Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I'm not here to ask the President to make good on his promise about those jobs, because I don't believe that government creates jobs. Government doesn't create wealth. All it does is move wealth around. We need jobs.

But I am here to ask the President to make good on the idea of producing the right policies that would create jobs by creating wealth in the private sector. And I would suggest to my colleagues that the way to do that is to have a low-tax situation, a lighter touch on regulation and less litigation. It's really those three things. If you have low taxes, light-touch regulation, and less litigation, we will expand the American economy, we will create wealth, and we will create jobs.

That is something that we can be doing here in this Congress. It is something that we can cooperate on getting done, and we can serve the American people. We can deliver American solutions.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 557, had I been present, I would have voted ''aye.''

Amendment No. 6 Offered by Mr. Broun of Georgia

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding an earmark I received as part of H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development

and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Requesting Member: Congressman Bob Inglis

Bill Number: H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: EERE-Other

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: University of South Carolina

Address of Requesting Entity: 1218 Henderson Street, Columbia, South Carolina 29201

Description of Request: The purpose of the request is to continue the development and demonstration of a unique science and technology process to use waste heat from nuclear reactors to generate hydrogen using chemical processing combined with separation using PEM technology. This highly effective process will enable expanded and accelerated hydrogen production for energy sustainability and security for our society. The amount is $300,000 and it would go to the University of South Carolina.

Requesting Member: Congressman Bob Inglis

Bill Number: H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Science

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Clemson University

Address of Requesting Entity: 209 Sikes Hall, Clemson, South Carolina 29634

Description of Request: The purpose of the request is to continue the development of the Clemson University Cyberinstitute (CUCI) project which will assist research universities around the State of South Carolina to perform scientific research in nanotechnology, bioinformatics/computational biology, environment/ecology and global climate change. The project links South Carolina to a nation-wide backbone of world-class university research, industry partners and cutting-edge technology entrepreneurs. CUCI will serve as a conduit for a virtual research campus that brings together cyber resources and strengths from each of South Carolina's research institutions, including Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina. The amount is $500,000 and it would go to Clemson University.

Requesting Member: Congressman Bob Inglis

Bill Number: H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)--Biomass and Biorefinery Systems R&D

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Clemson University

Address of Requesting Entity: 209 Sikes Hall, Clemson, South Carolina 29634

Description of Request: The purpose of the request is to continue the development of a Cellulosic Biofuel Plant. Cellulosic ethanol comes from breaking down the lignin and hemi-cellulose shell in order to access plant sugars for fermentation into renewable fuel. It is estimated that cellulose conversion to ethanol can produce 800-1000 gallons of ethanol per acre (compared to 416/acre for corn). Capturing 20% of the state's gasoline fuel market through bio-ethanol would build a $1Bn industry. In order to accomplish that goal, South Carolina must have the capacity to produce 700M gallons of ethanol/year. Based on recent studies of the economic impact of corn ethanol plans in the Midwest, 700M gal/year of bio-ethanol capacity could lead to $1.5 billion in capital investments, create 10,000 new jobs, add $2 billion to the local economy and increase local and state taxes by $20 million. The amount is $1 million and it would go to Clemson University.

Today, the Obama administration has floated an idea that really is rather shocking and is quite different than what I thought we were going to do with the TARP money that's coming back to us. In fact, last week I had two town meetings where I talked to folks in South Carolina's Fourth District about how it is that the $350 billion of TARP I is now coming back to us, the taxpayers of the United States. In fact, $70 billion has been repaid.

We're earning interest ranging from 5 to 9 percent on that. And the last reports we had, it's totaling $4.5 billion that's paid back to us in interest. So you have the principal return of about $70 billion. We have interest coming back to us in the form of the magnitude of somewhere around $4.5 billion.

Today's story indicates that really it's a larger amount of interest; it's $6.5 billion.

Now, what the Obama administration is talking about doing--and this truly is shocking, Mr. Speaker--is that that money would not come back to pay down the deficit from whence cometh the $350 billion that we spent on TARP but, rather, they would divert this money to troubled homeowners.

There are two problems with this, Mr. Speaker. One is a real constitutional question, which is: What gives? The administration gets to decide, not Congress. The administration gets to decide, the Executive gets to decide about how to redistribute this money so that they can basically take it and use it for the Treasury purposes to do something else besides pay back to the deficit or pay back to the Federal Treasury? I don't think so, Mr. Speaker. It's a constitutional problem with that. That's the first objection.

The second is: Is this administration absolutely intent on redistributing

wealth? Isn't that what they're doing here? This money is America's money that we invested in trying to save our banking system from collapse, putting $350 million in TARP I into this effort to stop the collapse of our banking system.

When that money is paid back, it should come to all of us, all American taxpayers. We invested it; we should get it back. This is what I was telling in town meetings last week is that we're going to get this money back. And we've got a shot at getting back TARP I, maybe even at a profit.

But now the Obama administration is talking about redistributing that money, not giving it back to all the taxpayers; rather, doting on constituencies that they find favorable or that they are favorable to. So they pick up on a sympathetic case, which is maybe troubled homeowners, and they decide that we'll just slough the money to them rather than pay it back to the Treasury and have it enjoyed by all the taxpayers who invested the $350 billion to the banking system.

So I ask you, Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, there's a constitutional objection here that we really should be concerned about as a Congress, and then there's this real question about how far will this administration go in attempting to redistribute wealth.

This money belongs to all of the American people. This money we pledged together to try to rescue the banking system. As it comes back, paid back to us, it should be paid back to all of us, not just to troubled homeowners, not just to sympathetic cases but, rather, to all American taxpayers.

So I urge my colleagues to join with me in watching the constitutional question here and watching the redistribution of wealth, which we must object to, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding an earmark I received as part of HR 3081, Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Requesting Member: Congressman Bob Inglis

Bill Number: HR 3081, Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Global Health and Child Survival

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Christian Blind Mission International

Address of Requesting Entity: 450 E Park Avenue, Greenville, South Carolina 29601

Description of Request: Of the funding provided for vulnerable children, $2,000,000 is included for child blindness programs to be administered in a manner that the maximum amount of funds are delivered to the field. USAID should consider the work of Christian Blind Mission (CBM) which acts upon the needs and rights of people with disabilities; 18 million people worldwide benefit from CBM's support. 1.5 million children are currently blind, and another 7 million suffer from poor vision. CBM's eye care programs focus on four preventable and reversible sources of blindness: cataract, river blindness, vitamin A deficiency and trachoma.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This is not the time for a tax increase. It's not the time for another Wall Street trading scheme, and it's not the time to burden American manufacturing. It is the time to inspire innovation through amendments like Mr. Forbes' and to come together to find a solution that breaks our addiction to oil, that creates new energy jobs, and that cleans up the air.

We can get there if we stop this cap-and-trade, do some fresh thinking, and then come together for America's sake around a revenue- neutral tax swap. It would start with a tax cut on FICA taxes, then in equal amount, we would shift the tax onto carbon. We could then apply that tax to imported as well as domestically produced goods. Just like the fair tax, we would just be changing what we tax.

We would be swapping a FICA tax cut for a similar tax on carbon. The accountability of a revenue-neutral tax swap would cause old fuels to lose out to new fuels. We would be building nuclear power plants, and free enterprise would deliver the triple play of this American century.

Ladies and gentleman, let's support the Forbes amendment for innovation, stop the cap-and-trade, and solve the problem.

Madam Speaker, the upstate of South Carolina is the home to many champions and many successes. Yesterday we crowned a new one. That new one is the 29-year-old Greenville, South Carolina, native Lucas Glover, who conquered the field yesterday in New York to win the 109th U.S. Open Golf Championship.

With people from around the upstate glued to the action, the soft- spoken Wade Hampton High School graduate and three-time All-American from Clemson University rallied from one shot down to break into the big time in the world of golf, winning his first major championship since joining the PGA tour in 2004.

We have come along to celebrate the culmination of Lucas' years of preparation. His family, wife, Jennifer, and close friends have been there all along, in the good times and the bad, in the disappointments and in the small triumphs. Yesterday they added a huge triumph, and we join them in the celebration.

Congratulations to our own U.S. Open golf champion, Lucas Glover.

Last night in Spartanburg, South Carolina, we had a town meeting; and folks were joining in this debate we will be having here this week in Washington about climate legislation. There were folks who spoke passionately about the need to take action, and I'm in agreement with them. There is a need to take action and to discharge a stewardship obligation. Then there were others who really didn't buy the science of climate change. And so there was a good discussion, a good debate. There's going to be a debate here on this House floor, perhaps by the end of the week.

Madam Speaker, what I'd like to say tonight is that there is a need to act. There is a need to act in a way that wins a triple play for this century in America. If we play this right, it really is an opportunity to do three things simultaneously. One, improve the national security of the United States; two, create jobs; and three, clean up the air.

So let's hear about the triple play. It starts by stopping the current cap-and-trade proposal. The problem with cap-and-trade is: It's a massive tax increase in the midst of a recession; it's a Wall Street trading scheme that would make traders on Wall Street blush; and it punishes American manufacturing because the tax--the cap-and-trade, which is essentially a tax--is applied only to domestically produced goods and not to imported goods. So if that's the case, if it's really not going to accomplish what we want to accomplish, what would be better? I think it's important that those of us who are opposed to cap- and-trade come with something better. The ``better'' that I would propose is this: It's a revenue-neutral tax swap. Basically what we would do is we would reduce FICA taxes. That's the payroll taxes on your paycheck. You reduce those; and in an equal amount, you impose a tax on carbon dioxide. There's no additional take to the government, so it's revenue-neutral. You apply this transparent tax--it is admittedly a tax--to imported goods as well as domestically produced goods. The result is, there is one less reason to export productive capacity from the United States; and we achieve this triple play. We can simultaneously create

jobs by propelling these new technologies with the alternative energies and fuels of the future. We can improve the national security of the United States by breaking the addiction to oil. That will only come when the economics work out for the competing technologies. Currently the incumbent technology--gasoline, in the case of transportation fuel--has these negative externalities that aren't recognized. If they were recognized, if they were attached to the price of that product, the national security risks we are running, the environmental problems that it causes, the small particulates--even if you don't buy the climate change argument, the small particulates are quantifiable and real--if you attach all those negative externalities to that product, suddenly the marketplace could deliver competing technologies; and the fuels of the future could take off and could lead us to these jobs of the future and to clean up the air.

Madam Speaker, this is a fabulous opportunity. It starts with stopping the current cap-and-trade proposal. And then we come together, Republicans and Democrats, to find a better solution. I think we can find it in a revenue-neutral tax swap that makes free enterprise able to lead us into the fuels of the future.

I thank the gentlelady and the gentleman for yielding that time, and I saw this morning that the Supreme Leader of Iran said that street challenge is not acceptable. This is challenging democracy after the elections.

Well, we beg to differ and the people of Iran are begging to differ. When you can count paper ballots, millions of them, within a couple of hours, something's funny. And when you declare the results of the election is fine but say there is going to be some investigation, what's the value of the investigation if you've already certified the election?

And so what we're begging to differ with the Supreme Leader of Iran is that it is not challenging democracy after elections. It's saying that the elections were rigged, and rigged elections don't produce outcomes that people can believe in.

Furthermore, what's happening here is we're seeing the real disastrous consequence of having a theocracy, where somebody at the top gets to say--I don't know where he derives his authority--but he gets to say what's what about elections.

We're very thankful, Madam Speaker, to live in a country where that's not the case, where we have elected officials who choose Supreme Court members, who are then confirmed by the Senate and who serve with good behavior. And that is a system that produces confidence among the people, and a free people get to govern themselves.

That's our hope, that's our aspiration for the Iranian people; and we, the people of the United States, should stand boldly with the people in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran who are saying we yearn to breathe free, we want to govern ourselves. This is their moment. We stand in support of them.

Madam Speaker, today I had interesting discussions in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. They were entitled, ``What's wrong with cap-and-trade and what's right with using free enterprise to solve the challenge that we have?''

So what's wrong with cap-and-trade? We came to pretty solid agreement on that, Madam Speaker. It's a massive tax increase in the midst of a recession; it's a Wall Street trading scheme that really would make any trader on Wall Street that led us into this recent debacle blush; and it's really a proposal that's going to end up decimating American manufacturing because the tax on energy would be applied just domestically, it wouldn't be applied to imported goods. And the result is that we would export productive capacity from the United States to other countries that don't have a price on carbon. So it's a real problem, and it is something that we have got to stop in order to get to the better.

The better that we discussed is a proposal--actually, a bipartisan proposal at this point--that Jeff Flake and Dan Lipinski and I are supporting, which is a plan to basically do a revenue-neutral tax swap. It involves changing what we tax and causing free enterprise to fix the problem that some are trying to fix with cap-and-trade; but as I just pointed out, there are real problems with cap-and-trade.

So the way this revenue-neutral tax swap would work is we would reduce taxes on something we want more of, which is payroll, by reducing the payroll tax. That's 6.2 percent from the employer and 6.2 percent from the employee on the first $106,800 worth of income. We would reduce that, and in an equal amount swap the tax, if you will, in an equal amount put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. The result would be no additional take to the government, so it's revenue neutral. It would just free of from taxation something you want more of, which is income and labor and industry, and impose a tax on something you want less of, which is carbon dioxide.

The point that I was making in Greenville and Spartanburg today is, even if you think climate change is a bunch of hooey and there is no need to reduce carbon dioxide, I think conservatives can jump at the opportunity to reduce taxes on income. Because if you reduce set payroll tax, you free up employers to employ more people and you free up the employee to have more of their own money. This is something conservatives should be very excited about. Even if we were switching to, say, a tax on sweet gumballs or sycamore balls, or acorns, it would be better than taxing payroll.

The problem with taxing payroll is you're punishing work. So what we do is free up from taxation payroll, impose a tax on carbon dioxide, and watch the free enterprise system, with that price signal, change where we are such that we would fix the national security problem we have--which is great exposure to OPEC and its control of our oil markets--and we would also create jobs by creating new industries in new kinds of technologies, and we would clean up the air.

The point that I was making in these meetings in Greenville and Spartanburg is, even if you think climate change is hooey, still the small particulates in coal would cause you to want to take action. The cleaner alternative of nuclear power will come to the market when the market says, oh, coal is now paying the full freight of its cost. If it is, nuclear becomes possible and we start building nuclear power plants.

Madam Speaker, the key to this is getting the economics right. If we do that, we can fix this problem. But it starts with stopping this cap- and-trade because cap-and-trade isn't the way to fix this problem. The free enterprise system is the way to fix it. And to win the triple play of this American century we can improve the national security of the United States, we can create jobs, and we can clean up the air. Madam Speaker, I say we come together and get that done after we stop cap- and-trade.

I thank the gentlewoman from yielding.

Mr. Chairman, there was an exchange in the Foreign Affairs Committee that was very instructive when it came to abortion and to this bill. Our colleague Chris Smith, the tireless advocate for the unborn, was asking questions of

Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton said these words to our friend Chris Smith:

So we have a very fundamental disagreement, she said, and it is my strongly held view that you, Chris Smith, are entitled to advocate, and everyone who agrees with you should be free to do so anywhere in the world, and so are we.

So who is the ``we''? If that ``we'' means the Federal Government, the United States of America through its State Department, in the Secretary of State's speaking ``we,'' then there is a real concern about whether this would then become the policy of the United States to advocate abortion overseas.

So our friend Chris Smith proposed an amendment that was rejected by the Rules Committee that would have clarified this issue by saying that the U.S. will not lobby countries to legalize, fund or promote abortion except in the cases of forcible rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

That language was rejected by the Rules Committee, which means, in the ``we'' that Secretary Clinton was talking about, it may be that the United States Department of State is going to be doing exactly what she was talking about: advocating the opposite position of what Chris Smith was talking about.

Then the majority has inserted some language that is completely meaningless in this bill that was made in order at the Rules Committee. I hesitate to read it because it really is rather convoluted; but it says that the bill does not affect existing statutory prohibitions on the use of funds to engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or policies in effect in any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated or prohibited.

Well, that sounds sort of interesting, but the problem is it's a complete sham because the law apparently referenced doesn't exist. Therefore, there is no prohibition, so the language is meaningless. We don't have the protection that our friend Chris Smith was urging in the Rules Committee and was giving us an opportunity to vote on here on the floor to make it so that the United States Department of State is not actively advocating the overturning of abortion laws in foreign countries.

It is disturbing that the Rules Committee didn't make that in order but, rather, made a sham amendment in order that does not do anything but, actually, just obfuscates the issue. It was just very disappointing, so I urge my colleagues to oppose this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to ask my colleagues that may be supporters of the Fair Tax whether we have got some parallel idea that we have been, that I have been talking about on this House floor for a while now.

In the Fair Tax, what happens is you reduce taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, those sorts of things, and you impose a tax on consumption. And the very good idea behind that is that you want to tax the things that you don't necessarily want to incentivize, and you want to free up from taxation those things that you do want to incentivize.

So right now, under our current Tax Code, savings and investing, investments are treated shabbily in the Tax Code. Consumption is treated pretty well, because if you are a business, you can deduct those things. And so the idea is to turn that around. That's one of the good arguments for the Fair Tax.

Now, of course, the downside of the Fair Tax is that it comes with a pretty substantial increase in the price of goods sold if they are new goods because it's a substantial consumption tax, perhaps 23 percent. Of course, Fair Tax proponents immediately point out that that wouldn't be the actual total increase in the price of a good because the income tax assumptions would come out of the pricing of that product; and so the dollar candy bar wouldn't be a $1.23, it would be something less than a $1.23 because the candy bar company would not have to pay income taxes, nor would the sugar company and all the components. Good arguments.

So I am wondering if it's the same thing as what I've been talking about with a revenue-neutral carbon tax, the same kind of deal, that what we are doing here is we are switching what you tax, swapping out one tax for another.

So in the concept that I have been describing here in a series of Special Orders, what we would do is we would reduce taxes on payroll, and that's something we want more of, labor industry income, and we would impose a tax, essentially a consumption tax, on carbon dioxide.

The result would be that the things that would be incentivized would be payroll, which is again labor, industry work. The thing that would be disincentivized would be carbon emissions.

Now, the interesting thing is that it's sort of the son of fair tax, a much smaller impact than fair tax--what I'm talking about here when it comes to the dollar shock--because in the case of the fair tax, gasoline, presumably, would go up by a 23 percent sales tax. Natural gas would have a 23 percent sales tax. Electricity would have a 23 percent sales tax on it. Now, of course, some of that would be knocked down by the income tax assumptions coming out of the provisions of those products, but the result would be a switch in taxes in the fair taxes. It would be a big, old switch from income taxes and from those sorts of things--payroll tax--to a consumption tax. What I'm talking about is that it would be sort of a small version of that where you would take reduced payroll taxes and then would impose a tax on carbon dioxide, but the difference between the two is this:

In what I'm talking about, there would be an incentive to switch technologies, too. In the fair tax, you are talking about just hitting every new product sold with a 23 percent sales tax. In the case that I'm talking about, you would be just targeting one particular kind of product. The result would be that nuclear would be possible, that all kinds of new transportation fuels would be possible and that we would be breaking this addiction to oil, cleaning up the air and creating new jobs in this sort of son of fair tax, in this little, small version of a fair tax. That is the fair tax plus this very important technology shift.

That's what I'm after, Mr. Speaker, is that technology shift that can give us an expansion of this economy and be part of the means of our growing out of this recession. We did it in the '90s with the productivity we got out of the Internet and the PC. I think we can do it again now with energy. Energy security is our ticket out of this recession. Similar to the tech boom in the 1990s, this is our opportunity to grow the economy and to clean up the air, to create jobs and, by the way, to help balance the Federal budget, because that's what happened in the late '90s. The growth of the economy because of the productivity from the Internet and the PC gave us new revenues.

I think we can do the same thing in energy, but the start of it is getting the economics right, and if we do that, Mr. Speaker, I think we can help change the energy insecurity of the United States into energy security. It all starts with economics and with free enterprise making it happen.

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to see and troubling to see gas prices rising again. I have talked to several colleagues here tonight in fact about gas prices going up. I noticed today on the Wal- Mart sign in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, that the price has gone up here recently. But I am here to say, Madam Speaker, that gas at $2 a gallon or so is a sleeper cell waiting to detonate in the United States. I am also here to predict for you that within 2 years, I will make the bold prediction, within 2 years gas will once again be $4 a gallon. So the question is: What do we do about that? Do we wait for it to happen and just sit here and assume that we have to absorb that kind of hit, gas at $4 a gallon, or do we start taking action now to prepare for the energy security of the United States?

Madam Speaker, I hear a lot of our colleagues saying we need to do other things. We need to, for example, in the case of electricity generation, we need to do nuclear. I think it is a great way to make electricity. But the problem is there are some economic challenges there. Others say let's move away from gasoline and move towards alternatives. But there is a problem there. There are economic barriers, and the economic barriers are in both of those cases the liquid transportation fuel; and in electricity generation, the challenge is that the incumbent technologies have some freebies that they get. And as long as those freebies continue to distort the marketplace, the free market system, as long as those distortions are there, we won't move to alternatives for gasoline. We won't move to alternatives to coal. What we will do is just stick with the incumbent technologies. As long as the incumbent technologies get these freebies, and economists call them negative externalities. They are basically bad things that come with those products that aren't recognized by the market, and as a result the market doesn't respond.

So, for example, take the national security risk that we run by being dependent on gasoline, on oil. Right now on the Straits of Hormuz we have some very heavy metal going up and down the Straits of Hormuz protecting a supply line of a product that we must have because we are dependent, we are addicts, addicted to oil.

If you attributed some of those costs to the price per gallon of gasoline, it wouldn't be the $2.09 that I saw on the marquee in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, today; it would be a lot higher than that. If there were proper cost accounting, if you will, and that were really attributed to the price of gasoline, right now we would be moving more rapidly toward alternatives.

We would be having plug-in hybrids coming very quickly to the market. We would be having the Chevy Volt make its way to the market. We would be having hydrogen coming much closer and faster than it is coming now.

Madam Speaker, we have to figure out a way to change the underlying economics because I believe the solution here is not us in Washington coming up with grant programs and maybe doling out some money here and there, but rather in harnessing the power of American free enterprise, entrepreneurship, to deliver these solutions. The way that they are delivered is if we come together as a Nation and say listen, no more freebies, no more of these negative externalities that are unrecognized because as long as they are unrecognized, there is a market distortion. We attach those to the prices of the products, and I think the way to do that, by the way, is a revenue-neutral carbon tax where you reduce taxes elsewhere, say on payroll, and in an equal amount impose a transparent tax on carbon.

The result would be no additional take of tax revenue to the government; but rather, a price signal to the marketplace that says the incumbent technologies aren't going to get their freebies any more. If they are not going to have their freebies, then those of us who have alternatives can make a buck selling them.

When that happens, Madam Speaker, we will change American energy dependence on the Middle East and we will be able to say to them we just don't need you like we used to. We can improve the national security of the United States, we can create jobs with those new technologies, and we can clean up the air. It is the triple play of this American century. Madam Speaker, I say let's get about it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think what you just said is very true. The thing I would add to it is that it is also important that we not abandon hope in the midst of that awareness. You just talked about the important awareness of the trials that we are in. We need to be very much aware.

We also, I think, need to approach them with a hope that--well, it depends on where you come from. From my perspective, it is this: The reason I have hope is I believe there is a sovereign God who is in control of all things and, furthermore, I think he is good. So if you put those two things together, I have every reason to be optimistic. Now, I do need to be aware of

the risks that we face and, therefore, respond to them and anticipate them, but also with the hope that America has been through similar kinds of troubles before and met incredible challenges.

Since I serve on the Science Committee and Foreign Affairs, I always mention the scientific kind of things. I am not a scientist. I just play one occasionally on the Science Committee, by the way. But when you think about the things that the United States has done, we finished the transcontinental railroad in the midst of the Civil War. We finished the Panama Canal when the French had abandoned that effort after losing tens of thousands of people to malaria and other causes of death in Panama. We were the nation that fought and won World War II, that very quickly responded to the arms race, to Sputnik, and all of that.

In South Carolina, part of our claim to fame is the Savannah River site was and, as I understand it, still remains the largest construction project in the history of the country. All the stainless steel in the country was going to Aiken, South Carolina, to build the canyons that would develop some of the elements related to our nuclear arsenal, the bomb plant as we call it in South Carolina. Then, in 1961, President Kennedy said we must go to the Moon, make it our goal to go to the Moon before the end of the decade. And we did it, 1969.

So the amazing thing to me is that we accomplished all of those things with technology that now looks very old. The Apollo mission was all designed on the slide rule. Actually, the shuttles were designed on slide rules.

So when you take what America has done with this entrepreneurship, this belief in freedom that the gentleman was just mentioning, and charge that up in the right way so that you marshal those forces and you go out and you conquer these problems, that is what we are about. And I think what our friend just mentioned is very good about the importance of this free enterprise system and the American Dream.

To me, the American Dream is this: It is the fulfilling of the God- given desire to create, to contribute, to care, and to live at peace with one's self, one's neighbors, and one's God. That is the American Dream. And it starts with an understanding that it is the opportunity to do those things, not the guarantee. And that is, I think, what separates us from the other party is they are talking all the time about guarantee. We talk about opportunity. The gentleman from California, I think, talks about opportunity.

And you mentioned ``orderliness.'' I think what we are talking about here in part and what Mr. Radanovich has been talking about is the rule of law, the importance of knowing that you can count on the rule of law to allow you to, among other things, enjoy the fruits of your labors. When you trade that away and you don't have that assurance, you have this system like you're talking about where there is stability or there is a guarantee rather than an opportunity. If you don't have the certainty that you can, because of the rule of law, have the certainty of knowing you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, then there is just less labor. It is just the way it is. That is human nature.

Dick Armey, our former majority leader, was the first person I heard say this. He said, ``Communism is that system where he who has nothing wants to share it with you.'' And so it really is a pretty good definition I think of communism. And of course I'm not accusing anyone here of advocating communism. But I do think that when you break this connection between industry, work, labor, and reward, funny things start happening. You lose incentive, and you lose the certainty of reward.

The thing that we do believe in, we Republicans advocate this thing of orderliness, or rule of law, very highly. We value that very highly because there are some economies around the world you can look at where they are blessed with many resources, but yet they lack the rule of law. And as a result, there is no certainty that your work will be rewarded, and, therefore, there just isn't as much work. There isn't as much industry. If you can't own the fruits of your labor, then you labor less. And for some people, this is a real problem. There is a deep philosophical divide that, I think the gentleman here can agree with me, we face a lot. Some people really have a Utopian view of humankind and think that we will some day move beyond this need to have a linkage between work and reward. But I think that what we realize is that, no, you will never break that link. You don't want to break that link. It is just the way it is. And so you want to make clear there is a clear linkage, and then people keep working. They keep innovating.

It is why, for example, we think that economies around the world that steal our intellectual property are so offensive to us. We think, no, we had people who worked hard, who studied hard, who invested time, energy and capital to create something, and now you have gone and stolen it and are selling it on the streets for $5 a copy when it really costs a lot more than that to develop. And some people think that is sort of Western imperialism maybe, but I think it is pretty clear that what we are talking about is effort and reward. And you have to keep those together and make opportunity for effort and reward.

I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

I would add to that, these were exceptional people that you just listed that believed in some very exceptional ideas.

I am a conservative. We are all conservatives here speaking tonight. And to some extent, conservatives are people who sort of want to keep things together the way they are. And I am also conservative philosophically as in wanting to have things like free markets and things like that. But it is also true that at times conservatives are people who want bold change, bold strokes, not just keep it the way it is, we really want to change things.

So those folks you were just mentioning were very bold in believing some pretty audacious things. Like we hold these truths to be self- evident. In other words, they are not going to make any further explanation of it. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That was a bodacious thing to say in 1776. You could say the conservative personality thing was to continue to believe in the divine right of kings. But here were these upstarts in the colonies who said no, listen, we have studied the laws of nature and of nature's God, as Mr. Jefferson said in that document, and we come to a different conclusion. And then he stated the conclusion that we hold these truths to be self-evident. I think it is very exciting just to see how bold they were.

Now fast forward to where we are today, and we have a big challenge. Our challenge today is that our pollsters tell us that for the first time in awhile, maybe in our lifetimes, people don't believe that their children will be better off than they have been. I think that is worth examining and figuring out why that is.

When we started this wonderful adventure here in the United States in 1776 with those incredible words of change and things being self- evident, we carried that on. That was sort of our heritage. As Tom Friedman writes, America is young enough and brash enough to believe that every problem has a solution.

Much of the world has long ago left that nation, but they need us, the Americans, to believe that every problem has a solution. And I would submit that it comes from the DNA we developed in 1776 when we said that all men are created equal. Hello, that is not what the rest of the world thought. And we are endowed by these certain inalienable rights. That, I would submit, carries through to the thought that yes, by my sacrifice today, or my putting my kids through college or whatever it is, can create for them a better standard of living than mine, which I think is something that has driven this country to its economic success.

It seems to me it is tied in with that DNA and that political understanding, and that comes, as the gentleman from California was saying earlier, was really from a faith understanding. So it really is connected to a series of very big thoughts in America that gets us to the place now of a big challenge, which is do we believe that our children will be better off than we are.

Unfortunately, a big number of our fellow citizens think not. I think it is worth asking, why is that and what can we do to convince them that no, really, America's best days are still ahead if we just stick to these principles, we return to our principles.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have been describing here, I think, as the gentleman from California really started us off with the idea of what we really deeply believe with our faith really gives us a concept of respect for individual rights and the need to protect those rights. And then we have talked some about the dignity of work and protecting and affirming that dignity through the rule of law. The gentleman from Illinois was just mentioning that.

That leads us to policies. And these all flow from that deep well of what we really deeply believe and then it comes up to the surface level of instant policy or the policies of today--the policy questions of today.

The one that I think we need to answer is: Is it possible for our children to live a better life economically than we have? I think the answer is yes, as long as we do what we know works, and that is to have a system of taxation that is not confiscatory, that allows you to keep the rewards of your work. So you want to keep taxes relatively low. You want to keep regulation relatively light and effective, not burdensome, not a gotcha, but rather calculated to produce results that are reasonable, and light touch.

Then, you have got to reduce litigation somehow so that there is some certainty that you will not lose what you have done by becoming somehow the guarantor of someone else's outcome. You can't ask somebody else to guarantee their outcome. If you do that, that is the way you end up with too much litigation, and the result is that people move productive capacity away from a developed nation to an undeveloped nation.

They decide, ``Well, we will go take our risk with a less established rule of law, because in the developed country which had this rule of law, you now have such high taxation, regulation, litigation, it's too much risk for us. We are not going to get the reward.''

So, for us, really what it is, is a matter--to answer that question, whether our children's future can be brighter than ours, the answer is yes, if the top level here on what bubbles up to policy--if we keep taxes relatively low, keep regulation relatively light, and we keep litigation down, the result will be people will want to do business here and there will be opportunities for our children and our grandchildren.

I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, may we inquire of the time?

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from California, who started us off on a high note. We went from high notes to policy, and now we're back to a high note, maybe, for conclusion.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to report on a telephone conversation that I had and actually then an in-person conversation I had with a fellow who was talking to me about his great concern about the economy. And of course, I started the conversation by saying, yes, I share that concern. But he could tell that I had a little bit of optimism about where we are. And he asked why? How could you be optimistic? And I told him two reasons to be optimistic that are immediately apparent with the economy, I think. One is, you know, crisis creates opportunity to fix things. And it could be that we can use this current financial problem that we've got and the incredible spending that we're doing here in Washington, to finally focus on change to the crucial programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Until we're talking those programs, we're not talking balancing the budget.

But in the midst of the crisis created by our wild spending, perhaps we can bring our attention to the underlying problem, the problem that's not new, that's been going on in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. So that's one reason for optimism.

Another, I told him, is that really we've got an incredible opportunity to grow our way out of this current problem by solving the energy challenge. If we address the energy security question, we can grow out of this problem.

You know, I was here in the Congress during the nineties and served on the Budget Committee. Part of our balancing act in getting to balance in 1999 and 2000 was fiscal restraint, and that's because of Republicans taking control of the House and having some fiscal restraint.

But it's also true that what was really happening is there was a massive expansion of the economy because of the tech boom. Because of the advances in PCs and the Internet, the productivity that came with those, and, therefore, growth without inflation, we were able to expand our economy. That economy threw off revenue to the Federal Government and, as a result, we reached balance.

Now we have an opportunity to do the same thing, just energy being the next step up in a plateau of economic development. We climbed up onto the plateau of the tech boom. Now we've got the opportunity to climb up onto another high plateau of energy security. If we do that successfully, I believe that we can generate economic growth that will, in turn, generate revenues for this Federal Government. And the result is that we will, once again, balance the budget if we pursue fiscal restraint in coming out of this crisis, together with economic growth that will come from addressing our energy security challenge.

Mr. Speaker, in the weeks and months to come, I hope to speak more about a very specific proposal that can do just that, with an elegant price signal sent throughout our economy about new energy technologies; and with that price signal, I think we can get about solving this fiscal problem by economic growth and, of course, also addressing the underlying problem of out-of-control entitlement spending that needs to be brought under control.

So, Mr. Speaker, tough times; but it's also true there's every reason to be optimistic.