Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the so-called economic stimulus bill involves itself in health care. And, Mr. Speaker, if the seniors in this country and the AARP take a real close look at this bill, I believe seniors would not only be calling the Capitol, raising cane about what's in it, but they'll be marching on the Capitol.

What it's going to do is it's going to require that there will be rationing, and it will be based upon some formulas that will say if you only have an

expectation of another 8 or 9 years of life left, or 4 or 5 years, that they will ration the care that you get based upon the life expectancy. It's unbelievable.

Let me just read to you some things that Mr. Daschle had put in the bill before he was removed as the potential head of HHS. Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the tough decisions elected politicians won't make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effective Research. Pages 190-192 in the bill. The goal, Daschle's book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they're driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept ``hopeless diagnoses'' and ``forego experimental treatments,'' and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from our health care system. The elderly are hit the hardest.

Daschle says health care reform ``will not be pain-free.'' Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age, instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt of what is in this bill.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council. The Federal Council is modeled after a United Kingdom board discussed in Daschle's book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit.

So they are going to figure out how many years you're supposed to live and then they're going to divide the treatment based upon the years. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a UK health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before you could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost 3 years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

There are hidden provisions in this bill. If the Obama administration's economic stimulus bill passes in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing of health care. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later. Let me say that gain. Seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing of health care as they have in the UK.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from the medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined.

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration's health care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next President should act quickly before critics mount opposition. ``If that means attaching a health care plan,'' and this is a quote now, ``If that means attaching a health care plan to the Federal budget, so be it,'' he said. ``The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.''

If I were talking to the seniors of this country, I'd say you really ought to read this bill. You ought to look at pages 445, 454, 479, 442, 446, 511, 518, 540, 541, 190, 192, and 464. I know I went through those fast, but I am going to put this in the Congressional Record and it will be on my Web site.

But every senior American and the AARP ought to be very concerned about this, Mr. Speaker, because it will result in rationing health care for seniors, and it will minimize health care for a lot of other people as well, even because they are younger.

And the doctors in this country and the nurses and health care officials ought to be very concerned because it's going to impose penalties on them if they don't follow the government's requirements. It's in the bill. This isn't baloney. And I hope my colleagues and everybody will take a hard look at it.

Mr. Speaker, if the seniors across this country are paying attention, I hope they will read the bill as well.

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

(Commentary by Betsy McCaughey)

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg)--Republican Senators are questioning

whether President Barack Obama's stimulus bill contains the

right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the

economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the

health provisions slipped in without discussion. These

provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until

recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services

Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them

because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers

refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill's health rules will affect ``every individual in

the United States'' (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments

will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having

electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily

transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid

duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the

National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will

monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the

federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The

goal is to reduce costs and ``guide'' your doctor's decisions

(442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are

virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008

book, ``Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care

Crisis.'' According to Daschle, doctors have to give up

autonomy and ``learn to operate less like solo

practitioners.''

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is

important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not ``meaningful users'' of

the new system will face penalties. ``Meaningful user'' isn't

defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary,

who will be empowered to impose ``more stringent measures of

meaningful use over time'' (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the

electronically delivered protocols when your condition is

atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness

is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed

body with vast powers to make the ``tough'' decisions elected

politicians won't make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal

Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research

(190-192). The goal, Daschle's book explained, is to slow the

development and use of new medications and technologies

because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for

being more willing to accept ``hopeless diagnoses'' and

``forgo experimental treatments,'' and he chastises Americans

for expecting too much from the healthcare system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform ``will not be pain free.''

Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come

with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly

will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective.

The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost-

effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed

in Daschle's book. This board approves or rejects treatments

using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the

number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments

for younger patients are more often approved than treatments

for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients

with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind

in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save

the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests

before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration's economic stimulus bill passes

the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face

similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that

individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care,

from medical and nursing education, to how patients are

treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates

more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy,

Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is

intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration's

health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to

debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next

president should act quickly before critics mount an

opposition. ``If that means attaching a health-care plan to

the federal budget, so be it,'' he said. ``The issue is too

important to be stalled by Senate protocol.''

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it ``inexcusable and

irresponsible'' for senators to delay passing the stimulus

bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the

U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation's gross

domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way

European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a

growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in

the electronics or

auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is

dangerous to your health and the economy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, instead of tax cuts, we've given Wall Street and the bankers $700 billion in the bailout; $14 billion to the auto industry; and this bill is $850 billion, an ``economic stimulus'' package. No tax cuts really, just more and more spending. And this is going to cause a severe inflationary problem down the road.

And what have the President, the Vice President, and chief economic adviser to the President said? They said this is a good down payment on the problem. So today on television some of the news commentators said, well, is the money we're spending so far going to be enough? And I will just say to them right now if they're paying any attention, according to the administration and the chief economic advisers, this is just a down payment. We're going to spend trillions and trillions more, wasteful spending into a black hole, in my opinion, and it's going to cause severe inflationary problems and economic problems down the road that nobody really anticipates.

We have got to cut spending and we need to cut taxes. That's the solution to the problem.

Mr. Speaker, the week has ended, Republicans are going on a retreat, I presume the Democrats are going home, and there aren't many of us left in the Chamber. And sometimes I feel a little bit like some of my colleagues, like a voice hollering in the wilderness because it doesn't seem as though we're getting much attention on the issues that we raise.

In the late 1970s, we ended up with hyperinflation. Inflation was running at about 12, 14 percent; unemployment was running about 12 percent. And Mr. Carter brought a man in named Mr. Volcker to do something about the

runaway inflation and the unemployment.

And Mr. Volcker came in to stop the inflation by raising interest rates, and he raised interest rates to 21.5 percent. He put a hammer on the entire economy of the United States. Businesses went under, the real estate industry went under. My business, we had $11 million in pending sales in real estate, we were only able to close on $1 million. We had to put 10 or 11 people out of work because you couldn't buy anything with interest rates being at 21.5 percent.

So what happened is the American people elected a man named Ronald Reagan, who came in and he said America could do better and would do better. And the way to do it was to give the American people some of their money back so they could spend it to buy things that they needed, thereby creating products, thereby creating jobs, and thereby helping economic growth. And within about 3 years, the economy turned around, and we had one of the largest and longest periods of economic growth in the last 100 years. And it was because we cut taxes for business, we cut taxes for individuals, and we stimulated economic growth.

Now we're heading down that path that we headed on down in the 1970s. Today we added $825 billion to the deficit. We had a $700 billion bailout for the banks and Wall Street not too long ago added to the deficit. The total in the last month or so added in spending was $1.539 trillion, and CBO says it's more than that. This is only going to cause more problems down the road. It's not, in my opinion, going to solve the problem of joblessness. It's going to add to the necessity for more spending.

This isn't the end of spending. This was asked on television I think earlier today: Is this going to solve the problem; is this the end of additional spending? It will not be. There are going to be trillions more added to the request for spending in the not-too-distant future. The President, the Vice President, and his chief economic advisor said that we're going to need more, that this was a good step first--a good first step, $1.5 trillion?

We're going to have more, and it's going to cause more economic problems down the road in the form of higher inflation, thereby, higher prices; and we're going to end up with somebody coming in to try to do something about the inflation, like Mr. Volcker did before, to put the hammer on it by raising interest rates, which will put a real hammer again on the economy of this country.

We're not solving these problems. We're not solving the problems of joblessness. We're not going to create new jobs with this plan we just passed today. We're going to create more government, not less. We're going to move this government toward socialism and away from the free enterprise system.

And the kids that are growing up today are going to be saddled with our debt. They're going to pay for it with higher taxes, higher spending down the road, inflation, and a lower standard of living. And this is something that we need not do.

There is still time to reverse this by realizing that the way to stimulate economic growth is by cutting taxes, not increasing spending, by cutting spending, not increasing spending. And if we do that, we will put this country on the road to economic recovery, which is the right approach. Not more government spending, not trillions more; that's only going to exacerbate the problem.

So, Mr. Speaker, the week has ended. We've spent all this money, we haven't solved the problem, and we're going to continue down the road we're on. I hope my colleagues, before it's too late, will realize free enterprise and lower taxes and less spending is the way to solve this problem, not socialism, more government, and more taxes.

I thank my good buddy for yielding.

Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of England, said that the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of somebody else's money. And what I'm concerned about here is not just the money we're spending today. We have spent $700 billion on the Wall Street bailout, and we don't know where most of that money has gone. Now we're going to put another $835 billion into this so-called economic stimulus bill.

President Obama said on January 16 that this plan is a significant down payment on our most urgent challenges. Vice President Biden said last Sunday that Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, will soon recommend to President Obama whether more money is needed beyond the $700 billion allocated to American banks. Lawrence Summers, the top economic adviser to the President, said that the government can't afford to spend more than $1 trillion to boost the economy and save financial institutions.

My question is, where does it end? We're printing so much money and we're going to spend so much money that we're going to put this whole country and our future generations into a deep hole which will lead us, in my opinion, to government control and socialism.

The thing that has made this country great is the free enterprise system and private enterprise and private individuals making a profit, creating jobs and making the economy flourish. What we're doing is we're turning this whole economy over to the government with more and more and more spending. And what we're doing today is just the beginning. We're talking about $2 trillion, $3 trillion, $4 trillion more down the road, and we can't afford it. We can't afford the inflation, and we certainly can't afford socialism and more government control.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleagues a question: Who said this: ``The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of someone else's money'' that is the problem with big spending in government when you don't have it?

My good friend, Mr. Poe, just talked about a lot of the waste that is in the so-called stimulus package. But you know, in addition to that there are a lot of other things that worry me, like the things that the President just said and some of his cabinet members just said, and what the vice president just said.

Let me just read to you a quote from President Obama which was on Friday, January 16. He said, talking about the $835 billion stimulus package, ``This plan is a significant down payment on our most urgent challenges.'' Down payment? That is almost $1 trillion, plus the $700 billion that we put in the bailout bill for the banks and Wall Street. So that is $1.5 trillion, and he says this is a down payment on our most urgent challenges.

We are spending so much money that we are going to have hyperinflation down the road. And it won't be just us that will be paying for it; it will be our kids and our grandkids, and the quality of life for everyone is going to suffer.

And then, of course this Sunday, appearing on CBS face the Nation, Vice President Biden said that, ``Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, will soon recommend to President Obama whether more money is needed beyond the $700 billion already allocated to American banks.''

So the $700 billion, $350 billion of which we don't know anything about, it may have been wasted, at least a large part, and there is another $350 billion in the tank that President Obama is going to use; and now Vice President Biden is saying that they may need more than the $700 billion.

So here, we hear the President talking about a down payment on the money that is going to be spent, $835 billion, and Lord only knows how much is going to be added to that. And then, Vice President Biden says that Mr. Geithner might want more than the $700 billion that has been used for bailing out the banks and Wall Street. And then of course, on Meet the Press Sunday, Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Obama, said, ``The government can't afford to spend more than $1 trillion to boost the economy and save financial institutions.''

I would just like to say to my friends who might be paying attention, it is not the government that is spending that money; it is the taxpayers that are spending that money. And we are spending this country right down into a dark black hole from which we may never get out. I mean, it is tragic that we are just throwing money at this, when we should be cutting taxes across the board to give Americans and business more disposable income so they can get this economy moving again in the right direction through the free enterprise system.

President Barack Obama signed his first two Presidential memoranda aimed at getting us on the path to energy independence; and what he said when he signed those just today or yesterday, he said, ``That is a down payment on a broader and sustained effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.''

Everything is a down payment, which means they are going to spend trillions more, billions and trillions more of money that they don't have that is going to have to be printed or we are going to have to borrow from someplace like China.

We are putting this country into an economic black hole that we shouldn't be doing right now. What we should be doing is stimulating the economy the right way, by giving the American people part of their hard-earned money back and creating an incentive for business to invest in this country, like cutting the capital gains tax at least for 1 or 2 years. If we did that, we would have true economic recovery that will last, and not something that is just going to last until we print more money.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

And I want to say that I agree with a great deal of what Ms. Kaptur just said. She is a very thoughtful legislator.

One of the things that hasn't been addressed today is something I think we should really pay attention to, and that's history. Back in the 1970s, we spent ourselves into a real hole and we had what was called hyperinflation. Interest rates were supposedly a solution to the problem. We had inflation that was about 14 percent. We had unemployment that was 10 or 11 or 12 percent. So they brought Mr. Volcker in, who was the head of the Fed at the time, and they raised the interest rates to 21\1/2\ percent because that was the only way they thought they could get inflation under control. And it put a hammer on the economy.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because we are heading toward hyperinflation again. We're spending so much money that we don't have that they're going to have to print it. We are spending $700 billion on the TARP plan. We don't know where the money's going. We have got another 825 or 830 billion coming up in the next couple of weeks. We're going to be looking at $2 to $3 trillion of additional spending that we don't have.

And where do you think that money is going to come from? It's going to come from the taxpayer, and it's going to come from the hides of the people of this country because they're going to have to print that money, and when they do, we'll have more money chasing fewer goods and services, which

means we are going to have very high inflation. And what will happen then? They'll come back with a hammer and they'll say the only way to stop inflation is to raise interest rates, which will put us into another economic decline. It will be like a rubber band. We'll be going like this.

The best way to deal with the problem today is to cut taxes, to stimulate economic growth by helping the private sector and giving the American people more disposable income, not by printing more money and just throwing money at these problems. It's not going to solve the problem. It's going to cause severe economic problems down the road that we don't even visualize yet it will be so bad.

So I would just like to say to my colleagues let's think about the kids of the future that are going to have to bear the responsibility for this. They're the ones that are going to be paying the price because we're spending so much money we don't have right now.

We are heading toward hyperinflation.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives just a few minutes ago voted to disapprove the $350 billion in additional funds for the TARP bailout. But because of the way the original bill was passed, that won't do a thing to stop it.

That money is going to be given to the administration and it's going to be spent. We don't know where the $700 billion is going. We know where part of it is going, but we certainly don't know where most of it's going.

That means the American taxpayers have given $700 billion to the Congress of the United States and we have ceded the authority to spend that money to the administration without any real oversight. We don't know where that money is being spent and, as a result, we have abnegated our responsibility to oversee the power of the purse and make sure we are spending the money of the taxpayers wisely.

In addition to that, not knowing where we are going to spend it, where they are spending the $700 billion, next week we are going to have another $825 billion bill that is going to come to this Congress, and we are not going to know what that bill is until the markup is finished tomorrow, which means that we will probably get the information on it Saturday, and Monday will be the first day that Congress will really take a hard look at it.

So we will have the afternoon of Monday, and Tuesday, and then vote on Wednesday on an $825 billion supplemental stimulus package. That means in the last 3 or 4 weeks we will have spent almost $1\1/2\ trillion of taxpayers' money and we don't know where it's going. We are ceding that authority to the executive branch. And it's an abnegation of our responsibility, for the most part. We know where some of it's going, but not all of it, not most of it. And it really, really bothers me.

When we come down here and speak, Mr. Speaker, we know from time to time there's an awful lot of young people that watch us in the gallery. And there's a lot of young people and parents watching from at home. And the thing that bothers me is we are spending this money like it's going out of style, without any accountability, and we are spending it in such large numbers that it has to have a long-term, terribly inflationary impact on the economy of the United States of America.

People in this country don't really know what hyperinflation is. But after World War II, Germany, people would get money and they would have to take a wheel barrel full of money to the store to buy bread or meat or something to live on, and if they didn't do it that day, the money would devalue that day and it would be worth less the next day.

I don't think that's going to happen here in the United States. But what will happen, in my opinion, is we will have very strong inflation like we had back in the seventies under Jimmy Carter when he was President. We had inflation that ran 14 percent. We had unemployment that was 10, 11, 12 percent. Because of that, the economy was really floundering. And so they brought in Mr. Volcker, who is once again in the administration.

I am happy to yield to my colleague.

A $100 billion piece of currency won't buy a loaf of bread. That's what happens when you have hyperinflation. It destroys the economy of a country. And we are spending this money so rapidly and without any accountability that it really scares me. These young people who watch us and who hear us talk, they are the ones who are going to have to deal with this in the long-run because if the currency devalues, that means the cost of everything is going to go up and they are going to have to pay for it.

What happened back in the seventies was it got so bad that they brought Mr. Volcker in, who's in this administration now, and he raised interest rates to 21\1/2\ percent. Well, boy, that put the hammer on the economy. It slowed down inflation all right, but it increased the problems with unemployment, and it hurt the economy so desperately that Mr. Carter was saying, My gosh, we had to do with less. We had to handle our lives in a much more simple fashion because we couldn't afford to live well again.

And then Ronald Reagan came in and said the way to stimulate the economy is to cut taxes to give the American people more of their money back and let them spend it, to cut the taxes on business so there was more money for investment.

And, because of that, we came out of that recession and we had about 8 or 9 years of very positive economic growth. In fact, it was one of the longest periods of economic growth in the history of this country. But now we are spending money more rapidly than we did in the past. It's unbelievable the way they are going to have to print money to deal with this problem.

And so I am very concerned, and I am going to be down here talking about this a lot, that we have to do something to stop the spending, to control the spending, to be more accountable, because if we don't, there will be hyperinflation, there will be a rubber band effect on the economy, because once it gets so high, they are going to have to raise interest rates so high that you can't buy anything on time. And then the economy will go into a nose dive.

It just will not work. It's going to be very horrible for this economy long term if we continue down the path we are on. There needs to be accountability. And what we have done in the

last couple of months and we are going to do this next week is not going to solve the problem. It's only going to make it worse.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

What does that mean, a ``senior Member''? I hope it doesn't mean I look old.

All right.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that Everett Dirksen, when he was a United States Senator, said, a billion here, a billion there, and you're really talking about money, real money. Now it's a trillion here, a trillion there, and you're talking about real money. The only problem is the American people are going to face hyperinflation down the road if we continue down this path.

Today we are talking about an additional $350 billion, and we don't even know where the first $350 billion of the bailout was spent. It makes no sense to me to be voting for this today when we really don't have any accountability for the first tranche, the $350 billion that has already been allocated.

People in the stock market are taking a real bath. People who have investments, their life investments, in the stock market are taking a real bath. People who are going to retire or are already retired are taking a real bath.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the people who are having trouble in the stock market ought to start looking at places to invest like the ink that's being sold to the U.S. Treasury or the paper that's being sold to the U.S. Treasury that's going to be used to print more and more and more money.

I don't want to take the whole extra minute my colleague has allocated to me, and I really appreciate it, but I would like to say if I were talking to the President or the American people that we have to control spending in this place. We have to control spending. If we don't do that, we're going to see very high inflation which will be followed by very high interest rates, will put a real kibosh and a rubber band effect on our economy. The way to solve this problem is to give the American people some of their money

back with tax cuts and to cut capital gains.

So I would like to end up by just saying let's be more concerned about spending around here. Let's really start thinking about it. It's the people's money. The taxpayers want accountability.

Let me just start off by saying I'm opposed to all these bailouts.

But after having said, let me say that if we're going to do it we really need a comprehensive plan that's going to deal with the problems facing this country.

I had home builders come into my office last week, and they told me that their businesses are being re-appraised, and they're going to have to pay the difference between what the appraisal was initially and what it is now, and they're driving a lot of these home builders out of business.

I had some people who are commercial developers come in to see me last

week, and they told me that their commercial assets are being re- appraised, maybe 70 percent of what they were before, and they have to pay the difference between what they were getting and the 70 percent, and they're being driven out of business. So there's a huge cascading effect with all these problems that we're facing right now. And we're not addressing them in this bill or any of the other bills that I've seen.

You've got people who are losing their homes. You've got home builders that are going out of business. You've got commercial developers that are going out of business because of these re- appraisals, and there's nothing in the plans that I've seen that addresses these problems.

Mr. Frank and I are good friends. But just throwing this money at these problems without any plan is actually crazy. And yet we did it with the first $350 billion tranche, and we're going to do it again, and then we're going to come back with a $1.2 trillion request in just another 2 or 3 weeks. I mean, we can't buy our way out of these problems. We have to have a sound business plan to deal with these problems. And if we don't do it, we're going to see a huge economic problem that's even worse than what we face today.

So I'd like to say to Mr. Frank and my colleagues, before we start giving all this money away, why don't we really sit down with the people that are supposed to be administering this money and come up with a sound plan that affects the entire economy. I mean, if you're going to spend the money, we might as well do it the right way.

I don't want to discuss things that have already been discussed, but the things that concern me are things like this will be a magnet for more illegal aliens coming into this country because it's going to provide a mechanism for illegals to get coverage under this bill.

It's going to cost $44 billion more than the baseline. It's going to involve a tax increase.

You know, one of the things that really concerns me about what we are doing is we passed a bailout bill for $700 billion. We are going to pass another bill here, a supplemental, it's going to be $1.2 trillion. We spent $14 billion for the auto industry.

This is going to cost $44 billion over the baseline. Where do you think all this money is coming from? And I wish my colleagues would start thinking about the kids in the future as well as what we are talking about today. Because the inflation problem they are going to face is going to be huge.

You have got to print this money. It has got to come from someplace. And the kids of kids of today and tomorrow are going to have to pay through the nose for the things we are doing today. We don't have all the money to do these things, and yet we are spending. That will lead to hyperinflation down the road and severe economic problems.

Mr. Chairman, not long ago, the Secretary of the Treasury came into our conference, and he was visibly shaken. He said, if we didn't pony up $700 billion in a short period of time, the entire economy of the United States was going to dissolve, and we would have a major depression. There was no plan. It was just ``give us $700 billion.''

Instead of talking about long-term solutions, such as tax cuts, for the people across the board or instead of stopping capital gains and doing away with capital gains taxes for a couple of years to stimulate investment, they said, Throw $700 billion at us, and we'll solve the problem.

Well, here we are a short time later. $350 billion has been spent, and nobody knows where. I mean, we come down to this floor. We start talking about the things that have been accomplished. We still have people losing their homes. The financial system in this country is in really bad shape, and companies are going bankrupt. $350 billion has been spent, and nobody knows where. I know part of it went to buy a bank in China. I'm sure the American taxpayers really appreciate that.

Now they're saying we've got to give another $350 billion very quickly or, once again, the sky is going to fall. Well, the sky has been falling, and it seems to me that we ought to have a plan that deals with the long-term financial problems facing this country.

The long-term financial problems facing this country involve investment, jobs, and economic growth. The only way you're going to get economic growth is to stimulate the economy by creating an incentive for people to invest. Tax cuts. We need to cut capital gains. I don't think anybody is really listening, but we need to cut capital gains. We need to have tax cuts across the board. If we do that, I think you'll start to see signs of recovery in the not-too-distant future.

In the meantime, we may have to pony up a few more hundred billion dollars to keep things going while this takes place, but we need an overall plan, not just another $350 billion thrown at the Federal Reserve.

Let me just summarize by saying that we need a plan, a comprehensive plan, that involves not only spending this $350 billion but also a plan that will involve tax cuts across the board and incentives for business to invest, such as a cut in the capital gains tax rate and cuts in business taxes across the board. If we do that and come up with a comprehensive plan, maybe we could work our way out of this, but we certainly cannot do it by just throwing more money at the problem.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to be an original cosponsor and strong supporter of House Resolution (H. Res.) 34 which expresses the United States House of Representatives strong support for and commitment to Israel and recognizes that Israel has a fundamental right to defend its citizens against violent attacks.

Back in 2005, I spoke to this House to express my profound concern about Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. I feared that Islamic radicals would exploit that opportunity to jump-start the peace process and instead use Gaza as a launching pad for attacks on Israel; undermining the peace process, exacerbating global and regional terrorism and moving the Middle East one step closer to all out war. I am sad to see that circumstances have proven that my concerns were justified.

There can be no negotiations with--and no concession to--terrorists like Hamas; who refuse to even accept Israel's right to exist. If the world wants calm to return to the Middle East it must speak with one voice--as this House is speaking with one voice today--and tell the leaders of Hamas, and their handlers in Tehran--that blame for this bloodshed falls squarely on their shoulders. To end that bloodshed--and to bring humanitarian relief to the people living in Gaza, Hamas must immediately end the rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and verifiably dismantle its terrorist infrastructure.

Israel and the United States have shared a special bond since the founding of the modern Jewish State in 1948. As a lone State fighting for freedom and democracy in a region dominated by authoritarian and military regimes, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that the United States can fully count on to stand firm against the terrorists and oppressors.

As we continue to fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region by rogue regimes, and work to halt the States who continue to sponsor terrorism, Israel stands as a lone and vital ally. Similarly, Israel stands as an important strategic partner

with regard to our joint efforts to stop the spread of Islamic radicalism.

We all support the cause of peace; we all want to see the Israeli- Palestinian conflict resolved but will we ever reach that goal if the rockets and mortars do not stop; that is the first step.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 34.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I just want to say to Mr. Kucinich and all the previous speakers, I agree with most of what I have heard today, except the way we get there. I don't think anybody in the House or the Senate wants the auto industry and related industries to collapse. Nobody wants that. The question is, how do we get to a solution that is workable, that will work over the long term?

Just a few weeks ago we passed the TARP bill, and we were told in just a day or two that we had to pass this or the entire financial system in this country and the world was going to collapse. We threw $700-plus billion at it, and today there are an awful lot of Members in both bodies that think, hey, it isn't working the way we thought it would. Things have gone south in a lot of areas, and we should have thought about this a little more carefully.

Now, I had the mayor of Marion, Indiana, and a lot of GM executives come in to see me last week and they told me in Marion, Indiana, they would lose $5 million in tax revenue if these companies go under.

And they would have to lay off firemen and policemen and other civil employees. Nobody wants that to happen. But how do we solve the problem long term?

And my concern is we're throwing $15 billion at this right now without a solution. We're going to have these people come to the conference table after we give them $15 billion, just like we gave the $700 billion a few weeks ago in the TARP plan, and we're going to say, now go solve the problem and come up

with an answer. We need to have these answers first, and then give them the money.

I don't mind staying here through Christmas and New Years to find a solution to save the automobile industry and the related industries. But this isn't the way, in my opinion, to do that.

Now, you know, Senator Corker, in the other body, said, here's the way that we ought to solve the problem; and I'd like to read this to my colleagues. He said, Number 1, the manufacturers should give existing bondholders 30 cents on the dollar to help reduce their overall debt. Right now they'd only get 13 cents on the dollar, so 30 cents on the dollar would make them happy, and they would agree to that. And Senator Corker said this ought to be one of the things that's in the plan.

Second, he said, wages should immediately come in-line with the transplant companies. And I think everybody that thinks about this realizes that if your cost of doing business is not competitive with your opposition, you're not going to survive. So that's an essential thing, in my opinion.

Third, the UAW should take half of GM's payment in the Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association in GM stock; and I think they should do that because they're in this thing with everybody else, and taking half of their benefits in stock would be a great thing. And I think they would enjoy doing that if they knew the company was going to survive. And they want it to survive.

And finally, the Jobs Bank program should be eliminated. He said, if you had these four things as a starting point, we could get on with the business of solving this problem.

Now, at the hearing in the Senate Banking Committee the other day, Mark Zandi, who is the Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Moody's Economic Guide said, testified, ``under the most likely outlook for the economy and the auto industry, the restructuring plans in which the Big Three have requested $35 billion in loans,'' at that time it was $34 billion, ``will not be sufficient for them to avoid bankruptcy at the same point in the next 2 years. They would ultimately need another 75 to $125 billion to avoid bankruptcy.''

Now, we need to solve this problem. I want to help those employees. I want to help the executives. I want to help the communities that will suffer if they lose the tax revenues from these people who would lose their jobs and if the industry went south. I want to solve it. But rushing to judgement today, just like that, and throwing $15 billion at it, without a solution, in my opinion, is the wrong way to go.

So I'd just like to say to my colleagues, if you really want to solve this problem long term, let's don't rush to judgment today. Let's stick around here a few more days and work this out so we can really solve the problem long term so the industry can survive.

Madam Speaker, in the aftermath of September 11th, we have made huge strides in expanding and updating our Nation's emergency preparedness and response capabilities. As a whole, our communities are better prepared than ever before. However, like with everything else, more can be done and we cannot lull ourselves into believing that we have all the answers; especially considering that we do not know what the next terrorist attack may look like. The old military adage is that you go into the next war with your army prepared for the last war; and I believe that philosophy applies to our Nation's emergency response system. I believe that our first responders have worked hard to anticipate and train for a future crisis but what will we do if those experts become the victims? It is not hard to imagine a scenario where terrorists attack police, firefighters and other emergency responders in order to sow more chaos and confusion. If our frontline responders go down are others prepared to step up and handle the crisis?

I believe that we should look to the efforts of ZAKA Rescue and Recovery, an Israeli volunteer organization dedicated to helping victims of terrorist attacks, accidents or natural disasters for guidance. I think we can all agree that the threat of terrorist attacks and missile strikes are an everyday worry for the people of Israel; and ZAKA volunteers are often the first to arrive on the scene when tragedy strikes working seamlessly with Israel's police and emergency responders. At the core of ZAKA's mission is the belief in the preservation of human dignity when disaster strikes. ZAKA volunteers provide first aid and rescue services, aid in the identification of the victims of terrorism, accidents and other disasters, and where necessary ensure that the deceased receive a proper Jewish burial. ZAKA first aid materials and supplies and volunteers are prepositioned in practically every Israeli community; along with special motor scooters ready to take them to the scene of any accident or terrorist attack day or night.

ZAKA has gained international recognition by expanding their rescue and recovery work around the world to include the United States. In the aftermath of the deadly Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, ZAKA teams were on the ground and worked side-by-side with the host nations and other international rescue and recovery teams to help identify victims. ZAKA has also helped return victims of plane crashes in Russia and Namibia as well as help rescue and preserve sacred Jewish Torahs in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Last year alone, ZAKA volunteers participated in more than 18,000 life-saving or search-and- rescue incidents, and I believe that ZAKA has a level of emergency preparedness and response expertise that we here in the United States could benefit from. That's why I truly believe America's first responders and our communities could benefit from ZAKA's expertise and vice versa. ZAKA's dedication to

``saving those who can be saved, and honoring those who cannot'' should be commended and I am proud to stand up and recognize their good works.

Our Nation's first responders are dedicated and, in my opinion, the best in the business. I commend all of America's first responders and the countless volunteer organizations who came to the rescue of their fellow citizens following September 11th, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, and who joined in the international relief efforts to aid the victims of the 2004 tsunami. Simply put, international relief organizations, like ZAKA and the Red Cross, are critical backstop players in search-and-rescue and recovery efforts, and I hope my colleagues will take the opportunity to research and learn about ZAKA's story and capabilities.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This appears to be a pretty good bill, but we're not going to help small business until we get an energy package that's going to lower the price of energy, gasoline, and other forms of energy in this country. We're sending $700 billion a year overseas that could be kept here in America by drilling here in America and getting energy out of the ground here in America creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen until we get a good energy bill.

We're asked today to deal with a $700 billion piece of legislation that will help keep this country's economy afloat. And I submit to my colleagues tonight or today that even if we passed that and we solved this problem temporarily, we're going to be right back here if we don't deal with the energy crisis.

This energy crisis is taking money out of everybody's pockets: small business, big business, homeowners. If a person has to pay exorbitant prices to fill their gas tank to get their kids to and from school and to and from work, it's going to hurt them. It's going to hurt them when they have to buy groceries that are transported across this country by diesel fuel and trucks. And because of that, people's cost of living is going up and up and up. And if you don't think that's going to have an impact on their ability to pay their home mortgages, you're just not thinking straight.

We have to deal with the energy crisis so people can spend less on energy, can have that money for food for their kids, and to get to and from school and to and from work and to pay for their home mortgages.

I think we have to deal with the crisis that faces us right now. But I think all of us ought to be aware that until we solve the energy crisis, until we become energy independent or move rapidly in that direction, we're going to continue to have problems in the future with this economy. This economy cannot stand $4 a gallon gasoline. We just can't. And it is going to impact every area of this economy now and in the future.

Even if we pass this so-called bailout bill today or next week or tomorrow, whenever we pass it, it's not going to solve the problem until we deal with the energy crisis which is an integral part of the problems facing America.

Madam Speaker, I rise as a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and member of the House Taiwan caucus, to honor the people of the Republic of China (Taiwan)--a strong strategic partner and ally not only to the United States but also among the democratic nations of our world--as they prepare to celebrate their 97th National Day on October 10th.

Taiwan's National Day, also known as Double Ten Day for its date on October 10th, marks the start of the revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China, the first republic in Asia. Many Chinese on Taiwan have compared the celebration of this day with our own Independence Day and celebrate with the notable spectacle of parades and fireworks.

It has been nearly a century since October 10, 1911 and the ROC on Taiwan has become a full-fledged democracy. Just twenty some years ago, Taiwan was a closed authoritarian society with no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, and no right to vote. It now has robust political parties, and virtually every office in Taiwan is contested through free and fair elections. This past March, Taiwan successfully concluded the fourth popular election for president since 1996, showing once again her unwavering commitment to democracy and freedom. May Taiwan long continue to be a beacon of prosperity and freedom for all of Asia.

I believe that all Americans should be proud that Taiwan and the United States have enjoyed such a strong and durable relationship. Taiwan is one of our largest trading partners and the cultural exchanges between our two peoples are as vibrant as they have ever been. We are committed to defending Taiwan under the framework of the Taiwan Relations Act, and we are fully committed to a peaceful solution of the Taiwan issue; no military conflict should ever occur in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States to combat the scourge of global terrorism; and the people of Taiwan have always given generously in our greatest times of need with monetary contributions to the Twin Towers Fund, Pentagon Memorial Fund and through offer of humanitarian assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Taiwan and the United States are not merely allies; we are friends and partners in the truest sense of the words.

I have been a long-time supporter of Taiwan and hope that my colleagues and I will continue to improve relations not only between the United States and Taiwan but between Taiwan and the international community. It is imperative that the United States take more active steps to support Taiwan's ongoing efforts to participate in the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group and other regional and multi-national organizations. It is regrettable that Taiwan has been excluded from these organizations. It has been a gross injustice to deny Taiwan's 23 million people their proper voice in the world.

I myself have been to Taiwan on numerous occasions and have supported the work of its leaders through tremendous challenges, particularly in reference to cross-strait relations. As we continue to work toward solutions in this region of the world, let us commemorate and remember the ongoing commitment to democracy exemplified by Taiwan.

Madam Speaker, I would ask all of my colleagues to join me now to thank the people of Taiwan for their friendship, to congratulate them on the 97th Anniversary of National Day, and to renew our commitment to further develop and strengthen the bonds between our two peoples.