the other side has pointed fingers back, back in time. But we are not here to do that. This is not about Republican and Democrat. This is about America right now and this is about getting our economy back on track. It's about creating the confidence once again in the marketplace and then providing true health care solutions.

So I appreciate my colleagues in joining me tonight on this late hour. I know it means a lot to your constituents that you would do that and that you would be working at this late hour in the evening because you know how important it is.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

I thank my good friend for coordinating this hour tonight, very important hour. This is about real solutions, not the types of policies we've seen over these past 19 months which has grown the size of government--bloated the size of government, actually. We have increased the deficit to the point that what we have is a legacy of debt. There is not a generation, I don't think, that ever wants to have it so that--we always want to leave this country better than what we found it, to pass it on to our children and our grandchildren. Yet with the trend that we have been on from the leadership, or the lack of leadership, from my colleagues across the aisle in terms of the taxing, the spending, the borrowing, what we have today for the generations to follow us is just a tremendous legacy of debt.

I think the data that just recently came out showed the deficit pushing $14 trillion, $14 trillion. But you know what? There are better ways. We've been working on these. These are not new ideas. We've had bills that we have introduced. Unfortunately, the Speaker has control over what bills get to the floor. We have many solutions. What I call is, as opposed to Big Government solutions which we've been seeing, we've been working on smart government solutions, those that truly stimulate the economy--or would stimulate the economy if we were able to get moving on those.

Many of those have to do with who the true economic engine is in this country, and frankly that economic engine is small business. There are over 20 million small businesses in this country. These are the folks who take risk. They're the ones that work 6, 7 days a week; they're putting in those 16- and 17-hour days. Many times they do that without taking a dollar back for themselves. They keep reinvesting in their companies. They're growing jobs. They've got that American Dream, and they are trying to live that dream. Unfortunately, what we've seen in the past 19 months is this government, the Obama administration and Speaker Pelosi, just crushing those dreams.

On back home, I describe it as, if the economy is a football game, there are yellow flags flying everywhere for piling on the backs of small businesses. Actually, a former colleague here, Dick Armey, I understand once described it--it was a great description, I repeat it often--that if the economy is a horse race, and of course the economy is the horse and government is the jockey, at whatever point the jockey becomes larger than the horse, you know you've got problems. And that's what we have today.

We've been working on things and looking at trying to reduce the costs for small businesses, and it has been very challenging to do in the 111th Congress with the folks that we have here.

To start out with, I'll share one bill that I have that I've been working on, which I introduced some time ago. It was to allow individuals--entrepreneurs--who have this vision, who have this American dream, to be able to take some money and to be able to put that money into a tax-deferred savings account. It allows them to do that on a regular basis and to build that amount of money up. You know, they've got the dream. They've got the idea. They know what they want to do. When they've accumulated enough of the tax-deferred savings, they can use that money to purchase maybe physical property, maybe the resources, equipment or capital they need to start that business and to be able to stimulate a new business that grows jobs.

That is just one of, obviously, I think, thousands of ideas that we've been working on as Republicans. You know, we are often accused of being the party of ``no,'' N-O. Well, that's a partial truth, actually. There are a lot of half-truths around Capitol Hill. The fact is we are the party of ``know,'' K-N-O-W. More importantly than that, we are listening to the American people.

I thank my colleague for really emphasizing tonight America Speaking Out and the fact that we are here as public servants.

We are here to work for the American people. That means we want to have a dialogue. That means we want to be communicating with the people we work for. So America Speaking Out is just a great program that has allowed Americans from coast to coast to be able to do that. That, to me, is so important. I look forward to it.

Well, I thank my good friend. And I want to come back to one word I think that really describes what is suppressing jobs, what is killing jobs, what is keeping jobs from being created. And that is uncertainty. Uncertainty is the direct result of all the policies we've seen piled upon the American economy in the past 19 months. And you know, as I travel around in my district, just like you do, you talk with the job creators, you talk with the people who take the risks, that every year take their profits--and no, that's not a bad word, that's a good word. That's how we've grown and built this wonderful Nation, on the backs of entrepreneurs and small business men and women.

And they take their profits and they reinvest them back in their company. And they add a product line or they build a new site. They hire people. Well, they're not doing that right now. They're sitting on the sidelines. And that's a direct result of just all the terrible policies that have been crushing our small businesses.

When I think over this past 19 months, and I'm in my first term here, you know how many times taxes have been raised? Now, we're looking at the largest tax increase ever that's looming. And we should talk more about that. But we should not lose sight of the fact that taxes have already been raised tremendously on these job creators, these small businesses.

Now, my colleagues across the other side will say, well, we only taxed the wealthy, those folks who made somewhere around $200,000 or more a year. And you know, where I come from, yeah, that's a lot of money. Absolutely. But when you really drill down and you look at who those people are, 60 percent of those folks are small business owners whose small businesses are organized as a limited liability corporation or an S corporation. They pay their taxes as individuals. And out of that maybe $200,000, if they are lucky, that they generate, they're paying a payroll, they're employing people, they're providing family- sustaining jobs. And, you know, I've lost count of how many times they've raised taxes on those folks since January 2009. It's crushing.

And you talked about the largest tax increase ever. And this has been my fear all along, that 2009 was a really tough year. 2010's a tough year. But it's been--you know, there's almost like an anesthesia that, Doc, that's been applied. You know, all this government money's been thrown at people so it makes folks feel a little bit better because unemployment went down. But as my good friend from Texas noted, a lot of those were temporary government sector jobs that drove down unemployment nationally for a short time. Never went down much less than 10 percent, but it took the edge off.

Well, my greatest fear is in January 2011 we're going right off the cliff. Because that's when these new taxes,

these new regulations--we've tripled the size of the Environmental Protection Agency, although around home I refer to them as the Excessive Punishment Agency. You know, all that takes effect beginning January of 2011. And then you put on top of that the things that you've talked about, the largest tax increase ever, $3.8 trillion. What will that be? Well, we are going to see the marriage penalty is going to return. The child tax credit's going to be halved. The death tax, which I think is just double taxation at the least. We put a tax on somebody's death.

That's everybody.

It's everyone.

Thank you so much for looking at this. What a nightmare this is. I spent 28 years managing a rural hospital, and what I see there, when I look at that chart is not the periodic table. I see bankruptcy for hospitals, physicians, health care providers.

I mean, my health care career goes back to the beginning of the 1980s, and I am a proud survivor of the first prospective payment system, diagnostic related groups that were rolled into hospitals all across the Nation. I was there in the 1980s. I was there in the 1990s for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA.

HIPAA would just be one of those circles on that chart, but let me tell you the experience of health care, and it's health care everywhere, but it really hits hard in rural health care and underserved urban areas.

The bureaucracy that was required to implement HIPAA in the 1990s was tremendous. It took dollars from actually providing what I thought was compassionate and cost-effective care, and you had to hire clerical staff, you had to hire compliance individuals, you had to hire people that never saw a patient, never did anything to directly touch that life of somebody that was facing life-changing disease and disability in the health care work that I was privileged to participate in for 30 years.

You take that experience of HIPAA in the 1990s and now multiply that by the complexity of that chart. You know we have worked hard, I know Dr. Gingrey has, all health care professionals work very hard to make sure that health care is patient-centered. It's about the patient. And this is not about the patient. This obviously is government. This is not patient-centered health care. This is government-centered health care, and there's many different proposals out there.

Let me just touch on two of those because I think it's very important that as we show the negative impacts of this, that we show the alternatives, the things we are working on that are better solutions, what I like to call smart government solutions.

Going back to July of 2009 when we introduced the Putting Patients First Act. That's an act that addresses people with preexisting conditions and makes sure they're able to purchase affordable health care insurance. It's about providing greater access to care. It was about bringing down the cost of health care for all Americans. It was about preserving and even increasing the innovation quality of health care that comes out of this country and certainly about preserving that important decisionmaking relationship between the patient and physician, not allowing the government or bureaucrat to do that.

Putting Patients First Act, I encourage people to check that act out. You know what, it doesn't raise taxes a dollar. No cuts to Medicare, and yet it achieves all the things it needs to achieve.

You know that's the kind of thing, when we repeal this, that's what we need to replace it with. And I would tell you there are things we need to surgically repair right now, because I don't expect that President Obama--I would expect a veto on any general repeal any time soon, so we need to surgically repair, certainly working with an eye to repeal.

And I am sure all my colleagues on the floor here are also cosponsors of H.R. 5141. It goes right back and it deals with the health care bill, but the impact's directly on small businesses.

Under the ObamaCare plan, every small business, for every exchange of business, a vendor, a contractor, just buying resources, anything more than $600, they are required to file a 1099 form today under the ObamaCare plan. For some businesses, that's thousands of 1099 forms. We are talking more clerical staff. We are talking more overhead cost. We are talking about complying with bureaucracy that is just raising the cost on small businesses.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of H.R. 5141. It puts an end to what I call death by a thousand paper cuts. And that is where health care buries small businesses, in paperwork.

That's another example of a Republican, smart government solution that we have put forward and it has been introduced. It's out there and, frankly, it would be good for America.

It's going to be a whole lot of surgery, though.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I

call up House Resolution 1606 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this rule provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 1586 and makes in order a motion by the chair of the Appropriations Committee to concur in the Senate amendment. The rule waives all points of order against the motion. The rule provides that the motion shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by chairs and ranking minority members of the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the Committee on Ways and Means. Finally, the resolution waives a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII, which requires a two-thirds vote to consider a resolution from the Rules Committee on the same day that it is reported. The waiver applies to any measure reported through the legislative day of Wednesday, August 11, 2010.

Most of my colleagues here today, Madam Speaker, have interrupted their important activities back home in their districts to be here for this unusual, but not unprecedented, August session. As we stand here today, Madam Speaker, debating assistance for States and school districts across the country, I can't think of a better reason for Members to rush back to the Capitol than to invest in our children and in our future.

We are here today to extend a lifeline to teachers in classrooms across the country to ensure that students and our future are not mortgaged by a weak economy that has forced States into drastic cutbacks. Despite the failure of the Senate to move this bill during many months of debate until it finally passed last week, the urgency is real. And the appeal and need is real as well.

This legislation saves or creates 310,000 American jobs, specifically for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and nurses. In Colorado, this bill will save the jobs of 2,600 teachers. Yes, Madam Speaker, absent the passage of this bill, class sizes will be larger for students across the State, and we will be mortgaging our future because of the current recession.

These funds will go immediately to States and prevent layoffs and in some cases rehire teachers that have already been given notice, as summer comes to an end, just in time as students go back to school. Students here in Washington, D.C. will be in school the week after next. Many districts in Colorado start in 2 or 3 weeks as well.

This legislation, Madam Speaker, is completely paid for, primarily by closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas. Not only is this bill paid for, Madam Speaker, but this bill cuts the deficit by $1.4 billion.

It never fails to surprise me when some of my colleagues talk about the spending of Congress--this, that, or the other. Well, here today before us, Madam Speaker, is a chance to cut the deficit. What an important and justifiable reason for us to return here to Washington in August: to cut the deficit.

These funds will assist States so they can keep qualified teachers in classrooms, pay firefighters and police officers to keep our neighborhoods safe. We need to do everything in our power to ensure that the American people are protected during this recession and that our children are educated. Widespread layoffs in these public security and education sectors wouldn't only hurt the schools and children but would further depress the economy. These men and women who work in these professions, Madam Speaker, are the backbone of our Nation and our economy.

Now that the measure is before us with bipartisan support from the Senate, I hope all of our colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation and quickly moving to a final vote so that we can expeditiously get the money out to those who need it. I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, most teachers, firefighters, nurses don't earn $1.4 million a year. I wish they did in our society. I wish we valued the teaching profession. There was a study recently that showed that a good kindergarten teacher is worth $365,000 a year. Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, I don't think there are any kindergarten teachers in our country that earn it.

I'm grateful that of course, as the gentleman from California pointed out, that this gentleman's abuse of the public trust was exposed and corrected, and the residents of that town will hopefully compensate their new city manager more in line with the standards.

Finally, he talked about Republican, Independents and Democrats doing something and caring about teachers, caring about nurses. I have no doubt that in this Chamber and in our country Americans of all stripes ideologically and all parties care deeply about our nurses and teachers and keeping our streets safe, and Members of both parties here in the House today will have a chance to express that in a very tangible way, by keeping teachers in classrooms, nurses in hospitals, and officers on the beat by voting ``yes'' on the rule and the motion here today.

With that, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, my esteemed colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Madam Speaker, as has been noted, this legislation will reduce the Federal deficit by over a billion dollars.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut, a member of the Appropriations Committee, Ms. DeLauro.

I yield myself 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, when we are talking about cops and firefighters and teachers we have and we need, and we value cops and firefighters and teachers in the reddest of red States and the bluest of blue States across this great country, that's why, Madam Speaker, 16 Republican Governors have written to us, encouraging us to pass the money for Medicaid assistance here today, including, I might add, the Governor of the State of Georgia, as well as the Governor of the State of Alabama, calling on us to act because all of us know that we are in this together as a country. Regardless of where we live, we all need these basic services.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I am particularly pleased that this legislation does not include $800 million in cuts to critical education reform programs, including Race to the Top, which has encouraged education reform initiatives and accountability across our country; including the Charter School Innovation Fund, which provides start-up money for new and innovative charter schools to help meet the educational needs of our most at-risk youth; and the Teacher Incentive Fund, finding new and better ways to compensate teachers for their hard work.

This bill before us today, Madam Speaker, recognizes that we need both funding and reform, investment and accountability. One without the other will not close the achievement gap. Together, Madam Speaker, teachers in the classroom and the education reform initiatives that President Obama is pursuing in a bipartisan way promise to help end the vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance in this country and replace it with the virtuous cycle of opportunity and hope.

With that, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Madam Speaker, it is my honor to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield the gentlewoman 15 additional seconds.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the rule and the Senate amendment to H.R. 1586.

The new school year is just around the corner. Families across our Nation are preparing to send their kids back to school; and the experience that their children have this school year directly depends, Madam Speaker, on our actions here today in this Chamber.

The package before us today recognizes that we can't afford to stand idle while our schools are being hammered by budget crises across the country. In Colorado, districts are facing the deepest budget cuts in memory. Colorado school districts have cut more than $288 million out of their budgets for next school year, so the $160 million that Colorado will receive under this program provides much-needed funds.

Now I want to describe that that is typical of the experience of many States. In no way, shape, or form are we avoiding making the tough decisions or tough cuts during this recession. The States have made those. Districts have made those. We have the opportunity today to make sure that those cuts don't affect the kids going back to school.

What have districts done to balance their budget? They have reduced their staff size and salaries, they have increased furlough days, they have created larger class sizes, they have reduced instructional hours, cut after-school programs, established 4-day school weeks. We are undercutting the future of American competitiveness by getting in the way of the ability to educate kids today because we happen

to be in a severe budget crisis. We each here today in this Chamber, Madam Speaker, have the opportunity to get these much-needed funds to States and school districts across the country.

In addition, the budget of Colorado and more than half the States in the country assume that the FMAP increases will occur. If they don't, if this Chamber doesn't act here today, Colorado would have to come up with $245 million more in cuts; and, in most States, including my home State, those cuts would generally hit education, law enforcement, and higher education. So the extension is critically important not only for the low-income families that rely on Medicaid for health services but also for all public services that are so essential for our communities.

Undermining public education during a recession is no way to build a world-class educational system, no way to create the economic engine of growth for our Nation for the next century when more than ever jobs will depend on what people know and their ability to think rather than what they can do with their hands.

By passing this here today, Madam Speaker, we can help ensure America's competitiveness in a global, knowledge-based economy. Inaction today in the face of today's crisis would simply mean further erosion of our Nation's human capital, our greatest asset.

Madam Speaker, this is not spending we are considering today. This is an investment. It's an investment in our most valuable asset, our children and our future.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and the rule.

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

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

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

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation to my very good friend on the Rules Committee for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

I would like to say, Madam Speaker, that this special emergency session called unexpectedly just after a week of the district work period to pass another $26.1 billion in spending is, in fact, Washington, D.C. at its absolute worst. Everything that Americans have come to hate about their government, about the way their government works--the waste, the ineptitude, the cynicism, the lack of accountability, the utter disregard for the concerns of taxpayers--is all very vividly on display right here today.

Now, one must ask the question, how is it that we got here? How is it that we got here? Well, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, we've made history. For the first time we have failed to budget, we have failed to pass a budget for the first time in the modern era. In the absence of a budget roadmap, the leadership on the other side of the aisle has legislated recklessly and haphazardly, managing to consider a mere one-sixth, one-sixth, of the normal appropriations bills. And I am happy to see the chair of the Appropriations Committee here. They have passed a mere one-sixth of the appropriations bills while irresponsibly approving new emergency spending outside of regular order. Politico, the newspaper that we read every morning around here, described it as follows: They described this as a ``fiscal-policy meltdown'' and an ``unprecedented failure.''

Now, how is it possible, Madam Speaker, how is it possible that this Democratic majority could fail so miserably at its constitutional duty? Was it pure ineptitude or was it something more willful than that?

Ineptitude certainly goes a long way toward explaining the failings that have taken place under Speaker Pelosi. Their work has been so shoddy and riddled with oversights, mistakes, and loopholes that countless corrections over the last 3\1/2\ years have been necessary. Today's underlying bill doesn't even have a title. Madam Speaker, the bill doesn't even have a title, thanks to their haphazard way of doing business. In its mad rush, the Senate passed the blank act of blank. This bill has no title. They literally neglected to fill in the blanks. God only knows what other mistakes have been made here, Madam Speaker.

But ineptitude alone only goes so far in explaining the Democratic majority's shortcomings. As the Washington Post editorialized last week, ``To govern is to choose, and nothing lays bare a government's true priorities like the choices it makes about spending taxpayers' money.'' Now, Madam Speaker, this gets to the heart of why the annual budget is so critically important. It lays out for the American people what the priorities of the majority of this institution are. Whatever gimmicks they may employ to shield themselves from accountability, the budget lays out in black and white the agenda that the majority has.

It also forces the majority to make choices, tough choices. Faced with a host of needs, a budget forces the majority to choose which are the most important items. And if times are tough, a budget forces the majority to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending. This presents quite a predicament for a majority that loves nothing more than to tax and to spend. Today's emergency bill is just another in a long line of unaccountable spending bills that have supplanted the regular budget and appropriations process simply because this majority, quite obviously, is not up to governing.

Some of the funding contained in this bill is, no doubt, very worthy. Our teachers, nurses, and cops deserve our full support, and I concur with my colleague's remarks on those priorities. Let me say our teachers, nurses, and cops deserve our full support. No one disputes that. These are precisely the kinds of top priorities that should be funded in the regular budget process.

Now, Madam Speaker, teachers, nurses, and cops should not be used as pawns in a cynical political game, held hostage by the Democratic majority's failure to govern responsibly. Contrary to the quote that I read in Politico at the end of last week from Speaker Pelosi, Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike all want to see teachers in the classroom, nurses in the emergency room, and cops on the beat, not in the unemployment line, as the Speaker claimed Republicans wanted to see.

So let me repeat. Speaker Pelosi offered this quote: Republicans, Democrats, and independents want to make sure that teachers are in the classroom, that nurses are in the emergency room, and that cops are on the beat. If the Democratic majority, Madam Speaker, had done their job in an appropriate and timely way, our teachers, nurses, and cops would not be on the chopping block. Today's emergency vote is a function of the failures of this Democratic leadership.

But this bill is about more than teachers, nurses, and cops. Some of the spending in this bill is unjustifiable under any procedure. We're told by the Democratic majority that the Federal taxpayers must bail out struggling States. But let's take a look at why States are looking for a bailout in the first place.

One needs look no further than my State of California, the largest State in the union. I'm very sorry to say that it provides the perfect example of the fiscal disasters that are inevitable in the absence of transparency and accountability.

The people of southern California over the past few weeks have become outraged over astronomical salaries for certain officials. The most egregious example has been the city manager of Bell, California. Now, Bell, California, Madam Speaker, is a town of 36,000, just east of downtown Los Angeles. The city manager, Robert Rizzo, was receiving an annual compensation package of $1.5 million. The city manager of a tiny, frankly, not very wealthy town just east of downtown Los Angeles, Robert Rizzo, was receiving a compensation package of $1.5 million a year. He resigned in the wake of the scandal within the past week, and now he'll only collect an annual pension of almost $1 million a year. And it's not just the taxpayers of this tiny town of 36,000, Bell, California, who are on the hook. Because of the way the pension structure was put into place in California, my constituents and the constituents of our other California colleagues will be forced to pay a significant portion of Robert Rizzo's lavish nearly $1 million pension.

The problems in California go well beyond one wildly overpaid city manager and a broken pension system. The State legislature's failure to enact a budget is costing the State $1.5 billion in deficit spending with every single month that goes by. They have created a fiscal nightmare, they've taxed the people of California to the brink, and now they have turned to the beleaguered Federal coffers once again.

Thanks to the Democratic majority's policy of never-ending bailouts, there's not a taxpayer in this country who isn't on the hook for astonishingly reckless spending priorities just like these.

We have got to put a stop to these dangerous policies once and for all. We need to put an end to the never-ending cycle of bailouts, emergency spending, deficits, and debt. Instead, we need to return to regular order to pass a budget and fund our top priorities through the regular accountable process while doing everything that we can to ferret out and cut waste, fraud, and abuse.

Finally, Madam Speaker, we need to put an end to the practice of haphazard, unaccountable legislating.

Madam Speaker, arrogance and ineptitude are a lethal combo. We will be paying the consequences for generations to come if we don't change the course right now.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that I appreciate the fact that my friend from Colorado pointed out that, contrary to what Speaker Pelosi said when she argued that Republicans would rather see in the unemployment line teachers, nurses, and cops rather than in the classroom, in the emergency room and on the line, on the beat, that, in fact, we do, Republicans and Democrats, alike care.

At this point, I am happy to yield, Madam Speaker, 2 minutes to a very hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee, my friend from Dallas, Mr. Hensarling.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to simply say that we keep hearing that this is fully paid for. It's paid for, Madam Speaker, by taxing companies that in difficult times are creating jobs and by hitting food stamps and renewable energy. Obviously, that ain't a way to pay for this, and we know that it's not fully paid for.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to a tireless member of the House Rules Committee, my friend from Dallas, Mr. Sessions.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to my very good friend, who is the ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, the gentleman from Lakeville, Minnesota (Mr. Kline).

Madam Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to a Member who would like to see us go through the regular appropriations process, a member of the Appropriations Committee, my friend from Savannah, Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, a week ago last Friday when we adjourned for the August district work period, I thought to myself, well, we are going to get a six-week reprieve from this pattern of constant increases in spending and more bailouts. And yet here we are one week into this August district work period,

and we are back here with a $26.1 billion spending measure.

Now, Madam Speaker, I was horrified when I read at the end of last week a quote that was put out of Speaker Pelosi's office. She said that Republican Members would rather see teachers, nurses, and cops on the unemployment line rather than having teachers in the classrooms, nurses in the emergency rooms, and cops on the beat.

And as I said in the opening, I am grateful that my friend from Colorado recognizes that Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike all want to make sure that teachers are in the classroom, all want to make sure that nurses are in the emergency room, and all want to make sure that cops are on the beat. So let's disabuse ourselves of this notion that somehow if you are not supportive of this $26.1 billion measure, that you somehow are opposed to teachers, nurses, and cops.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question and allow those five measures to be debated here on the House floor, I believe that that goal would go a long way towards getting our economy back on track; and, yes, that kind of economic growth would ensure that we would have the resources to make sure that teachers remain in the classrooms and that nurses remain in the emergency rooms and that cops remain on the beat.

So Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. And if by chance we are not successful, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule. Because I believe that we can do better.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ranger in Gordon County. It's almost my district. We have contiguous congressional districts, and we have the privilege, actually, of sharing Gordon County.

The gentleman from Ranger, Representative Graves, has done a great job in a short period of time, Mr. Speaker, in the House of Representatives, and he knows of what he speaks. I mean this is the kind of work that he did in the Georgia House of Representatives, and he represented us extremely well at the State level. It is really interesting to see him on the floor of the House of Representatives now, here to explain to the American people and to our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, what truly is going on here.

He and I had the privilege, I guess you could say, of watching the previous hour, of watching our colleagues from the Democratic majority. It seems, Mr. Speaker, that they spent an hour whining about competition from other countries, particularly from China. They wanted to focus in on China and talk about, you know, all of these unfair trade practices and what China is doing in regard to their currency and dumping and all of these things. You'd think there were, indeed, no World Trade Organization to police anything. Yet it was, you know, a whole hour of blaming other countries for the woes that we have in our country.

As Representative Graves pointed out, the fact is that we have an unemployment rate of 10 percent, and 16 million people are out of work.

I even heard from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, the Representative from Wisconsin, the distinguished Dr. Kagen, say that the problem is that the economic stimulus package of February 2009 of $862 billion--that's right, with a ``b''--was not enough, that they just simply didn't pour enough money into this problem.

Of course, we all know on this side of the aisle that we conservative Republicans are going to continue to fight this plan the Democratic majority has of just spending more money. You cannot spend your way out of debt. Every family in this country understands that and understands that very clearly. We'll talk about this in the ensuing hour as we proceed with the colloquy.

As Representative Graves points out, Mr. Speaker, the problem is not them. The problem is us. We can blame other countries all we want for our own woes. We can blame Greece. We can blame Spain. They spent an hour blaming China. How about blaming our tax policy that has a corporate tax rate of 35 percent? It is one of the highest rates of any industrialized country. While all of the other countries in Western Europe are lowering their corporate tax rates, we just leave it alone. We don't do anything about it.

As the gentleman from Calhoun and from Gordon County just said, we are about to let--not ``we,'' but you, Mr. Speaker, and the Democratic majority--the Bush tax cuts expire.

Representatives Graves talks about marginal rates. He didn't have a chance yet--and I'm sure he will--to get into the estate tax and, instead of there being a 15 percent tax on dividends, letting it go up to the marginal rate, indeed up to 39.6 percent, and letting capital gains go back up from 10 or 15 percent to 20 percent.

These are the job killers. All of these regulations, union wages, kowtowing to them, giving them special deals, paying them, in many instances far more, and, indeed, even letting them work Federal jobs and negotiate union activities while they're supposed to be working for the taxpayer.

I could go on and on, but I want to yield back to the gentleman controlling the time and look forward to my colleagues as we go through this hour.

If the gentleman will yield.

In regard to America Speaking Out, the poster--if you don't mind, Mr. Speaker, have the gentleman put that America Speaking Out poster back up so our colleagues can take a good look at it. I was just, as I stood here, thinking about our colleagues from the majority side of the aisle who had the previous hour. There was a Member from Ohio, there was a Member from Wisconsin, and there was a Member from California.

And I will just bet you, Mr. Speaker, if the folks in those great States will take the opportunity of going on that Web site, www.AmericaSpeakingOut .com, and input what their concerns are, it would probably mirror what is on that poster that Representative Graves has presented to our colleagues this evening in regard to balance the checkbook, cut spending, repeal the stimulus, $862 billion. Indeed, the Representative from Wisconsin said that wasn't enough spending; we need to spend more.

If the gentleman will yield, I would say that the gentleman is absolute, Mr. Speaker, right on target. And he said a key word. And that is that this is a nonpartisan Web site. Yes, it is created by the Republican minority for all of America to let us know, whether they be Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians, whatever. Let them have the opportunity to tell us, and let's have a bubble-up-from-the-bottom contract with America, not a top-down driven government-knows-better-than-anybody-else kind of plan that it seems the Democratic majority is heck bent and determined to force on the American people, just as they tried to force a year-and-a-half ago cap- and-trade, an energy policy that was run amok, that would result in probably $1,500 minimum a year per family in increased energy costs.

And then of course they come right back after that with this ObamaCare that Representative Graves is talking about. He mentioned the $600 billion worth of increased taxes to pay for it.

What he didn't mention was the additional $525 billion cut to the Medicare program, which we all know, all four of us know, is $75 trillion of unfunded liability over the next 50 years, and you're going to gut it 12 percent a year and then have the unmitigated gall, Mr. Speaker, to spend taxpayer money and send out these brochures, these glossy, fancy Medicare brochures assuring seniors that it's going to be better for them to cut their programs 12 percent a year and Medicare Advantage 18 percent a year.

I think the American people know better, and I think that the folks in Wisconsin, the folks in Ohio, and the folks in California are going to let those three Representatives know and give them a sure earful when they get back to their districts come August recess.

If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, this is absolutely astounding. I have seen that chart before, not maybe in quite such a vivid highlight and outline, but Mr. Speaker, my degree is in chemistry. And when I first saw Representative Graves put that chart up for all of our colleagues to see, I thought that was the periodic table. Really, it took me back to my chemistry days and the periodic table of the elements. It's probably changed some now because it has been a long time since I attended Georgia Tech and got that BS in chemistry, but this is more complex than the periodic table.

And I'm sure the gentleman from Ranger will agree with me, it's something like 130 new Federal agencies that were created by this mess, all between the doctor and the patient. Maybe my colleague will point out where the doctor is on that chart and where the patient is.

You know, you talk about there is a temptation to try to surgically repair. But, Mr. Speaker, when you look at that chart that Representative Graves is presenting and you realize the complexity and there is so much wrong with this bill, I am afraid that by the time that you tried to surgically repair, there would be very little left to say grace over. That's why so many of our colleagues on this side of the aisle feel like that we need to repeal this bill, this monstrosity, this omnibus of 2,400 pages, government takeover of one-sixth of our economy, 16 percent, and start over, and start over.

Just this past week in the Energy and Commerce Committee--but we deal with a lot of health care issues, and this monstrosity, indeed, started over a year ago. We passed, this week, eight separate health care- related bills, none of which were more than five pages long, and we did it in a bipartisan way.

We can certainly come back and, with four or five really good solid ideas, and maybe we can present those in a subsequent town hall meeting or Special Order hour here on the House floor, but that's what we really need to do. I think it's important that people understand that.

I thank the gentleman for having us here and this colloquy so that our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, and the American people can better understand what we truly need to do to repair this.