Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that any savings under the Medicare Program should be invested back into the Medicare Program, rather than creating new entitlement programs.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 157 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx). All time yielded during consideration of this rule is for debate only, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on this resolution.

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 157 authorizes the Speaker to entertain motions for the House to suspend the rules at any time between now and tomorrow.

As most Members know, clause 1(a) of rule XV of the Standing Rules of the House only allows for consideration of bills under suspension of the rules on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The House has before us today and tomorrow many bills honoring the service of great Americans, recognizing the achievement of amazing athletes, and bringing attention to Americans issues affecting millions of our countrymen.

In order for the House to proceed, we must allow for consideration of these matters under suspension. Therefore, the House must pass House Resolution 157.

Should this resolution pass, the House will debate several measures of importance to the American people. First is House Resolution 110 by Representative Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, which congratulates the Pittsburgh Steelers for winning Super Bowl XLIII. It's hard for me to say that, because I am a lifelong Denver Broncos fan, and it hurts to see the Pittsburgh Steelers winning that game. But it was certainly one of the Super Bowl's most exciting games ever, and the Steelers played a tough and entertaining game that earned them the championship. The final minutes of that game will surely go down in football history as some of the most thrilling ever. While the Steelers did well this year, next year they're going to have to go through Denver if they want to repeat.

Second is House Resolution 112 by Representative Christopher Lee of New York, which expresses support for American Heart Month and the National Wear Red Day.

Roughly 80 million Americans have some form of heart disease. Many forms of heart disease are preventable through proper diet and exercise. And as a member of the Congressional Fitness Caucus, we continually strive to promote these principles of healthy living.

Representative Lee's resolution promoting awareness of heart disease will demonstrate Congress' commitment to saving lives across this Nation.

House Resolution 139 by Representative Phil Hare of Illinois commemorates the bicentennial of the birth of our great President, Abraham Lincoln. I certainly cannot describe the achievements and history of President Lincoln in the manner in which he deserves. Every Member of Congress knows Abraham Lincoln gave his life for his country and saved our Nation, as does almost every single person in this country. Honoring his bicentennial is a small token to show our gratitude. And today we will have a ceremony at 11:30 Eastern Standard Time in the Capitol Rotunda honoring President Lincoln's birthday, and President Obama will attend that ceremony.

House Resolution 663, by Representative John Barrow of Georgia, designates a post office in Sparta, Georgia, as the Yvonne Ingram- Ephraim Post Office. Yvonne Ingram-Ephraim was a beloved elected official in Sparta, Georgia, and designating a post office in her honor is a wonderful tribute.

These bills and resolutions celebrate great Americans and bring attention to an issue important to millions of Americans. I look forward to hearing more about these bills and resolutions so that the House of Representatives can express to the Nation our recognition of these individual and team achievements. For this reason, I hope we will agree to the resolution.

There is an additional provision in the resolution which amends the rules of the 111th Congress so that we can convene at 9 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, instead of 10 a.m., so that we can begin our work earlier, in hopes that we can return to our families and our homes and our districts earlier on those days. This is an important rule which will allow us to debate several matters, and will allow a change to our rules so we can return to our districts a little earlier on Fridays and Saturdays.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would remind my friend from North Carolina, this is about four suspension matters: Abraham Lincoln, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ms. Ephraim and National Heart Month. And so I appreciate her comments, but they're not on point. This is about four suspension bills, as well as conducting our business earlier on Fridays and Saturdays.

And I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

No. I will wait and speak in my time. Okay. Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Georgia who has gotten my blood boiling at 10:15 in the morning.

So, to my friend from Georgia, I have to say, first of all, the rule that we have before us is about the Pittsburgh Steelers, the American Heart Month, Abraham Lincoln, and about Ms. Ephraim. I look forward to him and to our other colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle voting against the rule for Abraham Lincoln, for the Pittsburgh Steelers, for the American Heart Month, and for Ms. Ephraim.

The focus needs to be on those four suspension rules, but since he has brought up the fact that he is concerned----

I will yield in a moment, but first, I want to talk a little bit about what is actually in the Recovery Act and not as it has been trivialized by my good friend from Georgia.

First of all, in looking at some notes we have here, he, in his district--and I think it is the First District of Georgia--would get 7,700 jobs from the bill that is being considered. The Republicans had two Members from the House as part of the conference committee, and the Republicans had at least two Members on the Senate conference team, and the Senate chaired the entire conference. So if he rails about anything, he ought to rail against his friends and against his colleagues who were on the committee for not sharing information with him. His Republican colleagues had a chance and have been part and parcel of every discussion if they've wanted to be. So let's just shove that aside and really talk about what the bill is about.

The bill is about jobs, jobs all across this country, from 7,700 new jobs in his district in the Savannah, Georgia area to my neighborhood in Colorado, to Lakewood, to Wheat Ridge, to Arvada, to Aurora where I get approximately 7,600 jobs.

Ms. Foxx, I'm not sure which district you represent in North Carolina.

The Fifth. Let's see what you would get. You would get approximately 7,600 jobs.

So this is about jobs across this country. We've been losing jobs at an incredible rate, at a rate of at least 600,000 jobs per month for the last 3 months. We must stop it. We must stop that job loss now. We cannot let it go any further. There were 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008. It is time to reverse this. We cannot continue to go on this path. We are going into a spiral. The purpose of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is to rejuvenate this economy and to get it back on track. It is not going to be easy. It will take a series of bills and efforts, and it will take time, but this is about action, about action now.

So let's talk about what is really in the bill. First of all, there are no earmarks. For anybody and everybody who is listening to me speak this morning: There are no earmarks in this bill. There is no earmark for rats in San Francisco. There is money that goes to the EPA and to the Department of the Interior for the cleanup of wetlands or for maintaining wetlands. Apparently, this is on a list of ready-to-go projects, but it, like many others, must compete within the departments for that money. It is not a specific earmark within the bill.

Now, that trivializes this bill. This bill is in five parts. The first part is construction and the reconstruction of this country. It is new construction for roads, bridges, transit, and the energy grid. It is billions of dollars which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. In fact, this bill is intended to maintain or to create 3.5 million jobs in America for Americans. Number one, construction.

Number two, it is to really capitalize on the science and technology that we have within this country. It is so that we develop a new energy economy, energy research, energy development, energy manufacturing so that we are not hooked on oil from across the seas and so that we aren't at the whim of countries that, in some instances, would not like to see us do well. So this is about developing a new energy economy, and there are thousands and thousands of jobs, including upgrading some million homes across America to energy-efficient standards. One, it is jobs. It is jobs for carpenters, laborers, electricians, and for steelworkers--every kind of job imaginable. It is for lots of small businesses and for lots of contractors, and it has the added benefit of helping to reduce our energy consumption. Wow, that would be a real wonderful thing if we could have that.

There are also billions of dollars in this to upgrade our medical information technology, our health information technology, so that records are available to doctors, to hospitals, to health care providers so that there are no mistakes, so that there are clear directions, but there are also safeguards within the bill to make sure that people's personal health privacy issues are protected. That is an important element to move us forward in the health care industry. Ultimately, it will save billions of dollars.

First of all, there is IT business, IT work in here for a whole variety of people, and it ultimately will save the health care system and our country billions of dollars.

I want to get through the five sections, and I will yield to you for 30 seconds or so.

The first piece is construction and reconstruction of this country so that we have jobs now and an investment for the long term.

The second piece is innovation and science and creating a new energy economy. And also there is significant money in this bill for the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and the Centers for Disease Control to develop new ways to combat various diseases across this country.

The third section is to assist our States who have seen their revenue fall off tremendously because people are not earning incomes, businesses are not deriving revenues, business has fallen off, people are being laid off. And so the States have tremendous shortfalls which will result in the loss of jobs across America through our State governments and our local governments at a time when we can least afford it.

We need people to be doing teaching, we need our policemen, we need our firefighters, we need our maintenance workers, we need our engineers. We need the people in the system who are going to help folks who have been laid off, for goodness sakes. Tremendous piece in this bill to help our States maintain the services that they provide today because those are safety nets. Those are important across the board.

The fourth piece is the tax cut piece, and my friend from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) was talking about tax cuts.

In this bill, 35 percent of the bill is devoted to tax cuts, and 95 percent of Americans will benefit by this bill with respect to tax cuts, not the wealthiest 5 percent, but 95 percent of us in middle income and the middle income range. So 95 percent of Americans will benefit by this bill in terms of certain tax cuts, as will small businesses.

Unlike the prior administration, which focused on the wealthiest people in America and gave them tax cuts, this administration and this Congress will look out for the regular American, the regular Joe and Jill out there so that they can benefit by some tax cuts and not just the richest people in America.

The fifth piece in this bill is to assist folks who are hurting, who've been laid off, who need unemployment insurance, who may need Medicaid because they can't get any medical care otherwise, who may need food stamps. So it's just the basic assistance that this country gives to its people in times of trouble.

So this bill--and it is a big bill, no doubt about it--but we have a big problem to combat. And the purpose of this is to create jobs and maintain jobs and rebuild this country, and that's precisely what it does.

And I'm not going to allow my good friend from Georgia to trivialize this bill. It is too big and it is too important. And I appreciate his comments, but we've got to focus on the key piece of this which is jobs and taking this country into the future instead of hanging back as we have over the past 8 years.

With that, I would yield my friend 30 seconds.

To my good friend from North Carolina, I have seen the House version and I have seen the Senate version, and I have highlights of the compromise. That's what I have. And so between the House version and the Senate version and the description that we received, the outline that we received as the bill is being drafted, as the compromise is being drafted, I can tell you what's in the bill. And I'm not going to let my friend from Georgia trivialize this thing because too many people's lives are at stake here.

To my good friend, let me reserve the balance of my time and turn it back over to you.

Madam Speaker, I'd like to know how much time remains on both sides.

Madam Speaker, I'd like first to respond to my friend from North Carolina when she was making complaints about the States and the States should stand on their own. Generally I would agree with that. The trouble is we're in some unprecedented times.

In Colorado, for instance, our economy was humming along. We were doing very well. And in the last 3 months, we've seen things really come to a halt in many ways, and job losses have been mounting. This is the same thing that is occurring across the country. And unless we jolt this economy back moving in the right direction, we're going to have greater and greater trouble for a longer and longer period of time.

And I would just point, as my good friend knows, to an economist named Mark Zandi--who was the consultant and adviser to Senator McCain--in a report that he gave to people on January 21, 2009, about the importance of moving a major piece of legislation like this forward so that we develop jobs across this country.

And the proposal that the Republicans had put forth, instead of 3.5 million jobs, was only going to create 1.3 million jobs. And it was based only on tax cuts, which is sort of what we heard through the last 8 years: Let's cut taxes, let's prosecute a war in Iraq, let's turn this country's finances upside down.

It's time to change the direction of this Nation. That's what we're doing with this bill. We want to get it going again. We want to create a good future for ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids and leave them with a country they can be proud of. And that starts with this administration of Barack Obama. It is going to be key that we pass this recovery act.

But the bill in front of us, the rule in front of us is about suspension measures. And as you mentioned there are Abraham Lincoln, and at this point we expect the Heart Association, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Ms. Ephraim.

The bill on the Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be taken up, and it will have 500,000 jobs being created to develop a smart grid, advanced battery technology, and energy efficiency across the country, tax incentives to spur energy savings and green jobs, energy efficiency savings in homes across the country, upgrading low- to moderate-income housing that is either owned or underwritten by the Housing and Urban Development authority across the country, transforming our economy with new science and technology, lowering health care costs.

One of the key pieces--and to my friend from North Carolina as you were complaining about assisting the States--is maintaining our teachers in our local schools who have seen their tax revenue fall off, who have seen the ability of the States to help them fall off. I know I want my kids to get the best education they can get. I don't want there to be any disruption, and I want them to be in schools that are well constructed. This bill will help do that.

Finally, the Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been an effort at bipartisanship unlike anything that I've seen while I have been in Congress. President Obama reaching out to your side of the aisle, inviting and participating with the members of your caucus, much of the bill being driven by at least three Republican Senators--two from Maine and one from Pennsylvania. The use of the moneys will be on the web so that every American or anybody across the globe who wants to check in to see how the money is being used and where it's going will be visible and open and apparent to them.

This is a time we must act, and we are going to act. We're going to get this country back on track. We're going to change the direction of this Nation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, just by way of closing, I want to remind everyone, we're here on House Resolution 157, which is to allow us to hear certain bills under suspension today and tomorrow. Among those are bills concerning American Heart Month; Abraham Lincoln, his 200th birthday; Ms. Ephraim, who was a leading citizen in Sparta, Georgia; and then, of course, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Also, we're asking that on Fridays and Saturdays for the rest of the year that we begin business at 9 o'clock in the morning as opposed to 10 o'clock.

That's the resolution that's before the body today. We've had a lot of discussion about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has been debated really as part of the election, through the end of the year, through this last month, and it will be debated hotly, I'm sure, today and tomorrow concerning how to get this Nation back on track.

I just want to read something from Mark Zandi, again, an adviser to Senator John McCain, but somebody who, as many economists across the country, is concerned about this Nation and its economy in terrific terms. This is what he says on page 17: ``The financial system is in disarray, and the economy's struggles are intensifying. Policy-makers are working hard to quell the panic and shore up the economy; but considering the magnitude of the crisis and the continuing risks, policy-makers must be aggressive. Whether from a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a financial calamity, crises end only with overwhelming government action.''

That's what we will see in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It's about jobs, maintaining and creating 3.5 million jobs. It isn't the end. There will be a series of measures taken, and it will take time to get this Nation back on track. It took time to get into this ditch. It's going to take time to get out. But we're acting about it. It's going to be done.

With that, Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding the customary time.

I am here to say that this is a very important time in our country. The House Republicans know we are in a serious recession, and this is the time when we should be dealing with what's on the minds of the American people.

We were promised 3 years ago by the majority, who were then in the minority, that we were going to have a different way to do things once they took over. But it seems like it's business as usual. Things are being done secretly. Bills are being crafted behind the scenes without any involvement from Republicans. We're dealing with things that don't need to be dealt with on the floor because we are avoiding dealing with the things that we should be dealing with and debating them in open.

We don't know what's going to be coming up tomorrow. This rule is very open-ended.

We certainly have no objections to honoring the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln. After all, he was the first Republican President, and we honor him for keeping our country together and for all that he stood for.

But frankly, Madam Speaker, there are more important things that we should be dealing with, and I am concerned that the majority is going in this direction. And I will recommend to my colleagues that we vote against the rule, and we will be talking more about what we should be dealing with as others of my colleagues speak.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to my distinguished colleague from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

No, sir. I agree with you. I don't think anybody else has seen it either.

Unfortunately, we know that the conference report cannot be amended, so we will not be able to take

out the egregious pieces in this conference report. So it's going to be an up-or-down vote on anything that is good in this bill, and there is not very much good in it, and there is all that is bad.

Will my colleague yield?

The Fifth.

I thank my colleague from Colorado, and I want to say that you're being a really good soldier today, and I commend you for doing that.

You talk about this bill as though you have read the bill. And I want to ask, has the bill been made available to the Democrats in the Chamber?

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his response.

What I'm trying to get at and what I'm intrigued about in terms of his comments is where do we know these jobs are going to be created?

You know, we've heard from the other side; we've even heard from the President. We want accountability. You know, that's something I have debated over and over and over. We're getting all of these pie-in-the- sky numbers about what this bill is going to do, and even my colleague admitted it's too big a bill. I appreciate his mentioning that. But we have no idea where these 4 million jobs are going to be created. There is no accountability in terms of tracking that.

You know, I come from a background in education where people are asked always to have an evaluation of what you do. We could have lots of inputs, but if we don't know what the outcome is going to be and we have to measure that outcome, we're forcing people in education to do that all the time. But that never gets done in government. We're never forcing people to have an outcome and a measurable outcome.

Again, we can talk about these, but we don't know how. We don't know how many jobs also are going to be lost to this suffocating spending that's contained in this bill.

And I find it intriguing that as you went through the parts of the bill, that tax cuts were number four in the list. That's where it is in the priorities of the Democrats. For us, tax cuts are the number one priority. And what you say it's going to do, that's going to result in about $13 a week for the average citizen in this country. And you're going to assist people who are being laid off. That's the fifth thing. I find it intriguing again that that's your order of priorities.

I read the Constitution, too, a lot, and I noticed that you said one of the things that you're doing is helping the States with their shortfalls. I don't understand why we're doing that. You know, this Federal Government was formed for the defense of this Nation. The States are supposed to be taking care of these things. And what we're doing is we're rewarding bad behavior on the parts of the States. If they know the Federal Government is going to continue to bail them out over and over and over for bad behavior, it's like bailing out your children when they make mistakes.

I want to say the motto of the State of North Carolina, which is ``to be, rather than to seem.'' I wish the Democratic Party would take on that motto because we keep hearing what it is you say is happening, but that's not really what's happening.

I'd like to point out to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado that the Clerk read the resolution. Nowhere in that resolution does it mention these four bills that we're going to talk about today. This is a wide-open resolution, lots of things could be talked about. In fact, I'm, again, as I said before, happy to talk about the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, happy to talk about American Heart Month. I'm even wearing my red today. I wore red last week when we were asked to do that. I'm happy to name the post office, even happy to congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers because I didn't have a dog in that fight.

But I think that we need to say to the American people, ``This is a sham. This is a sham.'' All we're doing is delaying because we're not doing the real work of the American people, which is to deal with this issue.

And contrary to what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said, we don't want to avoid this issue; we want to hit it head- on.

We have an alternative. We have a superior alternative that has never

been allowed to be considered. And even when we have amendments that were adopted unanimously in committee, they were taken out in the Speaker's office because they were too good to be dealt with and they did too many good things.

So again, I would like the Democratic Party to adopt the motto of the State of North Carolina, ``to be, rather than to seem.'' You get a lot of publicity for talking about what you want to do.

Let's take the motion to instruct that passed unanimously the other day that said we'd have 48 hours to deal with this bill. We aren't going to have a chance to do that. But you all are going to be able to go home and say, ``Oh, I voted for that,'' but then you're going to completely ignore it. And this is going to be a bill that nobody is going to have read. We're not going to know all of the bad things that's in it. And I will tell you, as I say, a rose by any other name is still as sweet, an earmark by any other name is still an earmark.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, there are several points that need to be responded to from my colleague from Colorado.

Again, certainly, we want to honor these people who are being brought up today on suspension, but it's really an opportunity for the majority party to bring up things that are not the most important things for us to be dealing with. But I want to reject the argument that we are in unprecedented times. The seventies were much worse in terms of economics than we're in now.

I'm frankly getting sick and tired of that argument being used for why we have to do these really terrible things that are being proposed in this so-called stimulus package. Obviously, people have very, very short memories.

They say it's the worst time since the Great Depression. Well, we had 20 percent interest rates. We had 14 percent unemployment. Much, much worse. What was the answer? What was the Republican answer? What did Ronald Reagan suggest and the Republican Congress pass? The Republican Senate and the Democrats in charge then had the good sense to understand that cutting taxes did it.

What we have to do is cut off the money coming to the Federal Government that is often very, very poorly spent. My colleague says he's concerned about his kids and grandkids. Well, are you concerned about the fact that you're putting every family in this country in debt for $6,700 as a result of this bill and they're going to get a $13 a week tax cut?

Again, I wish you would remember the motto of the State of North Carolina, ``To be, rather than to seem.'' Yet, this bill certainly deserves the emperor's new clothes award. This is a sham on the American people. You know, in Dante's ``Divine Comedy'' the worst place in hell was designated for the lawyers.

I really am concerned about the promises that are being made in this bill and how the American people are going to be so disappointed that instantaneously these jobs aren't going to be out there for these poor folks who have lost their jobs.

Republicans are very sympathetic to this. We know the American people are hurting. We've offered real alternatives to this, and I want to say to my colleague and his colleagues who keep talking about the last 8 years, I know you didn't come until 2007 and you don't remember that we had 54 straight months of job growth up until January of 2007 when the Democrats took control of this House. You talk about the last 3 months losing 2.6 million jobs. Who's been in charge for the last 3 months? The Democrats have been in charge of the Congress, and we elected a Democratic President last November.

I think you-all need to look in the mirror and see where the problems have come from. We haven't caused this problem. Republicans haven't. The Democrats have been in charge of this Congress. Things started going downhill when they took over in January of 2007. Bipartisanship and invitation to a cocktail party and to watch the Super Bowl, no, thanks; I don't think that's true bipartisanship.

True bipartisanship is including the amendments that Republicans offer in committee, that are passed unanimously by Democrats and Republicans. It's including those in the final version of the bill.

And my colleague speaks so positively about what's in this bill, but yet he hasn't read the bill. He's telling me he's read the bills that were passed in the Senate and the House, but you don't know. I don't believe anybody knows what's in the final version of this bill. You talk about it being on the Web and being available to people. It's going to be available after it's passed, not before it's passed.

Again, the promises that were made are not being kept. A promise that the President said he would let any bill stay out there for 5 days before it's signed, that's been breached more than it has been kept. The bill, we're supposed to have 48 hours. That was passed unanimously in here to read the bill. That has been not dealt with or not kept to, and it could have been so easy.

Let me tell you the nonpartisan, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in today's publication says we are going to increase the deficit $838.1 billion with this bill, and because we know so many of the jobs that are going to be created are going to be government jobs, that are going to stay on the payroll forever, this bill is really going to cost $3 trillion. $3 trillion. I'm concerned about my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and more because we are loading them up with a debt that is irresponsible. This is generational abuse. We're taking the easy road out and giving the burden to our future generations.

And I want to say, since we were going to talk about President Lincoln, some of the things he said. ``You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot borrow your way to prosperity.''

This is what is happening. It's a shame that today, when we're supposed to be honoring Lincoln on his birthday, that we are doing absolutely the opposite of everything that Lincoln stood for. We are borrowing our way or trying to borrow our way into prosperity, and it never works.

We can't ``strengthen the weak by weakening the strong,'' Lincoln said. ``You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.''

That's the role that the Democrats have taken, go in the direction opposite of what Lincoln preached. I think it's a sad day in our country when we say we're going to honor Lincoln, and we go just in the opposite of the values he stood for.

Madam Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time is left.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will close.

As my colleague has said, we're here to debate a rule which is going to allow us to deal with four fairly good bills today, but that's not all that the rule is going to allow us to deal with. It's an open-ended rule. Many, many things can come up under this rule, and it's not the kind of rule that we should be voting on.

We have lots of quotes that I'm not going to give today about how the majority has said that we should do things in regular order; we should revert to doing things the right way in this body. We're not doing that. We had a wonderful opportunity to do that with this bill, but we're not.

I have no objections to congratulating the Pittsburgh Steelers, to supporting the goals and ideals of American Heart Month. Certainly, I am extremely in favor of commemorating the life and legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, the President who freed the slaves and who kept this country together, or in terms of naming a post office. But what we should be dealing with is the so- called stimulus bill that we know is going to come to us without the proper debate.

Republicans are very concerned about the recession we find ourselves in. We are very concerned about the American people who are hurting. We want to deal with those issues. We have a plan. We have an alternative. We want a stimulus bill that will work.

As I've said, I think this is a cruel hoax on the American people because they're expecting something good to happen, and they're expecting it to happen right away, and that isn't going to be the case.

My heart goes out to those who have lost their jobs and who are going to be fooled into thinking that what the Democrats are doing with this bill is going to bring about real progress in this country.

So I will urge my colleagues to vote against the rule, not because of the bills that we're going to be dealing with today as a result of the rule, but because of other things that might come up and because of the very serious nature of the issues we're facing that we're not dealing with.

With that, I yield back, Madam Speaker.

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

Madam Speaker, I sometimes find serving in Congress greatly baffling because here we are, while many, many Americans, millions of Americans are unemployed, and we're actually going to debate a bill on if we should start working at 9 a.m. Why are we having that debate? Let's just go ahead and do it. Maybe we should show up for work at 8 a.m. and start voting. This is not exactly a real controversial issue.

And then, while unemployment is at an all-time high, foreclosures right and left, and there's a big credit crunch, we're going to spend time and tax dollars congratulating the Pittsburgh Steelers. Why don't we just say, hey, congratulations. Now we've got to get people working again. But we are actually printing a bill that congratulates

the Pittsburgh Steelers, while people are having their houses foreclosed.

Meanwhile, out in San Francisco, a rat is going to get $30 million in the so-called stimulus bill. Apparently, it's a full employment bill for rats in the San Francisco Bay area. Of course we would never call this an earmark because the Speaker has told us there are no earmarks in this bill. And the fact that this rat lives in her district and it's a $30 million specified earmark, would not suggest that it's an earmark because we've been told there are no earmarks in it. Thirty million dollars to preserve a rat, while the Federal Government also spends millions of dollars eliminating rats. This is hard to understand. I guess it's a job-creation program because you're creating jobs eliminating rats in some areas, and creating jobs preserving rats in other areas. Thirty million dollars.

Meanwhile, if you've been laid off or your house is being foreclosed, what's in this bill for you? Well, very little. But perhaps you could go to San Francisco and borrow some money from the rats. Maybe they could say, hey, you know, we actually can reproduce without $30 million. Oh, wait a minute. I just thought about it. That's why it's called a stimulus bill. It stimulates rat activities so we can grow more rat families out in San Francisco.

You know, the Republican alternative has twice the jobs created at half the cost. The Democrat big government spending plan creates 3.7 million jobs, or saves 3.7 million jobs. We're not sure exactly what saving means. We do know it saves lots of government jobs. We know that if you're in the rat preservation business, certainly that $30 million will be saving your very important job during this time. But I'm going to go ahead and say, it does create or save 3.7 million jobs.

But the Republican plan, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, creates 6 million jobs. The Democrat big spending plan is about $790 billion, as the opening bid. Because we all know that what the government plan does is create new floors for the budget. So when we go back on the regular budget process, these temporary expenditures will become the permanent floor.

And we also know that there will be billions of dollars spent on interest as we borrow this money. So the Democrat plan, basically, is about $1 trillion. The Republican plan is less than $400 billion, and it's in targeted tax cuts that create jobs in the small business sector. That's what we need right now. We need small businesses to go out and expand. We need them to buy new equipment. We need them to hire new employees. That's what the Republican plan does.

The Federal Government, under the Democrat plan, will continue to borrow and print money. We know right now we owe foreign governments $3 trillion, 22 percent of which is held by the Chinese, followed by Japan, followed by Great Britain, but $3 trillion that we are borrowing from foreign governments, and we will have to borrow more money. In fact, in 1 year, we will borrow more money than we did the first 200 years of history in the United States of America. That is, from 1799 to 1980, we've borrowed less money than we will this 1 year. We are doubling the money supply, which will lead to inflation.

This Democrat big government expansion plan that is using the tragedy of people's unemployment and foreclosures as an excuse to expand good government includes 32 brand new Federal programs. As Ronald Reagan said, if you don't believe in resurrection, try killing a Federal program. You just can't do it.

There's $100 million in here for school lunchroom equipment. I guess now we can start serving popcorn and maybe put in smoothie machines, maybe even cotton candy. That probably will help kids' self-esteem, so we probably should do it.

There's $4 million in here to create a green building oversight agency in the Federal Government. So $4 million, again, create some government jobs, I guess, but we'll have a green building monitoring system. I'm sure that that 4 million is targeted, temporary, and will disappear at the end of this budget cycle, but that's not going to be the case and we know that.

The Department of Energy, their budget, their annual budget is doubled in the stimulus plan. Now, there may be reason to double the bureaucrat budget over at the Department of Energy because I know that that creates lots more government jobs. But why aren't we doing that in the annual budget?

Why does that have to be sneaked in the back door?

There is money in here. Of course, we never call this an earmark, but there is a non-earmark ``earmark'' in here to study the profit-making of private industries in the Northern Mariana Islands and in American Samoa. I don't know why. I don't think anybody on the floor can tell us why we need to study the profit-making ability of private industry in the Northern Marianas and in American Samoa. I certainly would say that is not an earmark, but I wonder who put that in. Who sneaked it into this voluminous piece of legislation?

Now, there is also $200 billion in phantom earmarks, phantom earmarks because they don't have anybody's name by it. There is $200 billion in largess that will be spent by State and local governments. The difference is, in these non-earmarks, they are phantom earmarks because no one's names will be by them.

I am a member of the Appropriations Committee, and if I request new barracks for the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry down in Fort Stewart, Georgia, my name will be listed by it. I will have to be justified as to why I think those barracks should be paid for by the taxpayers. I will explain why the soldiers who have been in Iraq need to come home to good barracks. That's fair. It gives sunshine to it. It gives transparency. Yet $200 billion in phantom earmarks of which we won't know how it is spent?

You know, I'll say this: At least with regard to the $30 million for the San Francisco rat we've got an idea as to who put that one in, and we certainly know where it's going to be spent. I am looking forward to seeing these $30 million rats one day if I can get out to San Francisco, because they must be some fine-looking animals. I mean we don't just spend money like that on any rat. They've got to be San Francisco marsh rats. They're probably walking around, have got some nice looking clothes on--San Francisco stuff. They're probably wearing flip flops and sunglasses as they're going over to Sausalito for lunch and looking out across the bay at Alcatraz and saying, ``Hey, is that where the Guantanamo prisoners are going to end up?'' Probably not. Of course, that would be an earmark if we did that.

Anyway, Madam Speaker, here we are with a bill that I will venture to say not one Member of Congress has seen yet. I know that there have been some inside-the-beltway people who have seen it, but I don't think there is one Member of Congress who has seen this stimulus bill which we may be about to vote on. This bill is bigger than the leftover budget from last year. It is $790 billion. It is the largest single vote in terms of an expenditure in the history of the United States Congress. Yet I have not seen the bill. I would love to know where I could see the bill. Where can I find this bill? I want to start reading it.

I will ask my friend from North Carolina: Have you seen this bill?

Here we are. You are a member of the Rules Committee. The bill has to go through the Rules Committee. You have to be the one to sign off on it.

Would the gentlewoman tell me this: Would we be able to offer an amendment--I don't want to say to ``kill the rats''--but maybe to let them continue breeding on their own as they have since--well, some will say ``creation'' and some will say ``evolution''? I don't want to touch on some tenderness out there, but rats have probably been doing really well. Here they are, surviving.

Could we offer an amendment to kill this proposal?

Well, I appreciate that.

My friend from Colorado, I will be glad to yield.

Okay. Well, I want to say this to my friend from Colorado, and I want to say this to my friend from North Carolina: where I am very frustrated is that here we have this huge bill. As I understand it--and I know the gentleman supports this--they lay it on the table for 48 hours so that people can look at it. I'm afraid, beyond the people who are in the Chamber right now, that that rule is going to be waived. That is not what we're voting on now as I understand it, but I am concerned that, later on in the course of this day, we will get a rule that will say we will waive the requirement that a bill has to sit on the table for 48 hours so that Members of Congress can read it.

Now, remember that we have philosophical disagreements on this bill. I support tax cuts, a little spending, more money for public works-- more money for highways, roads, dams, and bridges--as does the next person, and I understand we're going to have a good debate on it, but I think that the democratic way of doing business in a legislative chamber should be to put this bill on the table so that everybody has time to read it. I would venture to say, whether you are Democrat or Republican, rank-and-file Members have not been able to read this bill. It is very important that we read the bill and that we have transparency and sunshine and an open debate on it. So, when that time comes, I hope that we will have bipartisan support that does not waive the 48-hour requirement so that we have an opportunity to see what is in this bill.

Also, I want to say this: you know the Republican proposal. It is twice the jobs created at half the cost, which I support, but with the passage of this, it doesn't end the debate. I'm going to continue to fight for it. I know the gentlewoman will, and I look forward to working with my friend from Colorado on these things because there will be some opportunities down the road to change and to modify this because, if this stimulus package that was cut in a backroom deal last night is voted on today or maybe tomorrow instead of next week sometime after we've already read it, then I think we're just going to have to continue to stay engaged and see what we can do to improve upon it.

I will take the President at his word when he says he wants to do bipartisan things. I want to engage in that process on a bipartisan basis. I don't think three Republicans in the Senate who move over constitutes something as being bipartisan. In fact, if you want to talk bipartisan, there were eleven Democrats who voted against it in the House, so the bipartisan vote in the House was against the stimulus package. Yet, if we need to keep working and not vote on this bill for two or three more days, I think it's very important, because no one, Democrat or Republican, is talking about not doing anything. Not doing anything is not an option that anybody on this side of the aisle is discussing. We're talking about twice the jobs at half the cost.

Couldn't we combine the best ideas of the Republican Party with the best ideas of the Democrat Party and put aside the labels and try to do what is best for America?

That person out there who cannot borrow money, that person out there who has been foreclosed on, that person out there who has lost his kid's college education or his savings, and that person out there who is unemployed, that is who we need to focus on.