Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Congressman Herger for his excellent work on this legislation. Working closely with many constituents who enjoy outdoor recreation, Congressman Herger developed this bill allowing Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials to better manage a complex mix of administrative jurisdictions in Shasta County. This legislation will not only help both agencies, but will also greatly benefit the many families who enjoy wholesome outdoor recreation in the area, especially the many off-highway vehicle users who have been using this area for generations. Not surprisingly, the bill has widespread support among the local OHV users.

It is a rare feat to have two separate Federal agencies and the public all agreeing that a particular piece of legislation is worthy of praise. Congressman Herger should be congratulated for this win-win legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4973. While individuals have been volunteering their time and talents to the National Wildlife Refuge System for nearly 30 years, the value of their work has significantly increased from $1.1 million to $30.3 million. Volunteers now perform about 20 percent of the work done on refuges, and for each refuge employee, there are nine volunteers. Without these dedicated men and women, many visitor centers would be open less frequently, fewer recreational opportunities would be available, many hunting programs would not occur, and important fish and wildlife population surveys would not be completed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2864 would authorize hydrographic surveys in the Arctic region, an area which lacks up-to-date survey data. The last major survey in the Arctic occurred more than 60 years ago after World War II. Since the majority of U.S. foreign trade by weight moves by sea and the Arctic has the potential to become a viable shipping corridor, it is essential that we support these surveys to help create accurate nautical charts.

I compliment the author of this measure, Congressman Don Young, for his leadership. This bill has been scored by the CBO as having no cost.

I urge support of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

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

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I also would like to thank and congratulate the previous speaker for her

outstanding summary of some of the issues that will be facing this House later this week. It is, as she said, a bill that will enhance big banking at the expense of small community banking. Her hard work on this issue is appreciated on both sides of the aisle. Thank you very much to the gentlelady for that excellent summary of the bill. There are so many issues about which, if we could work together on a bipartisan basis, I feel we could come up with better legislation.

What I intend to talk about this evening is an area about which we have not had much bipartisan dialogue. That is, of course, over the budget, our debt and the deficit.

It is official now. We will not have a budget this year. This will be the first time since the Budget Act of 1974 was passed, creating the system we have for budgeting and for making expenditures now, that we will not have had a budget. It is the very first time since 1974. Every year, the House has passed a budget. I believe, almost every year, the Senate has passed a budget. There were years when they haven't agreed, but every year, the House met its obligation and passed a budget.

You know, the current chairman of the House Budget Committee, who, of course, is a member of the majority party, has said, if you can't budget, you can't govern. I couldn't agree more. If you can't budget, you can't govern. We are not going to budget this year. We, therefore, are not going to be governing this year in a manner that the American people expect and deserve, so it is a source of tremendous disappointment for me.

We were also told and learned last week that we will see none of the major appropriations bills before the November election. That is an indication to me that the majority party recognizes that it has overspent for 18 months, that the American people are tired of the overspending, that they are zeroed in on the debt and the deficit, and that they are not going to take it anymore.

There are ideas that the Republican Party has had to reduce the debt and the deficit in order to bring down the size and scope of the Federal Government and to divorce ourselves from the current strategy of big government, big unions, big business. Among the big businesses are those that the gentlelady from the majority party, from Ohio, just talked about in the last half an hour. Always supporting bigger government, bigger business, bigger unions takes away from our communities, which is where the creativity is, which is where the desire to create jobs and families and businesses and households and churches and charitable institutions really grows and thrives. It deletes those kinds of opportunities around our country. It discourages those kinds of opportunities around our country.

Our country is truly at a crossroads now.

We have seen very different reactions on the part of the people in, say, Greece, which is experiencing enormous financial problems--huge debts and deficits. The people there who are demonstrating, rioting and who are out on the streets are those who receive the benefits of the Government of Greece. They are those who are living off the very, very small private sector, which is trying to fund this behemoth of a government with all kinds of social services and entitlement programs that they can't afford because the programs and services are unsustainable, which is sending--plummeting--their country into the kinds of debts and deficits that have gotten them into such deep financial trouble.

All of the world is horribly concerned.

Take that image and compare it to the image of the United States in the last 18 months. You had the so-called Tea Partiers who were out on April 15. They were protesting big spending, protesting big government and protesting later in the year this enormous health care bill that Congress passed over their objections. These are the kinds of people who are up in arms in America and who are out demonstrating and protesting. They are the taxpayers. They are the people who want less government--smaller government--and more efficient government. They are the people who want business to be more accountable and who want government to be more transparent. These are the people who are protesting in the United States, and these are the people who we should be listening to.

In fact, I want to congratulate one Governor who was listening, who has listened and who did a miraculous thing in the last few months. He is the new Governor of the State of New Jersey, Governor Christie.

Governor Christie took over from a big-spending administration. He inherited a big-spending legislature in New Jersey. Yet he ran on an agenda that resonated with the people of New Jersey. He ran on an agenda to cut the debt in the State of New Jersey, and he has done so. He brought forward budgets that cut the government.

The majority in the legislature there said, Oh, my gosh. We can't do that.

So he said, Here is my budget. I am going to make these cuts, and I am going to make these cuts unless you submit to me a budget that is balanced.

Last night, very, very late--in the wee hours of the morning--that very legislature passed Governor Christie's budget. The State of New Jersey, in the signing of that budget by Governor Christie, has become among the most fiscally responsible States in the United States.

It is a miraculous story. It is a story of the American people--in their case, the people of New Jersey--winning out over big government, special interests, entitlement programs we can't afford, and giving new life to small business, individual initiative, freedom.

It is a great example of what this Congress can do come November.

I am going to put up a couple of charts that I want you to see.

This first one is about the changing priorities of this country with regard to spending over time, starting in the 1970s and moving into our current decade.

As you can see, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the major portion of our budget, almost 50 percent of our Federal budget, was spent on defense. Obviously, this was at the height of and then followed by the waning of the war in Vietnam. This is when the draft was no longer in effect. Ever since then, defense spending has consumed a smaller and smaller part of our Federal budget. It is the brown line. So it is up a little bit with the war on terror, but compared to our other spending, it is still very, very steady, and within the realm it has been over the last 20 years.

Now let's look at Medicare and Medicaid. This is the red line. This is the line that started out as a very small 5 percent component of our budget in the 1970s and has been steadily climbing, and is climbing still to the point where Medicare and Medicaid are going to choke out all other spending if we project it forward.

The two in the middle, Social Security, which has been tremendously flat and pretty steady, actually is going to be funded until the 2030s. But when we hit the 2030s, we are going to see a 25 percent reduction in the benefits paid to those who have paid into Social Security, another problem this Congress needs to address on a bipartisan basis. Then the other, of course, is nondefense discretionary, which over time has followed a wave in between.

So the big changes are the decline in defense spending as a portion of the Federal budget and the massive replacement of this spending in Medicare and Medicaid.

Now, one could say that is a good thing, and indeed it is, that we are not having to spend as big a portion of our Federal budget on defense. But the scary part is that the growth in entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid, is going to be unabated and is going to crowd out other investments in our country, because we are going to have to, in addition to all the other things we do, debt finance these programs.

When we debt finance and are paying interest out of every year's budget for interest on the debt, we are crowding out other investments, and by crowding out other investments in our economy, we are marching down the road towards Greece, towards Italy, towards Spain, towards the kind of problems the U.K. has been having, but is changing course on and is going to address, and we wish them the best in those efforts.

Now, where did the money go? These are components of the 2009 deficit

growth in billions. Here is the Federal budget deficit, the places where the Federal deficit tripled in one fiscal year as tax revenues fell and Congress pumped out large sums to stabilize financial institutions and stimulate the economy, creating a tripling in the Federal deficit in one fiscal year. Furthermore, the policies we have enacted will double the debt in five years and triple the debt in 10 years. So the situation that we put ourselves in in the last 18 months creates dire circumstances.

So the components of the 2009 deficit growth occurred due to lower tax receipts, and that is part of our recession, and stimulus, half in spending and half in lower taxes. The Republicans, quite frankly, had a stimulus package that would have created twice as many jobs with half the size of a stimulus, and doing it by infrastructure spending through private sector investment.

The next item, bailouts for financial institutions and the auto industry, bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, we are not addressing the structural problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial reform bill, in the conference committee, which has concluded its efforts. Then we have unemployment benefits due to the recession which have been running steadily until recently. Then the remainder is a collection of aggregation of other spending. So that explains how our Federal budget has trended the way it has.

This was before we passed ObamaCare. This budget was passed before the health care reform bill, which adds a huge other component to the debt and the deficit. We know that that bill, if you take the years 2010 to 2020, is going to cost over $1 trillion, half of which is going to come out of cuts in Medicare and the other half out of tax increases. But we are only paying out, as you will recall, six or seven years of benefits for 10 years of taxes and Medicare cuts.

When you combine the first 10 years, where we are actually collecting taxes, cutting spending on Medicare, and combine that 10 years with 10 years of benefits, we are talking about a deficit of $2.4 trillion, and that would be what it would be going forward.

In other words, we created a program that we knew had a long-term structural deficit that was enormous and did it knowingly, leaving for future generations the tough decisions about how to pay for it.

Creating an entitlement that you know you can't pay for and that creates structural deficits for our children kicks the can down the road to a generation that deserves to inherit a better country. No wonder when you poll the American people, they will say that we inherited a better America from our parents, but our children will not be inheriting as high a standard of living from us as we inherited from our parents. That is unconscionable.

I have been joined this evening by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who has made his career in health care and may wish to comment further on that or anything else. I am so pleased you have chosen to join me this evening, and I yield the time to you.

I thank the gentleman for joining me. As some of you are aware, AmericaSpeakingOut.com is a Web site where all Americans can go to weigh in about their views on the American debt, deficit, and about ideas to reduce the size and scope of government, and right-size it, make it more efficient, and anything else you have in mind about shaping the activities of this Congress. We very much want to hear from you. AmericaSpeakingOut.com gives you a chance to share your ideas with Members of Congress. And we very much commend it to your attention.

I have a bill that I'd like to discuss that I'd like you to put in a plug for on AmericaSpeakingOut.com, and that is a bill called the Federal Workforce Reduction Act. It is a bill that I'm sponsoring and that I've used this information to help explain.

This year in Congress, when you add up all the spending we've done in the last 18 months, the great growth sector in terms of employment has been government. In fact, when we passed the stimulus bill--and we were told that if we pass the stimulus bill it will keep unemployment under 8 percent, and employment since this has been hovering at around 9.7 percent and as high as 10, 10.1 percent. During that time, 9 million private sector jobs were lost. The entrepreneurial economy lost jobs, and yet the only sector that grew was government.

Government employment has increased by 15 percent during the time when 9 million jobs were lost in the private sector. And this shows you what is happening to Federal Government employment. It actually was pretty high back in 1993, but over the decade of the nineties it declined. Then it experienced right after the 9/11 bump in employment associated with homeland security, it experienced tremendous stability in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.

And then you get to 2008 and 2009 and then 2010, where it goes off the charts. It shows that Federal Government employment has absolutely skyrocketed. And further, Federal Government employment has grown in terms of the salaries that are paid. They far exceed average salaries in the private sector. Even here at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, the average

employee makes twice as much as the average American teacher. Imagine that. The people here in Washington are making twice as much--the bureaucrats dealing with education issues--making twice as much as the classroom teacher in America who's actually teaching the students.

So for these reasons I sponsored the Workforce Reduction Act. And this bill does a couple of things: one, it freezes Federal Government employment; and, secondly, for every year we're running a deficit, we will take vacant positions. When someone retires or someone moves to another job, their position is vacated. Those positions then will go into an employment pool and agencies will have to seek reinstatement of that position so they can hire someone into that position from the employment pool. They'll have to justify it and they'll have to compete for those positions because for every two people who leave their job and vacate a position, only one position survives in the pool, thereby reducing the number of Federal employees through attrition.

We're not firing anybody. We're doing it through attrition. When people retire or leave their job, the number of Federal employees would diminish. The exempt agencies from this plan are Homeland Security, Defense, and Veterans Affairs. Every other agency is subject to it. And this will continue for as long as we run deficits.

The fact that Federal employment has grown by 15 percent when the private sector lost 9 million jobs is just completely unconscionable. It is in furtherance of the big government, big unions, big business agenda that is being advanced through this Congress in the last 18 months, when we should be having small, efficient government. We should be encouraging small business where the job creation is. And we should be encouraging union membership in small relationships that can deal directly with employers on the job site rather than the huge national organizations that have their tentacles in every aspect of every bill that we pass.

So please go to AmericaSpeakingOut.com and weigh in on your thoughts.

We have been joined now by the gentleman from Florida, who is also a distinguished member of this conference. I will yield time to the gentleman from Florida. Thank you for joining us.

I thank the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, for his very succinct summary of why we haven't seen a budget and why we're not going to see a budget this year. And the answer, of course, is that it is so out of balance, we are spending so much more than we take in that there is a level of embarrassment. Instead of cutting spending, instead of even making a beginning to cutting spending, the answer of the majority party is to not present a budget at all.

I return, again, to the Budget Committee chairman's own words: If you can't budget, you can't govern.

I understand that there used to be, within the Congress, a committee that was, in essence, a counterbalance to the Appropriations Committee. Since the Appropriations Committee spends money, that there was actually a committee that would determine where we could cut, what Federal agencies could be eliminated, which ones could be downsized, which ones could be more efficient. And maybe that's an idea that needs to be resurrected. If you believe that, please go to Americaspeakingout.com and let us know. Weigh in on these ideas. Give us your creative ideas.

I want to especially encourage people who have served in their state legislature to go to Americaspeakingout.com.

States are the great incubators of good ideas. States try out ideas that give the Federal Government a chance to see whether they work or fail. New Jersey's doing that right now. New Jersey's taking the lead. New Jersey's cutting spending. New Jersey's doing it at the request of their constituents. The people in New Jersey are once again in control of the government in New Jersey. And if it works in New Jersey, it's certainly worth a try here in Washington.

One other point I'd like to make that the gentleman from Florida also hit on, and that is, when we're borrowing money from other countries, and have to pay it back with these extraordinary numbers, such as $1 trillion, every time we borrow we're putting ourselves in the position where we have to pay higher interest.

In the last month, the U.S. Treasury issued some Treasury bonds, and that issue went undersubscribed, which means there were not enough buyers to buy U.S. Treasuries at the interest rate at which they were being offered.

Now, the alternative we have when that occurs is to raise the interest rates because, for heavens sakes, we're on track to need the money, to have to borrow the money. The Treasury can't come back to Congress and say, we couldn't sell them at that interest rate. You all are going to have to cut. That's not the Treasury's job.

The Treasury's job is to issue U.S. treasuries to cover our debt. But when nobody will buy them at the rate for which they're being offered, their only alternative is to raise the interest rate and issue them again.

So the borrower, the purchaser of those debts gets a higher return, and they get it from people who are paying taxes. So more and more of your tax dollars is going to go to pay interest on the national debt.

Problem is, as the gentleman from Florida pointed out, we're not taking in enough money this year to pay what we're going to spend this year. We didn't take in enough money last year to pay what we spent last year. We're not going to take in enough money next year, under current projections, to pay what we're spending next year. And on and on and on.

This is a structural deficit, in other words. There's no end in sight to spending more than we're taking in every year. The only way to fill the gap is to borrow more money. And when we can't sell those debts at an interest rate that will attract buyers, we have to raise the interest rate to attract more buyers. The circle is vicious. It is ugly. And the American people are going to foot the bill, especially the young people that are coming up. And they don't want this on their tab. We're hearing from younger Americans now. They don't want this on their tab. I don't want this on their tab either.

I yield again to the gentleman from Florida.

I thank the gentleman from Florida. Mr. Diaz-Balart has been a powerful spokesman for responsible Federal budgeting.

I now once again would like to recognize my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), who will be talking further about this issue. And I want to remind people, please do go to AmericaSpeakingOut.com. Also go to the whip's Web site, Mr. Cantor, who has YouCut on it. Or you can go to the Republican Conference Web site. YouCut is the icon you want to click so you too can vote on ways to cut the Federal budget.

We have identified half a trillion dollars' worth of cuts, and we want to know whether you think they are the right cuts. So please go to YouCut in addition to AmericaSpeakingOut.com.

And again I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for joining me this evening, in addition to the gentleman from Florida.

We have been trying to point out the structural deficit and debt that this country can no longer absorb and that we have to address. So it does my heart good to see the gentleman from Pennsylvania get so excited about the notion of cutting spending. And we want the American people to share our enthusiasm for cutting spending. We want the American people to weigh in. AmericaSpeakingOut.com and YouCut are two ways that you can do that.

I talk to people in Wyoming every weekend when I go home, and they share with me their thoughts about reducing spending. They see irresponsible spending, inefficient spending. They know where it is. And there are people all over this country who know where it is. So please share with us your ideas so we can create an exciting new agenda for this country that actually takes a slice out of inefficient government, and we get leaner and more able to maneuver, and give more room in our economy to a growing entrepreneurial sector that can create jobs and that isn't shackled by oppressive taxes, but pays an amount of taxes that are commensurate with their ability to unleash their creativity and create jobs and have the money available to borrow and expand and grow and create a vibrant America in our communities, in our churches, in our States, where the great incubators of ideas, where the great spirit of entrepreneurism is really alive and well.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for joining me. Do you have any concluding remarks?

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for joining me.

You've been hearing about our concern that this year, for the first time since we had the Budget Act in 1974, we are not going to pass a budget in the U.S. House, and it's because the majority party does not want the American people focused on how serious the situation is, how huge the gap is between the revenues we take in and the amount of money we're spending.

Imagine a Congress that gets together and is more excited about reducing spending, saving money, finding efficiency, reducing the debt, cutting the deficit, and celebrating it with the American people, in concert with the American people. Imagine going to a tea party where everyone is celebrating the fact that for the first time ever the Federal Government cut spending. That's going to be something to celebrate. That will be something to be proud of.

You can help with it. Go to americaspeakingout.com; go to YouCut, give us your ideas. Let's build the momentum so this Congress can celebrate with the American people the return to a more stable, vibrant, robust American economy, driven by the American people. The American people are still in control of this country. It can get really discouraging sitting around here voting and getting defeated on vote after vote after vote. That's been happening to me for the last 18 months. But the great reward is I know the American people are in control, and I thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with you this evening.

Madam Speaker, I commend the State of Wyoming for enacting a resolution that reinforces the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. Enrolled Joint Resolution 3 of the Sixtieth Legislature of the State of Wyoming demands that Congress cease and desist from enacting mandates that are beyond the enumerated powers granted to the Congress by the United States Constitution.

This resolution joins a groundswell of support across our nation for a return to the federalist principles in our Constitution. I am proud to insert this resolution into the Congressional Record on behalf of the people of Wyoming.

Citizens, businesses and States across the country are bracing for the impact of the heavy handed government mandates in President Obama's health care plan. Momentum persists among some in Congress for additional federal mandates, taxes, and regulations that will burden State budgets and put entrepreneurs in Main Street America out of business.

There is another way. Our nation's founders left us a recipe for freedom and opportunity in our Constitution, under which the people of the United States consented to a government with limited powers. As stated in the 10th Amendment, all powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved for the States and the people. I have co-founded in the House of Representatives a 10th Amendment Task Force to advance the principles of federalism and disperse power back to States, local governments and individuals.

Before coming to Washington, I spent my entire adult life dealing with State issues--as a rancher, as a State legislator, and as State Treasurer. I am now astounded by the kinds of issues Members of Congress feel are appropriate for federal intervention.

States know their people better. They know their issues better. Let's return to States what States do best and maintain a strong limited government in Washington to do what it does best--securing the freedom, strength and integrity of this country.

Enrolled Joint Resolution No. 3, House of Representatives--Sixtieth

Legislature of the State of Wyoming, 2010 Budget Session

Whereas, the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the

United States reads as follows: ``The powers not delegated to

the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it

to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to

the people.''; and

Whereas, the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the

United States defines the total scope of federal power as

being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the

United States and no more; and

Whereas, the scope of the power defined by the tenth

amendment to the Constitution of the United States means that

the federal government was created by the states specifically

to be an agent of the states; and

Whereas, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of

the federal government; and

Whereas, many powers assumed by the federal government and

federal mandates are directly in violation of the tenth

amendment to the United States Constitution; and

Whereas, the interstate commerce clause in article 1,

section 8 of the Constitution of the United States provides

that Congress shall have the power: ``To regulate Commerce

with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with

Indian Tribes;'' and

Whereas, the interstate commerce clause is limited to the

federal government regulating trade between the states and

between the states and other nations, to help prevent

conflicts between states over commercial activities and to

prevent the erection of barriers to commerce between the

states; and

Whereas, the interstate commerce clause should not be used

to provide Congress with authority to regulate matters that

are primarily intrastate with only an insignificant or

collateral effect upon interstate commerce; and

Whereas, many federal laws are beyond the scope and intent

of the interstate commerce clause and the tenth amendment to

the Constitution of the United States; and

Whereas, the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the

United States assures that we, the people of the United

States of America and each sovereign state in the union of

states, now have, and have always had, rights the federal

government may not usurp; and

Whereas, article 4, section 4, of the Constitution of the

United States says: ``The United States shall guarantee to

every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,''

and the ninth amendment to the Constitution of the United

States adds ``The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain

rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others

retained by the people.''; and

Whereas, Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative

and regulatory processes of the states. Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Members of the Legislature of the State of

Wyoming:

Section 1. That the Wyoming Congressional delegation and

Congress take action to initiate the amendment process

provided by article 5 of the Constitution of the United

States to amend the tenth amendment and article 1, section 8

(the interstate commerce clause), of the Constitution of the

United States.

Section 2. That Congress amend the tenth amendment of the

Constitution of the United States as follows, with proposed

changes indicated in underscored text:

The powers not expressly delegated to the United States by

the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are

reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This

amendment shall be considered by all courts as a rule of

interpretation and construction in any case involving an

interpretation of any constitutional power claimed by the

Congress.

Section 3. That Congress amend the interstate commerce

clause, article 1, section 8, of the Constitution of the

United States as follows, with proposed changes indicated in

underscored text:

To directly regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and

among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes, with no

authority in Congress to regulate matters that are primarily

intrastate with only an insignificant or collateral effect

upon interstate commerce;

Section 4. That Congress shall specify that the amendments

to the tenth amendment and the interstate commerce clause,

article 1, section 8, of the Constitution of the United

States, as provided herein, shall be operative upon

ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the

several states, provided that such ratification shall occur

within seven years from the date of the submission of the

amendments to the states by Congress.

Section 5. That this state calls on its costates for an

expression of their sentiments on the need to amend the tenth

amendment and article 1, section 8, of the Constitution of

the United States as provided in this resolution.

Section 6. (a) That the Secretary of State of Wyoming

transmit copies of this resolution:

(i) To the President of the United States, to the President

of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives

of the United States Congress and to the Wyoming

Congressional Delegation, with a request that the Wyoming

Congressional delegation take all reasonable and necessary

actions to initiate the amendment process to amend the

Constitution of the United States consistent with the

language proposed in this resolution and that this resolution

be officially entered in the congressional record as a

memorial to the Congress of the United States of America; and

(ii) To the speaker of the house of representatives and

president of the senate, or their equivalent, and the

governor of each of the other forty-nine states.

Mr. Speaker, when you and I and the American people want to start a business and we want to borrow money to do it, we go to a bank, and we have to present a business plan with income projections and where we are going to get the money to pay the debt we're requesting back.

When my State of Wyoming is doing a budget, it projects its revenue, and every month we see how much money we have collected pursuant to those projections. And if we don't have enough money, we cut our budget.

In Washington, we don't even have a budget. For the first time since 1974, this House does not have a budget, isn't going to pass one. That's irresponsible. That's not leadership.

Mr. Spratt was right: If you can't budget, you can't govern. And this is a perfect example, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, tonight's discussion will be about bills that Members of the Republican Conference have sponsored that have not yet gotten a hearing that we still think are very good ideas for our country at this time of high debt, high deficits, and when regulation is being heaped on businesses that actually need the chains to be broken so they can pursue the American Dream of hiring people, creating jobs and fulfilling our role in the country and the world, which is to feed people, clothe people, create jobs, create wealth, create opportunity and so that all Americans have the opportunity to do so without being shackled by the Federal Government.

With me this evening is Bob Latta, who is from one of the most diverse districts in the entire United States. It has everything from agriculture to manufacturing, and it has experienced every up and down that is possible for one district to experience. During the course of this evening, Mr. Latta and I hope that we will have the opportunity to refer you frequently to www.americanroadmap.org, which is a draft of the Budget Committee on which we both serve, an opportunity that provides Americans the chance to get out of debt and to eliminate the deficit, and to comprehensively do so without raising taxes.

It takes a long time, but it creates a very smooth landing for our country. And we also want to refer you to www.americaspeakingout.com. Americaspeakingout.com is an official function of the Republican Conference here in the U.S. House which allows you to weigh in on ideas that you have for our country that will make it stronger, safer, more efficient, more cost effective and will unshackle this Nation's economy in a way that will allow us to once again pursue our role as a global leader in terms of innovation and jobs.

So at this time I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

Will the gentleman yield briefly?

That $2 billion a day you just mentioned, that would only

take either 3 or 4 days for the entire budget of the State of Wyoming for 2 years. That covers our whole budget. It's a stunning number. That's how much money we're talking about.

And I yield back.

Will the gentleman yield?

Are you aware of any circumstance since you have been in Congress where the Members of Congress in the leadership have been called to the White House to sit down and talk about how we are going to cut spending?

Is there any instance where the Federal Government has done the same thing? Has the Federal Government gone to its employees and said, We need to cut you back to 32-hour weeks so we can keep you employed, keep you on your benefits so you don't lose your health care, but we need to save some money. Are you aware of that?

What do you hear from your constituents? Do they believe that they are ready for the kind of reforms that you believe are necessary to save our country?

The chart I have to my left, the viewer's right, is exactly illustrating what the gentleman has just been discussing. If you look at the spread between spending and taxes that occurs on the far side of the dotted line, that shows you what is projected into the future. That spread between spending and taxes going into the future is enormous and consistent. And if you look at what that produces in terms of deficits, look at the bottom line, the red line again on the far side away from me from the dotted line, and you can see that deficits are projected into the future. When we say unsustainable, that's what we mean. The long-term consequences to this country is that our children and grandchildren will inherit the consequences of our reckless behavior. How do we resolve this?

This chart illustrates exactly what the gentleman is discussing. If you look at the blue line, that is private sector employment. That is employment in the entrepreneurial economy. This is employment that comes from the employer class of Americans. If you look at the red line, the skyrocketing government employment, that is just that. It is the Federal Government attempting to replace the private sector with public sector jobs. The only problem is a public sector employee pays the same taxes that a private sector employee does. However, the public sector employee's salary comes entirely from private sector employment and the taxes generated by it. There is no way that we can sustain an economy of totally government employees when we have lost the private sector jobs, the kinds of jobs that Mr. Latta has been referring to this evening in his district.

Would you recommend reducing the corporate tax rate?

Are you aware of any employers in your manufacturing district that have pulled up stakes and moved their businesses elsewhere?

Are you aware of any manufacturer that has moved into your district from a foreign country, saying this is a better place to do business? It's more economical here? I can make a better profit here?

My daughter did a study for an economics professor about externalities, meaning decisions you don't necessarily see in black and white on a business plan, that might affect a Wyoming rancher's decision to stay in agriculture or leave agriculture. Because we know that in Wyoming agriculture, especially beef production agriculture--of course, there are no subsidies in beef production agriculture in Wyoming, and other States as well.

So the largest group in Wyoming are those that make from 0 to 4 percent profit. The second largest group are those that make from 0 to minus 4 percent profit. And after looking at many factors of what would motivate a person to stay in a business where the profit margin is that low, the answer for especially second, third, and fourth generation ranchers was the ability to pass it on to my children, to give my children a better life, to give my kids the ranch.

Now, Mr. Latta has mentioned two things that are of concern if a person's motivation is to give their children a

better standard of living, a better life, an opportunity, a shot that maybe they didn't have or that they have enjoyed and they just want their children to have as well. You mentioned that next year the estate tax is going to go back up to a maximum amount of 55 percent of the value of the estate, with only a $1 million exemption; whereas, this year there is no estate tax whatsoever.

Think about that and how that will affect you if you have spent your entire life building something with the one motivation of giving that to your children or your grandchildren. That is going to be devastating. Many people I know would accept a smaller estate tax with a higher exemption, but no one I know is going to be satisfied that a 55 percent tax on your life's work that you wish to pass on to your children is anything but a taking. And takings are unconstitutional under our Fifth Amendment. I mean, that's how people look at it.

And, you know, if you worked your whole life for something 7 days a week, not 5 days a week, not 40-hour weeks, but every minute of every day that you are awake, growing your family, growing your business, growing their opportunities, creating a community, creating the kind of American Dream that so many people came here with nothing and then built over their lifetimes or their parents built over their lifetimes and want to pass on to their children.

The other point you made that I think is going to affect that American Dream is our debt, is these running deficits that are unsustainable over time. Because if we mount our children and our grandchildren with debt, it will crowd out private investment. If we are spending the entire Federal budget, all of our tax dollars on the combination of entitlement programs and interest on the national debt, we have crowded out the opportunity for private investment as well as for discretionary spending within our economy.

I yield back to the gentleman to tell us more about the consequences of these bad policies and the kinds of bills that he has proposed to change all that.

The gentleman has mentioned a couple of things that are important to recreating a vibrant economy and to taking the shackles off of American business, and tax policy is high on the list. The fact that we could have an estate tax that is much smaller in terms of its impact on a family, and the American people would accept that is in fact the case. I hear it over and over in this country. We have also heard that it would be helpful in terms of American competitiveness for us to reduce our corporate tax so we are more globally competitive.

Among the provisions that anyone can read about is in americanroadmap.org, and that is the proposal to create a flat income tax. That would be a rate, such as 10 or 11 percent, that you would pay on all of your income, regardless of source, regardless of whether it's active or passive, whether it is capital or income from a job, whether it is rental income, royalty income, or, again, active income. All sources of income would be taxed at 10 or 11 percent.

So you take all your income annually times 10 percent or 11 percent. Maybe you have a deduction of $20,000, so your first $20,000 worth of income isn't taxed. And then whatever that amounts to, you just write a check and send it in to the IRS. You don't need to have CPAs help you fill out your tax returns. And I can tell you, if we did that, it would save the American people a lot of money. We would garner a lot of tax revenue that we aren't collecting now because of the efforts and machinations that people go through to try to protect as much of their income as they can from being taxable because, A, there is no way to avoid it, whether you are rich or poor; and, B, it's predictable. You know that the person across the aisle from you at work or at church is also paying 10 or 11 percent, whatever it is, of their paycheck.

That sounds so fair to me. It sounds so logical. And yet that is something that is so hard to change with all of the interest groups that affect the appearance and shape of our Tax Code.

I do want to encourage, as we go along, everyone to go into AmericaSpeakingOut.com and weigh in on ideas that we have proposed to reduce the Federal debt and deficit and stimulate the economy and take the shackles off the American entrepreneur. And also to just weigh in and give your own thoughts about how we might do it.

I would like to talk about one of the bills that I have sponsored, and it's a way to reduce the number of Federal employees without firing anybody. It is a bill that would provide that if you look at the curve off here to my left, your right, you will see Federal employment in the year 2010, which is the farthest bar away from me, has absolutely skyrocketed. And this is Federal Government employment full-time equivalents excluding the Postal Service. So it has just grown leaps and bounds.

Now, how do we soften the landing for those people that were hired in a way that will allow our economy to return to normal so we can begin to reduce all this deficit spending? And the

answer is for every person who retires or voluntarily vacates a position, that vacated position, that vacant position would be moved into a position pool, and only half of the positions would be moved in the position pool. Then the executive branch of government, run out of the President's office, would have to determine whether that position was essential to that agency and needed to be placed back in that agency and then filled with an employee, or whether that position should be moved to another agency that had a more impactful mission on our American economy and on our government regulatory needs.

So it's a way over a 10-year period to reduce the number of Federal employees through attrition. They leave. Their position becomes vacant. Half of those positions go away. That saves about $70 billion. Not a small amount of money.

Some of the other ideas that Republicans have filed go way back to the stimulus package. We sponsored a bill that would have stimulated economic growth; in fact, it would have created twice as many jobs at half the cost of the majority party's $787 billion stimulus package. How did we do it? We did it by investing in infrastructure instead of earmarks and by cutting taxes. This is something I believe, Mr. Latta, that you and I both supported.

You know, among the other pieces of legislation that Republicans have sponsored includes reducing our salaries or freezing our salaries, freezing government salaries, reducing spending across the board. There have been Republican proposals, anything from 1 percent to 5 percent to 10 percent. There have been Republican proposals that would take spending, as Mr. Latta referred to earlier, back to 2008 levels or even 2006 levels. You know, we had enough government then. There were not a lot of complaints that, my gosh, we don't have enough government; we need to spend more on government.

So we could take spending back to 2006 or 2008 levels, and I don't believe the American people, other than those who have benefited specifically by being employed by those Federal agencies and Federal programs, would notice the absence of that money, and in fact, they'd probably benefit mightily because it would save so much money that interest payments on the debt and the deficit would be reduced, and we would not have to borrow so much money.

A couple weeks ago here in Washington, some U.S. Treasuries were issued. They are issued every day that we are working, Monday through Friday. There's a sale of U.S. Treasury bonds because we are going into debt so much we have to sell Treasuries every day. This particular issue was undersubscribed. That means there were not enough buyers for the money that we attempted to sell, and the reason is that for the risk that the buyers were taking, they wanted a higher rate of interest. They wanted a better return. When you take more risk on an investment you're purchasing, you want a higher rate of return.

As soon as we have to start paying higher interest in order to attract buyers to our debt, we are ensuring that our children and grandchildren are going to be saddled with higher interest payments once again, crowding out other investments in our economy. These are the kinds of things that absolutely stifle economic growth in our country and encourage some businesspeople, as was mentioned by Mr. Latta, to move their businesses elsewhere.

We do know that, for example, in the Gulf of Mexico right now, with the moratorium on drilling and no end in sight to when it might be lifted, that there are drill rigs that are considering moving to that tremendous oil and gas find off the coast of Brazil. If one of those enormous rigs is moved off to the coast of Brazil, it will be 5 years before it comes back. It's not going to move back at a moment's notice. That takes so many thousands of jobs away from workers in Louisiana. So they're doubly punished. They're punished because their shores are polluted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig which exploded, destroying the fishing industry and retarding the tourism industry. And then they're adding insult to injury; the oil and gas employees lose their jobs in areas where you could drill at a shallower depth or a medium depth in a much more safe and well-understood manner. This is the wrong reaction.

You know, the President is speaking later this evening about the situation in the Gulf, and what I would note about that is, we can't legislate our way out of the damage and the devastation to the Gulf. We have to clean it up, and we have to make BP pay for it. Those are our alternatives: Clean it up; make BP pay for it.

The President, if he had had executive experience, would likely have called the head of BP within 48 or 72 hours of that oil spill and said, I want you on a conversation with me every single day at a specific time. I want you and me and the Coast Guard and the Governors of the affected States and anyone else who is able to help us clean up this mess, and they could get on the call every day at the same time. The President could have opened a call, and he could have said, I'm not going to stay on this call for more than a minute, but I'm going to tell you that the people on this call are responsible to the people of this Nation to make sure that that oil does not get to our shores, and I want you to do everything possible. BP has said they will pay for it. BP is on this call, and are you assuring us you will pay for it? I mean, under which circumstances, they would have said, yes. And it could have proceeded that way every day with the President's full support for the Governors' requests, for the Coast Guard's requests, for repealing the effects of the Jones Law, which inhibited our ability of getting other countries to help us in the response. All of that could have been handled if it would have begun earlier enough.

But the fact that there was an effort to run away and avoid the problem and deal with it not until it was just completely out of control is, I believe, an indication of someone who had legislative skills and not executive skills. There is such a difference. We cannot legislate our way out of the situation, and we should not have a cap- and-tax bill as a response to a devastating accident that may be the worst ecological disaster we've ever had, because taxes are not going to change it.

BP has said they're going to pay the bill. To do otherwise would be to impose taxation on the people in this country who can least afford it, those of low and moderate income who are trying to make ends meet at a time when unemployment is still 9.7 percent, at a time when we should be helping them find jobs, not imposing a moratorium on safe drilling, that takes jobs away from them. The Gulf is just one example of where that's true.

And I yield back.

Mr. Latta has announced a call to action for all Americans, and we are attempting as a Republican Conference to solicit ideas and priorities from all Americans, regardless of party affiliation.

Please visit americaspeaking out.com.

This will provide an innovative online forum for policy debate and idea generation. It gets us outside of Washington to talk about policy solutions at town hall meetings across the Nation. It allows us to discuss how our principles of freedom and smaller government could be applied to the priorities of the American people.

In time, we will produce a new governing agenda for America guided by this open process and built on our conservative principles, and we want to demonstrate that Congress should pursue different policies and operate this House more responsibly than both Democrats and previous Republican majorities. And if I hear something all the time on the Republican side of this room, it is that we don't want to treat the Democrats the way we used to treat them, and we don't want to be treated the way the Democrats have treated us.

I really believe that the 112th Congress that begins in January could be a new beginning for our country. It will only be so if the American people say it will be so because the American people are the ultimate governors of this country, and they govern with their vote, and they will have an opportunity in November to vote.

So please visit americaspeakingout.com. Give us your ideas. We want to know. We want to build a working, bipartisan majority with the American people so we are legislating what the American people want, not what liberals want, not what conservatives want, what the American people want.

So americaspeakingout.com is a state-of-the-art Web site that allows individuals to suggest ideas of their own or weigh in on ideas offered by others. Everyone can see the ideas that are on the table, make comments on them, and register their approval or disapproval.

This Web site brings the Halls of Congress into American homes and uses the best of social media to allow America's many voices to be heard.

And we would conclude by saying, to change the way Washington works and the policies it pursues, it will require Washington to listen when America speaks out, and we hope all Americans will join us in this unprecedented process of engagement.

For concluding remarks, I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for joining me this evening.

I look forward to hearing the remarks of the next group. They are our Democratic colleagues from across the aisle. This group will be led by Representative Wasserman Schultz, who I had the privilege of visiting Israel with earlier this year. She led a congressional delegation to Israel. And for this neophyte in international policy, it was a fabulous experience. We had the opportunity to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres. We visited with Benjamin Netanyahu, with the minority leader, Tzipi Livni, and also with Palestinian Authority leaders. We visited Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and some of the fabulous farming communities near the Sea of Galilee.

For someone who had never visited Israel--in fact, I had never seen the Mediterranean Sea in my entire life, and to get to visit it with people who are steeped in the history, the politics, and the worldwide consequences of our relationship with Israel, it was a tremendous experience. So I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida, Representative Wasserman Schultz, for including me on the congressional delegation that she led to Israel.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to commend the State of Wyoming for enacting a resolution in support of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. Enrolled Joint Resolution 3 of the Sixtieth Legislature of the State of Wyoming demands that Congress cease and desist from enacting mandates that are beyond the enumerated powers granted to the Congress by the United States Constitution.

This resolution joins a groundswell of support across America for a return to the federalist principles in our Constitution. I am proud to insert this resolution into the Congressional Record on behalf of the people of Wyoming.

Citizens, businesses and States across the country are bracing for the impact of the heavy handed government mandates in President Obama's healthcare plan. Momentum persists among some in Congress for additional federal mandates, taxes, and regulations that will burden State budgets and put entrepreneurs in Main Street America out of business.

There is another way. Our nation's founders left us a recipe for freedom and opportunity in our Constitution, under which the people of the United States consented to a government with limited powers. As stated in the 10th Amendment, all powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved for the States and the people. I have co-founded in the House of Representatives a 10th Amendment Task Force to advance the principles of federalism and disperse power back to States, local governments and individuals.

Before coming to Washington, I spent my entire adult life dealing with State issues--as a rancher, as a State legislator, and as State Treasurer. I am now astounded by the kinds of issues Members of Congress feel are appropriate for federal intervention.

States know their people better. They know their issues better. Let's return to States what States do best and maintain a strong limited government in Washington to do what it does best--securing the freedom, strength and integrity of this country.

Well, thank you. I thank the gentlemen for allowing me to join you both this evening.

I thank the gentleman for his courtesy to the previous group that was talking about our policy with Israel. I thought that was appropriate to allow them to finish their remarks and to acknowledge the importance of our allies there.

One of the issues that we are going to have to address, as we address this economic downturn we are in, is the role of the Federal Government in exacerbating the problem.

As we all know, Federal employment and private-sector employment are not the same thing. A private-sector job pays for other people's jobs through taxes; whereas, a public-sector job consumes more than it pays in taxes. So it's important that we watch the relationship and the growth of Federal jobs versus the decline in private jobs.

This first chart that I have shows the Federal Government employment and how it has changed in the past number of years. I'd like to point out the years 2002, 3, 4, 5, and 6 when the Federal Government's employment was relatively flat--in fact, almost as flat as a pancake. Then we get into the Pelosi Congress, and it's going up markedly, with the year 2010 here on the end of this chart showing you that we're getting back to levels that are unprecedented since Republicans took over control of Congress in 1995.

I also want to illustrate what has happened to private-sector employment during this time period. This chart compares private-sector employment to public-sector employment, or government employment. The red line is government employment. This more flat line of the red line illustrates, once again, those years that were relatively stable--2003, 4, 5, and 6. Then the Pelosi Congress took effect, and here the government employment begins to shoot up.

The scary part of this chart is the blue line, which is what is happening to private-sector employment. It has crested. Then from the Pelosi Congress on, it has declined dramatically, and these are the years of the Pelosi Congress. When private-sector employment plummets, the ability to pay for your family plummets. Unemployment payments go up. Of course, those are coming out of the public sector. Tax collections go down. The number of jobs, of course, declines dramatically. This is an illustration of what has happened to our economy. Unless we get this number under control, we are in trouble.

Among the things that I oppose, which the majority party here in Congress is pursuing, are tax increases on the employer class. The employer class includes those small businesses all over the country which are employing less than 50 employees who are unable to borrow money because of the constraints on capital that you addressed earlier, Mr. Akin. All of these create the downward spiral that we are seeing. In order to get out of that spiral, we have to make dramatic changes in our tax policy, in our spending policy, and in our overall economic policy in relation to other countries and in relation to the amount of debt that we are issuing.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The chart he has up does compare the U.S. to Greece. But what is really frightening about that chart is, in 5 years, our debt to GDP will be at 112 percent, whereas right now Greece is 115 percent. In other words, in 5 years, we're going to be right where Greece is right now. And that illustrates the type of nosedive that the gentleman said we are in.

Mr. Akin, could I ask you to put up the chart that you have there that is called ``Tidal Wave of Debt''?

The chart that he's going to put up was prominently displayed on numerous occasions today in the House Budget Committee, where we heard from Dr. Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Multiple questions made reference to this chart. And it is the trajectory on this chart that Dr. Bernanke expressed such concern about.

If you look at the line of 2010 and follow it through the year 2046, which is the end line of that chart, you see the enormous upward spiral of our debt. This is, of course, part of the unsustainable situation that Dr. Bernanke was asking us to address. And if we do not, we will put our country in terrible financial straits.

So, we talked about a number of alternatives. One is americanroadmap.org, which is the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Paul Ryan's proposal. It is very comprehensive. It would have a slow glide path to bring both our deficits and our debt under complete control, and do it without raising taxes, and do it without affecting the Social Security or Medicare benefits of people over age 55 or 56.

The problem is, the longer we wait, the more out of reach that type of strategy becomes because of the enormous crowding out of our budgets that will happen by interest on our national debt. Consequently, we need to address the Paul Ryan proposal sooner rather than later.

Even under the Paul Ryan scenario, when compared to our anemic economy, the budget cannot be balanced and the debt cannot be eliminated until the second half of this century. So it takes over 40 years, given that scenario, to balance the budget and eliminate the debt. However, that is the kind of slow glide path that we have to take with an economy this anemic, and in a way that does not raise taxes.

And if we learned anything from the Japanese in the 1990s, it was: You don't raise taxes during a recession. That is what slowed and retarded their growth out of their economic slump.

In May of this year, we issued some Treasury bonds, and the sale was undersubscribed, which means there were not enough countries or individuals who purchased U.S. treasuries, our debt, at the price at which they are being offered, which means that pretty soon we are going to have to raise the interest rates that we are willing to pay people who purchase our debt.

When we have to raise our interest rates, that means that we are paying more in interest on the debt every year. That crowds out private investment from our economy. That makes it more difficult for the private sector to create the jobs that were on this chart earlier. That is part of the death spiral that we have been talking about.

The Republican Study Committee has a proposal through Jim Jordan's subcommittee on the economy that would balance the budget in 10 years. It would cut spending in areas other than homeland security and defense, and it does not touch Social Security. I am one of those who believe that we have to protect our entitlement system by reforming it rather than by leaving it alone. But let's save that discussion for another day.

Another proposal, one that I have with Representative Sam Johnson of Texas, would reduce the size of the Federal employment force through attrition. In other words, every time someone vacates a position through retirement or other means, that position would go into a position pool. And only those positions that are absolutely necessary to sustain the rolls of government as contemplated by the Constitution would be reclaimed and redeployed into the Federal employment force.

There are any number of ideas. The Paul Ryan proposal, the Jim Jordan proposal, this proposal. Jeb Hensarling has proposals, many that are comprehensive in nature that will provide that glide path to a better economy and do it without raising taxes.

So even though you hear frequently that the Republicans are being shortsighted in the fact that they do not want to consider tax increases as part of an economic recovery plan, you are correct that most of us don't. And the reason we don't is because we know we can recover this economy without raising taxes, and raising taxes will slow our ability to recover.

I yield back to the gentleman from Missouri.

I thank the Representative from Missouri and look forward to the opportunity to join you this evening. I am a member of the Budget Committee. And last year we had a lengthy budget debate in the committee, it was very robust, to discuss possible amendments to the budget. And even though the majority of the Republican amendments to the budget were not passed, we did pass a budget. It was over the ``no'' votes of the Republicans. However it fulfilled a duty of this body to pass a budget.

At $3.6 trillion, it was the largest budget in the history of the United States. President Obama this year proposed a $3.8 trillion budget. At a time of recession, he proposed a budget that was $200 billion larger than the budget the year before. And the budget the year before included some astronomical increases, such as a 39 percent increase in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Well, as you can see from a full day of hearings that were held today in the House Natural Resources Committee, that additional 39 percent increase in one agency's budget in 1 year, as now applied in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil spill, has not yielded the kind of efficiency that we expect from government.

The United States is in charge of this cleanup. The President of the United

States is in charge of this cleanup. And on occasion he has dispatched members of his Cabinet, members of the Coast Guard, members of other agencies to involve themselves in the cleanup. But the fact that they increased their budget 39 percent in 1 year has not contributed to the coordination efforts of Federal agencies in cleaning up the gulf.

I thank the gentleman for the question. His question is very relevant because Republicans are asking the same question. Our chairman of the Budget Committee, John Spratt, is an honorable man, and we have pursued with him frequent efforts to encourage him to convene the Budget Committee for purposes of passing a budget.

Normally, the Budget Committee passes a budget by April 15. That's part of the traditional process of this House. And that budget sets the ceilings or the parameters by which the Appropriations Committee will act during its efforts to vet the line items within the budget, meaning really going through the budget carefully, deciding what to spend money on, what the priorities of Congress are this year.

So it is unprecedented, as Mr. Akin pointed out, for this Congress not to consider a budget. And here we are at the end of May, fully 45 days into the period of time during which we normally have a budget for the Appropriations Committee to work with; and, Mr. Akin, we do not have a budget. And it is becoming more and more apparent every day that the Budget Committee will not be convened.

I am certain that John Spratt, who is the chairman of the Budget Committee, finds this painful. But I am also of the impression that the leadership within his party has encouraged him not to convene the Budget Committee out of concern that passing a $3.8 trillion budget, the budget as proposed by the President, would set a tone for this election year that Democrats don't want to face up to. They don't seem to want to face up to the fact that we are at over $12.9 trillion in debt.

Yes. Recall that President Obama, since he took office, will double the debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. This is absolutely unsustainable.

When the Budget Committee met with Mr. Orszag, who is the director of the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, we asked him if this budget was sustainable. In other words, if there are adequate revenues being collected to pay for the budget that we have passed. And Mr. Orszag acknowledged that there are not.

We cannot do that. Yet we do it year after year after year.

It was not 3 weeks ago that the United States had a sale of the U.S. Treasuries that was undersubscribed, which means there were not enough purchasers of our debt for that particular bond issue of U.S. Treasuries that day, which is to say that in order to attract buyers of our debt, we are going to have to pay a higher interest rate to the people who are willing to lend us the money, which is to say that our interest rate payments are going to go up, which means a larger portion of the annual Federal budget will have to go towards paying the interest on our national debt, which is to say that it is a potential trigger for inflation.

Inflation is a job killer. We have asked the Japanese, who had a period

of time in the 1990s called the forgotten decade, how we can avoid, in the United States, having a forgotten decade? They have told us, don't raise taxes during a recession.

So we are in a conundrum. If we raise taxes, we will increase the length of the recession, potentially. If we don't raise taxes, the deficit will grow, potentially leaving us, in my opinion, with one good choice. The good choice is to cut spending. How does this Congress cut spending? This Congress has never cut spending.

I am delighted to be a Member of Congress at a time of economic turmoil because I come from the State of Wyoming.

Wyoming is a State where we have had boom and bust cycles because of our dependence on the economies of oil, gas, and coal. As commodities go, the State of Wyoming goes. When I was a Wyoming legislator, I experienced both a boom and a bust cycle, and what we had to do was reduce spending.

Recently, the Wyoming Legislature reduced spending to the tune of over 10 percent. In Wyoming, it is customary to adjust to these types of belt-tightening, and expenditures during times of largesse.

So when we have money, we have invested in the University of Wyoming, invested in the bricks and mortar of our K-12 system, invested in our technology, in our economy. Yet, when we have to tighten our belts, we do it across the board. You know, it's not the best way to budget. We in Wyoming acknowledge it's not the best way to budget.

But I do believe that if we could cut spending across the board, domestic spending, that is, we would have an opportunity to reduce those expenditures. But I would also acknowledge that without addressing the entitlement situation we can never get a handle on our budget concerns.

That is why I commend, to the attention of everyone within earshot, a plan that was developed by Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the Budget Committee. It can be reviewed at www.americanroadmap.org. It provides the path, the glide path, towards our economic recovery without raising taxes. It takes a long time, it's not without pain. There are, as Paul always likes to say, sharp knives in the drawer.

But, nevertheless, it does it in a responsible fashion, without raising taxes, and addresses, long term, the consequences of overspending and of our potential of becoming a European-style social democracy and a culture of dependency.

One of the great ironies of being a freshman in Congress is you see who people quote. It is so ironic that we Republicans, as Mr. Akin and I are, frequently quote JFK. JFK never disavowed American exceptionalism.

He acknowledged American exceptionalism and he harnessed American exceptionalism. And it is fascinating that we find ourselves frequently returning to his speeches, as Republicans, to review the importance of American exceptionalism in stimulating the economy and growing the economy and acknowledging what Ronald Reagan acknowledged, that we are a shining city on a hill and that we are to be emulated, but only to be emulated when we deserve to be emulated.

And it is at this time in our country's history when we need to review those great leaders and our great Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and our founding principles in a manner which provides the roadmap to our future. And, indeed, it does.

When we return to our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence, we are reminded that we were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, not by our government, by our Creator, and that we chose and consented to be governed and that we chose and consented to be governed pursuant to a Constitution that provided limited obligations to the Federal Government and reserved the remainder of the rights to the States and to the people. If we in Congress would vet bills pursuant to that model, we would return to that shining city on a hill and we could turn over to our children and grandchildren the Nation that we inherited from our parents.

It is stunning--and Mr. Akin has seen these numbers--that people in America today, when you ask them, Do you have a higher standard of living than your parents, acknowledge that indeed we do. And then you ask those same baby boomers, Do you believe your children will enjoy a higher standard of living than we do? They say no. They're concerned. They see a path, a pattern, a culture of dependency forming.

But I'm convinced that this year being another election year and another opportunity for government of the people to rise up, to take control, and to consent to being governed in the way they wish to be governed, that we will see an opportunity next year to return to government of the people and to our founding principles.

Now, Mr. Akin and I both know that that will all be for naught unless those who are in a position to govern next year take seriously the messages of the people of this country. And I can assure you, based on what I have heard as a freshman Member of Congress, that

we will indeed take seriously the messages of the people in this country and that we will restore for the American people our first principles and that we are going to be able to be a strong, vibrant country and proud to hand the reins to our children and grandchildren.

I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Akin.

Would you be so kind as to pull the chart up that you have behind you, the one that displays what has happened to private sector employment versus public sector employment?

As you can see from the chart, private sector employment is an upside down U, in that in the year since the majority party has switched hands and Democratic control of Congress has been in place, we have seen private sector employment decline dramatically. At the same time, we have seen public sector employment increase to the tune of about 188,000 public sector workers increase. At the same time, we've lost about 12 million private sector employees.

Now, I have a bill that I believe will begin to address this serious problem that we see with regard to employment. It is the Workforce Reduction Act, but it does it without firing anyone. It does it through attrition. The bill provides that for every employee who vacates a position due to retirement or moving on, that that position would be moved into a position pool. In fact, for every 100 retirements that occurs in the Federal Government, 50 positions would be moved into a position pool, the other 50 positions, vacant, would be eliminated. And then agencies would need to apply for reinstatement of a position based on necessity.

Those agencies who critically need employees, such as possibly the Minerals Management Service, in its enforcement functions in the Gulf of Mexico, would be likely recipients of employees in order to meet the obligations of the Federal Government to protect our borders with regard to the encroachment of oil that is seeping into the Gulf of Mexico. For other positions which are less mission-critical, those agencies would downsize.

Now, this is not going to be dramatically harmful to Federal agencies because, as I said, since the Obama administration took office, 188,000 new Federal employees have been added, and this excludes people that were hired pursuant to the decennial census. Consequently, we know that somehow we survived without these employees prior to President Obama taking office.

Will the gentleman yield?

It is the power of the purse that this Congress holds that allows us to gain control of situations like this, and that is why this discussion is so important. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for including us.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I am on the Budget Committee, but the Budget Committee doesn't meet. Maybe the reason the Budget Committee doesn't meet is because they don't want you to see this chart.

If we look at this chart, and we look at the blue lines, the blue lines are private-sector employment. It is the private economy employment, the job creators, the revenue creators. Look at the Bush years, those are the years going up. Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush. Look at the Pelosi years. Those are the years going down. Pelosi, Pelosi, Pelosi.

The private-sector jobs dropped under Nancy Pelosi. They went up under George Bush. Now look at the red line. The red line is George Bush. The red line for government employment is flat.

But look at the Pelosi line. The Pelosi line for government employment goes up, up, up, up.

So, under Pelosi, private-sector jobs go down. Government jobs go up. The private sector pays for the public sector, but there are no private-sector jobs. Maybe that's why the Budget Committee won't meet, Mr. Speaker.

The world is begging America to get its financial house in order. This Congress responds by doubling the debt in 5 years and tripling it in 10.

Americans are begging for jobs, careers, and stability. This Congress responds by hiring 17,000 people at the IRS to enforce on Americans government-approved health insurance.

Small business entrepreneurs beg Congress to empower them to create jobs. Congress responds with 20 new taxes in this health care bill, amounting to half a trillion dollars.

Our military families beg us to leave TRICARE alone. This bill transfers TRICARE out of the Department of Defense.

Americans are fed up with government takeovers of business, like the auto industry that closed dealerships and threw Americans out of work. This health care bill includes a government takeover of the student loan business, throwing 31,000 more Americans out of work.

We Republicans implored the majority for a bipartisan health care reform bill. The majority party responded with special deals cut behind closed doors to garner votes for its most reluctant members.

America deserves better than this. America is better than this. Let's listen to America. Kill this bill. Start over with health care we can afford. Create jobs and save our economy.

Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Yes, in its current form.

Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit will strengthen and improve the Public Lands Service Corps program by ensuring it is focused on defined, priority activities and by adding safeguards against misuse of program funds.

There are four clear and simple parts to this motion:

First is an important provision that will protect the young men and women in the program from being subjected to registered sex offenders. People as young as 16 years of age are eligible to participate; and for many, a summer job with a Public Lands Corps project will be their first time away from home for an extended period of time.

That is why this motion to recommit would require criminal background checks for the adults in the program who come in contact with the minors and would bar registered sex offenders from supervising these young people. The protections included in this motion are taken directly from those in the AmeriCorps program that we just passed in this Congress a year ago.

Sex offenders should not be placed in positions of authority over, or be allowed access to, young people in the Public Lands Corps, just as they are prohibited in AmeriCorps. By voting for this motion to recommit, you will prohibit sex offenders from participating in this program and will be voting to provide basic protections for young people.

Second, this motion restores the current act's emphasis on combating the threats of beetle infestation and wildfires that are devastating vast tracts of our public forest lands. Without this motion, urgently needed efforts to combat this ongoing tragedy will receive no priority whatsoever for funding.

The Healthy Forests Act passed the House with strong bipartisan support, and yet this bill would erase the emphasis provided for Healthy Forests Act activities in the existing law. This is the wrong approach and a step backwards. Wildfire prevention and battling beetle and other infestations should be a priority to protect local communities and our national forests. These activities must be continued, not eliminated, as the bill would do. Voting for the motion to recommit will ensure this occurs.

Third, this motion would prevent misdirection of grant funds by requiring that the projects funded actually make improvements to public lands rather than being used for public advocacy or junkets like the organic, micro-brewed beer bus tour we heard about from Mr. Bishop. This program is billed as a means of connecting young people to our public lands. So this motion very simply requires that funded projects occur on public lands and improve these lands.

Fourth and lastly, this motion would make any group that is engaged in a lawsuit against the government ineligible to receive grant funds. If you are going to sue the government, then you shouldn't collect grant money from taxpayers. This will ensure that political advocacy groups that sue the government are not supported by taxpayer dollars.

This motion to recommit includes four commonsense improvements to the bill. I urge my colleagues to vote to prevent sex offenders from getting access to young people through this program, to vote to restore the bill to the priority status of wildfire prevention activities under the bipartisan Healthy Forests Act, to vote to ensure grant funds are spent and work actually on our public lands and not bus tours, and to vote to prevent grant money from going to groups that file lawsuits against the government.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

The gentleman from Missouri earlier gave a lovely image, and I would like to use image as well. I would like to use the image of President Obama saying over and over and over to the American people, ``If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.'' And this bill does not fulfill the President's promise.

Yesterday in the House Budget Committee we worked for 8 hours to instruct the Rules Committee on how to make this a better bill. And we asked them to make the President's promise come true, to pass an amendment that says if you like your health insurance you can keep it. And that was killed on a party-line vote, with all of the Republicans voting to help the President fulfill his promise to the American people and the Democrats voting against it. This bill does not fulfill the President's promise that if you like your insurance you can keep it.

I urge that we kill this misguided health care bill.

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate and honor a young student from the State of Wyoming who has achieved national recognition for exemplary volunteer service in her community.

Amy David of Boulder, Wyoming has just been named one of the top honorees in Wyoming by the 2010 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, an annual honor conferred on the most impressive student volunteers in each state. Amy was nominated by the Sublette County 4-H. She is a senior at Pinedale High School and has represented the state as Miss Wyoming Teen USA. Amy has been an ambassador throughout Wyoming promoting physical fitness, healthy minds, self-confidence and goal setting for youth. She has participated in many health-related fund raisers and co-founded an annual race to raise money for cystic fibrosis research.

In light of numerous statistics that indicate Americans today are less involved in their communities than they once were, it is vital that we encourage and support the kind of selfless contribution this young citizen has made. People of all ages need to think more about how we, as individual citizens, can work together at the local level to insure the health and vitality of our towns and neighborhoods. Young volunteers like Ms. David are inspiring to all of us, and are among our brightest hopes for a better tomorrow.

Ms. David should be extremely proud to have been singled out from the thousands of dedicated volunteers who participated in this year's program. I heartily applaud Ms. David for her initiative in seeking to make her community and state a better place to live, and for the positive impact she has had on the lives of others. She has demonstrated a level of commitment and accomplishment that is truly extraordinary in today's world, and deserves our sincere admiration and respect. Her actions show that young Americans can--and do--play important roles in our communities, and that America's community spirit continues to hold tremendous promise for the future.