Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 184, I call up the bill

(H.R. 1105) making omnibus appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I think we've already debated this issue extensively. This bill is needed to fill in the gaps left in the existing budget for this year. It is the last of yesterday's business so that we can move ahead to deal with the President's expected new budget. I would urge support for the package.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert tabular and extraneous material on H.R. 1105.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, for the last year and a half, this committee has been taking every reasonable action to ensure transparency in the earmarking process.

As an article in today's Roll Call says, ``The disclosure system implemented in the 110th Congress now allows for all of these Members' earmarks to be located with a simple search of the online version of the bill, allowing for more transparency than ever.''

One aspect of the transparency process is to list the names of every Member requesting an earmark. It has come to our attention that a small number of earmarks with multiple sponsors inadvertently omitted some Members' names--a simple staff error. To ensure full and complete transparency, I am entering into the Record the additional names that should be attached to those requests. These are not new projects. We are simply adding additional Members' names who should be listed as sponsors or as cosponsors.

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I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

I yield an additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really hate to take the time, but I do think in light of all that's been said that one last time I need to put in context what it is we're doing with this bill.

As I indicated earlier, last year we finished our international bills, but we reached an impasse with then President Bush because the President insisted that he would only sign appropriation bills that fit within his budget recommendations. Those budget recommendations were some $20 billion short of what the Congress determined when it passed the budget resolution that we needed to provide for those programs. If we had simply acquiesced in President Bush's programs, we would have cut the Job Corps, we would have eliminated Employment Service grants, we would have cut senior jobs by $172 million, we would have eliminated vocational education programs, we would have eliminated three student aid programs including the Perkins loan program, we would have funded the highway infrastructure at $800 million below the level guaranteed in the authorization, we would have cut airport modernization grants by 22 percent, we would have eliminated Community Service Block Grants, and we would have cut Low Income Home Energy Assistance by $570 million, and we would have cut health care access programs by $1 billion. As I said many times on this floor, I have never had anybody come up to me at home and say, ``Obey, why don't you guys in Congress get your act together and cut cancer research?'' And yet that's what the previous President and the previous Republican-controlled Congress did over a 2-year period. They cut over 900 medical research grants out of the National Institutes for Health. We objected to that and said, no, we didn't think that ought to happen.

So we then offered the President a compromise. I called the White House budget office, and I said, look, why don't we at least just split the difference between these bills so we can get something done on the domestic side of the ledger? They said no. At that point we had a choice. We could acquiesce in these reductions or we could say, no, we're going to bet on the outcome of the election. We did. Mr. Obama won. We now have a White House which is firm in its beliefs but also one that recognizes that people have to compromise to get things done.

This is now a compromise package brought to the House. This has been worked out at the staff level between Republicans and Democrats alike in both the Senate and the House. And the Senate minority leader, Senator McConnell, while I suspect he will vote against this package, urged us to take it up 3 weeks ago because he indicated it had been fully vetted by both sides, by both parties, and he said in his estimate he thought it would pass with an overwhelming vote. We shall see.

But I want to explain two other things about this bill, what this bill really does. And it's been suggested that this bill is not at all coordinated with the stimulus package we passed last week. Absolutely false. This omnibus bill does two things: It provides base funding for the programs funded in the Recovery Act without which those additional recovery funds would not be useful. Example: the Social Security Administration. While the Recovery Act provides $1 billion to the Social Security Administration to replace its computer center and to process increased disability retirement requests, this bill provides $10.5 billion for Social Security operating budgets. It doesn't do any good to have a computer center if you don't have an operating budget. This bill provides the other half of the funding that's needed to make our promises on Pell grants to students around the country a reality.

The recovery bill in the area of highways provided $27.5 billion for additional highway construction. This bill provides $40.7 billion to improve and repair our Nation's aging highway infrastructure. The recovery bill was built with this package in mind.

The second thing this bill does is to provide basic funding for all kinds of programs that were not increased by the recovery package. Three-quarters of the accounts in the Federal Government did not receive an additional dime in that recovery package. This bill takes care of the base funding for those programs.

Now, we hear some concerns expressed from the other side of the aisle about the number of earmarks in the bill. Give me a break. The last time that our party controlled the House of Representatives, we had, for instance, in the Labor-Health-Education appropriation bill, depending upon how you define them, either zero earmarks or nine. When the Republicans lost control of the Congress, they were providing over three thousand earmarks in that subcommittee bill. That's the story, I mean as a practical matter. The other side didn't just let the cat out of the bag when it came to earmarks; they let out the whole blessed zoo. So now we have tried to reform that process, at the same time being respectful for Congress's right to determine how funding is directed in the budget. So we have a good many earmarks in this bill. Those earmarks represent congressional decisions about where dollars ought to be spent.

I would point out virtually every agency Secretary has far more in discretionary funds than the Congress has to distribute in earmarks. In fact, virtually every dollar in Secretary discretionary funds is nothing but funds that are reserved for administration earmarks or the functional equivalent thereof.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make one other point. We have heard a lot of concern expressed today on the other side of the aisle about the deficits that are being mounted by this bill in conjunction with the stimulus bill. Let me point out I have heard seven different times Members on that side of the aisle refer to the fact that this is a $400 billion bill. It is not. It is a $410 billion bill. But $390 billion of that represents requests on the part of the Bush administration. So let's keep that in perspective.

Secondly, I really don't want to have to take lectures from those who supported the idea that we should borrow $1.2 trillion in order to provide tax cuts over the past years, the lion's share of tax cuts going to the very wealthiest people in this society. I don't want to hear lectures from people who essentially provided what will eventually be $2 trillion in costs for the Iraqi war.

A number of us tried to assure that at least half of the money that we provided to Iraq in economic aid would be in the form of loans, because Iraq has a lot of oil and sooner or later is going to be a rich country and we wanted to see the American taxpayers reimbursed for some of the costs of building schools, building roads and all the rest in Iraq. No, we couldn't get the votes to do that.

But now we face a serious problem in our own country, not in Iraq, but in our own country. And so, yes, in combination of this bill with the stimulus package, or the recovery package, as it's known, there is an awful lot of money being spent. I make no apology for that, because we are trying to fill what is going to be a $3 trillion hole in the economy because of the rising unemployment numbers.

I want to use this chart for what I hope will be the last time. This chart demonstrates what is likely to happen in the economy if we do nothing. The red bars indicate what estimates are in the economic community, what estimates are of what will happen to unemployment rates if we do nothing. These red bars indicate that by the end of next year, the economics profession largely expects us to have unemployment around 11 percent, perhaps even higher. The blue bars represent what we hope will happen if the government passes a $750 billion economic recovery package.

As you can see, unemployment, even under that scenario, is expected to rise through the remainder of this year before it begins to turn down next year. What we have tried to do is simply shave off the worst, most extreme effects of this recession. That's what we have tried to do with the stimulus package.

So what we have really had here today is a regurgitation of the debate that occurred 2 weeks ago on that stimulus package. But the fact is that if you take that stimulus package and add it to this package today, you are still only talking about a package of $1.2 trillion to counter what is supposed to be a $3 trillion hole. I would submit that it is very easy to imagine that we will, in fact, be back here asking for even more by way of countercyclical funding to counter the deep slide that we see in our recession.

Poll after poll demonstrates that you have close to 70 percent of the American people who agree with what President Obama is trying to do in passing the package to produce this moderating effect on what will otherwise be the most serious recession since the thirties.

So I make no apology for the fact that instead of providing billions of dollars for economic recovery in Iraq, we are not trying to provide a good amount of money to provide economic recovery here at home. I thought that's what our job was, to primarily concentrate on the needs on the home front.

I would point out one other thing in closing. For all of us who have talked and told our constituents that at a time of extreme economic distress at home, Members of Congress should not be getting a pay raise next year, if you want to assure that that, in fact, happens and that we deny that pay raise for the coming year, then you must vote ``yes'' on this bill, because without this bill you do not have the limiting language that was inserted in this bill by the rule that was passed earlier today.

With that, I would urge an ``aye'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 168, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1) making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the

unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

If the gentleman would yield, I would simply note the House has already voted on how it intends to proceed, and I see no reason to depart from that.

If the gentleman is asking, would the gentleman yield for a response?

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the conference report accompanying H.R. 1, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

As Senator Cochran said, the time for talk is over. It is time to vote. The country needs this package. I urge support. I think we ought to get on with it.

Economic Analysis of the Conference Report on H.R. 1, the American

Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Economists generally agree that the Nation is facing one of

the most dire economic crises in our history. Over the past

three months 1.8 million jobs have been lost after falling

the same amount in the prior ten months. Other economic data

also point to an ever-faster sinking U.S. economy:

Unemployment has soared by 4.1 million, an increase of more

than 50 percent from 7.5 million to 11.6 million since

December 2007 when the recession began.

Full time employment dropped 3.5 million over the last

three months, much faster than at any time since the data

began in 1967.

Consumer demand for goods fell at an 11 percent rate in the

second half of 2008, faster than at any time in the 62 years

of data.

Only five months in six decades of data saw lower use of

our manufacturing capacity than the 70.2 percent recorded in

December.

Exports fell at a 19.7 percent annual rate in the most

recent quarter.

Nothing indicates that these trends will not continue

unless the federal government acts. While forecasters differ

on specifics, many believe that without quick and decisive

action the Nation could suffer another 5 million job losses

over the coming year.

The U.S. economy is caught in a vicious downward spiral

with self-reinforcing declines in spending, sales, jobs,

income, profits, government revenues, state and local

services, investment, and global trade. The federal

government is the only major actor in the U.S. economy with

the capacity to stop the downward spiral.

The current downturn looks a lot more like the early stages

of the Great Depression than any episode since the 1930s:

Rapid shrinkage in private credit, with crisis in every

major financial sector;

The favorite tool of the Federal Reserve (the short term

rate to banks) already lowered to virtually zero;

Evaporating household wealth with plunging values of homes

and financial assets;

Record high supplies of vacant homes and declines in home

values with no end in sight;

The fewest cars sold relative to the population since the

1940s; and

Inflation is verging on negative territory or deflation, a

condition that discourages consumption, as people wait to buy

at lower prices, and investment, as sales become more

problematic and effective borrowing costs rise. Deflation

also undermines monetary policy because interest rates cannot

go negative.

Opponents of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

often argue that ``spending is not stimulus'' because

spending by government just reduces spending by others. That

argument effectively assumes that total spending in the

economy cannot be raised. That would make sense if either (1)

we were at full employment or (2) increased government

borrowing came from lenders who would otherwise spend the

money on U.S. goods and services. Neither condition

applies today. We have high rates of unemployed labor and

capital equipment. We also find lenders eager to fund

federal borrowing rather than to spend, as evidenced by

exceptionally low interest rates on U.S. Treasury Bills.

These are textbook conditions justifying federal

government borrowing to boost the economy.

Some critics of this legislation have misinterpreted

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the effects of

this legislation on jobs and Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

over the next ten years. CBO found that bills like those

passed in the House and Senate would increase job-years by

3.1 million to 9.0 million over the next six years and would

not lower jobs thereafter. CBO also found that GDP would be

raised over the next ten years. GDP would be boosted 3 to 10

percent over the next several years. If only this bill is

enacted and nothing is done to raise saving, the bill would

have a zero to 0.2 percent annual reduction of GDP in the

long run.

Other opponents of this legislation have proposed as an

alternative measures intended to boost housing production or

prices. With 2.9 percent of homes still vacant, half again as

much as at any time prior to 2005, we could fritter away

hundreds of billions of dollars of additional deficit with a

negligible boost to the economy or jobs.

The Congressional Budget Office and private economic

forecasters have evaluated various options for boosting

national spending from an additional dollar of federal

deficit. They have consistently found that the highest ``bang

for the buck'' occurs with either direct federal spending or

transferring funds to those with tight budget constraints

such as cash-strapped households and state and local

governments with falling revenues and balanced budget

requirements. In contrast, they find that much less

additional spending would result from making more money

available to those with high incomes or to companies with

excess capacity. In recent testimony, CBO Director Elmendorf

stated, ``In CBO's judgment, H.R. 1 would provide a

substantial boost to economic activity over the next several

years relative to what would occur without any legislation.''

The bill's $789 billion price tag sounds large, but it is

more likely to be too little than too much. The CBO director

has testified that, if nothing is done, our economic output

will fall below its potential by close to a trillion dollars

this year and next and by another $600 billion in 2011. He

noted that this would be the largest gap relative to the size

of potential output since the Great Depression. It would

represent a loss in Americans' income and output of $2.5

trillion, or about $8,000 per person, that will be lost

forever.

The forecasters at the Congressional Budget Office, Moody's

Economy.com, Macroeconomic Advisors, and the Obama

Administration have all estimated that enactment of this

legislation could create or save 3 to 4 million jobs. If we

can gainfully employ

those millions of people, as opposed to having them be

unemployed, they can create a stronger economy for the future

by building infrastructure, creating technologies, and

improving their education and skills.

The following table summarizes the funding levels in

division A of the conference report:

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I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel.

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman 1 minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

I yield myself 10 seconds.

I wish the other side would make up their mind whether it's mice or rats, neither of which are in this bill if they will read it. Got it right here. Find it and show it to me. Show it to me. Show it to me.

I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

(Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Waxman.

I yield 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished dean of the House, the longest-serving Member in the House of Representatives of any Member in history, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Could I inquire of the gentleman how many speakers he has remaining?

Then I would ask the gentleman to proceed. We have only two left--the Speaker, and I will be closing.

Then I would suggest the gentleman proceed.

Could I inquire of the gentleman how many speakers he has remaining?

Then I would yield 1 minute to the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire how many more speakers the gentleman has.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time.

Mr. Speaker, this country faces the greatest crisis that we've seen in terms of our economy since the 1930s. Unemployment is expected by many people to hit 12 percent. We're told if we do nothing, we're likely to see unemployment at least around 12 percent; and we hope that with the passage of this proposal, we can mitigate that disaster to a significant degree.

Why are we in this trouble? Because we have had a virtual collapse and a freeze-up of the financial system and the credit markets; we've had a collapse of the housing sector of the economy and the auto sector of the economy.

In normal circumstances in a normal recession, we are usually led out of that recession by housing and by automobiles. This time, those two sectors are in shambles. They're not going to lead us out of anything for the moment.

The other tool normally available to us is monetary policy in the form of low interest rates through action of the Federal Reserve. We've already fired that bullet.

The only bullet left is fiscal policy. And so what we are trying to do with this bill is to save and create several million jobs, we're trying to help the victims of the recession who are losing their jobs, losing their health, losing their pensions, losing their ability to send their kids to college; and at the same time, we're trying to invest in new portions of the economy through science, technology, new energy initiatives to try to modernize the economy and make it stronger as we come out of this recession, as we most certainly eventually will.

And we are also, despite the objections of some on the minority, trying to put a quite significant amount of money into the health care system. What on earth is wrong with trying to save money in the health care system and at the same time making it more efficient by transferring our medical records to computerized records to reduce errors, and to save money at the same time?

Guess what? This bill isn't perfect. Guess what? I've never seen a perfect bill produced by this or any other legislative body.

You know, the worst thing that people can do in this town is to believe their own baloney. And I think what the likelihood is on this bill, frankly, is that supporters of the bill are inclined to overstate its possibilities and opponents, as we've seen here today, are certainly inclined to trash it.

I was criticized in the Rules Committee last night and again on the floor today because I frankly said, ``I do not know how many jobs this bill is likely to produce.''

What I do know is that the consensus of reputable economists around the country is that this bill will save or create several million jobs. Exactly how many will be determined by history.

Now, the critics say a number of things. They say the bill is too big, and then they announce they're going to produce a recommit motion which adds $9 billion to the cost. That's what I call falling off both sides of the same horse at the same time.

I would suggest that this bill is big, all right, but I'll make you a deal: You show me a smaller problem that we have to confront, and I will be happy to produce a smaller bill.

The fact is, we face, over the next 2\1/2\ years, a hole in the economy of approaching $2.5 to $3 trillion.

This is an $800 billion package over 2\1/2\ years. That means the annual fiscal thrust without the economic multipliers is about $300 billion. I personally think that it is smaller than it needs to be, but it has been downsized since it left the House to some degree in order to try to pick up Republican support in the Senate, and I understand that.

The critics have another technique: They trash by trivializing. They follow the guidelines laid out by one of the Members of their leadership a few months ago when he said in The Post that the way they ought to deal with the Democratic majority is to behave like a thousand mosquitos inflicting mosquito bites and tormenting the majority.

And so what do they say? They tell us, for instance, that there's an earmark in here for rail under ``high-speed rail.'' The fact is, there is not. All of the funding in that account is discretionary. It will be awarded competitively, and the decisions will be made entirely by the Department of Transportation. And the last time I looked, the new Cabinet Secretary was a Republican.

Secondly, they tell us that we're spending more money on the arts than we are on small business. We're putting $750 million in this bill for small business. There's $50 million in here for the arts. And you know what, there are 5 million people who work in the arts industry, and right now, they've got 12\1/2\ percent unemployment. Or are you suggesting that somehow if you work in that field, it isn't real when you lose your job, it isn't real when you lose your mortgage, it isn't real when you

lose your health insurance? We're trying to treat people who work in the arts the same way as anybody else.

And then they tell us there are mice, except when they say they're rats. Well, I would simply urge you to read The Mercury News because The Mercury News points out that that is a fallacious attack.

They say that we're spending $30 million on mice. Where did the $30 million figure come from? According to The Mercury News, and I will read this, ``It turns out that $30 million is the total amount that the California Coastal Conservancy, a State agency, recommended more than a month ago to numerous Federal agencies looking for lists of `shovel ready' projects as part of the stimulus bill planning.'' And the staff director for the minority leader himself told the press yesterday that he had to admit there was no specific reference to any mice or rats in this bill.

There is one place in this budget, however, where you do have mice. It's at NIH. One of the Members of this House told me today, ``I'd be happy to talk about mice because research projects at NIH saved my life''. Cancer research, the research is done on mice. Would you rather have the experimentation done on human beings? I don't think so.

If you look at what this bill does, it provides an $800 tax break for middle American couples. It provides $120 billion in infrastructure to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It shows some mercy to people who are unemployed by extending and expanding unemployment benefits. It tries to modernize the economy to create new jobs through science and technology. It provides $170 billion to help States avoid catastrophic tax increases that would be counterproductive during this kind of a recession. And it also helps them to avoid drastic cutbacks in education, in law enforcement, so that they don't have to fire cops, they don't have to fire teachers, they don't have to fire prison guards and all of the other people who are paid for out of State budgets. Those are some of the ``terrible'' things the bill does.

Now, this bill does have one problem. It is estimated that it creates about 1 million fewer jobs than it did when it left the House earlier. It does that in an effort to be bipartisan because the President reached out to try to get Republican support in the Senate, and he makes no apology for that and neither do I. But the fact remains, we still have 86 percent of the House bill that we had when the bill left the House. That is a pretty doggone good ratio.

I think we need to appreciate that this bill is the largest change in domestic policy since the 1930s. Think of what has happened.

One month ago, we had a President who insisted on holding up the entire domestic appropriation part of the budget because he wanted to impose $30 billion in cuts in education, in health care, science and the rest. In contrast today, we have a President who is willing to invest $800 billion to attack this recession and to turn this economy into a stronger and better economy for every American, not just the top 10 percent who have benefited by Republican policies.

One month ago, we had a President who resisted raising the minimum wage and resisted providing expanded unemployment insurance. Today, we've got a President who's reversing that policy and says ``Go to it, help those people, they need it.''

And we've also got a President who is willing to put $90 billion into States to preserve our society's ability to see to it that poor families and kids don't get knocked off the Medicaid rolls.

One month ago, we had a President who asked us to pass No Child Left Behind and then for the next 8 years reneged on the promise to provide additional funding to pay for the cost of those mandates. We had a vote today on the issue of mandates. The mother of all mandates has been No Child Left Behind, which I voted for, but I expected the President not to welch on the deal, and financially, he did. This changes that. This reverses that policy.

I would ask Members to vote for this bill. It will change this country for the better.

Would the gentleman yield?

Let me simply thank the gentleman for his comments and say that I appreciate the fact that we can debate these issues and still remain personal friends.

And I also want to thank, as the gentleman has, I want to thank profoundly the staff of this committee and all the committees who worked so hard. So often these people go 1 and 2 and 3 days in a row with little or no sleep. That certainly has been the case this week, and I'm profoundly grateful to the staff, certainly on our side of the aisle, especially Beverly Pheto who has become staff director because the White House stole our previous staff director.

Mr. Speaker, this is the last time that Dale Oak will be on this floor serving us as a member of the staff of the Appropriations Committee. He has been serving as the chief clerk for the Financial Services Subcommittee. He has served the Appropriations Committee in this House for 14 years, working for both the Republicans and Democrats, as has often been the tradition on the Appropriations Committee. He is leaving, and I simply want to thank him for the service he has given to the Committee and to the House, and wish him all the best in his new endeavor. He has been an incredibly hard worker, and we are all lucky to have public servants like him helping us.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XXII and by direction of the Committee on Appropriations, I move to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1) making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Madam Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis). All time yielded during consideration of the motion is for debate only.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I think the need for this action is obvious. The country is in trouble economically. We need to put an economic recovery package in place just as soon as possible. Going to conference is the next step to making that happen, and I would urge support for the motion.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.

I have one speaker, myself.

Madam Speaker, I don't intend to take a lot of time, but I do want to respond to some of the claims and comments made today in opposition to this legislation.

First of all, I do want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole). Like myself, he is a committed partisan, and I think, like myself, he is also an institutionalist, and while I recognize that he very much differs with the product that we have before us, I appreciate the fact that he did indicate that the committee consideration of this bill was an open process.

Let me simply respond to a few of the comments made by my friends on the other side of the aisle.

We're told by numerous speakers that this package is too large. In fact, I fear that it may be too small. We can't determine the proper size of any economic recovery package unless we have some understanding and some anticipation of the size of the problem that it is meant to alleviate.

My old friend Archie the Cockroach, for instance, in talking about the need for proportion said once, In life you always need proportion. ``Of what use is it for a queen bee to fall in love with a bull?''

I think that if we have large and serious economic crisis coming at us, that response needs to be large, bold and aggressive, and that's what I believe the President's package is.

Now, this package is $820 billion. It represents less than 6 percent of our total gross domestic product spread over several years. I would point out that when World War II hit us governmental spending went from 10 percent of GDP in 1940 to 44 percent in 1943 and 1944, a huge percentage, an increase of 34 percent. That was to save the country in time of war.

I would submit that the challenge to our economy today is every bit as large as the challenge of World War II was to this country in another time because we have been faced with the prospect of virtually total collapse of the financial sector of this economy.

Under the previous President, President Bush, when the crisis finally hit, this Congress gave him the benefit of the doubt, and even though we, many of us, had strong misgivings about the wisdom of the proposal, and even though many of us were frustrated by the fact that Secretary Paulson would not provide sufficient relief on the mortgage front, we nonetheless supported the President's request because we were told that the alternative was to see an absolute freeze up and collapse of the credit markets in this country, with disastrous results. Not just for those Wall Street wizards who helped cause the problem, but would also have resulted in the crushing of everybody else below them on the economic ladder as they fell from their Wall Street perches.

And now the President is asking us to do two additional things. His Secretary of the Treasury today is scheduled to explain to the country what their second step will be with respect to trying to stabilize the financial system in this country and, at the same time, trying to do something to deal with the horrendous collapse of housing prices and the horrendous collapse of people's equity in their homes. And then the next thing the President wants us to do is to pass this package.

Now, this package, as I've said, is a huge, huge endeavor. It is certainly of the size that would have been shocking just a few months ago, but it's responding to a problem just as large, and I want to show you what we're trying to respond to.

This chart shows projected unemployment levels from now through 2

years from today. It was presented by Mr. Mark Zandi, one of the principal economic advisers to Senator McCain in the last campaign. He represents Moody's Economy.com. The red bars indicate what he expects to happen to the unemployment levels if we do nothing. What he expects is that unemployment will rise from over 7 percent, slightly over 7 percent where it is today, to almost 11 percent and perhaps even higher 2 years from now.

In other words, he sees the economy sliding ever more deeply into the abyss over the next 2 years if we do nothing.

The blue bars represent what he thinks the unemployment levels will be if we do pass a $750 billion economic recovery package. Even then, he projects that by the second quarter of--not this year, but next year--he projects that unemployment will still have risen to around 9 percent.

As the President said last night, what that means is that no matter what we do, we are going to have a very, very rough year. And it is his hope and it is the expectation of most economists that if we pass this package, or something close to it, then we will be able to mitigate the rise in unemployment, that we will be able to reduce the expected levels of unemployment by at least 2 percent. And we hope what that will do is to begin to bring additional revenues back into the Treasury and, at the same time, in combination with the other actions of the President, restore a modicum of public confidence in the economy. Between those two actions, get the economy moving again, slowly but surely.

So this package attempts to use the only tool that we have available to get the economy going again. Normally, when we run into economic trouble, what we would do is rely on monetary policy in order to get us out of it. The problem is we have already fired that gun. The Federal Reserve has already brought interest rates down to record low levels. So we don't have that bullet in the gun any more.

About the only bullet left that we can fire is one of fiscal stimulus. And that is what this bill tries to do. It tries to make up for the fact that over the next 2\1/2\ years we are expected to have a $2.5 trillion hole in the economy because of the collapse of consumer purchasing power. And, as a result, what the President is trying to do is to partially fill that economic hole to mitigate the expected steep rise in unemployment.

And so the President is trying, in essence, to create or preserve about 4 million jobs by providing additional funding to produce clean, efficient energy alternatives. He wants to provide more jobs by trying to transform our economy through beefing up science and technology. He wants to provide more jobs by modernizing roads, bridges, transit, and waterways, to deal with the crumbling infrastructure of the last 30 years.

He wants to preserve hundreds of thousands of jobs by helping States to maintain their education budgets as their own revenue sources collapse so that we don't have to lay off school teachers; so we don't have to lay off janitors; so we don't have to lay off speech therapists and guidance counselors; so that we don't have to lay off cops; so that we don't have to lay off park workers.

In addition, he wants us to provide tax cuts in order to enable the middle class to finally get a little better deal on the tax side of the ledger. He wants to help workers hurt by the economy by providing additional help for those who have lost their jobs by way of an extension and an expansion of unemployment compensation. And he also wants to help those who have lost their health insurance by providing greater access to Medicaid and by providing some help to keep up with what is called their COBRA payments.

So that is what this package is all about. It is not perfect by any means. And we have substantial, but I hope not overpowering, differences between us and the Senate.

And so the purpose of this motion is to simply have us get on with it. To take the next step we know that we have to take if we are going to do something constructive to move this country forward. We can all debate the fine points of this package until the cows come home, as they say in my area of the country. But the fact is, sooner or later we need to take heed and remember what Franklin Roosevelt said in a not very different situation years ago when he said, ``We need action, and action now.''

This package is meant to begin that process. I would urge Members to support the motion.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the motion.

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Speaker, we have often been accused of trying to push this bill rapidly through the Congress. In fact, we have been trying to push a recovery package through this Congress for the last 150 days.

We began this process in September when we tried to persuade the previous Bush administration of the necessity to support an economic recovery package. That White House would have none of it. Nonetheless, we put together a package--very modest in size compared to this one-- trying to look for anything that President Bush would sign, and that product was well known.

It has evolved gradually since that time as the economy has descended further and further and further into a recessionary and deflationary spiral. We now have had this legislation in both the House and the Senate appear on the Web.

Our committee, as soon as we produced the final product in the House, placed the bill on the Web. And the Senate placed the Nelson amendment, which is the amendment that they are now operating on, they placed it on the Web as well. So I think both Chambers have demonstrated that they are trying to do every bit that they can to provide transparency for the process.

I have no objection to what the language in this motion to instruct conferees says. I do have one caution: every day that we do not take action, an additional 20,000 Americans lose their jobs. And that is accelerating.

I don't intend to go anywhere. The Speaker has made it quite clear that this Congress is not going to go home for its Presidents Day recess until this package is finished. So we are scheduled to adjourn for that recess on Friday. But I have no problem sticking around for as long as it takes to get the job done.

I would point out that there's considerably less to this proposal than meets the eye because all it does is to require the text of the proposal to be available to the managers of the bill. And I suspect that the managers, who will be participating in these discussions, will know literally from moment to moment exactly what it is that they are doing.

I am sure that each and every person appointed to be managers on both sides of the aisle will be reasonably competent so that they can do that. So I would simply point out the effectiveness is simply to delay consideration of this legislation when it does come back from conference. If that is what Members want to go on record as supporting, I have no objection whether this passes or not. I will be around as long as it takes; and, frankly, I expect it is going to take a whole lot longer than just this week.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself this time to simply observe that my friend from Texas is wrong in one respect. The gentleman suggested that no Republican amendments were adopted on floor consideration of the bill. The Platts amendment was adopted; the Shuster amendment was adopted. The last time I looked, both of those gentlemen were Republicans.

I would also point out that in the committee consideration of the bill, more Republican amendments were adopted, much to my consternation, than were Democratic amendments. I would also point out, in our hearing in the full committee we did have a hearing on the need for an economic recovery package. When we held that hearing, I am sorry that only three members of the minority attended because the minority members were asked by the ranking member of the committee to boycott the hearing.

I yield myself 30 seconds to simply again correct the gentlewoman. The fact is that the amendment that related to the process by which highway projects were funded and approved was not taken out in the Speaker's office; it was taken out on the House floor when, on a bipartisan basis, Republican and Democratic members of the T&I Committee wanted to see that changed.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, the last people in the world I will take lectures from on fiscal responsibility are those Members of this House who voted for the Bush economic programs that borrowed $1.2 trillion and then took us into a war which, before it is over, will cost us another at least $1.5 trillion.

Secondly, I would simply answer the gentleman's question when he asks who is going to pay. I would ask, who is going to pay if we do nothing and do not implement this package? I would submit the people who will pay will be every American who loses his or her job, every businessman who loses his ability to get credit because of the constriction of the economy; every student who will have to quit college because his family cannot afford to help him go.

I yield myself an additional 1 minute.

And every person who loses one-third to one-half the value of their 401(k)s because of the continuing unraveling of the economy.

That is who will pay.

We need to stop the political rhetoric and recognize this problem is serious enough that we need to rise above our usual recitation of trivia and deal with the major problems facing this country. And we can't do that without taking action on this package.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Let me simply say in response to the gentleman's comments, that indeed I believe that Republican ideas have been included. I have had dozens of conversations with members of the minority side of the aisle who would talk to me about this item or that item that they thought either ought to be in or be out of the package. And we've responded in numerous instances. I would also point out that the President himself has pointed out that when he first talked to Republican leadership about what ought to be in this package, they told him there ought to be a healthy dollop of tax cuts in the package, and that when he produced the package, which did contain significant tax cuts, a number of Republicans then indicated that they were, in fact, pleasantly surprised by the fact that the President had done that.

Apparently, however, since then, they have decided to move the goalpost. The President can't do much about that. And I can't do much about that. I suspect that the people moving the goalposts are the people who might consider moving it back again.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I hope that the Thursday or Friday that the gentleman is talking about, I hope he recognizes that it's likely to be next Thursday or Friday, not this one. Secondly, I must say I am amused when I hear the reference to ``socialized medicine.'' Does anybody really believe that it's socialized medicine if we are putting $2 billion in this legislation in order to help change our medical records from paper records to computerized records so we can reduce the number of mistakes that are made in hospitals and create more efficiency and save money in the health care area? With the rising costs of health care nationwide, shouldn't we be looking for ways to make the system more efficient to save money? That is what that $2 billion does, despite somebody's desire to look for ghosts.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Has the gentleman from California yielded back his time?

Just one.

How much time do I have remaining?

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Madam Speaker, this bill is more than 150 days late. And every day that we delay, if you take a look at what's happening in the economy, an additional 20,000 people are losing their jobs.

So we've had plenty of time to talk about our philosophical differences. We've had plenty of time to talk about our different views of the viability of the market. We've had plenty of time to talk about our views of the role of government.

But people back home are not interested in our theoretical or our philosophical views. They're interested in whether or not we have a clue about what is happening on Main Street America, what is happening in businesses all over this country, what is happening when metal working companies and paper mills and dozens of other businesses lay off workers every day, every hour. And they want to know whether we can end the speechifying long enough to actually do something that will help them. That's what this is about.

So we can argue about one-tenth of 1 percent of this bill, whether we like it or not. The fact is that some of the same people who were only too willing to vote for $1.2 trillion worth of tax cuts paid for with borrowed money under President Bush, the same people who were willing to allow us to go to war and spend over $1 trillion in a war that will plague us for years, these are the same people who supported economic policies that, essentially, resulted in the average working family having flat wages for the last 8 years. These same people are now telling us, ``Oh, don't do this. We've got a better idea.''

Well, we've tried those ideas for 8 years, and what has been the result? The result has been that, for the last 8 years, over 94 percent of the economic growth in this country, over 94 percent of the economic growth of this country went into the pockets of the wealthiest 10 percent of American families. And so, the other 90 percent were struggling to get table scraps.

And how did they respond? They responded by borrowing. They borrowed more for their houses. They borrowed more to send their kids to college. They borrowed more to pay for health care and a lot of other things. And then, the housing bubble and the Wall Street bubble burst and they got hit with the results. And so, now they are suffering for the bubbles that we've had in the economy the past 8 years. And they're looking for somebody to recognize what's happened to them and looking for somebody who will help to actually do something about the fact that they're losing their health care, losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing their ability to send the kids to college, and losing hope.

This package, by itself, will not solve any of those problems. All it will do, if we can finally produce it, all it will do is to minimize the damage and to try to inject an additional source of consumer spending in the economy, in hopes that we can begin the process of eventually turning this economy around. That's what this is all about.

We've had our time for debates. It's been a long time now, over 150 days, as I said. The time to move is now.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the motions on H.R. 1 considered today.

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

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 2 of rule XI, I submit for publication in the Congressional Record the rules of the Committee on Appropriations for the 111th Congress, adopted on January 21, 2009.

Committee on Appropriations, Committee Rules, Effective for One Hundred

Eleventh Congress, Approved January 21, 2009

RESOLVED, That the rules and practices of the Committee on

Appropriations, House of Representatives, in the One Hundred

Tenth Congress, except as otherwise provided hereinafter,

shall be and are hereby adopted as the rules and practices of

the Committee on Appropriations in the One Hundred Eleventh

Congress.

The foregoing resolution adopts the following rules:

Sec. 1: Power to Sit and Act

(a) For the purpose of carrying out any of its functions

and duties under Rules X and XI of the Rules of the House of

Representatives, the Committee and each of its subcommittees

is authorized:

(1) To sit and act at such times and places within the

United States whether the House is in session, has recessed,

or has adjourned, and to hold such hearings as it deems

necessary; and (2) To require, by subpoena or otherwise, the

attendance and testimony of such witnesses and the production

of such books, reports, correspondence, memorandums, papers,

and documents as it deems necessary.

(b) The Chairman, or any Member designated by the Chairman,

may administer oaths to any witness.

(c) A subpoena may be authorized and issued by the

Committee or its subcommittees under subsection (a)(2) in the

conduct of any investigation or activity or series of

investigations or activities, only when authorized by a

majority of the Members of the Committee voting, a majority

being present. The power to authorize and issue subpoenas

under subsection (a)(2) may be delegated to the Chairman

pursuant to such rules and under such limitations as the

Committee may prescribe. Authorized subpoenas shall be signed

by the Chairman or by any Member designated by the Committee.

(d) Compliance with any subpoena issued by the Committee or

its subcommittees may be enforced only as authorized or

directed by the House.

Sec. 2: Subcommittees

(a) The Majority Caucus of the Committee shall establish

the number of subcommittees and shall determine the

jurisdiction of each subcommittee.

(b) Each subcommittee is authorized to meet, hold hearings,

receive evidence, and report to the Committee all matters

referred to it.

(c) All legislation and other matters referred to the

Committee shall be referred to the subcommittee of

appropriate jurisdiction within two weeks unless, by majority

vote of the Majority Members of the full Committee,

consideration is to be by the full Committee.

(d) The Majority Caucus of the Committee shall determine an

appropriate ratio of Majority to Minority Members for each

subcommittee. The Chairman is authorized to negotiate that

ratio with the Minority; Provided, however, That party

representation in each subcommittee, including ex-officio

members, shall be no less favorable to the Majority than the

ratio for the full Committee.

(e) The Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the full

Committee are each authorized to sit as a member of all

subcommittees and to participate, including voting, in all of

the work of the subcommittees.

Sec. 3: Staffing

(a) Committee Staff--The Chairman is authorized to appoint

the staff of the Committee, and make adjustments in the job

titles and compensation thereof subject to the maximum rates

and conditions established in Clause 9(c) of Rule X of the

Rules of the House of Representatives. In addition, he is

authorized, in his discretion, to arrange for their

specialized training. The Chairman is also authorized to

employ additional personnel as necessary.

(b) Assistants to Members:

(1) Each of the top twenty-one senior majority and minority

Members of the full

Committee may select and designate one staff member who shall

serve at the pleasure of that Member. Effective as of such

date as the Chairman may determine, all other Members of the

Committee may also each select and designate one such staff

member.

(2) Effective as of such date as the Chairman may

determine, the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the

full committee and of each subcommittee may each select and

designate one staff member, in addition to the staff member

designated under the preceding paragraph, who shall serve at

the pleasure of the Member making the designation.

(3) Staff members designated under this subsection shall be

compensated at a rate, determined by the Member, not to

exceed 75 per centum of the maximum established in Clause 9

(c) of Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives.

Effective as of such date as the Chairman may determine, the

limit on compensation under this subsection shall be

increased to 80 per centum of such maximum.

(4) Members designating staff members under this subsection

must specifically certify by letter to the Chairman that the

employees are needed and will be utilized for Committee work.

Sec. 4: Committee Meetings

(a) Regular Meeting Day--The regular meeting day of the

Committee shall be the first Wednesday of each month while

the House is in session, unless the Committee has met within

the past 30 days or the Chairman considers a specific meeting

unnecessary in the light of the requirements of the Committee

business schedule.

(b) Additional and Special Meetings:

(1) The Chairman may call and convene, as he considers

necessary, additional meetings of the Committee for the

consideration of any bill or resolution pending before the

Committee or for the conduct of other Committee business. The

Committee shall meet for such purpose pursuant to that call

of the Chairman.

(2) If at least three Committee Members desire that a

special meeting of the Committee be called by the Chairman,

those Members may file in the Committee Offices a written

request to the Chairman for that special meeting. Such

request shall specify the measure or matter to be considered.

Upon the filing of the request, the Committee Clerk shall

notify the Chairman.

(3) If within three calendar days after the filing of the

request, the Chairman does not call the requested special

meeting to be held within seven calendar days after the

filing of the request, a majority of the Committee Members

may file in the Committee Offices their written notice that a

special meeting will be held, specifying the date and hour of

such meeting, and the measure or matter to be considered. The

Committee shall meet on that date and hour.

(4) Immediately upon the filing of the notice, the

Committee Clerk shall notify all Committee Members that such

special meeting will be held and inform them of its date and

hour and the measure or matter to be considered. Only the

measure or matter specified in that notice may be considered

at the special meeting.

(c) Vice Chairman To Preside in Absence of Chairman--A

member of the majority party on the Committee or subcommittee

thereof designated by the Chairman of the full Committee

shall be vice chairman of the Committee or subcommittee, as

the case may be, and shall preside at any meeting during the

temporary absence of the chairman. If the chairman and vice

chairman of the Committee or subcommittee are not present at

any meeting of the Committee or subcommittee, the ranking

member of the majority party who is present shall preside at

that meeting.

(d) Business Meetings:

(1) Each meeting for the transaction of business, including

the markup of legislation, of the Committee and its

subcommittees shall be open to the public except when the

Committee or the subcommittee concerned, in open session and

with a majority present, determines by roll call vote that

all or part of the remainder of the meeting on that day shall

be closed.

(2) No person other than Committee Members and such

congressional staff and departmental representatives as they

may authorize shall be present at any business or markup

session which has been closed.

(e) Committee Records:

(1) The Committee shall keep a complete record of all

Committee action, including a record of the votes on any

question on which a roll call is demanded. The result of each

roll call vote shall be available for inspection by the

public during regular business hours in the Committee

Offices. The information made available for public inspection

shall include a description of the amendment, motion, or

other proposition, and the name of each Member voting for and

each Member voting against, and the names of those Members

present but not voting.

(2) All hearings, records, data, charts, and files of the

Committee shall be kept separate and distinct from the

congressional office records of the Chairman of the

Committee. Such records shall be the property of the House,

and all Members of the House shall have access thereto.

(3) The records of the Committee at the National Archives

and Records Administration shall be made available in

accordance with Rule VII of the Rules of the House, except

that the Committee authorizes use of any record to which

Clause 3 (b)(4) of Rule VII of the Rules of the House would

otherwise apply after such record has been in existence for

20 years. The Chairman shall notify the Ranking Minority

Member of any decision, pursuant to Clause 3 (b)(3) or Clause

4 (b) of Rule VII of the Rules of the House, to withhold a

record otherwise available, and the matter shall be presented

to the Committee for a determination upon the written request

of any Member of the Committee.

(f) Availability of Record Votes on the Committee's

Website.--In addition to any other requirement of these rules

or the Rules of the House, the Chairman shall make the record

of the votes on any question on which a record vote is

demanded available on the Committee's website not later than

3 legislative days after such vote is taken. Such record

shall include a description of the amendment, motion, order,

or other proposition, the name of each member voting for and

each member voting against such amendment, motion, order, or

proposition, and the names of those members of the committee

present but not voting.

Sec. 5: Committee and Subcommittee Hearings

(a) Overall Budget Hearings--Overall budget hearings by the

Committee, including the hearing required by Section 242 (c)

of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 and Clause 4

(a)(1) of Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives

shall be conducted in open session except when the Committee

in open session and with a majority present, determines by

roll call vote that the testimony to be taken at that hearing

on that day may be related to a matter of national security;

except that the Committee may by the same procedure close one

subsequent day of hearing. A transcript of all such hearings

shall be printed and a copy furnished to each Member,

Delegate, and the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.

(b) Other Hearings:

(1) All other hearings conducted by the Committee or its

subcommittees shall be open to the public except when the

Committee or subcommittee in open session and with a majority

present determines by roll call vote that all or part of the

remainder of that hearing on that day shall be closed to the

public because disclosure of testimony, evidence, or other

matters to be considered would endanger the national security

or would violate any law or Rule of the House of

Representatives. Notwithstanding the requirements of the

preceding sentence, a majority of those present at a hearing

conducted by the Committee or any of its subcommittees, there

being in attendance the number required under Section 5 (c)

of these Rules to be present for the purpose of taking

testimony, (1) may vote to close the hearing for the sole

purpose of discussing whether testimony or evidence to

be received would endanger the national security or

violate Clause 2 (k)(5) of Rule XI of the Rules of the

House of Representatives or (2) may vote to close the

hearing, as provided in Clause 2 (k)(5) of such Rule. No

Member of the House of Representatives may be excluded

from nonparticipatory attendance at any hearing of the

Committee or its subcommittees unless the House of

Representatives shall by majority vote authorize the

Committee or any of its subcommittees, for purposes of a

particular series of hearings on a particular article of

legislation or on a particular subject of investigation,

to close its hearings to Members by the same procedures

designated in this subsection for closing hearings to the

public; Provided, however, That the Committee or its

subcommittees may by the same procedure vote to close five

subsequent days of hearings.

(2) Subcommittee chairmen shall coordinate the development

of schedules for meetings or hearings after consultation with

the Chairman and other subcommittee chairmen with a view

toward avoiding simultaneous scheduling of Committee and

subcommittee meetings or hearings.

(3) Each witness who is to appear before the Committee or

any of its subcommittees as the case may be, insofar as is

practicable, shall file in advance of such appearance, a

written statement of the proposed testimony and shall limit

the oral presentation at such appearance to a brief summary,

except that this provision shall not apply to any witness

appearing before the Committee in the overall budget

hearings.

(4) Each witness appearing in a nongovernmental capacity

before the Committee, or any of its subcommittees as the case

may be, shall to the greatest extent practicable, submit a

written statement including a curriculum vitae and a

disclosure of the amount and source (by agency and program)

of any Federal grant (or subgrant thereof) or contract (or

subcontract thereof) received during the current fiscal year

or either of the two previous fiscal years by the witness or

by an entity represented by the witness.

(c) Quorum for Taking Testimony--The number of Members of

the Committee which shall constitute a quorum for taking

testimony and receiving evidence in any hearing of the

Committee shall be two.

(d) Calling and Interrogation of Witnesses:

(1) The Minority Members of the Committee or its

subcommittees shall be entitled, upon request to the Chairman

or subcommittee chairman, by a majority of them before

completion of any hearing, to call witnesses selected by the

Minority to testify with respect to the matter under

consideration during at least one day of hearings thereon.

(2) The Committee and its subcommittees shall observe the

five-minute rule during the interrogation of witnesses until

such time as each Member of the Committee or subcommittee who

so desires has had an opportunity to question the witness.

(e) Broadcasting and Photographing of Committee Meetings

and Hearings--Whenever a hearing or meeting conducted by the

full Committee or any of its subcommittees is open to the

public, those proceedings shall be open to coverage by

television, radio, and still photography, as provided in

Clause (4)(f) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House of

Representatives. Neither the full Committee Chairman or

subcommittee chairman shall limit the number of television or

still cameras to fewer than two representatives from each

medium.

(f) Subcommittee Meetings--No subcommittee shall sit while

the House is reading an appropriation measure for amendment

under the five-minute rule or while the Committee is in

session.

(g) Public Notice of Committee Hearings--The Chairman of

the Committee shall make public announcement of the date,

place, and subject matter of any Committee or subcommittee

hearing at least one week before the commencement of the

hearing. If the Chairman of the Committee or subcommittee,

with the concurrence of the ranking minority member of the

Committee or respective subcommittee, determines there is

good cause to begin the hearing sooner, or if the Committee

or subcommittee so determines by majority vote, a quorum

being present for the transaction of business, the Chairman

or subcommittee chairman shall make the announcement at the

earliest possible date. Any announcement made under this

subsection shall be promptly published in the Daily Digest

and promptly entered into the Committee scheduling service of

the House Information Systems.

Sec. 6: Procedures for Reporting Bills and Resolutions

(a) Prompt Reporting Requirement:

(1) It shall be the duty of the Chairman to report, or

cause to be reported promptly to the House any bill or

resolution approved by the Committee and to take or cause to

be taken necessary steps to bring the matter to a vote.

(2) In any event, a report on a bill or resolution which

the Committee has approved shall be filed within seven

calendar days (exclusive of days in which the House is not in

session) after the day on which there has been filed with the

Committee Clerk a written request, signed by a majority of

Committee Members, for the reporting of such bill or

resolution. Upon the filing of any such request, the

Committee Clerk shall notify the Chairman immediately of the

filing of the request. This subsection does not apply to the

reporting of a regular appropriation bill or to the reporting

of a resolution of inquiry addressed to the head of an

executive department.

(b) Presence, of Committee Majority--No measure or

recommendation shall be reported from the Committee unless a

majority of the Committee was actually present.

(c) Roll Call Votes--With respect to each roll call vote on

a motion to report any measure or matter of a public

character, and on any amendment offered to the measure of

matter, the total number of votes cast for and against, and

the names of those Members voting for and against, shall be

included in the Committee report on the measure or matter.

(d) Compliance With Congressional Budget Act--A Committee

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Madam Speaker, the constant refrain of Republican critics on this bill is that it spends too much money and spends it too slowly. That shows, in my judgment, a failure to appreciate the depth and the duration of our economic crisis.

In testimony before the House Budget Committee yesterday, the CBO Director, Doug Elmendorf, explained that if nothing is done, our economic output will fall below its potential by $1 trillion in 2009, by $900 billion in 2010, and by at least $600 billion in 2011. That would represent a loss in Americans' income and output of $2.5 trillion, or about $8,000 per person that would be lost forever. Director Elmendorf noted that this would be the largest gap relative to the size of potential output since the Great Depression.

When put in that perspective, this $825 billion package is not too large, even with a sizeable multiplier--in fact, it's probably smaller than it ought to be, but it's well worth doing.

In addition, the fact that some infrastructure efforts will take more than 18 months to complete, and thus outlays will continue into 2011 is also justified despite the criticism.

As economist Alan Blinder recently told the Wall Street Journal, because we face a deep and prolonged gap in output, we could certainly use some time release capsules in the form of infrastructure spending to continue to provide a boost to the economy. It ought also to be worth noting that what matters after all is what employers decide about employment, not when the Federal Government outlay takes place.

State and local governments, as well as private construction companies, are making decisions now about whether to fire their staff or how many to fire. Federal reimbursements to governments for education or infrastructure may not occur for a year, but the jobs are preserved today. I would hope that we would remember that.

Much is also made of the fact that this bill will cause an increase in the deficit; absolutely, without question. But the proper question to ask them is how much more would that deficit increase if we do nothing? How much deeper would our employment numbers fall if we do not do something? How many more Americans will lose their health insurance as well as their jobs, as well as their retirement security if we continue to talk about business as usual?

The fact is that we need to compare the cost of this package with the cost of doing nothing. The cost of doing nothing would be catastrophic. The cost of this package is well worth the risk considering the alternative.

Madam Speaker, I would offer a proposition to the gentleman from Mesa.

He continually raises the question of the nexus between earmarks and campaign contributions. I think there's a terrific way to eliminate that nexus. Would he care to join me in cosponsoring the legislation which I introduced in the first day of the Congress to create 100 percent total public financing and to forbid a single private dollar from being contributed to any Member of the House's campaign? That certainly would eliminate totally any potential nexus between campaign contributions and earmarks and allow the Congress to use its judgment legislatively without bringing into question the integrity of the political process.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Taking back my time, it's obvious the gentleman, I guess, is more comfortable complaining about earmarks than doing something about campaign financing.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York for a unanimous consent request.

(Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this economy is in crisis. The financial system of the country is in crisis. Retirement plans of millions of Americans have been destroyed. Families are angered and terrified. They see layoffs happening all around them. They and their friends are not only losing their jobs, they are losing health coverage. They are losing their ability to help their kids pay for college education.

President Bush, when he saw the initial stages of the problem, got Congress to give him $750 billion to try to calm the chaos on Wall Street.

President Obama is now looking for action to help Main Street. This package is designed to create jobs through construction and through changing the way we do business in the field of energy. It attempts to try to help victims of the recession by providing unemployment insurance, by increasing their ability to get Medicaid coverage if they lose their health care coverage and by increasing their ability to be able to afford COBRA payments if they lose their health insurance. This proposal is also aimed at rebuilding the economy, especially by changing the way this economy works in the energy area, in the science area and in the technology area. And I think we need to be about getting that done.

This bill is hugely expensive. But it is not nearly so costly as continuing business as usual. It has a big price tag because we are dealing with a big problem.

Unfortunately, the debate has been incredibly trivialized. Last night, for instance, we heard speaker after speaker discuss the need to act. But then they would say, ``Well, I can't vote for this package because it contains money for the arts or money for the Mall.'' I would like to put those two items in perspective.

The arts funding in this bill is a tiny fraction of this entire bill. The arts expenditure in this bill represents about 6 cents out of every $1,000 contained in this legislation. People ask, well, what does funding for the arts have to do with jobs? It is very simple. People in the arts field are losing their jobs just like anybody else. You have local arts agencies, you have local orchestras, local symphonies and local arts groups of all kinds who are shutting down, laying people off, and in a number of instances going bankrupt. This is a small, tiny effort to keep some of those people employed over the next 2 years. I make no apology for it. We have an obligation to salvage as many jobs as we can regardless of the fields in which people work.

The second issue is the Mall. People say, ``Well, goodness gracious, what on Earth does spending for the Mall have to do with creating jobs?'' Well, Mr. Chairman, I would point out that, again, the funding for the Mall represents about 25 cents of every $1,000 in this bill, a tiny, tiny fraction. Three-quarters of that amount was directed at trying to preserve the Jefferson Memorial which is slowly sinking into the Tidal Basin and needs to be salvaged. But because these items have become such distractions, we've decided to take several items out. So the Mall is gone. We don't have to worry about refurbishing the Mall any more. That will have to wait for another time.

My point in discussing these two items is to simply express my regret at the way this debate has been trivialized. But I also think that it is revealing because I think it tells us what is really going on. And in my view, what is going on is this. At least one of the leaders in the Republican Caucus advised his caucus members that the way for the Republican minority to behave was to behave ``like a thousand mosquitoes'' to harass the majority. That may suit somebody's legislative style. It would not suit mine.

I yield myself 3 additional minutes.

But I think that comment is revelatory because that, for all practical purposes, is what we saw last night, many Members behaving like mosquitoes, focusing on trivia and ignoring the big picture. Some people will say, ``Oh, you're moving too fast.'' I would point out, this work should have been done 3 and 4 months ago. Some of us tried in September to pass a very small economic recovery package. The then-Bush White House would have no part of it. They were not interested. So we've had to wait until now. But it is now essential for us to move. We've got to get this job on the road. Every week that we delay is another 100,000 or more people unemployed. I don't think we want that on any of our consciences.

This package is aimed at creating jobs. It's aimed at helping people who

are most impacted by the recession. And it is aimed at trying to modernize and freshen parts of the economy so that we can rebuild the ability of middle-income families to actually increase their income over time.

Mr. Chairman, the main reason we're in this fix today is because over the last almost 20 years or more, we have had very little wage growth and very little income growth on the part of average working families in this country. In fact, if you go back to the year 2001, 95 percent of the income growth in this country has gone into the pockets of the wealthiest 10 percent of American families. That means that the other 90 percent, the great middle American family swath, those families have been trying to keep their heads above water. And how have they been doing it? By borrowing. So they borrowed for housing. They borrowed for tuition. They borrowed for health care. They borrowed for a lot of other things. And now the rubber band has finally snapped. The markets are in chaos, people are panicked, and we've got to try to do something to stabilize the situation. We have to try to reinflate the purchasing power of consumers, and we have to do it in such a way that we build an opportunity for average working families to raise their income again so that they aren't beset by the same economic problems that they were beset by the last 10 years.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would urge an ``aye'' vote for this package.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, the minority continually spouts the myth that the minority was not allowed to be involved in the development of this legislation. Here are the facts:

In September, when we developed our first recovery package, I specifically asked the ranking minority member of this committee to please let us know what he felt ought to be in that package and what shouldn't.

In December, we held a hearing with a number of governors and other witnesses on the issue of a stimulus or recovery package. The ranking minority member urged Republican members of the committee not to show up at that hearing, and only three did.

In December again, I sent a letter to every member of the Appropriations Committee, Republican and Democratic alike, asking them for their input. We got a lot of suggestions from both sides of the aisle, although obviously a number of the Republican members preferred to provide their information on a confidential basis because they evidently felt----

I yield myself an additional minute. They evidently felt they were being discouraged from participating so that it would be easier for them to vote ``no'' on the final package.

On January 11, I sat down with the ranking member of this committee and discussed in general terms where I

thought the bill was going and again urged that we be given any information about what program levels they thought were appropriate; got no real indication of interest.

On January 13, I met and went over what we were thinking about doing in detail with the ranking member of this committee. And again, we got very little indication that there was any real interest at the top of the power ladder in the Republican Caucus in having the Republicans participate in this process.

So if someone says, ``I'm sorry I was shut out,'' but it is they who turned the key in the lock that kept them on the outside, that certainly isn't our fault. We have tried to welcome any advice, any suggestions from any source--not just Members of Congress, but others in this society--and this product reflects that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished majority whip.

I yield 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

We are on the Internet. That's all I would say to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. Chairman, I have only one remaining speaker, the Speaker herself.

I thank the gentleman for his cooperation, and I yield our remaining time to the distinguished Speaker, the gentlewoman from California.

I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, how much time does the gentleman have remaining, and who has the right to close?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I am tempted to ask the Chair what year is this? I thought it was--yeah, I didn't think it was 1933--I thought it was 2009, or something close to it. I guess all I would say is, you know, they don't look like Herbert Hoover, but there are an awful lot of people in this Chamber who think like Herbert Hoover, and I think this amendment illustrates that.

If you vote for this amendment, you'll be knocking out all funding for education funding, including every single dollar in this bill to prevent State and local governments from raising taxes in the middle of a recession in order to avoid laying off teachers, in order to avoid laying off speech therapists, school nurses, and the whole shebang.

You would be cutting out all infrastructure. You would be eliminating $30 billion for highway construction. Those jobs go blewy.

You would be eliminating $19 billion for clean water projects, flood control and environmental restoration. Those jobs go blooey.

You would be eliminating all energy funding in this bill, $32 billion to transform the Nation's energy transmission distribution production systems. So those jobs go blooey. And we also lose the chance to modernize this economy.

All science funding, all of the jobs that would be provided in the science area by this bill, those jobs are out the window.

All of the jobs that would be created by giving rural America an opportunity to get wired up with real broadband, just like the rest of the country, that would be out the window, too.

This amendment in my view demonstrates that some people recognize the cost of everything and the value of nothing. It is an amendment that we can ill-afford to pass, and I urge defeat of the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the fact is this economy is in mortal danger of absolute collapse. We are trying to avoid that by injecting consumer spending into the economy in hopes that it will reinflate the economy at least to some degree. The fact is that the cost of doing nothing would be astronomical.

Of course this package costs money. How much will it cost us if the credit markets totally freeze up? How much will it cost us if we lose employment opportunities for another 3 to 4 million Americans?

How much will it cost us in added unemployment compensation, in added welfare payments and all of those items if we don't do something to stave off economic disaster?

This amendment is primitive economically. It does not recognize the reality of a modern economy. I urge its defeat.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment in many ways is similar to the Neugebauer amendment, and I would say the same things about it that I said about that amendment.

This essentially throws millions of jobs out the window. All of the jobs for school teachers, for speech therapists and school nurses and the like that would be saved by the State stabilization fund to protect education, all of those jobs out the window by this amendment.

All of the jobs that would come from remodeling and repairing and refurbishing old, worn-out schools under the new modernization program, out the window with those jobs.

All of the infrastructure funding for highway construction, out the window. We heard the Republicans lecture us for 2 days about the importance of that. Now they want to throw it overboard.

All of the jobs that would come from increasing our clean water revolving fund project list and the sewer and water programs around the country, all of those jobs, out the window.

All of the jobs that would come from modernizing our energy grid, out the window.

All of the jobs that come from investing in new science and technology, out the window.

And then all of the help that goes to people through programs like food stamps, out the window.

Mr. Chairman, I want to predict what is going to happen on that side of the aisle on this vote. I predict that just as happened in committee when we got no minority party support for the bill that we produced in committee, when this bill comes to a vote today, virtually all of our Republican friends will vote ``no.'' The bill will then go to the Senate, and after they gauge whether or not that bill can be killed or not, then if the bill comes back from the conference committee and it is obvious that the bill cannot be killed, at that point you will see a significant number of our friends from the Republican side switch and vote ``aye.''

It is an old playbook, Mr. Chairman. That is exactly what they did to FDR on Social Security when they tried to kill it in its crib. And then when they couldn't beat it, they finally joined the parade. That is the same thing that they did to LBJ on Medicare. When they tried to kill and after they couldn't kill it, in the end they went along so that people wouldn't know that they tried to kill it in the first place.

I would hope that sooner or later we could cut through that gamesmanship. I would hope that we would recognize,

as Martin Luther King said a long time ago which our President reminded us of in his inaugural, I would hope that we would remember the urgency of now. Every week that we temporize, 100,000 or more Americans lose their jobs. That doesn't just hurt those working Americans, it hurts their families. It hurts the economy, it hurts the neighborhood. It hurts everybody in this society. And it hurts the global economy as well. Sooner or later we have to recognize this is not Herbert Hoover time. The time for action is now.

I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman be given 1 additional minute.

Madam Speaker, I withdraw my reservation and rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, this amendment is a perfect example of how people can fall off both sides of the same horse at the same time. If you take a look at what the criticism has been of this bill all week long, you will remember that the other side has constantly said that we are just throwing money at the problem. That it can't possibly be spent.

Yet, they would add some $25 billion to the Corps budget, despite the fact that the Corps has told us that they can only push out the door about $4 billion in new projects. They have told us for days now. They have criticized us and lacerated us with criticism because they said that we had money in here for infrastructure that couldn't possibly be spent out in the next 2 years. And now they are adding $36 billion more.

What this amendment does, as we understand it, is to add $36 billion for highways and $25 billion to the Corps. And if they were standing alone, I might not object. But they pay for it with $160 billion in cuts in other parts of the bill.

They crush broadband, for instance; something which is essential if every community in this country is going to compete for jobs and for an economic future. They cut the science programs in the National Science Foundation that will put hundreds of thousands of people to work in the scientific area. They eliminate the Federal Buildings Energy Retrofit Program. Those jobs are all gone.

They have attacked us for putting things in a bill that don't belong in a jobs bill. Yet, they cut job training funds in half and they cut displaced workers by half a billion dollars. We should be doubling those funds, not cutting them.

They eliminate the green jobs initiatives in this bill. They take one-half billion dollars out of community health centers. They cut in half the amount of money that we are devoting to try to develop the added primary care physicians and nurses that we will need given what is happening to the health care crisis in this country. They take $750 million out of the National Institutes of Health, wiping out the jobs of thousands of scientists who right now are not being put to good use because we only fund 20 percent of approved science at NIH. And, lastly, they guarantee that there will be substantial tax increases at the State level because they gut the State stabilization fund which is designed to

help States so that they wind up not having to raise taxes, so that they don't wind up having to cut key education services.

How many of us have gone home and cried for years about the fact that the Federal Government has not met its promises on special education? And yet they wipe out the advances we have made in special education. This is an unbalanced approach to a serious problem. I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 1, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this country is facing what most economists, I believe, consider to be the most serious and the most dangerous economic situation in our lifetimes, certainly going back to the early thirties.

If you take a look at what has happened in the country, late last year, former President George Bush recognized that the world's credit markets were near a state of total collapse, and he asked this Congress to take unprecedented action in order to try to prevent that. Since that time, we've seen a continued unraveling of financial markets, we've seen a continued unraveling of the housing markets, and we've seen the most spectacular loss of consumer confidence in the modern history of this country. New claims for unemployment insurance last week hit 590,000. In the last 2 months alone, we've seen this country lose more than a million jobs.

Consumer purchasing power has evaporated. New home starts fell 15 percent in December, to the lowest number on record going back more than 50 years. And we've seen other evidence of panic in the marketplace and on Main Street.

Normally, when consumer purchasing power collapses, our government uses the tool of monetary policy in order to try to resurrect and reinflate the economy. The problem is we've already shot that bullet. The Federal Reserve has taken phenomenal actions to try to stabilize the situation to very moderate effect. And now we're being asked to consider the other tool in our arsenal. We're being asked to use fiscal policy to expand consumer purchasing power to try and stop the slide. And that is what this proposal before us here today will try to do.

In most recessions, we're eventually led out of those recessions through the leadership of the housing sector and the automobile sector. This time around, both of those sectors are in shambles, and they're not likely to lead anybody out of anything. So that leaves us with very limited tools.

This package today that we are considering is an $825 billion package that does a variety of things to try to reinflate the economy. It, first of all, provides tax cuts--which Mr. Rangel will discuss--in order to try to put some money in people's pockets. We hope that that succeeds to a greater extent than the last round of tax rebates did.

Secondly, this package attempts to jump-start job creation through infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, sewers, water repair, modernizing our electric power grid and expanding broadband access so that all parts of the country have an opportunity to compete, with Internet access.

Third, this package attempts to help those who are most impacted by the recession, who are losing their jobs, their health insurance, and losing the ability to send their kids to college.

Fourth, this package attempts to modernize the economy--or at least to begin a long process of doing that--by accelerating the development of new technology through key investments in science and energy.

And last, it attempts, also, to save jobs by stabilizing State and local budgets. Because of the economic collapse and because of the collapse of revenue now forecast at the State and local level, States face the need to eliminate gargantuan deficits because they're required to balance their budgets. Without help from the Federal Government to stabilize their situation, they will be forced to impose

major tax increases and devastating service cutbacks, which under these economic conditions would be hugely counterproductive. This package attempts to do all of those things.

Now, none of us can be certain about the degree of success that would flow from passage of this package.

I yield myself 2 additional minutes.

But the fact is we are as close as we will ever see to being in the same position that Franklin Roosevelt was in in the thirties. And at that time he tried some things; some of the things he tried worked, some of them didn't, and so he moved on and tried other things.

There is no person on this floor who can guarantee the success of this package. Certainly, standing alone, this package will not succeed, because it is going to have to be accompanied by further actions to build confidence in the economy. It is going to have to be accompanied by new actions to prevent massive house foreclosures all across the country. We are going to probably have to have even further intervention in the financial markets of the country. And this package that we have here today, the spending portion of this package, may very well undershoot rather than overshoot the target that many economists have set out for us.

When President Bush came to office, I was divided in my judgment about whether I should support his first major new initiative, which was the No Child Left Behind education package. I had grave misgivings about that package, but in the end I supported it, largely because I thought that, as the incoming President, the President deserves to have the benefit of the doubt. President Obama is in that same situation, only in far more dire straits. He has asked the Congress to pass an economic recovery package, and this bill today is attempting to do that.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

He has asked us to provide a reasonable balance between tax cuts and spending increases to revive the ability of consumers to purchase the goods and services produced by this society. Unless someone has a clearly better idea, I think we have an obligation to support the President's proposal, at this point as the only game in town. The risks are enormous if we do not move ahead.

Everyone talks, for instance, about how disappointed they are with what the previous Bush administration did with respect to the package on Wall Street. I'm certainly extremely unhappy with some of the actions taken by Secretary Paulson.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

I believe, nonetheless, that the President was right at the time in telling the Congress that if we did not take action, the results could have been catastrophic. I believe if we do not take action on this package today, the results can be similarly catastrophic. And with that, I urge Members to support the package.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to the rule, I yield 15 minutes to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel; 15 minutes to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Waxman; 10 minutes to the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. Miller; 10 minutes to the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Oberstar; 5 minutes to Ms. Giffords of the Science and Technology Committee; 5 minutes to the chairwoman of the Small Business Committee, Ms. Velazquez; 5 minutes to the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt; and 2 minutes to the chairman of the Government Investigations Committee, Mr. Towns.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, if we are going to quote CBO, we ought to quote CBO accurately. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said that, in their estimate, 65 percent of the money in this bill will be spent in the next 2 years. The administration's estimate is 75 percent.

I would point out CBO also says that over the next 2 years this bill will inject $526 billion into the economy, and they state that the implementation of this bill ``would have a noticeable impact on economic growth and employment in the next few years.'' That is a whole lot better than doing nothing.

I yield myself 15 seconds. My friend from Iowa says that this bill is too big. I will make a deal with him. I will be happy to give him a smaller bill if he will show me a smaller problem.

I would be happy to respond to that if the gentleman wants to yield to me.

I will be happy to respond to the gentleman if he wants, since I am responsible for the money in the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I think when I yielded time earlier in the day, I shortchanged the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords) by 5 minutes. I would like to yield an additional 5 minutes of my time to her.

Mr. Chairman, I have two remaining speakers on this side.

First, I would like to redesignate the time previously allocated to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter) of the Education and Labor Committee, 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this has been in many ways a very sad debate. We face the prospect of economic collapse. We certainly face the worst economic crisis in our lifetime. We have been asked by the President to pass legislation that will try to put people back to work by repairing schools, by building roads, by developing modern energy grids, and by making broadband available to rural America. We have been asked to invest in science and technology to make our economy more efficient and more productive and more conducive to job growth. And we have been asked to invest money to make our health care system less costly and more efficient and more open to more people.

We've also been asked to provide assistance to people who have lost their jobs through unemployment insurance, and by helping them to meet the cost of education, especially college.

And we've also been asked to take actions to help stabilize State and local budgets so that while we try to expand the economy at the national level we aren't shrinking the economy at the State level through unfortunate State tax increases or service cutbacks. That's what we're trying to do.

This is serious business. And yet when you look at much of the debate that we had today, you would think that we were playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. We've had at least 10 Members of this body on the other side of the aisle focus on the really big picture by complaining about the fact that there is a $50 million appropriation for the arts or, can you imagine, because we have the temerity to want to try to repair the Jefferson Monument to prevent the plaza on the Mall from sinking into the Tidal Basin. It is really sad, indeed.

I wonder why it's come to this. And then I recall a statement by a member of the House Republican leadership in which he advised his caucus members to deal with their minority status by behaving like a thousand mosquitos and apparently inflicting mosquito bites on the majority.

We've had a lot of Republican talk about bipartisanship, which was welcomed; but yet before President Obama even was able to appear before the Republican Caucus today we are told in newspaper stories that one of the key leaders in the Republican Caucus advised their Caucus even before the President came----

I yield myself 2 minutes.

And yet we're told that the Republican Caucus was advised to vote against this bill by one of their leaders.

I think the public will see through this. It doesn't matter much what we say to each other or how we talk to one another. It should, but apparently it doesn't. All I can say is we have a serious job before us. We have had many ideas expressed for many months, but the time for talk is over. We need to make decisions. And right now, like it or not, the only comprehensive package before us, the only balanced package before us is the one being brought to us in this bill today. And I would hope that tomorrow, when we vote on it, that there will be significant bipartisan support for that package. I don't know if I have any real expectations that will occur or not, but I would certainly like to think so.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1.

And while I'm at it, I want to express my understanding that apparently an ice storm is on the way, and I appreciate the cooperation we've had from both sides of the aisle in ending this debate a mite early so that people can get to their homes before the ice storm hits.

Mr. Speaker, for the last 4 years Rob Nabors has served as, first, the staff director of the then-Minority Democrats on the Appropriations Committee and, in the last 2 years, as the staff director of the entire committee. His work ethic has been legendary. He has worked all hours of the day like so many in this institution whose names are not publicly known. He has worked overtime. He's worked night and day. He's worked weekdays and weekends. He's demonstrated great judgment and skill. And he has also been a bit of history because he is the first African American to have served as the staff director for the Appropriations Committee.

But now, alas, President-elect Obama has asked him to serve as the Deputy Director of OMB, and exercising the ``faulty judgment'' that we have come to expect from Chicago Bears fans, he has accepted that invitation.

So I simply wanted to take this moment to publicly in this institution thank him for the great service that he has provided this institution and the country and to wish him well on the road ahead.

Surely.

I yield to the gentleman.

I yield to the Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Wisconsin about once a century, and this is that occasion.

For all of my 39 years in Congress, I have fought against trickle- down economics and the mindless deregulation that has produced today's economic crisis. I opposed the repeal of Glass-Stiegel, which has made the problem so much worse.

The boy geniuses on Wall Street do not deserve to be rescued. But if they fall off their perches at the top of the economic ladder, they will crush innocent people far down that ladder on lower rungs.

Sometimes in life, if we are responsible, we have to clean up not just the messes that we have created but the messes that others have created as well. This is one of those times. This package will not prevent a severe recession. We are going to see that, but it can buy us more time to make more basic changes that will stand this country in good stead over the long haul, and I urge its adoption.

Would the gentleman yield?

Let me simply point out the Senate package failed because they loaded it up with 32 additional items. We tried to keep this skinny and thin so that it's fiscally responsible and has a chance of getting the President's support.

* * *

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of continuing the debate on this issue, I will withdraw my words.

Now, if I may continue, what I should have said is that I found the gentleman's words in error. And let me explain why. He claims that this is a problem that was created during the Democratic control of this House. In fact, the program under discussion, the authorization expired under control of the Republican Party. Then, at the request of a good many Members, including you, I voluntarily agreed to extend that program on an appropriation bill, even though the authorization had expired. But I said at that time that he needed to understand that this would be a temporary extension, and because this matter was not under the jurisdiction of our committee, he needed to resolve this problem in the authorizing committee, the Agriculture Committee. And that is still where it belongs.

The fact is that the Appropriations Committee is in a no- win situation. Every time we try to bring a bill out to extend an authorization, we get squawks from the membership because we are exceeding our jurisdiction. Then if we don't bring a bill out, we get squawks for not stepping into an area where we have no business treading.

After I have completed my statement, I would be happy to.

So what I would simply say is this: I gave the gentleman a year. I took money out of the appropriations portion of the pot to give the gentleman a year's grace. Now, if the gentleman voted against a freestanding authorization bill, as I understand, I think from the conversation that the gentleman apparently did, if the gentleman voted against that free-standing suspension bill, it is not the fault of my committee, and I don't have to step in and make up for somebody else's mistakes.

It would seem to me, if the gentleman wants that program funded, he needs to find an offset and take it to the proper committee of jurisdiction, because I am tired of having Members of this House combat us from both directions at the same time.

I would be happy to yield.

With all due respect, taking back my time, if the gentleman did, indeed, vote against the free-standing bill that would have corrected the problem, then, as far as I am concerned, he has no complaint with this committee. We are in the middle of serious economic problems. We are trying, as best we can, to find ways to counter the recession.

With all due respect, I don't want to get this committee into any more authorization fights than I have to, because I have got a long list of authorization issues that people have objected to when we have included authorization issues on appropriation matters, and you can bet that today there will be some squawks about the fact that we have done that.

Would the gentleman yield?

If we had done that, the bill would not have been in compliance with the rules of the House. You could not have offered that amendment, because it would not have been in order.

I would suggest if you have got a problem under an authorization bill, take it to the committee that's supposed to handle it. Don't dump every dog and cat in an appropriation bill.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1507, I call up the bill (H.R. 7110) making supplemental appropriations for job creation and preservation, infrastructure investment, and economic and energy assistance for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 7110, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to propound a unanimous consent request in response to the comments that we had during consideration of the rule on this bill. We've had some of our friends on the minority side of the aisle indicate that they are disappointed that the Appropriations Committee did not provide funding for the western schools program, which is expired, and which is not under the jurisdiction of our committee.

In the interest of comity, I would like to respond to that concern by simply asking unanimous consent that the amendment that I have placed at the desk be considered as adopted. It would have the effect of resurrecting that western schools program for 1 year in the same manner in which it was being operated before it expired.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would simply like to have the Record show that we have tried to respond to concerns expressed on the minority side of the aisle, that the objection to allowing us to do that came from the minority side of the aisle. I regret that, but I guess there's not as much interest in comity as I had hoped today. Having said that, let me explain the bill before us.

I think both political parties are seriously misdescribing the economic crisis that we now find ourselves in. I do not believe that this crisis began on Wall Street. I think this crisis began right here in this Chamber. I think it began right here in this town, in the White House. And I think what is happening today is a logical extension of what has happened since the Reagan administration over 20 years ago.

The fact is that this Congress and previous and present Presidents have followed economic policies through the years which have resulted in the middle class--and what's called the underclass by some--being squeezed to the wall. Since 1980, the top 10 percent of American families has absorbed 80 percent of the increase in the national income. And in the last 8 years, the richest 10 percent of American families have absorbed 96 percent of all of the income growth in this country. That means the other 90 percent of American families have been struggling for table scraps, struggling to keep their head above water. And one of the ways that they've been doing that has been by borrowing.

There is a lot of talk about the increase in the Federal debt over the past decade, which has been over $1 trillion. But the fact is that mortgage debt alone in the private sector in this country has increased by almost $7 trillion at that same time. And at the same time that that huge increase in borrowing was occurring by families trying to stay above the water line, we also had a simultaneous, ill-advised deregulation of the financial sector of the economy. The umpire was, in fact, taken off the field, and as a result, Wall Street took advantage of that, invented all kinds of interesting and complicated instruments, and at the same time, there was very little regulation to protect little people who didn't know what they were getting into. And so, as a result, we've had trickle down economics being followed for 25 years, and now we are experiencing the trickle down consequences. We have, I think, a serious choice to make in this Chamber and in the other body over the next few days. And I hope we make the right choice.

All through this year this Congress has tried to do a number of things that would alleviate the squeeze on the middle class. To cite just some of our efforts, we passed the largest expansion of the GI Bill, education benefits, since that program started in 1945. We provided the largest veterans health care funding increase in modern history. We blocked the President's efforts to eliminate all student aid programs except Pell grant and work study. And we, instead, provided an increase in the Pell Grants of $750. And we passed legislation cutting the loan costs of student loans by 50 percent over the next 5 years, all to help middle class families send their kids to school.

We increased the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. We extended unemployment insurance benefits to help people who had run out of unemployment benefits and have still not been able to find a job. We provided additional funding to save the SCHIP program, to help keep needy kids on the health care payrolls of our various States.

We've provided funding to help States establish high-risk insurance pools----

I yield myself another 5 minutes.

To increase access for almost 200,000 people who did not have access to health care. We extended dental care programs for the poor by 50 percent. We passed all kinds of efforts to improve the lot of middle- income Americans. And we had a large dispute with the President of the United States over budget levels for programs in the health, education, science and social services area. The President objected to a number of those programs. He wanted to require Congress to impose $14 billion in cuts in those crucial programs, and he said we simply could not afford that money. But now we are being confronted with a Presidential request to deal with the Wall Street bailout, and that cost will be about 50 times as large as the cost of funding the programs that we've been trying to fund for a year.

Meanwhile, this economy is sagging. Jobs, income, sales, and industrial production have all gone down. We have lost 600,000 jobs. Twenty-seven percent more people are unemployed today than was the case just 6 months ago. And so we are bringing before the House today an effort to counter some of those problems.

We are trying to provide a major increase in investments in highways, bridges and airports to modernize our infrastructure and to provide well-paying construction jobs at the same time.

We are providing a significant increase in funding for construction jobs by helping local communities and States construct sewer and water systems. There is a $600 billion national backlog on that.

We are providing additional help to create jobs by moving ahead with flood control projects.

As far as schools are concerned, the GAO tells us we have a $112 billion backlog in maintenance, building safety, and technology upgrades for our schools. We're trying to provide a small amount of funding to help begin to take care of that.

On the energy front, we've had a theological debate about energy between the parties for the last several months. We are trying to provide some funding here for energy research programs which will create jobs in that area, and at the same time, we are trying to invest a significant amount of money in order to assure that our auto industry, as it converts to battery-driven, dual-technology automobiles, we're trying to make certain that those batteries are developed and produced in the United States. If we can accomplish that, it will be a large number of jobs that we keep here in the United States.

We also are trying to extend unemployment compensation benefits for an additional 7 weeks. And we are trying to help State budgets to make sure that States don't have to knock low-income children and low-income families off the health care rolls.

This is the main thrust of this legislation. We think it is long overdue.

And I would urge passage in the House.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Transportation appropriations subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut, the chairman of the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the public works and infrastructure authorizing committee, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

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

Mr. Speaker, I hate to keep going over old ground, but in light of the gentleman's comments, I would like to present a slightly different interpretation of where we are.

The fact is that we have passed out of this body and we expect to have sent to the President this weekend the three foreign policy appropriation bills for the year, representing well over 60 percent of the discretionary funding in the budget. We have not sent him any of the domestic appropriations bills for one simple reason, because the White House declared them dead on arrival before they had ever been written.

The White House simply made quite clear that if we did not submit to their budget wishes and cut $14 billion out of education, out of health care, out of science, out of energy research and the like, if we didn't do that they would veto the bills. When we asked if they would sit down and talk about it and consider compromise, they indicated they had no interest.

It is clear to us that the President means what he says. He often does. So under those circumstances, we had a choice. We could either capitulate to the President's requirements that we cut everything from medical research at NIH to vocational education and the like, or we could say no, we are not going to accept those reductions; we will try to appeal to the public and let them choose.

So the public will choose by their selection of either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain. I am sorry, it has been a long day. The fellow from Arizona. Anyway, the public will choose one or the other. And if they choose Mr. McCain, then they will get President Bush's domestic budget, and if they choose Mr. Obama, they will get something quite different.

So I think there is a very rational reason for our making this choice. The only other option would have been for us to scream at each other and argue with each other for 6 months, knowing that the bills were going nowhere because of the President's intent to veto the bills.

That, in essence, is why we find ourselves where we are on those domestic appropriation bills.

But this bill is a different issue. This bill relates not to yesterday's arguments, but to today's problems and tomorrow's solutions. What this bill represents is an effort to respond to the economic chaos that we have seen in this country for the past 8 months or more. It represents an effort. At a time when people are talking about doing a huge bailout for the financial system, we are trying to find discrete ways of making life a little less miserable for people who have been hit hard by the

consequences of the economic chaos that has swept over the country.

So we make no apology. In a year when we have lost 600,000 jobs, we make no apology for trying to help resurrect the possibility for some more good-paying jobs by adding to construction, to our infrastructure by way of airport and highway and transit development, by doing additional energy research, by doing additional cleanup of sewer and water, again, construction jobs that will mean a good many families will be seeing decent income again where they were not before. That is what this bill tries to do.

It is in fact a very modest proposal in terms of what most economists think will be necessary, but it is a whole lot better than doing nothing.

FDR warned a long time ago, he said, ``Better the occasional mistake of a government that cares than the constant omission of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.'' And that I think is the choice that faces us today.

As Franklin Roosevelt said a long time ago in his inaugural address, ``This country needs action; it needs action now.'' We are trying in a small way to provide that, along with the two other pieces that are now before this Congress, one being the continuing resolution, and the second being the disposition of the huge economy rescue project that the President has proposed. This is a key element in those efforts.

I yield back the balance of my time.