Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, given the role that former Majority Leader Richard Armey has played in significantly increasing the role in militant conservatives in the Republican party, the article in the Washington Post on December 25 is important information that all Members should know.

[From The Washington Post, Dec. 25, 2012]

Freedom Works Tea Party Group Nearly Falls Apart in Fight Between Old

and New Guard

(By Amy Gardner)

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was

entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based

tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group's chairman and a former House

majority leader, walked into the group's Capitol Hill offices

with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his

waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel

Armey's enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted

FreedomWorks' top two employees off the premises, while Armey

suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was

gone--with a promise of $8 million--and the five ousted

employees were back. The force behind their return was

Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who

has exerted increasing control over one of Washington's most

influential conservative grass-roots organizations.

Stephenson, the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment

Centers of America and a director on the Freedom Works board,

agreed to commit $400,000 per year over 20 years in exchange

for Armey's agreement to leave the group.

The episode illustrates the growing role of wealthy donors

in swaying the direction of FreedomWorks and other political

groups, which increasingly rely on unlimited contributions

from corporations and financiers for their financial

livelihood. Such gifts are often sent through corporate

shells or nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their

donors, making it impossible for the public to know who is

funding them.

In the weeks before the election, more than $12 million in

donations was funneled through two Tennessee corporations to

the FreedomWorks super PAC after negotiations with Stephenson

over a preelection gift of the same size, according to three

current and former employees with knowledge of the

arrangement. The origin of the money has not previously been

reported.

These and other new details about the near-meltdown at

FreedomWorks were gleaned from interviews with two dozen

current and past associates, most of whom spoke on the

condition of anonymity in order to talk freely.

The disarray comes as the conservative movement is

struggling to find its way after the November elections,

which brought a second term for President Obama and

Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Armey said in an

interview that the near-meltdown at his former group has

damaged the conservative cause.

``Freedom Works was the spark plug, the energy source, the

catalyst for the movement through the 2010 elections,'' Armey

said, referring to the GOP midterm sweep. ``Harm was done to

the movement.''

Stephenson, 73, declined a request for an interview. Matt

Kibbe, the group's president, and Adam Brandon, its senior

vice president, declined to discuss the issue.

``I don't comment on donors,'' Brandon said. ``He's on our

board, he's a board member like anyone else. That's it. I see

him at board meetings.''

Stephenson, a longtime but little-known player in

conservative causes, is a resident of Barrington, Ill., a

northwest suburb of Chicago known for its affluence and

sprawling horse estates such as his Tudor Oaks Farm. He

founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in 1988

following his mother's death from bladder cancer, according

to the for-profit company's Web site and his public remarks.

Stephenson also holds investments in a broad portfolio of

other businesses, including finance and real estate

companies.

Stephenson has a passion for libertarian politics

stretching back to the 1960s, when he attended seminars

featuring ``Atlas Shrugged'' author Ayn Rand and economist

Murray Rothbard, according to those who know him at

FreedomWorks. Like Armey, Stephenson was an early supporter

of Citizens for a Sound Economy, the conservative lobbying

group founded by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch in

1984 that split into Freedom Works and Americans for

Prosperity 20 years later. The Kochs, known for bankrolling a

variety of conservative causes, kept control of AFP, while

Stephenson and Armey stayed with FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks has been on a remarkable run in recent

election cycles, growing its annual budget from $7 million to

$40 million in just a few years and helping lead the tea

party movement against Obama's agenda. The group was among

several that rose up last week in opposition to a failed

proposal from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to raise

federal taxes on millionaires.

The group played a crucial role in ushering a wave of tea

party candidates into office in recent years, staging

rallies, hawking books and videos, and organizing media

appearances with conservative personalities such as Glenn

Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

``I've enjoyed my association with FreedomWorks,'' said

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who defeated incumbent Bob Bennett

with help from the group. ``Matt Kibbe and Dick Armey

endorsed me early in my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, and

they were a big help to me.''

Despite such testimonials, FreedomWorks has struggled with

accusations that it is an ``astro-turfer''--a national

organization of big-money donors that swept in to lay claim

to an independent movement.

According to public records, FreedomWorks received more

than $12 million before the election from two corporations

based in Knoxville, Tenn.: Specialty Investments Group and

Kingston Pike Development. The firms were established within

a day of each other by William S. Rose III, a local

bankruptcy lawyer.

Rose, who could not be reached for comment, has said

publicly he would not answer questions about the donations.

But according to three current and former FreedomWorks

employees with knowledge of the donations, the money

originated with Stephenson and his family, who arranged for

the contributions from the Tennessee firms to the super PAC.

Brandon, FreedomWorks' executive vice president, told

colleagues starting in August that Stephenson would be giving

between $10 million and $12 million, these sources said.

Brandon also met repeatedly with members of Stephenson's

family who were involved in arranging the donations, the

sources said.

Stephenson attended a FreedomWorks retreat in Jackson Hole,

Wyo., in August at which a budget was being prepared in

anticipation of a large influx of money, according to several

employees who attended the retreat. At the retreat,

Stephenson dictated some of the terms of how the money would

be spent, the employees said.

``There is no doubt that Dick Stephenson arranged for that

money to come to the super PAC,'' said one person who

attended the retreat. ``I can assure you that everyone around

the office knew about it.''

Among other things, Stephenson wanted a substantial sum

spent in support of Rep. Joe Walsh (R-I11.), a tea party

favorite and Stephenson's local congressman, several who

attended the retreat recalled. Walsh garnered national

headlines during the campaign when he questioned whether his

opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter

pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, was a ``true hero.''

Despite internal misgivings about the value of the

investment, FreedomWorks spent $1.7 million on ads supporting

Walsh; he lost the race.

Two watchdog groups last week asked the Federal Election

Commission and the Justice Department to investigate the

donations from the two Tennessee companies. The groups,

Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, say the

arrangement could violate federal laws that prohibit

attempting to hide the true source of a political

contribution by giving it under another name. (Brandon

declined to comment on the complaints, but he said the

group's books were in order.)

Partnership unravels

For years, FreedomWorks was headed by an unlikely duo:

Armey, 72, the old-guard poi who wears a black cowboy hat

even when he's not on his Texas ranch, and Kibbe, 49, who

sports mutton-chop sideburns and has a passion for the

Grateful Dead.

But the most important relationship appears to be the bond

between Kibbe and Stephenson, who bridged their age gap

through shared libertarian views and Kibbe's battle with

testicular cancer a decade ago, Armey and others said. They

said Kibbe, after being given a terminal diagnosis, was

encouraged by Stephenson to get treatment at his cancer

clinics; more than a decade later, they said, he is cancer-

free.

Until this year, the partnership between Kibbe and Armey

worked well. Armey's renown as a former House member drew

media attention and crowds of conservative activists--most of

them old enough to remember Armey's role in the Republican

revolution in Congress in 1994. And Kibbe's youthful

intellectualism drew a new generation of libertarian soldiers

into the FreedomWorks fold. In 2010, the two co-wrote a book,

``Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto,'' that became a New

York Times bestseller and a successful marketing tool for

FreedomWorks, which collected the book's proceeds and used it

to attract donations.

The partnership came to a crashing end when Armey marched

into FreedomWorks's office Sept. 4 with his wife, Susan,

executive assistant Jean Campbell and the unidentified man

with the gun at his waist--who promptly escorted Kibbe and

Brandon out of the building.

``This was two weeks after there had been a shooting at the

Family Research Council,'' said one junior staff member who

spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not

authorized to talk to the media. ``So when a man with a gun

who didn't identify himself to me or other people on staff,

and a woman I'd never seen before said there was an

announcement, my first gut was, 'Is Freedom Works in danger?'

It was bizarre.'?''

By nearly all accounts, including from those loyal to him,

Armey handled his attempted coup badly. Armey says he was

stepping in because of ethical breaches by Kibbe

and Brandon, accusing them of improperly using FreedomWorks

staff resources to produce a book--ironically, named

``Hostile Takeover''--for which Kibbe claimed sole credit and

was collecting royalties. The use of internal resources for

Kibbe's benefit could jeopardize the group's nonprofit tax

status; the group denies any impropriety.

``This is not only about this one incident,'' Armey said.

``But that one incident was a matter of grievous concern.''

Armey also accused Brandon, Kibbe and other staff members

loyal to them of squeezing him out of media appearances and

management decisions while using his name to market the

group.

Armey appeared out of touch and unsure of how FreedomWorks

operated when he took over that Tuesday morning, according to

interviews with more than a dozen employees on both sides who

witnessed the takeover. Sitting in a glass-walled conference

room visible to much of the staff, he placed three young

female employees on administrative leave, then reversed

himself when they burst into tears; his wife lamented aloud

that maybe they had ``jumped the gun.''

In subsequent meetings, Susan Armey passed her husband

notes that several employees assumed contained suggestions on

what to say. According to a recording of a staff conference

call provided to The Washington Post, Armey bewildered his

audience by demanding more FreedomWorks support for Todd

Akin, the Missouri Republican whose Senate campaign had

already cratered after his comments about ``legitimate

rape.''

``It was clear that under Armey's leadership, the

organization as we knew it was going to be driven into the

ground,'' said one junior employee.

Enter Stephenson, who agreed to the multimillion-dollar

financial incentive to push Armey out and install Kibbe back

at the helm.

The payments were necessary, several FreedomWorks leaders

said, because Armey was threatening to sue over Kibbe's book

deal.

``It was very clear to him that I would not work with

Matt,'' Armey said, referring to Stephenson. ``He felt that

Matt knew the levers and understood it better than I did and

was very urgent to reinstate that.''

Brandon, back in the No. 2 spot as executive vice

president, scoffed at the notion that the group is in trouble

or that the dispute with Armey was indicative of a larger

problem for the tea party. He said Freedom Works has 2.1

million members, nearly 4 million fans on Facebook and a

budget that has grown sixfold in five years. He also pointed

to the elections of Senate conservatives Ted Cruz in Texas

and Jeff Flake in Arizona as evidence of the group's

electoral success.

``We doubled our budget, and we doubled our membership,''

Brandon said, referring to the group's growth since 2011.

``That's how we ended up the year.''

(Alice R. Crites contributed to this report)

Mr. Speaker, Paul Krugman has consistently and articulately defended programs that are essential for the quality of life for our most vulnerable residents, and exposed the flawed morality and impaired logic of those who seek to use the existence of a large national debt as an argument for exacerbating inequality in the United States. His column for Monday, December 31 is an excellent example of this, and I hope all Members will pay attention to its message.

Brewing Up Confusion

(By Paul Krugman)

Howard Schultz, the C.E.O. of Starbucks, has a reputation

as a good guy, a man who supports worthy causes. And he

presumably thought he would add to that reputation when he

posted an open letter urging his employees to promote fiscal

bipartisanship by writing ``Come together'' on coffee cups.

In reality, however, all he did was make himself part of

the problem. And his letter was actually a very good

illustration of the forces that created the current mess.

In the letter, Mr. Schultz warned that elected officials

``have been unable to come together and compromise to solve

the tremendously important, time-sensitive issue to fix the

national debt,'' and suggested that readers further inform

themselves at the Web site of the organization Fix the Debt.

Let's parse that, shall we?

First of all, it's true that we face a time-sensitive issue

in the form of the fiscal cliff: unless a deal is reached, we

will soon experience a combination of tax increases and

spending cuts that might push the nation back into recession.

But that prospect doesn't reflect a failure to ``fix the

debt'' by reducing the budget deficit--on the contrary, the

danger is that we'll cut the deficit too fast.

How could someone as well connected as Mr. Schultz get such

a basic point wrong? By

talking to the wrong people--in particular, the people at Fix

the Debt, who've been doing their best to muddle the issue.

For example, in a new fund-raising letter Maya MacGuineas,

the organization's public face, writes of the need to ``make

hard decisions when it comes to averting the `fiscal cliff'

and stabilizing our national debt''--even though the problem

with the fiscal cliff is precisely that it stabilizes the

debt too soon. Clearly, Ms. MacGuineas was trying to confuse

readers on that point, and she apparently confused Mr.

Schultz too.

More about Fix the Debt in a moment. Before I get there,

however, let's move on to Mr. Schultz's misdiagnosis of the

political problem we face.

Look, it's true that elected politicians have been unable

to ``come together and compromise.'' But saying that in

generic form, and implying a symmetry between Republicans and

Democrats, isn't just misleading, it's actively harmful.

The reality is that President Obama has made huge

concessions. He has already cut spending sharply, and has now

offered additional big spending cuts, including a cut in

Social Security benefits, while signaling his willingness to

retain many of the Bush tax cuts, even for people with very

high incomes. Taken as a whole, the president's proposals are

arguably to the right of those made by Erskine Bowles and

Alan Simpson, the co-chairmen of his deficit commission, in

2010.

In return, the Republicans have offered essentially

nothing. Oh, they say they're willing to increase revenue by

closing loopholes--but they've refused to specify a single

loophole they're willing to close. So if there's a breakdown

in negotiations, the blame rests entirely with one side of

the political divide.

Given that reality, think about the effect when people like

Mr. Schultz respond by blaming both sides equally. They may

sound virtuously nonpartisan, but what they're actually doing

is rewarding intransigence and extremism--which, in the

current context, means siding with the G.O.P.

I'm willing to believe that Mr. Schultz doesn't know what

he's doing. The same can't be said, however, about Fix the

Debt.

You might not know it reading some credulous reporting, but

Fix the Debt isn't some kind of new gathering of concerned

citizens. On the contrary, it's just the latest addition to a

group of deficit-scold shops supported by billionaire Peter

Peterson, a group ranging from think tanks like the Committee

for a Responsible Federal Budget to the newspaper The Fiscal

Times. The main difference seems to be that this gathering of

the usual suspects is backed by an impressive amount of

corporate cash.

Like all the Peterson-funded groups, Fix the Debt seems

much more concerned with cutting Social Security and Medicare

than with fighting deficits in general--and also not nearly

as nonpartisan as it pretends to be. In its list of ``core

principles,'' it actually calls for lower tax rates--a very

peculiar position for people supposedly horrified by the

budget deficit. True, the group calls for revenue increases

via unspecified base broadening, that is, closing loopholes.

But that's unrealistic. And it's also, as you may have

noticed, the Republican position.

What's happening now is that all the Peterson-funded groups

are trying to exploit the fiscal cliff to push a benefit-

cutting agenda that has nothing to do with the current

crisis, using artfully deceptive language--as in that

MacGuineas letter--to hide the bait and switch.

Mr. Schultz apparently fell for the con. But the rest of us

shouldn't.

Mr. Speaker, my thanks go to the chair of the committee, the gentlewoman from Florida, the ranking member from California (Mr. Berman), and the new ranking member from New York (Mr. Engel) for giving us a chance to try to achieve not just justice but love, the love of a father for children for whom he grieves daily because they were illegally and abusively kidnapped.

As the gentlewoman from Florida pointed out, this kidnapping was in violation of a decision by the family court in Massachusetts giving full custody to the father. Members will not be surprised to learn that there have been very few complaints, that I've ever heard of, of there being a bias in favor of fathers in those courts. Some say there's a bias in favor of mothers. There is certainly a presumption, as I understand it, in favor of mothers. So for a court to say unequivocally that the father gets sole control is a strong indication of the unfitness of the mother.

And so the case is very clear; but I want in my remarks, Mr. Speaker, to address the Government of Egypt. There's a new government in Egypt. There are points of friction between Egypt and the United States. We have a great interest in a good relationship. The foundation of peace in the Middle East began in 1979 with the Camp David Accords. America has consistently provided Egypt with more foreign assistance than all but a handful of nations. And in this current period when there are issues that could arise that could divide us, I urge the Egyptian Government not to put or keep in place a serious problem, not an irritant. It's more than an irritant when a loving father who has been given custody of his children because of the court's decision that the mother is unfit by virtue of a drug addiction, when he is denied the ability to have his paternal instincts honored, to be able to honor and protect his children. And I urge the Government of Egypt: do not minimize the extent to which this will be an obstacle.

I will not be here in a week, Mr. Speaker. I didn't think I'd be here this week. But I know that my successor in Congress, Mr. Kennedy, and my colleagues, the chair of the committee and the ranking member, will not forget this. The Government of Egypt will be seeking from this House support of measures, and there are a lot of reasons why we want to work together. I plead with them, do not allow what to us is a very serious issue--perhaps to some in Egypt it appears minor--but to have a father's children taken away from him and kidnapped with the implicit cooperation of the prior Egyptian Government is a grave problem. If the current Egyptian Government does not correct this situation, it will be an obstacle to the kind of cooperation that is in our mutual interest.

I hope we get a very large, indeed unanimous, vote for this resolution and the Egyptian Government understands that it is not just justice but its best interests that call for compliance.

Mr. Speaker, since both the gentleman from California and the gentleman from Washington signed the conference report, it is clear they are supporters of the conference report. So I claim the 20 minutes that is allotted for someone in opposition when both majority and minority are in support.

I intend to reserve most of the time for myself, but I have shared with the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, who's done a very good job and had some commitments, and I'm yielding to some people as a proxy for him, but I will begin by yielding 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Loebsack).

Mr. Speaker, continuing to yield according to the arrangements of the gentleman from Washington, the ranking member, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. Speaker, at the request of the chairman of the full committee, I would now yield 2 minutes to him. I believe he intends to conduct a colloquy.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on all sides?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself my remaining time.

Mr. Speaker, I have some differences with particular provisions here, I would agree with the gentleman from New York, but that's not my major reason. That's not my reason at all for commandeering the time of this debate, and I apologize to those on the committee who worked so hard and who had an expectation to be able to talk about this specifically. I tried to accommodate that some, but here is my dilemma: it's partly the structure of this institution and of our rules and of our task.

The committee does a very good job of operating within the given parameters of America's military engagement. They discharge very well their obligation to fund that level. What we don't have in our structure is a form in which to debate the most important question we face as a country: What level of worldwide military engagement should we be committed to pursuing? Because that level of military engagement dictates the funding.

Members have said this is a good bill because it supports the men and women who we send into battle and into harm's way. Of course it does. It would be immoral to do anything less for them. The question is not whether having made a decision to be engaged on a worldwide basis we fund them adequately, but whether we are asking them to do too much. I would say my general principle in part is this.

We have a superior military, wonderful men and women, very well- equipped thanks to this House and this Senate and the administration. They do very well what a military can do. A military can stop bad things from happening.

Where we make the mistake is of asking these wonderful people to do something that militaries are not good at: make good things happen, take on roles in societies, quite literally and metaphorically, foreign to us and deal with the deepest human problems of religious and cultural disagreements.

I would be morally conflicted if I thought those kinds of interventions could be successful. I would like to alleviate the people in Afghanistan who suffer from some of these problems or in Iraq or elsewhere, but the point is we can't do that. The best trained and armed 30-year-old Americans can't resolve the problems that rack those societies. They can repel enemies, but they cannot create good societies.

Beyond that, we are suffering, I believe, from cultural lag. Sixty- seven years ago, at the end of World War II, America needed to be there for virtually every society in the world outside of the vicious Communism presided over by Joseph Stalin. The nations of Western and Central Europe had been weakened by World War II. They were vulnerable to Stalin.

Russia had been weakened, too, but he was able to use the brutal force of his system to put whatever resources he had into a military that not only threatened, but ate up freedom in many European countries. And Harry Truman, to his credit, with the bipartisan support from Congress said, No, no further, and inserted American troops and American money to keep the weak nations of Western and Central Europe from being overrun by Stalin.

Stalin, thank God, is dead, and the terrible system over which he presided has crumbled. That does not mean that I believe Russia is a wonderful place to live. I continue to be grateful to my grandparents for getting the heck out of there, but it's not a threat to the United States' competence.

On the other hand, the European nations that we went in there to protect are now strong and prosperous. We no longer have weak nations in Central

and Western Europe, and there is no longer a belligerent threat to them. One thing that hasn't changed is we're still there, with tens of billions of dollars of American money protecting the strong nations against a nonexisting threat.

Japan was disarmed 67 years ago because of understandable fears. Japan, today, is a very different country, and an American policy that insists on subsidizing the defense of Japan because of what happened 67 years ago is a disservice to the American people.

I want us to be the strongest nation in the world, Mr. Speaker. Some of my liberal friends say that sounds xenophobic. It's very simple. Somebody's going to be the strongest nation in the world by the process of elimination. I look at the candidates, and I'm for us.

I will be honest with you, if Denmark had the possibility of being the strongest nation in the world, I would be pretty relaxed about it, but they can't handle it. It's either going to be us or some country I'm not that crazy about. But we can be the strongest nation in the world much less expensively than we are.

Let me read from some who are critical because this President hasn't gone far enough. And a couple of my colleagues have praised the bill for putting more weapons into play than the Pentagon wants for objecting to their retirement of these weapons; in other words, it's more money than the Pentagon wanted in some cases. Here's the viewpoint that I think is being expressed here.

In an article in The Wall Street Journal on November 7, the day after the election--hope springs eternal for some people--Mr. Jack David and Michael Dunn wrote an op-ed piece. Mr. David was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration; Mr. Dunn had the former presidency over the Air Force Association. Here's what they say in support of more aircraft, part of which the committee appeared to be responding to. It wasn't directly, but it was in consonance with it. They complain that the Air Force has been a victim of its success. They say:

Ironically, the inattention and repeated cuts that have

taken a toll on this branch of the military haven't received

the public attention they deserve because the Air Force has

been so successful. No U.S. soldier has been killed by enemy

airpower since 1953. For six decades, the Air Force has been

able to deny operational airspace to adversaries, so U.S.

ground forces have operated with little fear of enemy

aircraft attacking their positions.

This is in The Wall Street Journal, written by a former Bush Assistant Secretary of Defense and the head of the Air Force Association.

But they say it's not enough to have had no American killed since 1953--for which I'm very pleased--and have totally dominated every battlefield for six decades. Here's what we have to do, they say:

But the U.S. relies on the Air Force to do much more than

that--including to hold at risk any actual or potential enemy

target, anywhere in the world.

At a time when I'm being asked--I'm not going to do it--to cut back on the cost of living for Social Security, when we don't have adequate funds for health research, when we have had cities lay off police and fire--you're worried about the safety of Americans? Let's give the cities the resources not to lay off police and fire--I don't want to vote money to hold at risk any actual or potential enemy target anywhere in the world.

By the way, we have to do this ourselves, because the next thing we have to do is ``protect the ground forces of friends and allies.'' Why can't some of our allies protect their own ground forces? Is there something about Germany and Italy and France and Spain and England and Japan that renders them genetically incapable of having their own air forces? I know we were told we have to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan because they don't have their own air force, but neither do the people attacking them.

The next thing we are told is ``to protect the U.S. from a nuclear attack.'' I agree. We have a nuclear capacity that far exceeds any potential combination of enemies. We had, during the height of the Cold War, the triad. We could destroy the Soviet Union in a thermonuclear war, and they had the capacity to go after us by missiles, submarines, or strategic air command.

I have a proposal that sounds like I'm kidding. Sometimes I'm kidding; this time I'm not. Can we not go to the Pentagon and say, You know what? Now that there is no Soviet Union, there is a much weaker Russia--and I agree, Russia won a war against Georgia. They won a war against the country of Georgia. I think the way that we have armed the State of Georgia, I'm not sure what the outcome would be if that was the war. But Russia does not have anything like the capacity it had at the height of the Cold War. We still have the capacity to destroy them. Can we not say to the Pentagon, You know those three ways you have for destroying the Soviet Union? Please pick two. Would we not be very secure against a Soviet nuclear attack if we had two instead of the three and can save billions of dollars?

Now we're told, also, we must ``provide navigation through its global positioning systems.'' We have to protect, I'm told, the trade routes everywhere in the world, we have to protect them against China.

Mitt Romney got something right in his debate with the President when he said he's not afraid of toughening sanctions against China for currency manipulation because, he says, people say they're going to cut off their trade.

They make an enormous amount of money out of that trade. Why would they cut it off? Agreed. Why would the Chinese shut down the navigation route over which they make an enormous amount of money? It's like Dominos decided to tear up the street so they couldn't deliver the pizza. We are spending money on the Navy that protects every shipping lane everywhere in the world as if we were the only ones who had that interest.

Now let me give this one--surprising from conservatives--which is to airlift humanitarian aid anywhere in the world. I wish we were doing more in Haiti, and I wish we were doing more to stop children from dying of illness in Africa--but we have to give humanitarian aid anywhere in the world to our wealthy allies and others? Frankly, I wish we were better able to deliver humanitarian aid to New Jersey than to rich countries elsewhere. I don't say that as an isolationist. I wish we were doing more in some ways. I regret the attack on the International Monetary Fund--that I hear from my Republican colleagues--which would destabilize Europe. I would like to increase economic aid. I would like to do more to fight AIDS and malaria. I would like to do it in a more effective way.

Now, I'm told, in part, well, it's bad for jobs if you cut the military. That is a head-swiveling degree of inconsistency. I am told by many of my Republican colleagues, when the Federal Government provides aid to cities to keep firefighters on the job, when it builds roads, when it builds housing for the elderly, that somehow that's just something called ``stimulus,'' which doesn't add to the economy; but apparently, when we spend money to maintain bases in Germany or in Okinawa, when we build weapons that aren't needed, and even more when we maintain a nuclear arsenal we don't need, that somehow, magically, that creates jobs. It's as if Keynes were only right if he were armed. It's military Keynesianism.

The government does not help with the economy. Of the people who have said no government stimulation of the economy, how can they, Mr. Speaker, then turn around and say, We've got to do this for jobs? By the way, I think there is a government role in stimulating the economy. Defense tends to be, on the whole, the least efficient way to do it. The largest percentage of it is spent overseas. If we close down bases in NATO, it's going to hurt some people--but not here--and people who can afford it. Now I'm told, Well, that's mean because you're allies, and you're supposed to have troops where your allies are. Then how come I never saw any Belgian troops at the border in the United States? It's a one-way street.

Now, let me say of the President--and he has done a very good job, and I appreciate his withdrawal from Iraq and his resisting of some of the pressure, but he should go further. I did note--and the country is ready for this--that during that memorable moment when Clint Eastwood lost the debate to a chair that one of the things

he said that got enormous applause at the Republican convention was, Let's get out of Afghanistan right away. The American people understand we have long since stopped doing a lot of good there. That's not because there is any lack of bravery or skill on the part of those wonderful young people who are there. It's not their fault that we have put them in a place they no longer ought still to be. We ought to withdraw them.

I have one difference with the President, let me say in closing. On this, he says--however he's the President, and when you're the President, they all tell you these things--that America is the indispensable Nation. We were in 1945. We should not consider ourselves to be the indispensable Nation today. We are not indispensable to the defense of Germany and Italy and England, and we act as if we are. We're not indispensable in keeping open sea lanes for other countries. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, the time has come for us to urge wealthy nations that face no significant threat to dispense with us from the standpoint of our military activity.

So that's my objection to this bill. It does a reasonable job--with some disagreements some of us would have--of funding the current level of commitment, but the current level of commitment far exceeds any rational definition of ``national security.'' It's zero sum. It comes at the expense of every other program we try to maintain to promote the quality of life in the United States. I hope the bill is defeated.

The previous speaker complained about not being willing to make cuts. That's right after the House is apparently about to vote on a defense bill in which Members boasted about how they were putting weapons systems into play that the Pentagon didn't want, far more expensive than the kinds of things I've been concerned about.

What troubles me most about this, and it's a tough choice, is the attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now, I know my Republican colleagues hated the idea of an independent bureau responsive to consumers and not financial institutions. We created an independent one. They didn't have the votes to stop it. They don't have the willingness to take it on head-on.

This buries in this large bill, which isn't subject to amendment, a provision that would take away the independence of the consumer bureau. It would say that they are now going to be subject to annual appropriations.

Oh, but I'm told that's a matter of principle. But it's apparently not a matter of principle for a financial regulatory institution that the bankers like.

I offered a motion in committee to subject the Federal Reserve System to annual appropriations. That was voted down by the Republicans.

Oh, the consumer bureau, that's dangerous. There they go getting people refunds on credit cards. But the Federal Reserve, oh no, they can stay autonomous. The controller of the currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. So this strong principle my Republican colleagues discovered only came to light when we try to protect consumers. And with regard to every other financial institution, they say it's okay.

They also would abolish the Office of Financial Research, a nonpartisan entity that's just to get information. There was a wide consensus that we had a problem in the first part of the century when we didn't know what has happening. The Republicans want us to vote for continued ignorance.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year I was very critical of some actions that were taken by the Republican leadership involving sponsorship of a bill. It is not my intention to rehash that. But in the course of a discussion, which was fairly spirited, I accused the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) of having said something that wasn't accurate. I have had a conversation with Mr. Hensarling, and I believe I said that unfairly to him.

I continue to be critical of what happened, and again I don't want to get into it, but I now believe that I inaccurately imputed the complaints that I had and the actions to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling). So I wish to apologize to him for having inaccurately accused him of doing something that he informs me that he did not do, and I believe him.

Mr. Speaker, Paul Krugman is absolutely correct and every member of Congress should read his thoughtful column before voting on any economic matter.

[From the New York Times, Sept. 30, 2012]

The Real Referendum

(By Paul Krugman)

Republicans came into this campaign believing that it would

be a referendum on President Obama, and that still-high

unemployment would hand them victory on a silver platter. But

given the usual caveats--a month can be a long time in

politics, it's not over until the votes are actually counted,

and so on--it doesn't seem to be turning out that way.

Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a

referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect,

being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New

Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and,

yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy.

Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare

with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as

``collectivist'' (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those

who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to

take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that

referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the

safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to

return us to the Gilded Age. But here's the question: Will

that election result be honored?

I ask that question because we already know what Mr. Obama

will face if re-elected: a clamor from Beltway insiders

demanding that he immediately return to his failed political

strategy of 2011, in which he made a Grand Bargain over the

budget deficit his overriding priority. Now is the time,

he'll be told, to fix America's entitlement problem once and

for all. There will be calls--as there were at the time of

the Democratic National Convention--for him to officially

endorse Simpson-Bowles, the budget proposal issued by the co-

chairmen of his deficit commission (although never accepted

by the commission as a whole).

And Mr. Obama should just say no, for three reasons.

First, despite years of dire warnings from people like,

well, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, we are not facing any

kind of fiscal crisis. Indeed, U.S. borrowing costs are at

historic lows, with investors actually willing to pay the

government for the privilege of owning inflation-protected

bonds. So reducing the budget deficit just isn't the top

priority for America at the moment; creating jobs is. For

now, the administration's political capital should be devoted

to passing something like last year's American Jobs Act and

providing effective mortgage debt relief.

Second, contrary to Beltway conventional wisdom, America

does not have an ``entitlements problem.'' Mainly, it has a

health cost problem, private as well as public, which must be

addressed (and which the Affordable Care Act at least starts

to address). It's true that there's also, even aside from

health care, a gap between the services we're promising and

the taxes we're collecting--but to call that gap an

``entitlements'' issue is already to accept the very right-

wing frame that voters appear to be in the process of

rejecting.

Finally, despite the bizarre reverence it inspires in

Beltway insiders--the same people, by the way, who assured us

that Paul Ryan was a brave truth-teller--the fact is that

Simpson-Bowles is a really bad plan, one that would undermine

some key pieces of our safety net. And if a reelected

president were to endorse it, he would be betraying the trust

of the voters who returned him to office.

Consider, in particular, the proposal to raise the Social

Security retirement age, supposedly to reflect rising life

expectancy. This is an idea Washington loves--but it's also

totally at odds with the reality of an America in which

rising inequality is reflected not just in the quality of

life but in its duration. For while average life expectancy

has indeed risen, that increase is confined to the relatively

well-off and well-educated--the very people who need Social

Security least. Meanwhile, life expectancy is actually

falling for a substantial part of the nation.

Now, there's no mystery about why Simpson-Bowles looks the

way it does. It was put together in a political environment

in which progressives, and even supporters of the safety net

as we know it, were very much on the defensive--an

environment in which conservatives were presumed to be in the

ascendant, and in which bipartisanship was effectively

defined as the effort to broker deals between the center-

right and the hard right.

Barring an upset, however, that environment will come to an

end on Nov. 6. This election is, as I said, shaping up as a

referendum on our social insurance system, and it looks as if

Mr. Obama will emerge with a clear mandate for preserving and

extending that system. It would be a terrible mistake, both

politically and for the nation's future, for him to let

himself be talked into snatching defeat from the jaws of

victory.

Mr. Speaker, previously I submitted an extraordinary, eloquent and thoughtful column by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times on the essentiality of free speech, the absolutely unjustified nature of violence and the hypocrisy involved when many of those who declaim what they found insulting are themselves guilty of equal vituperation of other religions and ethnic groups. Mr. Friedman has subsequently written a follow up to that column, which I found equally compelling. I submit this excellent column as well as it deserves to be widely read.

[From the New York Times, Sept. 25, 2012]

Backlash to the Backlash

(By Thomas L. Friedman)

One of the iron laws of Middle East politics for the last

half-century has been that extremists go all the way and

moderates tend to just go away. That is what made the march

in Benghazi, Libya, so unusual last Friday. This time, the

moderates did not just go away. They got together and stormed

the headquarters of the Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia,

whose members are suspected of carrying out the attack on the

U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four

Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

It is not clear whether this trend can spread or be

sustained. But having decried the voices of intolerance that

so often intimidate everyone in that region, I find it

heartening to see Libyans carrying signs like ``We want

justice for Chris'' and ``No more Al Qaeda''--and demanding

that armed militias disband. This coincides with some

brutally honest articles in the Arab/Muslim press--in

response to rioting triggered by the idiotic YouTube video

insulting the Prophet Muhammad--that are not the usual ``What

is wrong with America?'' but, rather, ``What is wrong with

us, and how do we fix it?''

On Monday, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or

Memri, which tracks the Arab/Muslim press, translated a

searing critique written by Imad al-Din Hussein, a columnist

for Al Shorouk, Cairo's best daily newspaper: ``We curse the

West day and night, and criticize its [moral] disintegration

and shamelessness, while relying on it for everything. . . .

We import, mostly from the West, cars, trains, planes . . .

refrigerators, and washing machines. . . . We are a nation

that contributes nothing to human civilization in the current

era. . . . We have become a burden on [other] nations. . . .

Had we truly implemented the essence of the directives of

Islam and all [other] religions, we would have been at the

forefront of the nations. The world will respect us when we

return to being people who take part in human civilization,

instead of [being] parasites who are spread out over the map

of the advanced world, feeding off its production and later

attacking it from morning until night. . . . The West is not

an oasis of idealism. It also contains exploitation in many

areas. But at least it is not sunk in delusions, trivialities

and external appearances, as we are. . . . Therefore,

supporting Islam and the prophet of the Muslims should be

done through work, production, values, and culture, not by

storming embassies and murdering diplomats.''

Mohammad Taqi, a liberal Pakistani columnist, writing in

the Lahore-based Daily Times on Sept. 20, argued that ``there

is absolutely no excuse for violence and indeed murder most

foul, as committed in Benghazi. Fighting hate with hate is

sure to beget more hate. The way out is drowning the odious

voices with voices of sanity, not curbing free speech and

calls for murder.''

Khaled al-Hroub, a professor at Cambridge University,

writing in Jordan's Al Dustour newspaper on Sept. 17,

translated by Memri, argued that the most ``frightening

aspect of what we see today in the streets of Arab and

Islamic cities is the disaster of extremism that is flooding

our societies and cultures, as well as our behavior. . . .

This [represents] a total atrophy of thought among wide

sectors [of society], as a result of the culture of religious

zealotry that was imposed on people for over 50 years, and

which brought forth what we witness'' today.

The Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef wrote in Al Shorouk,

translated by Memri, on Sept. 23: ``We demand that the world

respect our feelings, yet we do not respect the feelings of

others. We scream blue murder when they outlaw the niqab in

some European country or prevent [Muslims] from building

minarets in another [European] country--even though these

countries continue to allow freedom of religion, as manifest

in the building of mosques and in the preaching [activity]

that takes place in their courtyards. Yet, in our countries,

we do not allow others to publicly preach their beliefs.

Maybe we should examine ourselves before [criticizing]

others.''

Whenever I was asked during the Iraq war, ``How will you

know when we've won?'' I gave the same answer: When Salman

Rushdie can give a lecture in Baghdad; when there is real

freedom of speech in the heart of the Arab Muslim world.

There is no question that we need a respectful dialogue

between Islam and the West, but, even more, we need a

respectful dialogue between Muslims and Muslims. What matters

is not what Arab Muslim political parties and groupings tell

us they stand for. What matters is what they tell themselves,

in their own languages, about what they stand for and what

excesses they will not tolerate.

This internal debate had long been stifled by Arab

autocrats whose regimes traditionally suppressed extremist

Islamist parties, but never really permitted their ideas to

be countered with free speech--with independent, modernist,

progressive interpretations of Islam or by truly legitimate,

secular political parties and institutions. Are we seeing the

start of that now with the emergence of free spaces and

legitimate parties in the Arab world? Again, too early to

say, but this moderate backlash to the extremist backlash is

worth hailing--and watching.

Mr. Speaker, the recent death of several American diplomats is an outrageous example of wholly unjustified violence that must be unconditionally condemned. The fact that some people were angry because of what other people put into a movie does not begin to be a justification for violence, even against those who made the movie, and it is certainly, not remotely in any

logical world, an excuse for the murder of people wholly uninvolved in this.

The question of the judgment of the people who made that terrible movie must be kept entirely separate from the question of whether or not there was any justification for any of the violence that it caused. The answer is, without any doubt, that there was not.

It is bad enough when some leaders of the Muslim world suggest that there was some justification for killing people because someone felt that their religion was insulted. This error is compounded by the extraordinary hypocrisy involved when many of those who declaim what they found insulting are themselves guilty of equal vituperation of other religions and ethnic groups.

In an extraordinary, eloquent and thoughtful column in the New York Times for September 19th, Thomas L. Friedman, a balanced commentator on the Middle East who has often been very sympathetic to the legitimate concerns of Muslim people, wrote an excellent column on the essentiality of free speech, the absolutely unjustified nature of violence, and the hypocrisy to which I just alluded--and to which, to be honest, I was not paying enough attention until I read Mr. Friedman's column.

As Mr. Friedman says, ``an insult--even one as stupid and ugly as the anti-Islam video on YouTube that started all of this--does not entitle people to go out and attack embassies and kill innocent diplomats. That is not how a proper self-governing people behave. There is no excuse for it. It is shameful.'' Mr. Friedman goes on to note, with regard to some in the Muslim community who have been demanding that America apologize for this, said ``they might to look at the chauvinistic bile that is pumped out by some of their own media . . . insulting Shiites, Jews, Christians, Sufis and anyone else who is not a Sunni, or Fundamentalist, Muslim.''

Thomas Friedman's column should be very widely read, both because he has earned the right to be taken very seriously on the crisis in the Middle East, and because of its wisdom and eloquence.

[From the New York Times, Sept. 18, 2012]

Look in Your Mirror

(By Thomas Friedman)

On Monday, David D. Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for

The Times, quoted one of the Egyptian demonstrators outside

the American Embassy, Khaled Ali, as justifying last week's

violent protests by declaring: ``We never insult any

prophet--not Moses, not Jesus--so why can't we demand that

Muhammad be respected?'' Mr. Ali, a 39-year-old textile

worker, was holding up a handwritten sign in English that

read: ``Shut Up America.'' ``Obama is the president, so he

should have to apologize!''

I read several such comments from the rioters in the press

last week, and I have a big problem with them. I don't like

to see anyone's faith insulted, but we need to make two

things very clear--more clear than President Obama's team has

made them. One is that an insult--even one as stupid and ugly

as the anti-Islam video on YouTube that started all of this--

does not entitle people to go out and attack embassies and

kill innocent diplomats. That is not how a proper self-

governing people behave. There is no excuse for it. It is

shameful. And, second, before demanding an apology from our

president, Mr. Ali and the young Egyptians, Tunisians,

Libyans, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Sudanese who have

been taking to the streets might want to look in the mirror--

or just turn on their own televisions. They might want to

look at the chauvinistic bile that is pumped out by some of

their own media on satellite television stations and Web

sites or sold in sidewalk bookstores outside of mosques--

insulting Shiites, Jews, Christians, Sufis and anyone else

who is not a Sunni, or fundamentalist, Muslim. There are

people in their countries for whom hating ``the other'' has

become a source of identity and a collective excuse for

failing to realize their own potential.

The Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, was

founded in 1998 in Washington by Yigal Carmon, a former

Israeli government adviser on counterterrorism, ``to bridge

the language gap between the Middle East and the West by

monitoring, translating and studying Arab, Iranian, Urdu and

Pashtu media, schoolbooks, and religious sermons.'' What I

respect about Memri is that it translates not only the ugly

stuff but the courageous liberal, reformist Arab commentators

as well. I asked Memri for a sampler of the hate-filled

videos that appear regularly on Arab/Muslim mass media. Here

are some:

ON CHRISTIANS Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme

Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is ``a reeking

corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne

and perfume, and wash it in order to keep it clean.'' http:// www.memritv.org/clip/en/1528.htm_July 20, 2007.

Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the

blood of the Iraqi Christians--and a duty to wage jihad

against them. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/ 5200.htm_April 14, 2011.

Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, a Saudi professor of Islamic

law, calls for ``positive hatred'' of Christians. Al-Majd TV

(Saudi Arabia), http://www.memritv.org/clip/en1992.htm_Dec.

16, 2005.

ON SHIITES The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub:

``Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohamed Morsi

told me that the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the

Jews.'' www.memritv.org/clip/en13466.htm_June 13, 2012.

The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: ``If Allah had not

created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been

donkeys.'' http://www.memritv.org/clip/en13101.htm_Aug. 7,

2011.

The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan video series: ``The Shiite is a

Nasl [Race/Offspring] of Jews.'' http://www.memri.org/report/ en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6208.htm_March 21, 2012.

ON JEWS Article on the Muslim Brotherhood's Web site

praises jihad against America and the Jews: ``The Descendants

of Apes and Pigs.'' http://www.memri.org/report/en10/0/0/0/0/ 51/6656.htm_Sept. 7, 2012.

The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: ``When

the Jews are wiped out, the world would be purified and the

sun of peace would rise on the entire world.'' http:// www.menuiorg/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6557.htm_Aug. 1, 2012.

Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The

Jews, ``a source of evil and harm in all human societies.''

http://www.memri.org/report/en10/0/0/0/0/51/6086.htm_Feb.

14, 2012.

ON SUFIS A shrine venerating a Sufi Muslim saint in Libya

has been partly destroyed, the latest in a series of attacks

blamed on ultraconservative Salafi Islamists. http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19380083_Aug. 26, 2012.

As a Jew who has lived and worked in the Muslim world, I

know that these expressions of intolerance are only one side

of the story and that there are deeply tolerant views and

strains of Islam espoused and practiced there as well. Theirs

are complex societies.

That's the point. America is a complex society, too. But

let's cut the nonsense that this is just our problem and the

only issue is how we clean up our act. That Cairo protester

is right: We should respect the faiths and prophets of

others. But that runs both ways. Our president and major

newspapers consistently condemn hate speech against other

religions. How about yours?

Mr. Speaker, I have never had to learn more about an issue in my life than when I learned in 1992 that the City of New Bedford and its fishing industry was included in the new Congressional district that I have proudly represented. New Bedford is one of the most successful fishing ports in the county, and in fact for the 12th consecutive year New Bedford had the highest-valued catch of any port in the United States. Fishing is not only a vital part of the economy of the region, but an integral component of its culture and social makeup. I could not represent the needs of such a unique community without a talented staff, and I am honored that my longtime aide, Garth Patterson, is the recipient of the 2012 Friend of the Fisherman Award recognizing his exemplary work.

He received this award from the fishing community of New Bedford because of the high quality of the work he has done to provide the kind of first-rate public service and advocacy that is so essential to the continued survival of the fishing industry. In some cases, our advocacy can be uncomplicated, but there are also cases where mastering a very complex body of data is essential if we are to do our job right. Garth provided me with an extraordinary degree of technical expertise, practical knowledge, political savvy, and an ability to understand all viewpoints and articulate his own. He has been an enormous asset not only to me, but also to those concerned with the survival of the fishing industry.

Mr. Speaker, I join the fishermen in thanking Garth. He is a tireless advocate for the community, and his nearly quarter century of public service is the quintessential model of how constituent relations should be conducted. I am proud that he is receiving this award, proud of his hard work for the people of Massachusetts, and proud to call him my friend.

I thank the Democratic whip, and I thank him for the leadership he provided during his years as majority leader when we were able to do some things.

You know, we're talking about what this Congress didn't do. I suppose in some ways we ought to be happy because some of what they said they wanted to do would have been totally destructive.

This is the party that let the financial community run riot for years when they had both the White House and both Houses of Congress, did no regulation, so that we got the worst recession in 80 years, a near depression, because of their irresponsibility. They were threatening to undo it. Unfortunately, they were able to accomplish one thing.

One of the things we did was to give the Federal regulatory agencies the power to regulate derivatives, a serious, obscure, powerful instrument that was a major cause of our crisis. While they were not able to repeal the rules, they were able to reduce the funding of the agencies that have to deal with this complex matter to a level where they have not been very effective.

So that's one of the things they were able to do--undo by financial stealth what we tried to get done.

But I want to come to their defense to some extent, Mr. Whip, because there may be some implication that they're not willing to work hard. No, let's be very clear. The reason we have such a dismal record here is not because they are lazy, our Republican colleagues. It's more because of a word that rhymes with ``lazy,'' which the House rules will prohibit me from using.

The problem is this: in 2010, a significant number of Republicans were elected who do not understand the importance of governance in a free enterprise society in which there has to be a vigorous private sector creating goods and

services and a public sector that works with it.

That's why we have no postal bill, although the Senate passed one; why we have no agricultural bill; why they couldn't pass a highway bill and had to be dependent on the Democratic Senate to pass one, so they could catch on to it.

They simply do not understand the importance of our coming together and doing things in this complex economic society that cannot be done by the private sector.

It is an extremism. It is not laziness. It is extremism that grips the Republican Party so they are not able to discharge the normal functions of government.

By the way, there is one particular inaction that I want to stress. It has to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When my Republican friends are out of power, they know exactly what to do about housing. When they're in power, they forget. It's a peculiar form of amnesia.

From 1995 until 2006, they controlled the Congress and did nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We came into office in 2007. At the request of Henry Paulson, George Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, we took action and put them in a conservatorship and stopped them from losing money.

The next step was to go forward with replacing them. We said that we would do that. We did financial reform first. The Republicans said, in 2009 and 2010, you must do reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we thought financial reform came first because we already stopped the bleeding. Then they came to power in 2011, and they've done nothing.

The reason they've done nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the reason they've done nothing about the post office and agriculture and couldn't do anything about the highways is very simple: they are a party torn between extremists and people who are afraid of extremists. People who will not take them on. A Speaker who will not bring an agriculture bill to the floor that might very well pass because he's intimidated by his own Tea Party extremist wing which rules him.

They could not come forward with housing legislation because what a majority knows should be done to put in some kind of Federal-private cooperation without the mistakes we've made in the past, they couldn't get the votes for it because their extremists had a veto over it.

Last point, Mr. Whip. I want to talk a little bit about bipartisanship.

In 2007, things began to buckle in our financial system. I, as the chairman of the committee, worked closely with Mr. Paulson to deal with it. In 2008, the Bush administration came to us, and you know what they wanted? You remember, a stimulus. That terrible word ``stimulus.'' George Bush, that radical, and Ben Bernanke, his appointee, the Chairman of the Fed, and Hank Paulson, his Secretary of Treasury, said, Let's do a stimulus.

This Democratic leadership worked with them. Then-Speaker Pelosi negotiated with them. We did a bipartisan stimulus.

Then later on when the economy began to collapse because of financial dissolution, Hank Paulson came to us and asked for cooperation, and we gave him cooperation.

From 2007 through 2008, we had a very bipartisan approach in the economic crisis. Then one thing happened: Barack Obama became President and bipartisanship disappeared because extremism took over the Republican Party, first when they were in the minority and now when they are in the majority. That's why nothing has happened.

I thank the whip.

He was a registered Republican but was three times appointed by George Bush to high economic positions.

Mr. Speaker, first, I note that the chairman of the Budget Committee said that we want to get this out of the backrooms. Then I reread the bill, and the bill says that one person, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, will draft this bill, certify it, and present it to the Congress with very limited time to debate. So it is true. They do want to replace the backroom, but with a telephone booth. Now, that's hard to do because there aren't that many phone booths left. But there will apparently be one in which the chairman of Ways and Means will single-handedly draft this bill without a great deal of input.

What is it they're going to draft? What we're told is it will include reductions in the rates paid by the wealthiest, and it alludes in the most--not even close to specific terms--to getting rid of some loopholes. But we don't know what those are. This great courageous effort to deal with the special interests begins by ignoring it, by promising goodies to the wealthiest people will reduce your taxes, and we'll somehow make it up in a vague way. With how they don't know, because they don't want to say.

Procedurally and substantively, the bill is a disaster. That's the bad news. The good news is that no one thinks it is a serous legislative effort. This is one more bumper sticker from the gang that cannot legislate. We are here today with the Republican leadership having backed down on passing a bill that the Agriculture Committee came forward with.

Now, it's popular on the Republican side to talk about the Senate. Oh, the Democrats run the Senate, and they're choking everything off. Exactly the opposite is the case. The Senate passed a transportation bill. The House couldn't. The House couldn't even take one up because there is such division within the Republican Party. So here, in a procedural maneuver that smacks of a very undemocratic way, they sneaked into conference--a conference report came with the Senate transportation bill, the only bill that passed either House, and then Members obediently passed an omnibus bill, including a transportation bill, that this House never got to concede.

But even that looks good compared to postal issues. The Postal Service is now in default. Yeah, it is de fault--it's de fault of de Republicans, who are, again, so ideologically driven, so unable to deal with the basics of government because of their dominance by a faction that does not understand the role of our coming together to do things in a society, and the post office, that's a pretty controversial one. That radical George Washington set it up. It's a great unifier in this country, and it continues to be. One of the things we do here, people scoff at it, we name post offices. But those are great symbols of the community. And I've got to say, with all of the new communications, no one has ever asked me to name an iPod after anybody. We use the post offices.

But what happened? The Senate passed a postal bill. This House can't take one up, once again, because this Republican Party is so divided between their extremist wing and other people that--so we got transportation, we have postal, they can't do a postal bill, and the Postal Service is now in default while we debate this bill that no one takes seriously, that the chairman of Ways and Means will single- handedly put on his cape and fly down here with this bill that will help the rich, and it will do some unmentioned things regarding popular tax breaks, because they don't want to mention them. And then we have the agriculture bill.

So on the fundamental functions of government, an agriculture bill, a transportation bill, and a postal bill, the party that couldn't legislate didn't legislate, again, because they cannot get people on their own side to understand what we need in this society.

We need a postal service. We need transportation. We need an agriculture bill; although, I'd like to see one different than the one the committee brought out. But we didn't even get a chance to vote on them. Instead, we get a bumper sticker. Oh, we're going to cut taxes for the wealthy.

And I did notice, too, they said they're going to get the taxes to be 18 or 19 percent of the GDP. We have Mr. Romney committing that we will spend 4 percent of the GDP on the military, whether that's what's needed or not, whether we go to more wars or not.

So look at what's left. Take what they want to put in taxes, take what Romney wants to commit to the military, and there's no room for anything else. There's not much room for a good Medicare program. Social Security gets squeezed, the environment, clean water, transportation.

That's why they can't legislate, because they're locked into an ideological mindset that reduces, they say,

the revenues and increases the military beyond what is needed and leaves us unable to do those things which a civilized society wants to come together to do.

So, yeah, the bad news is that this is a crazy bill, but the good news is that after today's bumper sticker waving, no one will pay attention to it.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I think we should have an explanation here. The Clerk read the technical language; but as I understand it, what happened was that the bill that we were voting on yesterday and will vote on today has an error and gets ``employment'' and ``unemployment'' confused and that this is a bill that would correct the error in the bill that we debated yesterday.

So I wonder, why do we now need a unanimous consent? Are we correcting the correction? It's the old Latin phrase ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'' which means, ``Who guards the guardians?'' I guess the question today is, Who corrects the correctors?

I would yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina if she would explain why we had to get a bill to make a correction and why we now have to have a unanimous consent to probably correct the correction. What is the error? I guess I should ask, What is the error of the day? We know what yesterday's error was. What's today's error?

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Reclaiming my time to say, if that's the

case, if the letters ``U'' and ``N'' were left out, knowing the animosity on that side to the U.N., I can understand why psychologically that would have happened.

I yield again to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, proceeding on my reservation, I appreciate the gentlewoman's mea culpa. She wasn't here at the time. I would note that it is my predecessor, the late Reverend Robert Drinan, S.J., who was better than I at responding to mea culpas. I won't be able wholly to deal with that.

I do think this is more than simply a double error. It's a matter of haste. I would take exception to the gentlewoman saying, well, it's important that we get this done right away. I think, frankly, the problem has been in these past couple of years, and to some extent before, we haven't met frequently enough. I understand people would like to get back to the districts they represent, but I think that this is emblematic of not having enough time to deal with things.

We are going to be voting, I think, on 20-something amendments today, important amendments on an important bill, that were debated for 10 minutes each late into yesterday evening, no proper airing of very controversial subjects. Indeed, I think this is what happens when you try to do too much too soon.

People on the other side were critical of some of the legislation we passed. The financial reform bill, they said it was too encompassing. But it went through a much more thorough process than this very controversial, even more comprehensive bill that we're dealing with today. The bill that we're dealing with today deals with every single subject that comes before this Congress because it would put severe restrictions on the adoption of regulations about financial reform, about health, about the environment, about occupational safety, about transportation safety.

Yes, it is a problem when you try to do too much too soon. I do not impute any nefarious intent. Let me say under the House rules, you can't impute nefarious intent, even if you think there is some, and I don't think there is any. So for two reasons, I don't impute that. But it does seem to me that this is an example of a flawed legislative process. We're doing this bill, which is kind of a big message bill.

I know there's a lot of criticism on the other side of the United States Senate, but the Senate passed an agricultural bill. This House isn't even going to take one up, a very important agricultural bill. The Senate passed a transportation bill. This House had to go along with a conference without any chance to deliberate on it. The Senate passed a postal reform bill to keep the postal service going, and this House can't take it up.

When we can't do the basic legislation that we should do and we do one of these broad message bills that's overly comprehensive and then we make mistakes, I think it's worth some notice.

I yield to my colleague from New Jersey.

Apparently, that is what was in the bill. They said it was a typo, that the letters ``U'' and ``N'' were left out. I will say there is certain equality here. The day before yesterday, the mistake was letters, and today it's numbers. I suppose tomorrow it will be astrological signs.

I yield to the gentleman.

It's my time. If the gentleman wants me to yield, I will yield.

First, I would note that the error was in the first substantive page. This was not buried somewhere deep in the bill. Just to reinforce the point that a lot of people didn't read the bill, that error was very much in the early part.

Of the first substantive one.

If the gentleman wants me to, I would yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

First, as with regards to the tragedy, of course we all come together. But the fact that we can celebrate tragedy does not mean that we put aside, in a democratic body, our legitimate differences. This is not simply a small mistake, but it is a small mistake in a bill that is about as partisan as it gets.

To make a plea for bipartisanship with this excessively partisan bill that is being put through in such a procedurally inappropriate fashion with major concerns about every aspect of the Federal Government, given 10 minutes of debate at 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock at night to be voted on, no, that's a mistake.

Secondly, as the gentleman from New Jersey and I have pointed out, it is not simply that a mistake was made, but

it's a mistake that would easily have been caught earlier if people had read the bill.

And I stress this because when we did some of the other legislation-- financial reform, health care--there was constant repetition of the argument on the Republican side ``You haven't read the bill. Nobody's read the bill.'' Well, you haven't read this bill, apparently, Mr. Speaker. At least not very many people have read it.

And blaming the staff, I never like to do that, because the staff prepares things, but Members sign off on it.

So, yes, we will proceed to this debate, but we are talking here about an indication, an overly broad bill given too little time for consideration. People on the other side--Members, apparently, didn't read it. And that is not a small point. It is symptomatic of where we are.

I will yield briefly to my friend from New Jersey.

Madam Chair, this is an example of the Republican majority's taste for legislative exotica.

We have a very strange bill that no one expects to go anywhere. They do expect to make some people happy by pretending that they're going to be making oil here. This is in lieu of real legislation.

This is the group that could not have this House pass a transportation bill. The House passed the transportation bill by a legislative maneuver of the kind they used to denounce. It was made part of an overall omnibus package. There was never any chance to amend it, and it came out of a conference committee.

This is a group that can't pass an agriculture bill. We face problems in the agricultural area; and because they are so split over what to do, that committee's brought out a bill, and it's not coming forward. They are unable to do the regular legislative business, so we get this.

Now, what this says is that no rules that have been promulgated of any significance are going to be going forward.

I will not debate the gentleman from Oklahoma about haze. I am no expert about it. But that's the problem. This is not a bill that deals with rules in one area and one area of expertise. It does everything. So let me talk about one area I am familiar with.

The gentleman from Oklahoma says we're saying that you need a Federal regulator looking over the shoulders of every American. No, not every American; but I'm close to thinking of every American who runs a large financial institution, yeah. Of the people who lied about Libor, of the people at Capitol One who cheated consumers.

Now, I am glad we have a consumer bureau that stepped in to protect the Americans there. It's not every American who's corrupt; it is too many in the financial area.

We passed financial reform. I know some of the Republicans don't like it. I read in the paper today, well, Mr. Romney says he's going to repeal it, but the House Republicans say, oh, no, we can't. So instead of repealing it in a head-on way or amending it in a head-on way, they want to stop the rules.

What this bill would do, if it ever became law, would be to say ``no'' to the Volcker rule. No, let's not differentiate as to what kind of activities are legitimate for a bank to do or not. If an American bank that's got deposit insurance wants to speculate and lose billions of dollars in derivative trades, let them be.

This bill will stop us in a number of other areas with regard to derivatives, speculation where we want to put limits on what the nonusers of oil can buy so we can drive up the price.

The notion that the American people are crying out for an end to regulation is not congruent with anything I have read or heard about the financial area. And I am on the Financial Services Committee. I've worked on that.

This bill would fully apply here. It would prevent us from going forward with any of the pending rules in the financial reform bill.

Now, they've taken awhile. They're complicated. Many of them are done. Most of them will be done soon. This is an effort to re- deregulate derivatives, re-deregulate financial irresponsibility without standing up and saying so.

I thank the gentleman.

This is an effort to do re-deregulation by stealth. If they don't want to regulate derivatives, if they think speculation's a good thing, then let's bring up a bill. After all, this isn't the agriculture bill. You don't have to be afraid of splitting your membership by trying to do it.

This ought to be straightforward. Instead, they want to do it by stealth. They want to end our effort to bring regulation to the financial industry.

And, yes, I would say to the gentleman from Oklahoma, when it comes

to the people who have been running the large financial institutions, we do need more regulation, not less; and I believe the American people understand that and do not want to see the people who brought this terrible recession of 2008 from that financial irresponsibility set free of any restraint.

I rise in opposition, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

This is an effort to exempt companies under $250 million. Now the JOBS Act, which was recently passed with broad support, said that a start-up company for its first 5 years would be exempt from this. This now would do away with that 5-year restriction without having had the kind of committee consideration that it seems to me it ought to have. It does it in this way, and I differ with my colleague from Pennsylvania when he says that it doesn't change the law. If it didn't change the law, they wouldn't offer it. He's not up here at 9 p.m. just to get exercise. It changes the law in a very significant way and sets a very bad precedent.

The underlying legislation to which this would be an amendment requires a cost-benefit analysis. This cooks the books. This is not content to let it be an unbiased cost-benefit analysis; but it says, it instructs the SEC to take into account the heavy burdens--and let me get the exact words--the large burden of such regulation. In other words, it's an effort to tip the scales of the very cost-benefit analysis.

And we know that, by the way, as to intent because the original version of this amendment was just a straight exemption of 250. But for parliamentary reasons, because that's not this committee's jurisdiction, it had to be redone. So if the gentleman really wanted to just exempt everybody under 250 from Sarbanes Oxley forever, as opposed to a 5-year exemption for a start-up, he had to amend it.

So he amended it in a way, as I said, that unfortunately impugns the integrity of the cost-benefit analysis because it puts a thumb on the scales. It says, oh, the cost-benefit analysis here should take into account the large burden. Well, it is already supposed to do it. Adding this is an instruction to the SEC essentially to find that they should be exempt.

We have had a rash of Chinese companies buying small American companies and converting them and people investing in them and getting taken. And the problem is that Chinese accounting is very opaque. What this bill would do is to prevent the United States authorities from applying Sarbanes Oxley to protect those investors.

I don't doubt that there is a very good company--I agree there is a very good company in his district, although he says it is above the limit. But you can't legislate for just one good company. This is part of this nostalgia for a time when we had no regulation.

Sarbanes Oxley has improved the integrity of our capital markets. It has improved the confidence of investors. We did exempt small start- ups, so for the first 5 years as a start-up, up to $250 million, they didn't have to do this. This says, in effect, by instructing the SEC to find that the cost outweighs the benefit no matter what, this gives a permanent exemption de facto for companies up to 250, which would include people who might be scamming, in the case of the Chinese companies. And as I said, it sets a bad precedent.

If we are going to have cost-benefit analysis, and I think that can be overdone, let's have it in an honest and open way. Let's not put the thumb in the scales, as this does, by instructing the SEC, in effect, to find that the cost always outweighs it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I guess I am in a position of being disagreeable to some of my friends on the committee. The gentleman from Tennessee cited the company that's about to go public, but they're already exempted.

The jobs bill that we passed and was signed into law exempts start- ups for the first 5 years until they go public, so this has no relevance to the start-ups.

It has relevance to companies that have been in existence for more than 5 years as public companies. Again, we have got an exemption already for the first 5 years. And it says, in effect, don't give us this unbiased cost-benefit analysis. We'll tell you what cost-benefit analysis does.

And as to IPOs, I will insert into the Record an article by Mr. Davidoff in the The New York Times talking about the advantages we have in IPOs these days; how the soccer team from England came here to do an IPO because our corporate governance laws are more favorable to them in allowing different classes of stock.

I'm sorry to see this continuing repudiation of the legacy of George W. Bush. I know he's not going to come to the convention. But, gee, everything's being torn down. George Bush signed Sarbanes Oxley. Oxley, by the way, is Mike Oxley, my predecessor as chairman of our committee. George Bush was very proud of Sarbanes Oxley. It's an accounting requirement, and what this does is to take another chunk out of that regulation.

Now, maybe we hear different people. My friends say the American people are crying out for an end of regulation. Every indication I have of public opinion is that people are tired of irresponsibility by a few, not everybody, but they are tired of people being scammed. And, in fact, the notion that what we need in the financial area is less regulation is an odd one. It comes from people, I guess, who just slept through the last few years, didn't see the crisis we had because Sarbanes Oxley, of course, itself came about after Enron.

So I would align myself with President Bush. I think he got this one right. I think Mike Oxley got this one right. Yes, for start-ups and for people about to go public, they have a $250 million exemption. But to give a permanent exemption to companies at $250 million and above is a mistake. And don't, please, start monkeying with cost-benefit analysis.

I yield back the balance of my time.

[From the New York Times, July 10, 2012]

In Manchester United's I.P.O., a Preference for American Rules

(By Steven M. Davidoff)

Manchester United, the English soccer team with an adoring

fan base in Europe and Asia, is filing to go public in the

United States.

But the initial public offering is not a reflection of

Americans' increasing love of soccer. Instead, it is a

reflection of American regulators' light touch.

I'm not kidding. The United States, which has long been

criticized for its harsh rules surrounding I.P.O.'s, is now

the place where foreign companies go to avoid regulation.

Manchester United may be the world's most popular soccer

club, with 659 million fans according to the team's own

estimates. In 2005, the American businessman Malcolm Glazer

and his family bought control of the team, loading it up with

hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Now, the company is

selling shares to raise money and reduce its debt, which

stands at about $655 million.

But the Glazers do not want to give up voting control

since, among other reasons, Manchester United fans appear

eager to buy back the team from the still-unpopular family.

In 2010, a prominent group of Manchester United fans were

said to have tried to form a consortium to repurchase the

club. The Glazers have uniformly given the same response: the

team is not for sale. Now, the Glazers are venue-shopping for

their stock.

They passed over the Hong Kong Stock Exchange because it

would not give the team a waiver to allow two classes of

shares, with different voting rights. The London Stock

Exchange also does not allow such share structures, perhaps

the reason this natural home was skipped over by the Glazers.

Manchester United declined to comment for this article.

The Singapore Exchange seemed more amenable to the Glazers'

plan to list Manchester United and keep control through a

dual-class structure. But after the exchange delayed final

signoff on the dual-class shares and the Asian markets

cooled, the Singapore plans were derailed, according to an

article in Reuters.

The soccer team has recently found a home for its stock in

the United States. Manchester United filed the papers this

month for its initial public offering on the New York Stock

Exchange, and the Glazers are taking advantage of the

country's willingness to be more flexible when it comes to

shareholder rights. Manchester United is proposing a

corporate structure that would give the Glazers shares with

10 votes apiece. Public investors would receive one vote for

each share.

While the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to ban

this type of dual-class voting stock in the 1980s, a federal

appeals court struck down the rules. Since then, the

structure has become increasingly common. Facebook, LinkedIn

and Google all have dual-class shares. The New York Times

also has a dual-class voting structure. In 2011, 28 offerings

featured dual-class structures that gave greater voting

rights to certain shareholders, according to the research

firm Dealogic.

The Manchester United offering is a case study in how the

American markets have evolved toward deregulation in the past

decade.

The company is a beneficiary of the newly enacted Jumpstart

Our Business Start-Ups Act, known as the JOBS Act, designed

to help private companies raise capital and go public.

Although the team was founded in 1878, the JOBS Act

classifies Manchester United as an emerging growth company

since it has less than $1 billion in revenue. As such, the

company, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, does

not face the same hurdles as American businesses.

The JOBS Act builds on earlier efforts by the S.E.C. to

loosen the rules governing I.P.O.'s of foreign companies.

Under pressure from stock exchanges and other market players,

the agency has exempted foreign issuers like Manchester

United from large parts of American securities laws.

Manchester United will not need to file quarterly reports,

report material events, file proxy statements or disclose

extensive compensation information, all of which American

companies must do. Under a different S.E.C. rule adopted in

2008, Manchester United also does not need to report

financials under the generally accepted accounting principles

used in the United States, but can instead rely on

international financial reporting standards.

Because Manchester United will be a controlled company, it

does not need to follow the New York Stock Exchange rules

adopted in 2003 that require a public company to have a board

composed mainly of independent directors. The board of

Manchester United will have four directors, two of Malcolm

Glazer's sons and two executives of the company.

The legal environment, which investment bankers and lawyers

have long argued deterred I.P.O.'s, also appears to be more

conducive. This may be because securities litigation reforms

put in place by Congress and the Supreme Court have meant

fewer cases in recent years. Even after the financial crisis,

only 16 companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 were subject

to this type of litigation in 2011, the lowest number since

2000, according to the Stanford Securities Class Action

Clearinghouse.

It's all a bit unsettling.

After the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002,

critics claimed that the new regulation was driving away

foreign companies, although at least one academic study

rebutted this claim. But as regulators have slowly loosened

the rules, the American markets are attracting foreign

issuers seeking watered-down rules.

This does not mean that this deregulation is wrongheaded.

The JOBS Act and other initiatives may not have been

designed to attract the likes of Manchester United, but such

I.P.O.'s do provide work for investment bankers, lawyers and

the exchanges. They also build up American prestige by

bringing well-known foreign companies to the United States.

At the same time, the deregulation effort means lower

compliance costs for businesses. Presumably, that extra money

can be invested, bolstering the economy.

The question is whether deregulation is worth the price.

I have little sympathy for investors who buy Manchester

United shares. The risks are mainly disclosed.

The bigger question is whether lowering the bar for foreign

issuers will come back to haunt the American markets.

Even before the JOBS Act, Chinese companies took advantage

of new S.E.C. rules and started going public en masse in the

United States. While some of the I.P.O.'s have worked out,

there are now more than 100 newly public Chinese companies

facing accusations of fraud by either investors or

regulators.

The risk is that American exchanges will become more like

London's Alternative Investment Market, a lightly regulated

stock exchange that has fostered some spectacular flops. If

so, investors may lose faith in American markets, and the

United States may end up sacrificing long-term stature for

short-term gain.

Either way, the next time someone calls the American

markets overregulated, you might want to point them to the

Manchester United I.P.O.--and remind them that the English

soccer club came to the United States to avoid more

burdensome foreign rules.

This post has been revised to reflect the following

correction:

Correction: July 12, 2012.

The Deal Professor column on Wednesday, about the soccer

team Manchester United's public offering in the United

States, misstated the year that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was

enacted. It was 2002, not 2001.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The gentleman says the SEC wasn't on the Madoff thing for many years. That's true. I have to say that, while I supported the Bush administration on Sarbanes Oxley, I am critical of their administration of the SEC. For almost all of that time, we had an SEC that was not inclined to enforce. And I do not think the current SEC, under a very good chairman, Mary Schapiro, with a much more vigorous approach ought to be taxed for the failures that were ideologically driven by the previous SEC.

So I don't think it is valid to say, well, because they didn't catch Madoff--the SEC during the Bush administration reflected an unfortunate philosophy of non-regulation, of ceding to the company more autonomy than they should have, and it is not a good basis on which to legislate going forward.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, a large percentage of the people in this room would be too; but, secondly, the fact is that the gentleman from Florida is who started pointing fingers. When I talked about who was in charge of the SEC, all of a sudden he is above any criticism. But he's the one who impugned the SEC. He's the one who said that the SEC sat and did nothing under Madoff. So, if you're going to accuse the agency, then it becomes relevant as to who was running it. I didn't raise the issue of who was to blame and who was at fault. I was simply responding to my committee colleague from Florida.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Chair, I rise to oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I understand that the banks in America don't like this because they would like to continue to be a place where people can come from other countries or send their money from other countries and not have it reported back home. The problem is that in America, we suffer a much greater loss right now from Americans who evade their taxes. Most Americans don't. But taxes being parked in the Cayman Islands, which was just mentioned and elsewhere, are a problem. We passed in 2010 a bill to try and get money owed to the United States paid to the United States. That requires the cooperation of other governments.

Members are aware of the negotiations with Switzerland and other tax havens. What this says is: we the United States want you to help us collect taxes owed to us, but we won't do the same. It is the tax evaders' bill of rights. The gentleman from Florida says they're law abiding citizens. Most of them probably are. How does he know they all are? Why do people in the Cayman Islands want to put money in American banks? Maybe they are perfectly good reasons. Maybe they want to come visit their money some day.

The fact is that people who send money to other countries include people who evade taxes. What this says to the United States is we basically are going to have to abandon the effort to collect taxes owed to us in foreign countries because we are telling the foreign countries we will not cooperate with them. We have tax treaties that we're pursuing. This basically aborts that.

Americans who want to send their money elsewhere and not pay taxes, they like this idea. With regard to the American banks, people have said they'll send their money elsewhere. The notion that we should compete in a race to the bottom, the notion that we should match other countries in an absence of rules is a philosophy that gets us in trouble. I believe that if we work hard, we will get a number of countries that will work with us on this. That's the essential point.

If Members favor a vigorous effort by the United States Government to recover taxes owed to us from elsewhere, they should reject this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

In fact, we suffer more from taxes evaded in the U.S., I believe, than the money we have here. The point, however, is--and I will submit the comments from the Department of the Treasury--we will not be sending this to countries with which we don't have a tax treaty. There are strong statutory and regulatory requirements that prevent this information from being sent to countries that abuse it.

Maybe Members think that's not strong enough. If the gentleman from Florida would like to submit legislation to strengthen those statutory requirements to make it clear that some countries qualify and some don't--for example, I'm informed Venezuela today would not qualify for obvious reasons, because of the brutal, corrupt nature of that government.

So the question is, because some governments would abuse it, should we protect every tax evader who wants to use the United States as a haven from having their money reported, at the price of not getting cooperation ourselves? That doesn't mean everybody puts their money here as a tax evader. If you're not a tax evader, then there's no problem with having this reported. As far as the Pentagon being hacked, yeah, people have been hacked. If the IRS was going to be hacked, a lot more would have happened.

The fact is that the security of tax returns in America is one of the best things about our government. Administrations of both parties from time immemorial have protected the security of tax returns. We have a very good record as a government. We shouldn't just denigrate it with no basis in protecting the integrity of tax returns. People have filed tax returns and have had great privacy in them. This is the central point, because some of the banks would like to get this money and not care whether people are tax evaders or not.

The gentleman says we can do it case by case. That's an impossible task, case by case to decide. Then the IRS becomes more intrusive. Do you want to do a frisk of each individual to decide whether he or she has his returns done? Case by case is the way you destroy privacy.

Here's the fundamental point. We are making efforts to collect taxes owed to us by people who have hidden the money elsewhere, and we know that's been a problem. This would make it impossible to do that with any efficiency. As I said, there are very clear statements of policy against sending this information to Venezuela, against sending it to other places where it wouldn't be secure. This is the question: Are we going to allow American standards, in trying to impose taxes that are legitimately owed here, to be eroded by other countries?

The gentleman mentioned the Cayman Islands. I don't want the Cayman Islands to set the standard for American tax collection. The gentleman mentioned that the Cayman Islanders are sending money here. I don't want the Cayman Islanders and their desire to get shelter to be setting the standard for American tax collection practices, for the need of America to do the right thing.

Those people who are lawfully investing money will not be frightened by this, and America's ability to get taxes owed to us would be destroyed by this amendment.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.