Supporting the goals and ideals of National Train Day.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the recognition. I want to thank the minority leader, Mr. Boehner, for granting me the privilege of speaking here this evening.

What prompted us to come forward this evening is an announcement that took place before the Memorial Day weekend by the majority in the House, the Democratic majority leader and others, that it was not anticipated that they would be producing a budget. This is my 16th year in the Congress, and I know that that has not happened in the previous 15 years that I've served here. And in checking, I'm not aware, since the Budget Act of 1974 was enacted, that the House of Representatives hasn't put forth and produced a budget.

Just like at home, the reason that a budget is important is that it allocates resources and says what you're going to spend on what and, in the case of the government, what you're going to overspend and are going to have to borrow from places like China to finance the deficit and the debt. As a matter of fact, the news reports indicate that we are projected to have a budget deficit--that's just spending more money this year than we have--of about $1.4 trillion, which is certainly significant.

The thing about that debt, it's not money that we just have laying around or we borrow from the guy down the street. Most of it is borrowed from the financial institutions on Wall Street that we spend a lot of time bailing out and also foreign countries. China and others own a good portion of our debt as well.

So it was alarming that the announcement was made that we wouldn't be producing or the majority would not be producing a budget. Alarming because you wonder, maybe we've been really busy here and we haven't had time to get to something as important as the budget. And then, of course, after the budget is passed, that leads to what's called the appropriations process where the Appropriations Committee gets together and determines what we're going to spend on defense, what we are going to spend on education, what we are going to spend on the environment and so forth and so on. So, until you have the budget trigger, there's no allocation to the Appropriations Committee so they can begin their work.

So it's not just a matter of not having a blueprint, not having a budget; it's a matter of them not having the spending bills in place. Although, again, we're sometimes late in delivering those, it's pretty unusual that we don't even start the process with a markup in the subcommittees of Appropriations, certainly preparing the bills for floor activity.

In thinking about it, the President of the United States, President Obama, he's also charged with delivering a budget, and I think we all know that President Obama has been pretty busy. I mean, there's a lot going on. There have been a lot of things happening since he became the President of the United States that require attention. Some have been disasters; some have been financial difficulties. We've seen Greece go bankrupt on the other side of the ocean. But even as busy as President Obama has been, he discharged his statutory obligation and delivered to Capitol Hill in a timely fashion a budget. Now, you may not be crazy about the budget. You may think that the budget spends too much as I do, the President's proposal, but at least he did what he was supposed to do and present a budget.

That caused me to sort of examine what it is that we've been doing here in the House of Representatives or, more correctly, what the majority has decided we should be doing in the House of Representatives here since the beginning of the year to determine what it is that we have been so busy doing.

It's particularly important to talk about that a little bit because the first 12 years that I served in the Congress--I happen to be a Republican--there were more Republicans in the House of Representatives than there were Democrats, and so we were the majority party and we determined what came to the floor, when it came to the floor, just like the Democratic majority does today. And we were doing such a bang-up job that in 2006 the voters replaced us and made the Democratic Party the majority party.

But one of the central themes of that campaign that the Democrats made all across the country was you need to put us in charge because the Republican Congress is a do-nothing Congress, they're just not doing anything. And, as a matter of fact, they indicated that we weren't working full time. Now, anybody that's been here knows that that's really a specious argument, a false argument, but it sold newspapers. It looked good on the talk shows when people would say, well, we're not even working a full week. Well, you know, some of the work is done here on the floor, a lot of the work is done in committee, a lot of the work is done back in our districts, but to say that we weren't here five days a week and they were going to change all that was an interesting campaign slogan.

But just walking over here, Mr. Speaker, I got a notice from the majority leader. We've just come back from our work period back in the district for Memorial Day. We didn't have any votes on Monday. We've done something called suspensions that I'm going to talk about the last couple of days, together with a bill that I guess we'll try and finish up tomorrow. But I just got an email, courtesy of the majority leader's office so that we know what our schedule should be, that we're not going to have any votes on Friday.

So, despite the fact that the Republican majority in 2006 was labeled as the do-nothing Congress and we didn't work 5 days a week, we have accomplished a whopping 3 days of floor activity here in the House of Representatives after being at home for Memorial Day for an entire week.

I thought to myself, well, maybe we should look to see what it is we've been doing because, clearly, if we're not producing a budget--and we're going to talk a little bit about other things that haven't been occurring around here--maybe we've been preoccupied with really, really important matters that needed to be addressed.

What I found out was, as I examined it, that there have been 337 recorded votes on something known as suspensions, and, you know, Mr. Speaker, but just so the record is clear, a suspension is a noncontroversial bill where it's cleared, usually by the majority who says to the minority, We'd like to do this on suspension. Most of those things are by agreement.

The way that works, it's called a suspension because you're suspending the rules, you're not bringing a bill to the floor pursuant to the regular order. You're bringing it in a way that's debated for 40 minutes. Each side gets 20 minutes, and then there's a recorded

vote if it's requested. And rather than the simple majority, it takes two-thirds of those Members present and voting to pass a suspension.

Now, the interesting thing about suspensions is that both parties file legislation that becomes suspensions, and there have been more suspensions than 337, but the 337 that have occurred since January of this year were those that actually required a recorded vote. So, for each one of the 337 suspensions with a vote, you had 40 minutes of debate, so 40 minutes of floor time plus a 15-minute vote.

Now, to be fair, when they put a series of the suspensions in a row, not every suspension gets a 15-minute vote; some get 5-minute votes. But also, there are very few, simply, 15-minute votes around here because Members have to come from committee or their offices or wherever they happen to be to cast their votes, and so at least the first vote in the series, it's not unusual, even though the clock runs down beginning at 15 minutes, that the actual time consumed is closer to half an hour.

So, just for a rule of thumb with that sort of asterisk, so you have 337 suspensions debated for 40 minutes apiece and each one getting a 15-minute vote, and we'll do the math in a little bit, but clearly, that's a significant amount of floor time in a Congress that's really only here 3 days a week discussing noncontroversial bills.

In looking at the suspensions on this side, first of all, we have named 19 post offices or public buildings. And so, in each of those instances, a Member put forward a piece of legislation--and I don't make any observation about that these weren't worthy honors to name a public building after someone or a post office after someone, but 19 times the majority has put on the floor a suspension, consumed 40 minutes of time in a debate about whether or not we should--let's see, for instance, we designated a post office called the Roy Wilson Post Office, as an example, one time this year. So that bill was called up, debated for 40 minutes, and then there was a 15-minute vote. So, all told, just shy of an hour is consumed naming a post office after Mr. Wilson, and I will tell you that if you look up the recorded vote on that, I doubt that anybody that was present that day voted against it.

As a matter of fact, we just named two post offices earlier this evening, one after Ronald Reagan and the second one, I believe, was after a couple of Marines. Again, both are worthy designations, but there were no ``no'' votes.

So you sort of say to yourself, well, okay, then why did we have to have a recorded vote? Why did we have to consume 40 minutes of debate and then consume another 15 minutes on a vote when nobody was opposed to it and everybody thought it was a good idea?

As a matter of fact, you know, Mr. Speaker, that you could call up a post office bill and say, you know, ``I want the post office'' in wherever this happens to be--I apologize, I don't know--``but I want this post office named after Mr. Wilson,'' and ask everybody to vote for it and sit down.

And then the Speaker would say, ``All those in favor, say, `Aye.' All those opposed, `No.' '' And the ayes would obviously have it because everybody thinks it's a good idea. You wouldn't have a recorded vote. And I don't know how long that took, but it was a lot less than 55 minutes.

So, 19 times we consumed 55 minutes naming either a public building or a post office in honor of somebody.

The other thing I found was, in those 337 noncontroversial bills that each require 55 minutes, on over 30 occasions, I think it's 36 occasions, we congratulated a university or a college in this country for doing something like winning the lacrosse national championship or winning the NCAA basketball tournament.

And, again, all of the young people and all of those institutions deserve recognition. And I am not indicating, for example, that the University of Virginia men's soccer team, who won the 2009 Division 1 NCAA national championship--I know that every parent, every student on that team is extremely proud of his or her son's accomplishment in doing that.

But, again, if you look up the recorded vote, which was requested by the sponsor of that legislation, nobody voted against it. And so you have to say to yourself, well, okay, then why does it take 55 minutes on over 30 separate occasions since January of this year to congratulate all of these fine activities that have occurred?

And I only brought up the colleges and universities, but, in looking at the list, I know we have congratulated--and if I was a golfer, I could tell you, but we congratulated the guy who won the Masters, we congratulated a NASCAR race driver for winning his race.

And, again, all of those are important things, and I am sure that when the bills are finally passed and signed by the President, that makes a nice memento for that school or that individual to hang on their wall.

But when you are not doing other things such as producing a budget or producing a jobs bill that actually puts people back to work in this country, you have to ask yourself, well, why are you so busy taking 55 minutes times 36 to do that?

In addition, just sort of randomly, in pulling out some of the 337 suspensions that required a vote, because the majority asked for a vote, that don't have anything to do with schools and don't have anything to do with public buildings, you find that we are all about congratulating a lot of people who are engaged in certain activities in this country.

So, H. Res. 117, one of the first ones because 117 is kind of a low number, we supported the goals and ideals of National Engineers Week. Now, again, if you look up the vote, you will find that everybody that was here that day voted to commend the fine engineers in this country because they were having a good week.

The next one, again in the low numbers, 197, we wanted to commend the American Sail Training Association for its advancement of character building under sail and for advancement of international goodwill.

Again, worthy goals, but you have to say, when you are not attending to the business of the people of the United States through legislation that makes a difference in their lives and you are making choices about limited floor time--because, again, we are not here 5 days a week; we are here, really, on an average, about 3 days a week, even though, when campaigning to become the majority, they indicated we are going to work 5 days a week--you wonder why that takes 55 minutes when everybody votes for it.

A lot of things dealing with education: We indicated that February the 1st was going to be National School Counselor Week. We recognized National Robotics Week. And I am not really sure what that is, but I am sure, I guess, we have a week dedicated to people who make robots. The only robots I have seen are those ones on TV that battle each other all the time. But, again, that take a lot of smarts to put together a good robot.

We had a week recognizing School Social Work Week. We supported the goals and ideals of National Public Works Week. And I guess that that means, you know, like, sewers and bridges and things like that, that we felt it was necessary to take 55 minutes to say that national works are good things.

We thanked Vancouver for hosting a wonderful Winter Olympics. And, again, when that came to a vote, I don't recall anybody in the House of Representatives voting against it. Certainly, people who saw the Olympics thought that that was a very nice Olympics. The American teams did better than they normally do during a Winter Olympics.

So, again, I don't have any big difficulty with the fact that one of our colleagues sat down and drafted a resolution to do any one of these 337 things. I think the question is: Why, unless you are making it appear that you are doing something, would you consume 435 Members, all of the wonderful staff that works here, why would with you consume all that time to do these things, when, instead, you could be dealing with things that people are concerned about?

So, I am not smart enough to do the math, but just for those that may be interested, that will read the Congressional Record, if you take out your calculator and indicate 337 for the suspensions where they have required a

vote, multiply it by 40 minutes, and then also multiply 337 times 15 minutes for the votes that occurred, that will give you the amount of floor time that has been consumed with these suspensions.

For instance, we recognized the importance of manufactured and modular housing. I think that that's important. I never lived in a modular house, but if I did, I am sure that I would think that it was a good thing to honor the people that made it so that it didn't fall in on me, and we should recognize them.

But, again, why do you have to take an hour on the floor of the greatest deliberative body of the world to congratulate or recognize people who are in the modular home industry rather than dealing with other things?

And let me just talk for a minute about what those other things are. I mentioned the budget. No one around here can recall a time since the Budget Act of 1974 when the House of Representatives has not produced a budget.

Everybody at home, certainly in my part of the world in Ohio, when they sit down and figure out, you know, okay, we were sending the kids to school and it's going to cost this much, the car payment is this much, insurance is this much, you have to budget it. And if you don't budget it, you run into trouble. And then the trouble you run into is you either don't know what's going on with your finances or you spend more money than you have. And that's certainly the case with the Federal Government.

But one way that people that were here long before I got here decided that you could, sort of, track that and keep an eye on it was to produce a budget. And it also is a good tool for our constituents because there is a lot of concern about how much money is being spent in this country.

However, Americans tend to be generous people. Americans also recognize the importance of national defense. And if you said to my constituents or any constituents that, ``Look, we have to spend more money than we are bringing in in tax revenues this year, but here is what we are spending it on, because you can look at our budget,'' then sometimes people would say, ``Well, okay, I mean, borrowing money is not a good idea, but if we are going to borrow money, at least we understand that you are going to borrow it for''--for instance, there is a horrible situation going on in the Gulf of Mexico, with the oil literally gushing out of the bottom of the ocean.

And if you have seen the pictures of the wildlife and you recognize that hurricane season is about to hit the gulf and, you know, when that water gets stirred up, the damage and the oil is going to spread much further than it has today, there are a number of people who would say, ``Well, okay, borrowing money is not a great idea. Maybe we would prefer that you go find cuts someplace else to pay for it. But we understand that emergencies happen, and so if you need to spend X millions of dollars to deal with that situation and then hopefully get it repaid from BP or those responsible for the mess that has been created down there, we think that that's okay.''

But without a budget, we not only deprive Members of the Congress from understanding where it is we are going fiscally, we also deprive all the people that are paying the bills, the taxpayers of the United States, from knowing how the government proposes to spend their money in the next fiscal year.

And it's a fiscal year, Mr. Speaker--and I know you know this, but I will indicate it just for the record--that the Federal Government's fiscal year goes October 1st to October the 1st. And so these things need to be in place by October 1st, both budget and the appropriations process, the spending process, or else calamitous things happen. The government shuts down, there is no predictability about how things are going to be spent, and it's a mess. And it's certainly not the preferred way of governing.

And, as a matter of fact, there are a number of statements made by gentlemen who now hold the position of majority leader or chairman of the Budget Committee who, when they were in the minority party and it was the Republicans' job to cobble together a budget and get it passed, which we always did, they indicated in words to the effect that the inability or the failure to create a budget is a failure to govern.

And, you know, words are funny things, just like when you say we should work 5 days a week and we wind up working 3 days a week, but the reason that you said we should work 5 days a week is to say that other people are bad, that can come back and bite you in the nose.

And, similarly, when you make statements like, you know, ``The failure to produce a budget is a failure to govern,'' when you are in the criticism business rather than the governing business, and then all of a sudden the voters put you in charge, and they say, ``Well, we are not even going to try to do a budget,'' it gets you into trouble.

You know, one of the dissatisfactions, one of the many dissatisfactions--and you are seeing it in election after election across the country--is that people think that the Federal Government has stopped listening to them and their representatives have stopped listening to them. And I happen to think one of the biggest contributors to that is this venomous partisanship that goes back and forth.

And, you know, you have to recognize that, when you are in the minority and you are making a statement that the failure to produce a budget is a failure to govern, well, sometimes, you know, the dog catches the car. And you then are put in a position where it's your job to craft the budget. And so, what are we to think if you don't produce a budget? I think you are to think that it's a failure to govern.

And, rather than saying that, it would be my preferred path that we would work together, Republicans and Democrats. Just because a Democrat has an idea, I don't dismiss it as a bad idea because it came from a Democrat. And my Republican colleagues, a lot of them are very bright people and they have very good ideas that, if they were incorporated into some of the things that the majority was up to, perhaps we could have legislation.

And that's always been, you know, how I have tried to conduct myself in the 16 years I have been here. And the proof is sort of in the pudding. And the National Journal, one of the publications here on Capitol Hill, sort of looks at how Members of Congress vote. And there was an article, about a month and a half ago, that talked about who voted either for or against the clearly identified initiatives of President Obama the most.

And so, not untypically, the numbers were pretty high on the Republican side in opposing some of the things that President Obama is putting forward; and again, not surprisingly because the President is a Democrat, the members of the Democratic Party voted for his proposals in pretty large amounts. But I was surprised--and I think I'm probably lucky I didn't get a primary from a tea party person because that analysis showed that on 65 percent of the occasions where President Obama identified what his goal or priority was, I supported President Obama. That's a pretty high number. It wasn't the highest among Republicans, I think it was fifth or sixth, but that's what I'm talking about.

The way that things work and the way you govern is when you take the best ideas of a lot of bright people here, a lot of good-intentioned people here, and craft something that maybe you don't get everything you want--the only two people that I ever knew or do know that were right 100 percent of the time were my mother and my wife. And I know that because they both told me they were right 100 percent of the time.

So, again, you have to say to yourself, what are we doing? Why are we spending an hour times 337 honoring football teams and lacrosse teams and swimming teams and recognizing the--well, we did modular housing. Let's see, what else did we do? We honored a historic community and expressed condolences to the Chatham County Courthouse. Again, I don't know what horrible event befell the Chatham County Courthouse, but we took an hour here doing that rather than doing other things.

And so what is it that we haven't accomplished, and what is it that the American people, I think, would appreciate if we got around to it? The first I indicated--and I apologize, Mr. Speaker, my writing is bad and it looks like chicken scratch--but the first is a budget, and I think I've talked enough

about the fact that we haven't produced a budget.

Another thing, 12 years I spent on the Transportation Committee around here, and every 6 years we have reauthorized something known as the Surface Transportation bill. It was called ICE-TEA in 1991, it was called TEA-21 in 1997, it was called SAFETEA-LU in 2005, and it expired last September. Now, that legislation is what funnels literally billions of dollars to the States so that they can build roads and bridges and make safety improvements and build bike lanes and a whole host of other things.

But aside from being a bill that keeps our country competitive-- because it really started, even though we have a 6-year bill now, it started in 1956, I believe, with Dwight Eisenhower when he decided we should have a dedicated gasoline tax and built the national highway system. And if you think about the national highway system and what it has meant to this country in terms of commerce, it's unbelievable. Even if you go beyond commerce, you have to say to yourself, wait a minute, it's also a big item in national defense.

So you would think that that would be something we would like to take care of. As a matter of fact, the rule of thumb on the Transportation Committee was that for every $1 billion that was expended in that legislation, it created 47,500 jobs. Republicans now are asking where is the budget, but before that we were asking where are the jobs.

The job figures, Mr. Speaker, you know, came out last week. There was an uptick in employment, but included in that uptick in employment was the fact that the government has hired 400,000 people to conduct the census. Now, anybody who is interested can go back and see how many people were hired to conduct the census in 2000. It's an important job. But 400,000 people were hired to conduct the census, counting all the people in the United States of America.

When you take out the 400,000 government jobs that were created temporarily--and again, if you're talking about jobs, a job to me is something where you can earn a wage, have health care security, have retirement, potentially, and the ability through that wage to support yourself and your family on a long-term basis. Very, very few people would consider it to be just a sweetheart job, to get a job counting people in the United States and then being done and not being employed when you're done with that.

So if you look at the jobless figures and you take out the 400,000 people that have been added to conduct the census, job unemployment in this country is stagnant. It's hovering between 9 and 10 percent. We've been joined by my good friend, Mr. McCotter of Michigan. Michigan has been hard hit because of the auto industry. The gentleman from Michigan can tell us in a minute what that unemployment is.

But, again, by recognizing National Teachers Day and taking an hour of time to do that, we haven't gotten to the transportation bill. It's about a year overdue; it will be soon. We keep kicking the can down the road, but it's not being done. So if your question is, where are the jobs? How can the government assist? The government doesn't create jobs--unless you're a census worker. But how can we assist, sort of give the economy a boost? And under this administration we've had stimulus 1, we've had stimulus 2, we've had bailout 1, 2 and 3, son of bailout, son-in-law of bailout; and we still hover around 9 or 10 percent unemployment across the country.

What is significant about the transportation bill is that the people--although the 47,500 jobs that are created for each billion of spending are on a wide array of things--the people that cook food and serve it to highway workers in restaurants, the people in the uniform business that produce or clean uniforms for the people out building roads and bridges, the people that make the orange cones and the reflective vests--the bulk of the highway work is done by laborers and operating engineers and designed by civil engineers.

Well, their unemployment rate, the unemployment rate in the trades isn't 9 or 10 percent. Depending upon what trade you're talking about, the unemployment rate is between 27 and 40 percent. So these people who have had jobs--we're not talking about people that don't want to work or anything else--these people who have had jobs, because of the shrinking of the economy and because of Congress' failure to act on a transportation bill--which was due last September, it's not like it was last week and we just sort of skipped over it and didn't quite get there from here--it's almost a year late.

And there are really no prospects, despite the really good intentions of a guy named Jim Oberstar, who is the chairman, a Democrat from Minnesota, of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. If it was up to him, we would have had a transportation bill on time, but it's not up to him. The leadership of the House has indicated that we're just not going to do a transportation bill between now and certainly the election. And the President's Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, has indicated that the administration has decided that they want to go on an 18-month listening tour to listen to ideas about transportation and has no intention of even addressing the highway bill until March of next year.

And so at that point it's going to be 1\1/2\ years late before the bill is even hobbled together. And bills just don't all of a sudden spring up like crocuses here in the spring. There have to be some hearings and adjustments and amendments, and then it's brought to the floor for floor activity.

So when we are spending an hour times 337 doing things like, oh, I don't know, in support of National Safe Digging Week, we spent an hour on that--nobody voted against it, but in order to make it look like we were here 5 days a week, to make it look like we were doing something, we spent an hour both discussing and voting on National Safe Digging Week. Now, I don't know exactly what National Safe Digging Week is, but I think it's when you go out in your back yard and you want to put in a garden, you should call the utilities first and not stick the spade in the ground or else you're going to cut your neighbor's gas line. So I think that's National Safe Digging Week.

But regardless, again, I'm not aware of any big push by anybody that would condemn National Safe Digging Week, and I certainly have never seen a resolution around here that wanted to promote National Unsafe Digging Week. But we took an hour, we took an hour, rather than producing a budget so that we could, in an orderly fashion, figure out where we are in this country financially.

Instead of just borrowing trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have, we could have been doing a transportation bill for a sector that, unlike the 9 or 10 percent--which is really high all by itself, and if you sort of flashback to February of 2009, the President's observation was we have to do this $800 billion of stimulus spending because if we don't, unemployment is going to go above eight percent. Well, the economy is an unpredictable thing, and I certainly don't fault the President for--or his advisers actually, I don't think the President actually sat down and crunched the $800 billion--but you certainly can't fault him and his advisers for thinking that was the case.

But the fact of the matter is it hasn't been the case, and unemployment has risen, cresting double digits; and now it's not getting better unless we spend more money hiring people--400,000 people--to count people in the census.

Maybe the gentleman from Michigan could just share with us briefly what the economic picture is and what's of concern to his constituents in the State of Michigan. I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for those observations. Again, it's tough for you to see, so I just want to elevate this chart for a minute. But two of my favorites that we've spent an hour on is H. Res. 1294, expressing support for the designation of National Explosive Ordnance Disposal Day.

Now, I guess that means, you know, if you live next-door to a Korean War vet and if he smuggled home a couple of grenades and he has them in your basement that we are honoring the getting rid of those without blowing people up. Again, at a time when we haven't done a budget and we haven't done a transportation bill, the fact that we would spend an hour of time here coming up with honoring people who dispose of unsafe ordnances is a strange thing.

We've been joined now by my great friend from Ohio, Mr. Tiberi, of Columbus, Ohio.

You know, a lot of people point to the collapse of the subprime market and to the fact that we weren't on the ball when it came to the residential housing market. You can go back and forth. You can blame the Republicans, you can blame the Democrats, but the blame game really doesn't matter much.

The gentleman talked about a second recession. We do know that the mortgage market for a commercial property is about to explode. We have seen it. We see it coming. We know it's coming. Basically, what has occurred is because of the difficulties in the economy. Just as an example, if you were in the real estate business and if you purchased a building, an office building, and if it were fully rented--everybody pays you rent--but you bought it for $1 million and today it's not worth $1 million, the banks, which we've bailed out again and again and again, are now in the process of saying to the people who own those buildings, Well, wait a minute. We can't finance that for $1 million anymore because it's only worth $600,000. We know that that is coming. We know it.

Again, we are passing bills about the safe, you know, disposal--not even the safe disposal of hand grenades. We're just honoring people for having a week when they dispose of hand grenades.

You know, with the last one down here, H. Res. 1301, we supported the goals and ideals of National Train Day. That's about the fifth time that I can recall since the Democrats became the majority that we have recognized National Train Day. I happen to like trains. I support trains and so forth and so on. Yet how come we spent an hour of time and 337 hours of time having bills and having votes when everybody votes for them rather than dealing with this commercial mortgage crisis? I mean, where is the bill that does that?

What you will get instead is inaction. We'll honor, you know, a couple more universities for winning a swim meet or a curling tournament, and we'll not deal with the commercial mortgage crisis. Then we're going to start the blame game all over again. We're going to say, Well, it happened on your watch. It's George Bush's fault. It's Barack Obama's fault. How about, rather than honoring trains, we take an hour of our valuable time here and we do something about a crisis that we know is coming?

I yield to my friend from Ohio for his thoughts.

I thank the gentleman for that.

I just want to give credit to somebody who is in the Chamber with us. He can't speak because he happens to be the Speaker pro tem, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Minnick), and he is presiding over the House for this Special Order.

When you talk about commercial real estate, he has got a plan. I mean, he has put together some very bright people to help avert what he sees and what everybody in this Chamber should see, if they don't see, which is that we are headed for this big fall off the cliff in commercial real estate, which will make the housing market, the residential housing crisis, really--and you're talking about millions and millions of dollars per building.

Go ahead.

I'd be happy to.

I thank the gentleman.

Here are three quick examples of things that we haven't done that could, one, make sure we don't spend more than we are supposed to and, two, that could deal with the sector of the economy workforce that is not facing 10 percent or 13 percent or 15 percent unemployment but that is facing, rather, 27 percent to 40 percent unemployment. We're not looking forward, as the current resident of the Chair, Mr. Minnick, is, to averting another meltdown for which we will again engage in a lot of finger pointing: It's this person's fault or it's that person's fault.

The gentleman from Ohio, I know, serves on the Ways and Means Committee, and the other side of this is not just what haven't we done in terms of action, but there are a number of things that are set to expire that have to do with job creation, and I'll ask the gentleman to address some of those in just a second.

Again, referring to the list, rather than dealing with these issues or with the issues that we are going to talk about in a minute, we spent an hour here in the House of Representatives expressing the support of the week of April 18 through April 23 as National Assistant Principals Week.

Now, you know, there are a lot of things that honor teachers, school counselors, so forth and so on. I don't know what my friend's experiences were, but it was the assistant principal you would see when you went to get spanked, when I was growing up, because you were misbehaving. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, of all of the people we honor--and I suppose I voted for it as did everybody when the roll was called; but you know, assistant principals, I'm not so sure, are up there with everybody else.

I'll yield to the gentleman from Ohio to talk a little bit about what are affectionately called the ``Bush tax cuts.'' What we're talking about is the tax legislation that was enacted in 2001 and 2003. They are characterized by our friends on the other side of the aisle as tax breaks for filthy rich people, but maybe you could go through a few of them, and we could identify them, because I think they go from cradle to grave.

What is about to expire? People are going to pay higher rates on what?

Well, to the gentleman's point, you mentioned a variety of tax provisions that are set to expire. I want to focus on two--interest and dividends.

So any senior citizen who is living on a fixed income, who receives his or her income as a result of investments that he or she makes and who receives interest income if he or she is invested in

the stock market or in some other fund and he or she gets dividends as a result of that, currently, under the current law, what is the rate that that senior pays on his or her interest and dividends?

Okay. Now, what's going to happen when the majority party indicates that it is not going to take any action?

Again, as they're not on the budget, as they're not on the transportation bill, as they're not on the commercial real estate side, when they fail to take action to extend those, the senior citizens who today are paying 15 percent on the money they earn in interest and on the money that they earn in dividends, what is their tax rate going to be?

Okay. So, you know, some of my favorite discussions here are semantics, so we're going to hear that because people who raise taxes repeatedly usually don't get reelected because people aren't real crazy about that. So we'll hear, We're not raising anybody's taxes. We're just letting this set of tax rates expire. Okay. But, you know, if I've made 100 bucks in interest and today the tax on that is $15 and it's going to go up to at least $20 that then I'll have to pay, I have a tough time, and I would really have a tough time explaining to the commonsense people whom we represent in Michigan and Ohio how that is not a tax increase.

But, with a straight face, there are people who will come down to the well of this House and say, ``We're not raising anybody's taxes. We just let these taxes expire.''

And I see the discussion of taxes has once again gotten the gentleman from Michigan on his feet, and I yield to him.

I thank you.

The Chair tells us we have about a minute and 45 seconds, and I'd just yield to my friend from Ohio for any closing observations that he has.

Well, that's right.

And it's interesting, this special order, we have people from Ohio and Michigan. And at least each November we don't get along very well, but on this issue we're very united. And I thank both of you for participating, Mr. McCotter and Mr. Tiberi.

And, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of our time.

Well, I thank the gentleman from northeastern Ohio and the Cleveland suburbs in Lake County for organizing this hour today, and I think you've really hit on some of the important points.

When you kind of go back over a year ago when the stimulus bill was passed by the majority, the Speaker said that unemployment wouldn't go above 8 percent. Boy, it would be nice to see unemployment at 8 percent in Ohio at this time, wouldn't it? It would be nice to see unemployment at 8 percent in my district. It would be nice to see 8 percent unemployment in your district. It would be nice to see unemployment even close to 8 percent nationally, and we don't see that today. In fact, as someone who has a father factoring the last time unemployment was above 8 percent, which was in the early 1980s--he lost his job and lost his pension, and we lost our health care--it's kind of deja vu all over again.

Rather than try to focus on those issues, we have spent a whole lot of time on issues that don't employ people, that don't make a difference in people's lives. Maybe they are important, but not as important as dealing with the nuts-and-bolts issues that you've talked about tonight.

I mean, if you can't budget, you can't govern, one man said, who is now the chairman of the Budget Committee from South Carolina. If you can't budget, you can't govern. Maybe you've already said this, but, since 1974, the House has never passed a budget. This year, the Democratic majority is not going to pass a budget in this House of Representatives. If you can't pass a budget, you can't govern. By the way, for the 6 years that I was in the majority here, we didn't have a 78-Member majority like the Democrats do today. This is unbelievable.

I was knocking on doors in my district in central Ohio and in Columbus on Saturday. Americans are mad and they are struggling. They are scared and they are concerned. Those who have the ability to expand their businesses--and there are some employers, job creators who have the ability--are frightened. They are frightened. I don't know if you talked about this before I came. They are frightened at the prospects of higher taxes. They are frightened at the prospects of more regulation. So what are they doing? They are kind of retracting and are not doing what they could be doing, which is creating jobs, obviously.

Rather than being on the floor here to honor somebody who is going to

have a courthouse named after him, which might be worthy, let's focus on these issues that you've talked about that are vitally important. We have an election in 5 months. Between now and then, nobody who I talked to in central Ohio who is a job creator, who is an entrepreneur, who is a risk-taker, is willing to take that risk based upon what they see coming out of this Congress.

So the gentleman from northeastern Ohio is correct in saying that it is not the roadmap that we need to be on to make our economy better in the greatest country in the world. We have too much debt, too many taxes, and too much spending. What we need to be doing is just the opposite of what the majority is doing today.

I yield back.

Will the gentleman yield?

Just last week, back in central Ohio, as we were home during the Memorial Day recess week, I convened a meeting--and I'm a former Realtor, a recovering Realtor. We had real estate folks on the commercial real estate side. We had small businesses. We had business or building managers, building owners and managers and bankers in the meeting.

To your point, they said that the commercial real estate market, if Congress doesn't deal with this issue soon, is going to make the housing meltdown look like minor league compared to what could happen on the commercial real estate side, not just in Ohio but across the country. This is happening very, very soon.

As we deal with this financial regulatory bill that is coming soon, which is in conference committee today, that could actually add to this problem by restraining credit and by creating a bigger problem with respect to access to capital. In this Congress today, with the majority, we are really heading for a disaster of epic proportions if we don't deal with this.

So I am pleased that Representative Minnick is on the case. I am pleased that you are on the case, and I hope that some folks can get to the leadership on the Democratic side to actually do something about this before it is too late.

I yield back.

Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding on this matter and for bringing this up because we've spent a lot of hours on issues right behind you that are not life-or-death issues.

Just a couple weeks ago, we spent less than an hour on an issue that deals with tax increases for people who own partnerships. Quite honestly, the way the majority sold it was we're going to tax people who are hedge fund partners. Yet the reality is, if you look at what the Congressional Budget Office said, in going back to your point about commercial real estate, the U.S. Conference of Mayors expressed grave concern about what the majority Democratic Party was doing with respect to carried interest. Real estate partnerships are the most impacted group, and we're going to take their real estate partnership and go from 15 percent to ordinary income.

So, next year, which is what you just said based upon the tax cuts expiring, the marginal rates going up, the rate increase and the payroll tax for health care, you're going to see a huge increase in people who invest in our cities, in commercial real estate. At the same time that this problem is going to occur that you've already explained, you're going to see tax increases from 15 percent to over 40 percent for some people.

What the Conference of Mayors understands, which is not exactly a conservative group in any way, shape or form, is that, if you're going to increase taxes on people who invest in our cities from 15 percent to over 40 percent, they're not going to invest in our cities. This is a huge impact, even before those tax cuts expire at the end of this year.

What will happen next year is we're going to see capital gains rates go up. We're going to see dividends go up. We're going to see marginal rates go up--close to 40 percent for the top tax group. As the gentleman from northeastern Ohio knows, before all of these tax rates go up, we have already seen 53 percent of Americans today pay Federal income tax. There are 47 percent of Americans who don't, and that is going to get worse when these tax cuts expire. So you are close to a situation where you have more people actually in the wagon than are pulling the wagon rather than people pulling the wagon than are in the wagon. This is not a good situation for America.

My mom and dad came to America for a better life, for the American Dream, for an opportunity, and that is slowly slipping away for so many people under this Democratic majority where it's class warfare every step of the way. When these tax cuts expire, it's more of that class warfare--the haves versus the have-nots--and it's a bad, bad recipe for the future of America if we continue this class warfare argument, whether it's on income, whether it's on capital gains and dividends, whether it's targeting the job creators and the entrepreneurs versus the people in America who aren't.

Fifteen percent.

The capital gains and dividend rate will go up to 20 percent, and depending on what rate they are on, that marginal rate will go up as well.

Well, I thank the gentleman.

You know, the bottom line is there are a lot of people in our State that are hurting. There are a lot of people in Ohio that would like a job. There are a lot of people in Michigan that would like a job.

Looking back over the last year, we have spent a lot of time on energy and cap-and-trade and health care and stimulus. And the bottom line is, ever since we spent that time, more and more people in Ohio and Michigan are out of work. We have record unemployment, record unemployment going back to when I was in high school back in the early 1980s, with no end in sight.

And then, on top of that, we have tax increases coming. We have spending out of control. We have spending that is higher than I've ever seen. Even the high spending that we thought we saw a couple of years ago is minor league compared to the spending today.

And Americans are getting it. And all the time that we've spent on the legislation that you've talked about that is not really important in people's lives is starting to penetrate to the American people, to Ohioans and to Michiganders, that we need to be tackling some of these tough issues.

How do you tackle these tough issues, sir, without passing a budget? And that's the bottom line.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I tip my hat also to the Member of Congress whom I call ``Ms. Amtrak,'' ``Ms. Passenger Rail,'' whose passion is evident; who works tirelessly day and night, week after week, to advance the cause of passenger rail in this country, and has been very successful at it, mobilizing public opinion, igniting public imagination. And I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), who has been a very constructive and enthusiastic partner in shaping passenger rail.

I would say to the gentleman, while the Bush administration twice submitted bankruptcy budgets for Amtrak and twice proposed putting Amtrak up for sale in the private marketplace, there were Members on both sides of the aisle who joined together, including the gentleman, to restore funding for Amtrak to keep it going. The gentleman's fingerprints are all over the Amtrak authorization bill that President Bush signed. That same President Bush, who once said we should terminate Amtrak, signed the bill with a whole new future for Amtrak. And Mr. Mica as well, who is, unfortunately, not here on the floor but who nonetheless played a very significant role in shaping a new future for Amtrak and, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania said, opening the door for private investment in each of the corridors that we crafted in the Amtrak authorization.

The Pacific Railway Act over 148 years ago really is the beginning point

for our discussion today and for all discussion on passenger rail. That was the day that President Lincoln signed the legislation that gave the Central Pacific Railroad the right to build rail lines from Sacramento east and chartered the Union Pacific to build rail lines from the Missouri River west.

I would recommend to anyone who is interested in passenger rail to make a trip to Sacramento, to the rail museum in that city. It is a splendid panorama, a stunning sweep of history, of development of both freight and passenger rail, how the railroads were built, the people who built them, the ethnic diversity of those who worked on the laying of the track, and the competition going from west to east and east to west. It is a striking march through history. It gives the viewer a deeper appreciation of our rich history of freight and passenger rail.

The joining of the two just 7 years later, in 1869, was in those times a remarkable timeframe. I think today with modern equipment we might have built those two lines a lot faster. But 1,776 miles of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific joined at Promontory Summit in Utah.

Not long after, the first transcontinental trip took 83 hours and 39 minutes from New York City to San Francisco. By 1910, which was really the peak time for passenger rail, 95 percent of all intercity travel was by rail. By 1920, the railroads carried 1.2 million passengers. The automobile was making its way into our consciousness and taking over and giving Americans a difference of travel and experience and freedom of access.

It is interesting that in 1920 cars accounted for 50 miles of travel a year for the average citizen and 450 miles per year for trains, but 10 years later, that had just turned around. Americans were driving over 1,600, nearly 1,700 miles a year in their cars and only 219 miles on average by train.

That continued to progress until after World War II, the railroads saw more advantage in freight, passenger traffic was dropping off, and the railroads joined with the U.S. Post Office to take the overnight mail off the passenger service. The RPOs began to disappear. That reduced revenue to the railroads. The railroads could then petition the ICC for discontinuance.

By the end of the decade of the 1960s, passenger rail was on life support, and Congress created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, which we know today as Amtrak.

There is now a rail revival happening all across the land. And that is what this resolution is intended to do, support the goals and ideals of National Train Day.

Everywhere I travel, in almost every city that ever had a rail service there is either a caboose or an old locomotive at the entrance to the community. People celebrate their rail history. But they also want to bring back active service. Just as in transit, Americans are voting with their feet. A million new transit riders a day. And so with passenger rail.

We all remember the tragedy of September 11, 2001, when the only way you could travel intercity, apart from your automobile, was on Amtrak. And the revival of interest in both transit and in intercity passenger rail has just gone apace since then.

President Obama made a commitment to intercity passenger rail, putting $8 billion on the table in the stimulus package. That was more in 1 year than Amtrak had received in several years. It's a down payment, as he said, and as Chairwoman Brown had said and others have observed. Now we are seeing the implementation of those funds by the various corridors to which those stimulus dollars were allocated.

It is up to us, and our committee will continue to hold oversight hearings observing the implementation of those funds to ensure they are wisely invested, that the commitments made are followed through. We will move America along. We are starting slowly.

Goodness, there is passenger rail track that is part of this that's only 35 miles an hour today because that's passenger rail going on freight rail track that has been allowed to deteriorate. There are other corridors where freight rail has been built up, and the investment in the corridor has been robust, and where there is room for passenger rail, but we have to separate the two. And we recognize that we have to have passenger rail partnering with freight rail.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania has been quite a strong advocate for that. And we all recognize we need to move more goods by rail for the economy's sake, for the environment's sake. By the way, I would say to the gentleman that 436 miles a ton on a gallon of fuel was updated yesterday for me by the Association of American Rail. They say it is now 483 miles on a gallon of fuel for a ton of freight. Locomotives are improving in their efficiency. The track beds are improving. And we are going to do even more in the future.

But we are pikers with that $8 billion. The European economic community, European Union, the transport ministry has a $1.4 trillion, 20-year investment plan, they are halfway through doing it now, to build 7,000 additional miles of high-speed intercity passenger rail, real high-speed, 200 miles an hour. We will get there eventually. We are almost back where we were in 1890 in making the investment in passenger rail, except that those corridors that remain for freight, in which passenger is a lively, active participant, or a possibility, have been upgraded, and now we need to make the next step upgrades to class six, seven, and eight rail where we can have speeds in excess of 150 miles an hour.

It's going to take a huge amount of capital investment. But Spain has committed $140 billion into their high speed rail system, the Talgo. One hundred forty billion dollars for a country with 42 million people. That is an enormous commitment on their part, and shows visionary steps toward their future. But they will have 186- to 200-mile an hour, 220- mile an hour intercity passenger rail service. We can do no less in America. We must do no less in America.

China is completing an 800-plus mile link from Beijing to Shanghai. That is the distance from Boston to Richmond on the East Coast. In that Boston-Richmond corridor are 36 million people. In Beijing-Shanghai there are nearly 100 million people. You will be able to travel that distance, though, in 4 hours on 220-mile an hour steel on steel rail.

We can't let China, Japan with the Shinkansen, South Korea with their high speed rail system, and all the European systems get so far ahead of us. They are now, but we will catch up. And when we do, people will look back and say the goals and ideals of National Train Day moved us in that direction.

And this Congress, both sides of the aisle, and the partnership that we have formed, keeping vigil over the future investments in passenger rail can rightly take credit for moving America along that path toward a great recapturing of our past and making it a greater future.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1301) supporting the goals and ideals of National Train Day, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 1301.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Rail in America is experiencing a renaissance we haven't seen in 50 years. All forms of passenger rail, including Amtrak, are seeing increased ridership numbers. In fact, in 2009 Amtrak welcomed aboard over 27.1 million passengers, the second-largest annual total in Amtrak's history, an average of more than 74,000 passenger rides and more than 300 Amtrak trains per day.

For me, as chair of the Rail Subcommittee, the eventual goal is to have high-speed intercity passenger, and commuter rail lines connecting nationwide to serve as an enhancement to our current systems of transportation.

Moreover, if a nationwide high-speed and intercity passenger rail system is realized, it will not only serve as a tremendous benefit to our Nation's transportation needs but will also be a superb asset toward getting people back to work by creating quality jobs in our economy's manufacturing sector. In some areas, like where the Sunset Limited used to operate, it is a homeland security issue. If the United States was hit by a natural or manmade disaster, we need a functional system that will move citizens out of harm's way.

There is no doubt that increasing the use of passenger and freight rail is the best way for our Nation to address the environmental and energy-related challenges we face today. Freight railroads, for example, have made major gains in fuel efficiency through training and improved locomotive technology. Indeed, a single intermodal train can take up to 280 trucks off of our highways. And one gallon of diesel fuel can move a ton of freight an average of 414 miles, a 76-percent improvement since 1980, while General Electric has recently unveiled the world's first hybrid locomotive.

In addition, passenger rail's ability to reduce congestion is well- known, and their ridership numbers are increasing steadily each year. One full passenger train in fact can take 250 to 300 cars off the road. Passenger rail also consumes much less energy than automobiles and commercial airlines. As we have seen with the horrible oil spills on our Gulf Coast, with estimates of 5,000 barrels floating into the sea every day, it is clear we need a new way of doing things in the transportation arena.

Our committee has hit the rails, having a national dialogue with America about the future of the U.S. transportation system. Just two weeks ago, I led a Whistle Stop Rail Tour to promote high-speed and intercity passenger rail in the United States. We started in Washington, traveled to upstate New York, and ended up in Chicago where we conducted a major hearing on rail issues. We are planning additional events in Texas, California, Oregon, and throughout the United States.

All along the way, we saw stimulus dollars going toward improving our transportation infrastructure and creating jobs for the local workforce. In that particular region in upstate New York, rail manufacturing could very well replace the good jobs in those towns that were sent overseas.

Just Saturday, I rode with Amtrak as they tested the current Florida East Coast Railroad line from Jacksonville to Miami for passenger service. And on Monday, we held the latest in a series of high-speed rail hearings in Miami, Florida. Everywhere we have gone, we have gotten very strong support for Amtrak service and high-speed rail. The only complaint I have heard is that there wasn't enough money and it wasn't coming fast enough.

Over the past 50 years, the Federal Government has invested nearly $1.3 trillion in our Nation's highways and more than $484 billion in aviation. Unfortunately, since 1970 when Congress created Amtrak, we have just invested $67 billion in intercity passenger rail, including Amtrak.

Now, I have always assured everyone that the $8 billion in the Recovery Act was just a down payment and there would be more planning and construction dollars coming in the near future. But we need to get serious about funding high-speed rail. With just $1 billion budgeted for fiscal year 2011, we need to find a dedicated revenue source so that States, operators, stakeholders, and manufacturers aren't afraid to make investments in infrastructure and manpower.

In fact, I feel so passionate about it that I spearheaded a letter that over 100 Members signed to President Obama requesting that he include a dedicated source of revenue for high-speed rail in the transportation reauthorization policy objective that the administration is developing.

We still have a lot of work to do before the first passengers board high-speed trains in the United States, but we are off to a great start with the investment made in the Recovery Act.

I encourage all of my colleagues to show their support for this resolution and the new age of rail in America. This is a giant step in the right direction.

Let's roll, baby, roll. Toot toot. That's it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the chair of the committee and our transportation guru.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

You bring up a very sore point for the people of Michigan: we have the highest unemployment rate in the country. We've suffered greatly in what many people believe has been our longest lasting recession. And at present, they are very concerned that not only will we not see an immediate recovery or one in the near future, but instead what we will see is another dip down into the recession with inflation following it due to, as the gentleman has pointed out, the massive borrowing by the Federal Government. This would be akin to the stagflation that Michigan experienced in the late seventies and early eighties, which was a very severe

blow to our economy and to the families and the workers that rely upon a strong manufacturing base in this country.

When you talk about the budget, when you talk about the transportation bill, these are essential items of the Federal Government. Not being able to bring forward a budget, as the gentleman has rightly pointed out, leaves individuals who could make investments and who could help grow the economy to feel that the fiscal discipline and fiscal integrity in the United States is absent. This will then preclude them from stepping forward and trying to help grow the economy, to help people find jobs, especially in my home State of Michigan.

We talk about transportation, which is something that has generally been very bipartisan. This is not an ideological debate. We understand there is a Federal role. As Republicans, we know this from starting with Abraham Lincoln's support for internal improvements, and yet for whatever reason we have not seen a bill come forth.

As the gentleman has also rightly pointed out, the people of Michigan--who would be interested in such a bill, I assure you--are hearing that there will instead be a listening tour. Well, if you haven't heard them by now, they want jobs, they want the opportunities, they want to see the economy grow, and they want to see the Federal Government actually taking responsible steps to help facilitate economic growth.

I think that as we continue to go through the list of items that the gentleman has put forward, we do not criticize colleagues for voting on what's put in front of them. People have long talked about the bills or the resolutions that Congress passes. There are constituencies who like them. There are very few, as has been pointed out, very few individuals who oppose them. But if you look at it like a meal, on the blue charts that the gentleman from Ohio has put forward are what I would call the fixings, and what is on the white board that is missing is the actual meat and potatoes.

This Congress has to understand that there are families worried about their finances, they're worried about their futures, they're worried about what next meal they will put on the table if they lose their job or if their unemployment runs out, or if we go into a double-dip recession with the prospect of stagflation.

It is up to this Congress not necessarily to say that all the fixings are irrelevant, but we should be able to put a full meal forward of legislative priorities, pass them, and help to get us out of the situation that we're in. I know that in a State with 14 percent unemployment, that would be a most welcome change to what we're experiencing now.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding on your point about how the proponents of the tax increases going up, tax rates going up, will say that they really didn't do anything, that they just simply let the tax relief expire.

This is akin to coming upon an accident scene and saying, ``Well, I did not help the victim. I merely let them expire.''

I yield back.