Floor Statements

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.

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.

Camille Allsop of Cheyenne 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. Camille was nominated by Cheyenne's East high School. She is the lead performer and interpreter in a song and dance group that travels across the country bridging the gap between deaf and hearing audiences.

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. Allsop are inspiring to all of us, and are among our brightest hopes for a better tomorrow.

Ms. Allsop 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. Allsop 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.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of my friend, Dr. Frederick ``Fritz'' Cubin, husband of former Wyoming Congresswoman Barbara Cubin who served the Cowboy State for 14 years in this U.S. House.

After a lengthy illness, Fritz passed away this past Monday. Our condolences go out to Barbara, sons Bill and Eric, and their family and friends.

Fritz had many passions: his family always first, hunting and politics taking the silver and bronze.

Dr. Cubin served his country in the United States Air Force. He served his family as a confidante to his wife, a devoted father to his sons. A family doctor for many, he also served his community, making his appointed rounds to Casper's retirement homes to the very end.

Fritz Cubin was a fierce patriot, with apologies to no one. He will be missed.

Madam Speaker, it's a privilege to be here tonight on behalf of the Republican Party and on behalf of its members here in Congress. This evening we will be led by Judge Carter, Representative Carter of Texas, who is on his way to the Chamber at this point, but it's my privilege to cover for him until he arrives.

We have just finished, Madam Speaker, a week in our districts where we were meeting with members of our constituency. I want to inform you that among the issues that I heard about when I was home were still concerns from automobile dealers about franchises that have been put in jeopardy due to the automobile issue with General Motors; I heard about people who are trying to build houses in Wyoming and would create jobs in Wyoming doing so and had the building permits and the need for the housing confirms but that financing for building construction in Wyoming remains impossible to get because of new bank regulations that require two-thirds more security for those loans than was previously the case. Banks are simply unwilling to lend under the same terms that they would before to risk-takers who hire people to create jobs to build wealth and value in this country and who have strong credit ratings themselves and solid track records of producing jobs and producing value in the housing and the construction market in this country. That remains an issue around the United States and certainly in my State of Wyoming. Jobs must be the main criteria as we go forward this year; and the looming debt and deficit concerns continue to be voiced by people in my State throughout the week as I met with them.

As you know, we are preparing for more budget hearings now that Congress has reconvened after the President's Day recess. I'm on the Budget Committee, and we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Orszag before the weather curtailed our activities and then the intervening district work period occurred. But we will be resuming those activities, hopefully meeting with Treasury Secretary Geithner soon and discussing the debt and deficit.

I want to remind my colleagues that last year we were approached by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about the need for the United States to come up with a plan, a long-term plan to address our debt and deficits. It is not possible for us to accurately and clearly address our debt and deficit issues unless we discuss entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. There are components of those issues that will be discussed this week, hopefully, at the White House conference on health care.

We are now joined by the secretary of the Republican Conference and an esteemed Member of this body, a former judge from Texas (Mr. Carter).

I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and I have many of the same questions that Americans have.

I was on an airplane returning to Washington, D.C., today when I learned of the President's proposal; that it was not his intention to have a summit this week where members of the majority party and the minority party had an opportunity to bring ideas to the table; that it would not be an opportunity to take the House minority party bill, the Senate majority party bill, the House majority party bill, and find where the overlap is among all those bills, and then spend their time on February 25 concentrating on the areas of overlap.

That's what the American people want us to do. That's what my constituents told me they hoped would happen on February 25. They were hoping that when we were home for the President's Day work period last week that there was an effort here in Washington to find out where's the commonality among all those bills and how might that common ground be front and center to the discussion on February 25.

Now, today, as I have arrived back in Washington, I've learned that, although the Congressional Budget Office hasn't told us how much they believe President's proposal will cost, the President's own people believe that it will cost in the vicinity of $950 billion, just under the trillion dollar mark; that it will include over $600 billion in taxes; and that, even though it will provide opportunities for all States to be treated under Medicaid the same way that Nebraska is under the Senate bill, that, in fact, the special deals that were cut for Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and other States have not been altered. Furthermore, I heard one of my majority party House colleagues on another interview program this evening explaining that there's still hope that a public option, government-run health care is part of this package.

So I would ask the gentleman from Texas or our colleague from Georgia, a physician, who has joined us to let us know and enlighten me and members of the public via C-SPAN this evening, do we know what's in the President's proposal? Has it received the approval of both the majority party people who will be attending the summit and the minority party people? Do we even know who's going to be in attendance at the summit? Do we know the format of that summit? Will the President be leading this group and only explaining his proposal or will all in attendance have an opportunity to bring aspects of the health care debate forward?

For example, will there be a debate on what really are the issues that every one of us knows needs to be discussed: things like portability; things like addressing the problem of preexisting conditions being uninsured under many insurance policies today, and the issue of having an affordable insurance policy for high-risk individuals as well as the general population, and also, the issue of having a level playing field for tax treatment, whether you're self- employed or you have an employer.

These are the issues that I've heard about for the last 8 months, over and over, that people want addressed individually, bill by bill, debated, amended, and agreed upon in the House and the Senate; not these big, comprehensive omnibus bills that have so many provisions that have not been discussed, have not been vetted and are not well understood either by the Members here or by the general public.

And I yield back to the gentleman from Texas.

Will the gentleman yield for just a second?

You mentioned something that I'm curious about. In one of the little summaries that I read when I arrived back in Washington today, it said that they were reducing the penalty for noncompliant health insurance under the Internal Revenue Code, but that implies that you cannot keep your health insurance if you want to because it implies that there is still going to be a requirement under the President's proposal that your insurance comply with government approval.

So, how can the President say, if you like your insurance you can keep it, when the fact of the matter is, if your insurance does not comply with government standards, that you will be penalized under the Internal Revenue Code for keeping that insurance?

And I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding because I have questions. My questions are the same kinds of things that my constituents are asking: Are Republicans just going to be window dressing in this event? Why were we invited if the President is going to take yet another bill drafted by Democrats just as the House-passed bill was, just as the Senate-passed bill was, and now the President has a bill? Why are the Republicans even being included now when the bill that the President is proposing is not yet in draft form, is only in talking points? How is it going to be a bipartisan summit when the party that makes it bipartisan is not really asked to participate in the crafting of the legislation?

I yield back.

Madam Speaker, two points I would like to make. One is this is not the same statutory pay-as-you-go as was in effect in the 1990s. During the years that President Clinton was working with a Republican Congress, they did balance the budget and they did create a surplus, but they did it using a statutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, or perhaps it was a nonstatutory pay-as-you-go mechanism, that actually didn't have as many exemptions as this one does. The fact that we are using a statutory pay-as-you-go terminology that really doesn't limit in any way spending to be paid for is simply disingenuous.

The other point I would like to make is about our debt limit. We don't have to raise the debt limit today, the debt ceiling. What we would have to do is put strict spending caps on ourselves, roll back the budget to fiscal year 2008 levels; we would have to pull in stimulus money, TARP money, and other expenditures that have either been returned to the government or not yet made. And we wouldn't even have to raise this debt ceiling.

So this is an issue of lacking fiscal responsibility. We are in a situation of borrow-as-you-go, not pay-as-you-go.

I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I think it is a tribute to you that over these many months of the last year, you have been stalwart in your support of the liberties of this country and the first principles of this country. The gentleman from New York (Mr. King) was so committed to the American people and the vote on health care that he missed his own son's wedding because the vote was taken on a Saturday, and we needed every single vote, not knowing if it would go our way or the vote of socialized medicine. And this gentleman sacrificed seeing his middle child's wedding in order to cast his vote for the American people that day. I applaud you for going up and participating in Massachusetts' election observing.

I would like to ask the gentleman before I begin to discuss budget issues. Did you talk to people in Massachusetts today and yesterday? What was on their mind? What was guiding their decisions in deciding to make a change in party after that seat had been held by Democrats since 1953. What was on their mind in casting their ballots today?

The father of the Massachusetts Constitution, John Adams, died 50 years to the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed. And as he died, he said ``Jefferson lives.'' And ironically, Thomas Jefferson died that very same day, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed. These are people whose founding principles and founding beliefs carried them until the day they died. Although during the years they were political rivals, they respected and admired each other so much because of the work they had both done to help found this country, that they wanted to nurture it and guide it and see that it survived.

I believe tonight we are seeing that same nurturing and guidance and seeing the founding principles verified in Massachusetts. So it is indeed an exciting day for our country.

Among the things that you mentioned that the people of Massachusetts chose to be concerned about in casting their ballots today is the deficit. I would like to take a minute to show you a chart that explains how this deficit has grown over the last year and that the debt that our majority party here in Congress today says they inherited actually has grown to

unprecedented levels while they were in control. When they espouse the fact that during the Clinton years, the deficit was rejected and that there were budget surpluses, it actually happened when there was a Republican Congress.

But the gentleman from Iowa has given me the opportunity to bring this chart and show it to you. 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. This top line shows you where the Federal budget deficit was. Well, that is neutral. That is neutral ground. That is a balanced budget. Down here on this dotted line is the debt that the majority party inherited 1 year ago, a $459 billion budget deficit. That is the difference in money collected from the taxpayers of this country and the money spent during that year.

Now look at 2009. Below this dotted line is the amount of deficit spending that has occurred during the last year. And as the gentleman from Iowa just went through, these are the elements that have stepped that deficit to unprecedented levels: $950 billion increase from 2008, and our deficit is $1.4 trillion, almost a trillion dollars more than the Democrats inherited 1 year ago, and here is how it goes. First of all, lower tax receipts due to the recession, something that they didn't factor in. Then the stimulus money, which at $787 billion was about twice what the Republicans proposed to spend on stimulus, and our bill would have created twice as many jobs. And in fact the Democrats' bill that they said would keep unemployment below 8 percent ended up blossoming into double digit unemployment.

That is what people are worried about. They are worried about whether they will have a job tomorrow, and whether their children will have a job and whether they will be able to pay their bills and whether they will default on their mortgage. And on top of that, whether their health care benefits will be taxed or whether they will be penalized because the government hasn't approved of the health care plan they have now. But I digress.

Now let's go on to the bailouts for financial institutions and auto industries, taking it to even lower levels. Bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an area where the government in its wisdom decided that people who may not financially qualify for loans to own a home should have them, and this is the resultant deficit. And finally, unemployment benefits due to the recession. Plus you add other spending and here we are, $1.4 trillion in deficit spending in addition to the debt that has accumulated over the years.

Now if the gentleman from Iowa would indulge one more chart. When you hear the term structural deficit, this is the structural deficit, the difference between spending and taxes. This chart runs from the 1970s through 2019. And if you look, this dotted line is today. Look at how the gap between spending and taxes grows and separates going forward, and here is where we are today at a massive point in terms of the difference between spending and taxes.

But over the years, regardless of who was President, regardless of who was in Congress, we didn't have those abrupt and wild and dramatic swings. In fact, when the Republicans controlled Congress under a Democrat President, you actually had tax receipts higher than spending. These are the years that the gentleman from Iowa talked about, about which he is most proud and about which I am most proud as a person who was observing as a non-Member of Congress during those years.

This chart here shows you where spending went over the last period of time, 1969 to 2008. This very high number for defense, when over 40 percent of the Federal budget was going to defense, was at the height of the Vietnam War. Look at its abrupt decline after the Vietnam War into the 1970s, then back up for a little bounce during the period of the 1980s while we were ending the Cold War, and then you see it declined after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and this is the area of the so-called peace dividend, and then back up only slightly during the war after 9/11.

But the real kicker on this chart is the bottom line, the red line, Medicare and Medicaid, because before we were a welfare state, the amount of the Federal budget and in terms of the use of the Federal budget, only about 5 percent went to entitlement programs, Medicare and Medicaid. That number has been dramatically increasing with no end in sight because people of your and my age are going to move into retirement, meaning that Medicare will be more expensive. There will be more of us on it, and Medicaid benefits have increased over time.

Consequently, this is going to be eating more and more of our budget. Nondefense discretionary spending is actually down, and Social Security, more level than you would think at about 20 percent of the Federal budget. But there again, that number is going to go up unless we get a handle on entitlements. So these are the areas with which we need to grapple. These are the areas which I believe were on the minds of Americans in Massachusetts as they went to the polls today.

I have a couple more questions for you.

We look at the fact that, in the health care bill, the Senator from Nebraska sought an exemption from the impacts of Medicaid expenditures in his State and at the fact that the Amish sought an exemption because their religious freedom requires them not to be mandated to have a certain health insurance program placed upon them. There were other exemptions. The unions went to the White House recently because they wanted to be exempted from the Cadillac insurance plan tax that was going to help pay for the Senate bill to create socialized medicine.

Then there was the citizen who asked: If this is such a great bill, why do so many people need exemptions? Could that be part of the reason, the very simple question: If this is such a great bill, why does everybody want to

be exempted from it? Could that have anything to do with tonight's election results in Massachusetts?

I yield back.

Will the gentleman yield on that point?

Interestingly, over the August recess, when we were all at home having town hall meetings and the people had their opportunities to step forward and express their opinions about this bill, one of the leaders of the majority party in the Senate was quoted as saying, It's getting harder and harder to pass legislation that the American people don't want.

So they even acknowledge that the American people don't want this. They even acknowledge that it is the judgment of the leadership of the Democratic Party that this is good for the American people whether the American people know it or not.

That's what King George was doing. King George was deciding that he knew what was best for the American colonies whether they knew it or not, but they rose up, and they told King George otherwise--that they knew what was best for them, and they formed a more perfect union.

That's what, in part, tonight's election was about. That's what the elections and the discussions may be about throughout this calendar year unless there is some recognition by the majority party and by our President that ``change'' means moving more towards the center.

You and I want what's best for our country. We don't want to stand up here and bash the other party. We want to work with them to come up with solutions for our country. I come from a State where we have frequently a boom-and-bust economy. I served in the Wyoming Legislature when we were in boom years and when we were in bust years. We know how to ramp up an economy, and we know how to ramp a government down in response to a declined economy. We could work with a President and with a majority party now if they were willing to do so; but as you and I know, we've seen no indication that they're willing to do so, and you expressed an example of it.

It was the night that you were there at 1:30 a.m. in the Rules Committee to try and get an amendment. I had three amendments to that bill. I was there an hour before you were, and I was told that there were going to be two amendments allowed on the floor tomorrow to that 2,000-page bill. One would be Minority Leader John Boehner's substitute bill, which they already knew was going to go down and that it would get the votes of all of the members of the Republican Party and none of the members of the Democrat Party. That was one of the amendments.

The other one was the Stupak amendment, because that was demanded by of course every Republican

and enough Democrats that they had to allow it to go to the floor in order to get that bill passed. But every other bill that was sponsored in good faith by Democrats and Republicans alike, rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans, were rejected, was not allowed to go to the floor and in fact was essentially blown off in the Rules Committee.

That is not government of the people. That is government the way that King George ran it. That is government that the people tonight rejected in Massachusetts.

I thank the gentleman from Iowa. And I look forward to the day when you are in the majority party, next year on this floor, and I am in the majority party, God willing, and that we can work together with President Obama to solve the problems of this country; that we can go back as happened in the 1990s, where you had a member of the Democratic party as President and a Republican Congress, and they worked together to balance the budget.

That is what the American people, I believe, are yearning for. That is what I am yearning for. And I look forward to working with the President in a way that we can balance the budget and bring the American people back to have faith and confidence in its government because we return to founding principles.

You know, there is an old saying: When all else fails, read the directions. The Constitution of the United States is the directions. And at a time like this, when we have record deficits, when we have soaring U.S. interest payments like you see on this chart, when we have Americans concerned about their health care, about their jobs, about the ability to earn an income, when people are concerned about the growth in China and what they see in some cases as the decline in jobs in the United States, that is when you return to founding principles.

Let's look at our Constitution more often. Let's return with our President next year, as a majority party, and I hopefully will be serving with you in the majority party at that time, and get back to those founding principles. Read the directions, what made America great, and restore the confidence of the American people in this institution and in our ability to self-govern.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This evening's Speaker is a fellow freshman and it is an honor to serve with you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for your time this evening as we proceed into Hanukkah and the Christmas season.

We are as freshman Republicans going to spend some time with you reviewing the episodes of the last 12 months: Where are we in terms of America's fiscal house? Where have we been in the last 12 months? And, more importantly, where are we going as we prepare for the new year 2010?

I am joined this evening by my colleague, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, and we will be joined by other freshman Republican colleagues throughout the next 60 minutes. We look forward to this opportunity to cover these subjects with you this evening.

We began our freshman year by approving a $350 billion TARP extension without accounting for the first half of the TARP.

We then moved into a $787 billion stimulus package; $1.1 trillion, if you include interest. And Steve Austria, our colleague, will be discussing this evening how that and other bills were shaped by the fact that they were done without the kind of transparency that we expected to see when we came here and which our new President campaigned on.

We then moved into a $410 billion addition to the 2009 budget. We then moved into bills that would take over the financial services industry, the automobile industry, the student loan industry, that created the largest tax increase in history by way of an enormous cap- and-trade bill that places a tax on every single American that consumes energy. And we passed, about a month ago in this House, a health care bill that created an additional roughly trillion dollars in obligations for this Nation, that bill now being debated in the United States Senate.

During the course of this year, all of those complicated pieces of legislation which were passed, frequently without the opportunity to read the full bill, created enormous debts for this Nation, and we want to talk about this fiscal picture this evening.

Before we do, I want to yield to my colleague, Mr. Austria, to discuss the issues of transparency and the issues of the speed in which some of that comprehensive and complicated, lengthy legislation was brought to the floor.

Mr. Austria.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio.

And the consequence of what the gentleman from Ohio pointed out is illustrated in this chart. Here is the Federal budget deficit when we began as Members of Congress. The budget when we came in had a $459 billion deficit, or just under half-a-trillion-dollar deficit. But since we've been here, this amount of roughly half a trillion has been increased by almost a trillion, 950 billion in increases from 2008, for a total of over $1.4 trillion in deficits. Now, how did we get there?

Three hundred twenty billion dollars of that, roughly, is from lower tax receipts due to the recession. That's the roughly 27 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed, and they're paying less in taxes, as are businesses and as are our families. So we're experiencing lower tax receipts because of our recession.

In addition, the stimulus bill has added $200 billion to our deficit for this year alone, half in spending and half in lower taxes.

Then, an additional $154 billion for bailouts for financial institutions and the auto industry; $91 billion in bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those, of course, are the GMAs that do housing programs.

Seventy-three million dollars in unemployment benefits due to the recession, again, associated with this loss in tax revenue due to the fact that so many Americans are unemployed and the fact that the stimulus dollars that we spent were not adequately weighted towards infrastructure construction like was the bill that Mr. Austria and Mr. Lance and I cosponsored at the beginning of this year.

And then $112 billion in other accumulated bills throughout the course of this year has gotten us to this point, $1.4 trillion in deficit.

Now I'd like to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance) to talk more about what are the consequences of all this debt.

Will the gentleman yield briefly?

And the consequence of what you're just saying, which is so critical to this discussion, is the chart that appears here. The interest payments on that debt create a checkmark. In other words, this is 2008, the beginning of this chart. And we were seeing a bit of a decline in the interest dollars that we were paying. But here we are, today, right here, the end of 2009, and from here on, because of that accumulated $2 trillion that you discussed over the earlier part of this decade, and then, the additional $1.4 trillion of this year alone, boy, those interest payments just take right off. And it creates this checkmark effect to the point that at the end of this chart, 2019, U.S. net interest payments over $800 billion.

My gosh, that is as much as the stimulus bill that we passed at the beginning of this year.

I applaud the gentleman from New Jersey for his view that we need to have tied to an increase in the national debt a mechanism that will begin to address this problem. One of the mechanisms is one that you mentioned that you support, and that would be legislation that would create a commission to begin to advise us on this structural deficit. And this chart illustrates why this structural deficit is so much worse than it has ever been.

One of the points in this chart you brought up in your discussion, and that was a point right here, this is the years when we had the Clinton Presidency and a Republican Congress, and you saw tax revenues increasing over expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product and creating the very surplus that you discussed. But what's really interesting about this chart is the fact that it runs from the 1970s, actually from the year 1969 to 2009, so it's a 40-year chart that compares spending to gross domestic product, taxes to gross domestic product, and then the deficit to gross domestic product. And the amazing thing is that when you look at gross domestic product, that is, the value of everything we produce in this country every year, and use that as your constant, so we're comparing that over 40 years to the way that Congress has spent money, the way that Congress has taken in taxes, and then to the deficit, what you see is remarkable stability, remarkable stability for 40 years. It has always hovered around a little over 20 percent of gross domestic product in terms of spending, and around 18 percent in terms of taxes.

So there has been a structural deficit for all those years of roughly 2.4 percent, meaning for about 40 years we've taken in a little bit less in taxes than we've spent. And so it has created some deficits over time. But even the deficits have hovered within that average of about 2.4 percent. The average then is this dotted line down here, remarkably stable over 40 years.

Now, look at what is happening in the future. These are projections. The sources are the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget. So we're talking about government agencies that are projecting this. Here is the line for where we begin the next decade starting in January. Spending and taxes separate dramatically. As you can see, the year 2009, which is illustrated by this tremendous separation right here, this is where we are now, and the reason we've taken in less taxes is because of the recession. But the reason that we've spent so much are all the bills that we discussed from the beginning of this hour. It has just become completely out of the realm of anything we've ever seen in the last 40 years.

So it creates a structural deficit, meaning a very, very wide gap going forward between taxes and spending. This gap is projected by CBO to be between 5 and 6 percent. That's more than twice of what it has ever been over the last 40 years. And it goes on and on from there. And so you can see this projected deficit in the decade coming forward, down here, is an enormous gap over what it has been. That is what you were talking about when you said, will we give our children a better country than we received? And there is a real question about that now. And that is why we have to address it.

I know you're on a committee where Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has come, as am I, and said, you've got to come up with a plan to deal with this problem, this specific problem, the structural deficit. This is the structural deficit. And it is caused by the mismatch between taxes and spending. And while we as partisans get under each others' skin by saying, Democrats, you have spent too much; and the Democrats saying, Republicans, you gave tax cuts at a time when we were at war. Well, we're both right. And now here we are. I yield back.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding.

The Federal Reserve Bank, in my opinion, is now overleveraged. The Federal Government is overleveraged, meaning we have taken on too much debt both at the Federal Reserve, while they've been trying to help our banking system right itself, and we, in Congress, by not recognizing that in this recession we, too, should be making sure that government isn't growing in an outsized way when it is, in fact, the private sector that creates wealth.

We are joined by the gentleman from Colorado, who is on the Small Business Committee. And small businesses in our communities are really hurting, as are community banks.

Among the things that we have talked about with the Federal Reserve Chairman is the issue of how community banks sometimes have loans that are performing, that every year the borrower is making the payments, principal and interest. But when bank regulators come in and look at those loans, they are worried that the asset that is backing that borrower might be a little shaky, so they might require the banks to write down that loan even though it's performing. I know that the Federal Reserve Chairman says that should not be happening if the regulator is the Federal Reserve because they've instructed their regulators not to do that, but we also know there are multiple regulators, including the Department of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the Currency, and some of these regulators are still requiring that these loans be written down. That is a tremendous disservice to our community banks and to their borrowers whose loans are performing.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Indeed, we are finding that there are changes in our economy that are going to exacerbate some of the problems that we have discussed.

Here is another fund chart. I want to point out that some of the things that I am discussing tonight have been influenced by an article that I read in the National Journal by John Maggs, which I commend to your attention. The date was Saturday, November 7, 2009, National Journal. The name of the article, ``The Debt Problem is Worse Than You Think,'' not a very uplifting title, but I think very reflective of the problems that we are in and that we, on a bipartisan basis, need to begin to address after the first of the year.

This chart I found to be tremendously interesting. The source, again, is the Congressional Budget Office. Look at how, in the 1970s, which are represented by this quadrant of the chart, then followed by the eighties, nineties, and this first decade of the 21st century, look how much defense accounted for as a percentage of the Federal budget near the end of the Vietnam War, or, I guess, 1969, probably about the height of the Vietnam War. A tremendous amount was spent on defense and very little on medical care for the indigent and the elderly as a percentage of our Federal budget; whereas, Social Security and nondefense discretionary funding--which is, of course, what we spend most of our time talking about here in Congress--have been remarkably stable over that time.

Defense has dropped dramatically over time. Here you see the decade that then caused the buildup into the end of the Cold War. And then you see a declining, the ``peace dividend'' as we called it, during the 1990s, which allowed Congress and the President to balance the budget. It has stabilized at a point of about 20 percent, even in this decade that we have just completed.

So it's amazing how much defense has declined as a portion of the Federal budget. But what is equally amazing is the amount in which Medicare and Medicaid have risen as a portion of our Federal spending and increasing. This is an ever-increasing line, the red line, because of people like the three of us in this room. We are all baby boomers, and as this massive generation approaches retirement and Medicare, that number is just going to go up and up. So unless we address Medicare in particular as part of this commission that you mentioned, we are not going to get there.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Will the gentlemen yield?

Will the gentleman remind us to whom has the so-called Social Security Trust Fund been lent?

And I yield back.

Will the gentleman yield?

Are you telling me that Social Security dollars that Americans paid into a Social Security Trust Fund have been lent to the Federal Government to spend on these programs we've been discussing tonight?

And I yield back.

And I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Will the gentleman yield?

Is it true that the health care bill that passed the House of Representatives a few weeks ago accumulated about 10 years of taxes and fees to pay 6 or 7 years of benefits?

And I yield back.

Will the gentleman yield?

Are you saying that, then, 10 years of taxes are going to begin right away under the House health care bill and the benefits are not going to begin to be paid out until year 2013?

And so what happens at the end of 10 years?

You are telling me that there is going to be a structural deficit in the very health care bill that we passed, in addition to the structural deficit we have been discussing tonight?

I thank the gentleman from Colorado for raising that point.

The alarm you expressed is shared by others. I would like to quote one sentence from this article to which I referred earlier by John Maggs in the National Journal, ``The Debt Problem is Worse Than You Think,'' for your reaction.

``Simply put, even alarmists may be underestimating the size of the problem, how quickly it will become unbearable, and how poorly prepared our political system is to deal with it.''

Your reaction?

Are you prepared to say that the Republicans were wrong when they simultaneously passed Medicare part D, the Bush tax cuts, and tried to sustain that during wartime. Are you prepared to say that?

I would like to ask the gentleman from New Jersey, do you agree with that? Do you think we were wrong?

It is the rare man who has a constitutional amendment named after him. The Lance amendment in New Jersey will help right the ship in New Jersey. We compliment you for that work.

We are now about to begin to summarize. I would ask the gentleman from Colorado to summarize this evening's discussion.

I wish to thank my Republican colleagues this evening, the gentleman from Ohio, the gentleman from New Jersey, and the gentleman from Colorado. We are hoping that in the next year we will see a bipartisan effort to address this problem.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for bringing this issue to our attention once again this evening. You know, many of us have anecdotal information about friends, relatives, colleagues who have experienced the diagnosis of breast cancer in their forties simply because they went in to receive a routine mammogram.

That was certainly the case with my sister-in-law who, in her forties, went in for a routine mammogram, had none of the genetic or typical markers that reveal the need to have mammograms, but, of course, since they were regularly recommended for women in their thirties and forties, she went in for her annual mammogram and was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer. She was diagnosed, had her mastectomy, and began her chemotherapy all within the period of 30 days.

Without that routine mammogram, that aggressive breast cancer would have had an opportunity to spread in a way that would have caused or exacerbated the chance that that cancer would not have been treatable and would not have saved her life.

In fact, we learned during the health care debate in the House that in the United States both men and women have better rates of survivability for cancer in the United States than they do in Canada or in Europe. That is because cancer is routinely screened for and it is rapidly addressed following diagnosis. In fact, the opportunity in the United States to receive treatment quickly following diagnosis is directly related to the current health care system in the United States.

As the gentlewoman from Ohio indicated, there are opportunities, due to the findings of this panel, for insurers to use it as a basis to decide not to provide covered health care insurance for breast cancer mammography screening for women in their forties.

I believe that that is an indicator of how serious this issue is, and I want to particularly thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for calling it to our attention this evening.

She is doing very well. She is cancer free. And I would indicate, also, that it is, of course, just another example. But I am from Wyoming. One of our Senator's wives, Bobbi Barrasso, was also diagnosed with breast cancer in her forties as a result of a mammogram and is also doing well.

You look at our tiny little congressional delegation that consists of one Member of the House and two Senators, and of those three people, two have examples of breast cancer within their own families that was diagnosed in women in their forties due to a routine mammogram. That gives, even though anecdotal, a couple of examples that are repeated all over the country by people who may be tuning in tonight on C-SPAN. Many of you know women who have been diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer in the United States.

Part of the reason the prognosis has improved so dramatically in the United States for this very serious and, unfortunately, very common form of cancer is the fact that following routine screening, we have the opportunity to receive aggressive treatment in a health care system that, while in need of reform, is not in need of the kind of reform that would increase the period of time between when we are diagnosed and when we are treated.

We know, from around the world, from systems of government in Europe and in Canada that have the form of health care that was being advocated in this body by the majority party and a form which, in fact, passed this body and is now being debated in the Senate, that, indeed, when you add more government to the health care system, you do add time lags between diagnosis and treatment. And that is something that we should be trying to encourage our colleagues to prevent and prevent especially because of the United States' superior record when compared to other nations around the world with regard to breast cancer.

I would like to thank the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee for the inclusion of language from my bill on statewide public television. Passage of this legislation will remove the legal obstacles for satellite carriers to offer statewide public television in Wyoming and other States. I don't care whether it's in high def or not. I just want public television carried in Wyoming and other States, and that's been achieved. So thank you kindly.

I also thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal) who worked diligently to address the problem of local television market areas. Despite his good work, I rise today to express regret for the missed opportunity the passage of this bill represents.

The decision to put off for another 5 years any real reform to the system of designated market areas carries with it very negative consequences for the citizens of my State. Out of Wyoming's 23 counties, 16 do not have satellite access to Wyoming-based stations. Over half of all television households in Wyoming do not have access to local television.

For a rural State like Wyoming, satellite sometimes represents the only viable option to receiving television programming. The inability to receive local stations restricts access to local content and severely limits the reach of emergency notifications.

Emergency situations, like the butane tank truck that recently overturned on an icy highway during a blizzard, should serve as proof that the availability of local stations on satellite television is not just an entertainment issue. The DMA system may make sense for the densely populated areas in the East, but it has created an absurdity in the sparsely populated areas of the West. I am grateful for the inclusion of a study to find a better way to determine what the local market is.

But, Madam Speaker, people in Wyoming do not need a study to tell them that when their network TV station originates 400 miles away from a different State, they are not receiving the local content they need. For this reason, I cannot support passage of this bill despite its tremendous improvements.