Celebrating the symbol of the United States flag and supporting the goals and ideals of Flag Day.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1448 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1448.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1448 is a structured rule, providing for further consideration of H.R. 5297, the Small Business Lending Fund Act. It provides for the consideration of two amendments which were initially cleared as PAYGO-compliant but which were subsequently deemed to violate PAYGO after the first rule was adopted. These amendments have been revised to comply with PAYGO rules, and this rule treats them as part of yesterday's rule.

Mr. Speaker, in 2008, after years of lax regulation and Wall Street roulette, our Nation's economy fell off a cliff. Within a matter of months, many Wall Street giants fell, and they took the livelihoods of thousands of small businesses with them. Since that time, we have taken bold action to stabilize the economy, to invest in economic growth, and we are in the process of putting in place new rules to protect against the casino-like atmosphere that existed on Wall Street.

Yet for small businesses, they are still feeling the pinch. Accessing capital to build, to grow, to diversify, and to hire new employees remains a pressing challenge. In September of 2008, there was an earthquake on Wall Street, and the aftershocks are still being felt on Main Street. The purpose of this bill is to help those small businesses deal with the aftershocks of that credit crunch from a year and a half ago.

The underlying bill, the Small Business Lending Fund Act, establishes a process for community banks to lend responsibly to small businesses. Because of a mistake, two of my colleagues, Representative Schrader and

Representative Miller, were precluded from offering their amendments as reported in yesterday's rule. This rule merely allows for the consideration of their modified amendments so we can perfect this legislation and get our Nation's small businesses back to work.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the whip, but I think what we've got to do is to just talk about reality here.

The reality is, when George Bush left office in January of 2009, this country was losing 780,000 jobs per month. Last month, we gained 400,000 jobs. That's a swing of over 1.1 million jobs per month. Yet, on top of that, not only did the Bush administration leave this country in a terrible lurch with jobs; it left this country with a terrible lurch and with a terrible deficit of $1.3 trillion.

The Republicans would have America have mass amnesia, to forget where we were. In 2007, we spent $141 billion in Iraq. Today, they're telling us, Hey, let's sell off part of the country to pay our debts. We were spending $141 billion in Iraq and not paying for it. This year, we're going to draw that down to $65 billion. Republicans would have us forget.

Let's talk real money. I agree: we should never be wasting money in this country. Every dollar should be worthwhile and real, but we're going to spend $77 billion less in Iraq than under George Bush and at the end of the Republican rule of Congress.

So here we've improved employment by some 1.1 million jobs per month. We were left with a terrible deficit by President Bush of $1.3 trillion. We are drawing down Iraq and are saving real money. Then they come up with an advertising program of YouCut to sell assets of this country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would remind the Speaker and others that we're here on the small business lending bill, not on Mr. Chaffetz's proposal or any proposal like that. It may have merit at another time when that bill, itself, is brought forward, but we're here to talk about the small business lending bill, which provides community banks, smaller banks with funds to make credit available to the small businesses on Main Street that were hurt by the crash on Wall Street. So I would just remind the Speaker as to what this bill, the underlying bill, is.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just quote from a letter we received from the Independent Community Bankers of America: On behalf of the 5,000 members of the Independent Community Bankers of America, we strongly support passage of the proposed Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010.

We're here on the rule to allow for that bill to go forward, and I would

like to remind the Speaker and others that that's the purpose of the hearing today.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to my friend from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman.

I remind my friend from Kansas that when you cut taxes for the wealthiest people in America, you prosecute two wars without paying for them, and you fail to police Wall Street so that it becomes a big casino and results in a crash leaving this country in terrible debt, and you turn a budget upside down, those are the policies that bring a country and bring small businesses to their knees. The country, because of various steps taken, has come out of the terrible dip of the last months of the Bush administration to where we're adding jobs.

We have a long way to go. We lost millions of jobs, and many small businesses were hurt in the process. The purpose of the bill that is to be voted on today is about providing funding to smaller banks so that small business will have credit, and people will get back to work. Providing a platform for small business to really get back on its feet and put the people back to work, so many of whom lost their jobs in this recession that was caused by the tax cuts, the two wars without payment, and failing to police Wall Street.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have?

I would ask my friend from North Carolina how many more speakers she may have.

I just would say, again, reading from the letter from the Independent Community Bankers of America. The Act, which is the Small Business Lending Fund Act, the Act would offer capital to interested community banks to increase small business credit. We urge the House to pass this legislation. The Nation's 8,000-strong community banks are well positioned to leverage this fund and have established relationships with small businesses in their communities to get credit flowing. On down it says, Notably, leveraging the $30 billion funds with community banks would potentially support many times that amount in loan volume to small businesses, as much as $300 billion in additional lending.

By reducing the dividend costs on the capital investment as lending increases, this program helps to ensure more community banks have both the incentive and greater capacity to increase total loans to small businesses. That's the purpose of this rule, to pass the underlying bill, which is to increase credit to small businesses and get them back on their feet and help continue to add jobs, as we have over the course of the last 14 or 15 months. When we were at the very depth of the recession, in January 2009, the last month of the Bush administration, losing 780,000 jobs; in April, where we gained 290,000 jobs; in May, 400,000 jobs. That's what this is about, putting people back to work, getting this country back on a strong financial footing.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I, again, remind everyone that the rule and the bill are about small business lending. Again, I would refer to the letter from the independent community bankers. ICBA believes the proposed Small Business Lending Fund Act supports their recommendations, and this fresh program approach will attract a broader spectrum of community banks to boost small business lending and job growth. We applaud the new program focused on getting funds to Main Street's small businesses using Main Street community banks.

We're here to try to get money to small businesses throughout the country using the smaller community banks, regional banks. The purpose is to get them back on their feet, get them growing. We're not here to talk

about selling off assets of America. We're here to talk about getting small businesses back on their feet.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would remind my friend, at the height of the Iraq war we spend $141 billion, as we draw troops down to $65 billion, a savings of $76 billion a year. That is money. These things we can find other places to save where there is wasteful spending, $76 billion in Iraq. That is what this Congress is finding. That is what this President has found. Instead of going into war and not paying for it, $76 billion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

I want to make sure that the record is clear that the amendments that are presented in today's rule are in full compliance with the PAYGO rule, and that is why we are proceeding with this second rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, small businesses cannot grow if credit is not available to them. Over the course of the last year and a half, credit has tightened substantially. This bill provides for a loan fund to small community banks and regional banks so that they can work with their small businesses throughout the country. This is not focused on Wall Street, but is focused on Main Street so we can get small businesses really back strong and prosperous and hiring people back so that this country is on a full and vibrant financial footing.

I would just remind the Speaker, we have strong support from a whole variety of organizations with respect to the bill: the National Small Business Association, the Small Business Majority, the National Association of Realtors, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the American Bankers Association, and a number of other organizations.

Our Nation's small businesses have waited long enough for much-needed capital, so we won't make them wait any longer. This credit crunch has taken its toll, but now it is time to focus on Main Street.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, just 2 days ago, I came before this body in opposition to a rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 5297, a bill affectionately known as ``TARP III.'' At that time, I expressed concern over the cost of this bill and over the ruling Democrats' lack of ability to run this House in an orderly fashion. My presence here today is testament to these concerns.

If the process for considering this legislation and accompanying amendments had been more thoroughly vetted, we could have avoided meeting today altogether, but apparently, in their zeal to add to the budget-busting TARP III legislation, some flawed amendments were found to violate the Democrats' cherished PAYGO rules.

Yesterday, it was discovered that two amendments--Miller No. 46 and Schrader No. 14--were not PAYGO-compliant. H.R. 5297 is being paid for with the savings in H.R. 5486, but due to the timetables used for those savings, the amendments failed to meet the first 5-year window of PAYGO. The rule did not contain any PAYGO waivers. Therefore, the amendments now need to either be redrafted or they need to have the PAYGO rules waived.

Despite the pledge made in a document entitled, ``A New Direction for America,'' when then-Minority Leader Pelosi promised ``bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives,'' it's worth mentioning that there were 57 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee for H.R. 5297. Of those, 37 were Democrat; 17 were Republican, and three were bipartisan. Of those 57 submitted, there were 17 amendments made in order, only one of which was Republican.

Therefore, I recommend voting against this rule, not only in opposition to the underlying legislation, but also in protest of the partisan process for which it is being considered.

Mr. Speaker, while the ruling Democrats claim the underlying TARP III bill is about helping small businesses, it is really just another bank bailout. The bill is intended to give the appearance that they're doing something. It appears the ruling liberal Democrat regime has completely given up on even trying to pretend they are capable of budgeting or of even governing this country. Certainly, the ruling Democrats would be better served on focusing on passing a budget than on considering the bill before us today.

So what is the next step for the Democrats?

In an apparent effort to help shield their vulnerable Members from having to endure their unconscionable approach to budgeting during an election year, the ruling Democrats are now planning to forgo the annual congressional budget process altogether, this during a time when voters are looking for real solutions and accountability. How is that for leadership?

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the Republican whip, the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. Speaker, all of my colleagues from across the aisle always fail to mention that, in the last 2 years of the Bush administration, Democrats were in charge of Congress. The President can't spend any money. Only the Congress can spend money. So they conveniently leave out the fact that, when they took over Congress, our economy was doing great, absolutely great. From the moment they took over Congress in January of 2007, things started going downhill. The $1.3 trillion deficit came about as a result of the spending, spending, spending by our colleagues from across the aisle. They've lost touch with the real world.

The other thing my colleague points out is 400,000 jobs were created last month. He fails to mention that almost all of those jobs were created by the census hiring temporary people who will no longer be employed after the end of this year. So they're government jobs.

The American people are seeing through these tales they're being told by our colleagues across the aisle of how wonderful they have made the economy. They know that we have a 9.7 percent unemployment rate. They know that the deficit for the Republican-led Congress from 1996 to 2007 was only $1.2 trillion in 12 years. This Democrat Congress racked up in 2 years a $3.2 trillion deficit. My goodness. The American people, again, can see through this, Mr. Speaker. They're not going to be fooled by this rhetoric.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).

Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps my colleague across the aisle needs to be reminded we're actually here to debate because of two amendments that violate their vaunted PAYGO, which means we are talking about the deficit and we are talking about the sorry economy that the Democrats have brought to this country.

Now I yield 4 minutes to my colleague from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan).

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, you know, the gentleman from Colorado reminds us to stay on the topic, but then he yields to someone who spends most of his time blaming a person who is not even any longer in office. That is the theme of our colleagues across the aisle. No sense of responsibility or accountability on their part.

They passed the disastrous stimulus, which all it did was put us deeper into debt. It hasn't done anything to help the economy. They talk about more government control. Well, what about the MMS department? They were the ones who were supposed to be checking out whether what BP was doing was okay. They signed off on all the permits and let them drill. That's what growing the government does for us.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my colleague from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).

Mr. Speaker, every time my colleague wants to blame the economy on the former President, I'm going to remind him that the Democrats were in control of this Congress the last 2 years that President Bush was in office. You can talk all you want to about what the job numbers were in the last month of the Bush administration. The Democrats were in control of Congress, and they caused the problem.

I now yield 4 minutes to my distinguished colleague, my eloquent colleague, from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

We have at least two more speakers, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Utah (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to our distinguished colleague from Georgia, Dr. Price.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

You know, my colleagues across the aisle talk about trying to create jobs. I will point out to my colleague that trying isn't doing it. What happens is you pass the stimulus to create jobs, omnibus appropriations to create jobs, auto bailouts to create jobs, health care, cap-and- trade, all of those things to create jobs. You are trying, but you are not doing. What you are doing is you are creating government jobs.

This is the chart that the American people want to look at: how many government jobs you are creating. You have also created a deficit in 2 years three times the size of the deficit that Republicans created in 12 years. You are so selective in how you talk about history. Clinton was President for part of that time. You say he had a surplus at the end of his term; but you never give Republicans credit for that. But then you talk about our being in charge of the Congress. You know, you are very selective with your statistics. But you have tried and you've failed. You have not created jobs.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

I'm going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that I can amend the rule to allow all Members of Congress the opportunity to vote to cut spending. Republican Whip Eric Cantor really launched the YouCut initiative which gives people an opportunity to vote for Federal spending they would like to see Congress cut. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have cast their votes, and this week they have directed their Representatives in Congress to consider H.R. 5535.

According to the Republican whip YouCut Web site: ``The Office of Management and Budget estimated in 2007 that the Federal Government is holding $18 billion in real property it does not need. Rather than selling this property, however, Federal law usually requires that it first be offered, often at no cost, to other government agencies, to State and local governments, to nonprofits, and others. The Federal Government has conveyed at no cost: a building in Las Vegas that is intended to house the mob museum; land in Massachusetts for a private high school where tuition is over $29,000 a year; and a building in Florida that the Federal Government now leases back at a cost of over $100,000 a year. This proposal would amend Federal law to require an expedited process for selling unneeded Federal property with 80 percent of the proceeds used to reduce the deficit.''

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

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my friend from Colorado for yielding.

I remember back in the movie, ``The American President,'' there's one scene where Michael Douglas' character is being criticized by one of his staff members, and he says, Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats?

I have to sit here and say, my colleagues, the view is pretty good from the cheap seats. Because if you think back upon what we inherited, those of us who are now trying to pull that car out of the ditch, which is also the economy, and try to improve things for the American people, how deep in that ditch it was. And we're talking about 700,000 jobs lost per month. We're talking about an inherited projected deficit of $10 trillion. That's what the Obama administration and this Congress has been trying to repair.

Now, what has been the response from our colleagues on the other side? It has been solely, Well, this isn't a good idea; this isn't a good idea; this isn't a good idea. We're spending too much money. Blah, blah, blah. Let's cut taxes. Well, we tried that. Been there, done that, and that's what brought us to the ditch.

Now what have we done in this Congress? What have we done to take that car out of the ditch and get it back on the road? We have taken, by every measure possible. We passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We put $300 billion back in the hands of the American taxpayers. That's something that our colleagues on the other side neglect to mention, that that money--most of that money, or 40 percent of the so-called stimulus package, went back to the American taxpayers to spend.

I have the privilege of cochairing the Congressional Task Force on American Competitiveness. Two days ago, we had a forum here. We have had people from companies as large as General Electric and Ford to very small startups. Without an exception, every one of those businesspeople said that we would be in such worse shape were it not for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. You can imagine all of the progress or much of the progress they had made in sustaining or growing their businesses was attributable to support given through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and that the government has to continue to play a role.

One reason they said was very interesting. In the global economy, we are not necessarily competing in a free market atmosphere. We're competing with a lot of State-supported industry. So, for instance, when General Electric, which is bringing back 400 jobs from China to my district to build an energy-efficient hybrid water heater, they did it because support through the Recovery Act enabled them to make that difference that they were trying to balance--the economics--because of a State-supported system in China. The support they got through the Recovery and Reinvestment Act made up that difference and now they are bringing 400 jobs back.

They are bringing back 400 jobs. They are planning to bring back more jobs, again, because of the government's help. Now, as I said at the outset, there are two ways to approach this decline. We can say the government has no role. We can say all the government should do is get out of the way and the private forces will recover the economy. As I said, been there, done that. It hasn't worked.

The steps that we have taken, the steps that we propose to take in this Small Business Act, the subject of this rule, are steps that we believe are worth trying, that will be an affirmative effort to grow jobs in the small business segment of the economy to make capital available, to provide tax incentives--yes, to my friends on the other side, tax incentives--to motivate small business operators to grow their businesses, to start new businesses. These are the steps that this Congress and this administration are taking to grow the economy. It is better than sitting in the cheap seats and saying we want to go back to the agenda that put us in the ditch.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado.

I know the American people who are watching this must have their heads spinning because all we have heard for a year and a half now from our colleagues on the other side was TARP was a disastrous program; TARP is a disastrous program. They are running ads against us in our districts about how horrible TARP was: so and so voted for TARP. And yet here we have someone who is advocating that we take money from TARP and give it to small businesses. I actually think that is a good idea. I am for that.

But I want to clarify something because he is misstating the impact of the underlying bill. This bill does not add anything to the deficit. This bill is paid for, and the $30 billion in loan facilities that we are actually making available to small banks throughout the country actually generates a surplus for the Treasury. That is a profit maker for the Treasury. There is no cost unless the money is actually borrowed. And if it is borrowed and paid back with interest, then the taxpayers actually benefit.

So it is one to thing to talk about deficits and argue about who is responsible and so forth, but to actually misstate the actual facts about the underlying bill here is a little bit disingenuous.

I would like to make one more comment. My friend from North Carolina mentioned earlier, you keep blaming the former President. No, we actually keep blaming the former 12 years of Republican control of the Congress because that is the period of time in which the really disastrous policies for the economy were implemented and were approved: the two tax cuts that mostly went to wealthiest Americans; the $7 trillion projected debt because of the unfunded prescription drug plan; and, of course, the war funding.

I know that the President, President Bush, dealt for 2 years with a Democratic Congress. We did have control of the Congress, but we sure didn't have a veto-proof Congress. And every time we wanted to implement a policy or change the President's budget, he threatened a veto. So, yes, we did have control of the Congress, but we didn't have control of the Nation's economy. But for 12 years, the Republican Congress did. For 6 years of that, they had control of all three branches of government. That is when the true damage was done.

We have an important piece of legislation that will help small businesses create jobs.

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding me this time.

We have been told that this is the time the majority wanted us to discuss this proposal by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz), and so that's why we're doing this at this time.

And I want, first of all, to commend Mr. Chaffetz for his proposal, which would save taxpayer money and which would potentially help cut into the huge deficit, the huge debt that we have, in a very significant way. As he mentioned, we have a national debt of over $13 trillion now. The Congress recently voted to raise the debt limit to $14.3 trillion. That's an incomprehensible figure. But what it means is that in a few short years we're not going to be able to pay all of our Social Security, veterans' pensions, and civil service pensions and all of the things we promised our own people with money that will buy anything. The Congress in those years will not politically be able to come in and cut the benefits, but they'll just print more money. And then people will find that their pensions that they were counting on will buy a third or a half of what they expect.

This is an issue that I have been interested in for quite some time, when I found out as far back as 1999 that the Bureau of Land Management had identified 3 million acres that they did not want because it was difficult to manage, inaccessible, unnecessary, and expensive. And so I introduced legislation in both the 106th and 107th Congresses to dispose of some of this property to gain some money for the Federal Government.

The Federal Government today owns approximately 30 percent of the land in this country. State and local governments and quasi- governmental agencies own or control another 20 percent. So, in other words, you have half the land in some type of public ownership. Yet we keep taking more and more, a few million more acres each year off of the tax rolls. At the same time that the schools and the police and everybody come to us wanting more money, we keep decreasing the tax rolls.

It sounds great for a politician to create a park, but we've created so many parks now at the Federal, State, and local levels that we can't even begin to get the use out of them to justify these parks unless our people somehow find a way to go on permanent vacations. And then, USA Today reported that there are 1,667 land trusts and there are 1,400 nature conservancies, all taking over more and more land, so much that USA Today on its front page reported that they're taking over approximately 6.2 million acres a year, equivalent to half the size of the State of New Jersey each year, adding to--constantly adding to that hundreds of millions of acres that are already under some type of Federal, State, or local ownership, decreasing the tax rolls.

I introduced a bill with my colleague from the other side, Dennis Moore, in the last Congress, called the Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act. The Office of Management and Budget had found 21,000 Federal properties that the Federal Government no longer wanted worth $18 billion, and $9 billion of those were real property assets that the Federal Government wanted to dispose of. But it's so complicated and so bureaucratic to dispose of it at this present time that it's cheaper for these agencies to keep this property that they're not even using.

Jim Nussle, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget at that time, in the last Congress, recently sent me a letter and endorsed the bill that I had introduced in the Congress and that Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, and Senator Tom Coburn had introduced in the Senate. The goal of the OMB was to dispose of $9 billion in unneeded real property.

Director Nussle wrote at the time I introduced that bill with Congressman Moore, he said, ``To reach this objective, I believe we must improve and streamline the current process that Federal agencies face in disposing of real property assets. Therefore, I applaud your introduction of H.R. 3049, which would establish a 5-year pilot program for expediting the disposal of properties no longer needed by the Federal Government.''

We've got to wake up, Mr. Speaker, and realize that private property is a foundation of our freedom and our prosperity. Yet we're slowing doing away with it in this country, and we need to reverse this trend. And this action by Mr. Chaffetz will help start that process and save taxpayer money.

When we talk about Wall Street, one of the things that really gets me is, if you look at the numbers and why there wasn't more reform of Wall Street, what we find out is that actually both to the Obama campaign running for President and to our friends across the aisle, the executives on Wall Street, despite what sometimes seems the conventional wisdom, the executives on Wall Street give to the Democrats and to the Obama campaign four to one over Republicans. It's an amazing thing to see. And if you look at that, then you begin to understand a little better why there may be games being played, but there was no real reform of Wall Street that was going on.

And that also brings up the issue of British Petroleum. Some might wonder, why in the world would the President of the United States wait all these weeks--week after week after week after week--to even meet with British Petroleum, to even call them down. Well, they've gotten pretty rough on them here lately in talking. But actually, it turns out the more you dig--it's kind of like Wall Street--it turns out British Petroleum was this administration's greatest ally in fighting what was an invented problem: Global warming. It turns out the planet may have been cooling in the last few years. The snow down in South Africa recently points toward that as well.

But British Petroleum was meeting with Senator Kerry, and they were pushing this global warming bill. They needed an oil company to help get this ridiculous bill that was being pushed, the so-called energy bill, they needed an oil company to give them credibility. So, of course, they didn't want to come down on them. Of course, they want to talk about Wall Street and getting tough on the fat cats, but as far as doing anything, it's just talk. That's why Goldman Sachs had their biggest profit in their whole company's history last year as the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House. And I'm trying to dig. We found some contracts, but I would like to know just how much of that was government money coming from this Congress and this administration into the coffers still of Goldman Sachs. It's still flowing there. And the contracts indicate that.

As far as the oil spill, you've got companies and countries around the world willing to help. President Bush, for all the criticism, actually within 3 days of the Katrina hurricane, had suspended the Jones Act so foreign countries could send ships and send help and go ahead and give us all the assistance they could. This administration still has not suspended the Jones Act. We had the Netherlands within days--man, they know something about building barrier islands and dikes and things like that. This administration said, Oh, no. We don't want that, allowing millions and millions and millions of dollars to pile up. And then you look in a little deeper, and you find out, Oh, gee.

After the President said that about the cozy relationship that existed between big oil and the regulators, it turns out the very person that we were told by the Inspector General who knew the most about that price adjustment language being pulled out of offshore leases in 1998-1999 left the Clinton administration when they went out; so they couldn't really talk to them to investigate what had happened. It turns out, she works now with the Department of the Interior, with the Minerals Management. Go figure.

There is a mess going on. There are a lot of things we can do to quit killing jobs. Those 700,000 jobs were being lost when the Democrats had this majority, and compassion does not equal giving away money.