Floor Statements

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

If we've learned one thing in the last 5 years, it is that the body of financial regulation which keeps us, as a people, safe must not be static, must not be dead, but, rather, a living thing that evolves and changes, not just to make sure that innovations and new products and new businesses don't get us into the kinds of troubles that we've experienced in the last 5 years, but also to make sure that the financial services industry remains entrepreneurial, that people who want to start small banks, small asset managers, small businesses of any kind have an opportunity to get started, to raise capital and to do well.

The securities laws that were established in 1933 and 1934 need to evolve and adapt to reflect the conditions in today's market. This is why I've introduced H.R. 1965. This bill would allow banks and bank holding companies to remain private to a point at which they believe it is in their interest to go public, undertake the fairly lengthy and complicated process of public registration at a moment when it makes sense for them to go into the public markets.

The original securities laws stipulated that banks would have to register with the SEC when they had more than 500 shareholders. Our small banks, our community banks experience difficulties because as original investors move on or pass on and leave shares to their beneficiaries, very rapidly banks reach that 500 shareholder number and are required to undertake the very complicated, up-front processes, but also the ongoing reporting requirements associated with public registration.

H.R. 1965 would very simply raise that threshold from 500 shareholders to 2,000 shareholders, again allowing these small banks to pick the optimal moment at which they go public, to allow them to continue to raise money in the private markets from private investors until such point that it makes sense for them to register and go public.

Now, it might be asked, is this prudent? And the answer to that question, of course, is that the banks and the bank holding companies are very heavily regulated by their prudential regulators. From the moment they are chartered, they are overseen by State and Federal entities that are designed to keep them from any sort of fraud from imprudent activities, and so this is an industry that is already heavily regulated, even for these companies who remain private.

I'd like to note that this bill provides relief to small banks by recognizing that unique characteristic, that they are regulated, and that they should continue to have access to the capital sources that got them started until they choose to go public.

I will note that this bill passed with broad bipartisan support in both subcommittee and committee, and I'd like to close my statement by thanking Chairman Bachus and Ranking Member Frank, as well as subcommittee Chair Garrett and Ranking Member Waters, for their hard work and cooperation in putting this bill together.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the minority whip, Mr. Hoyer of Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Peters) be designated to control the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago a railroad bridge over the Norwalk River in my district seized, causing delay and economic damage along the New York-Boston corridor, an artery for jobs, for economic prosperity, and for growth. It turns out that this is true around the country.

The American Society of Engineers grades our infrastructure a D. Make no mistake. We are going to fix this because the American people are not going to tolerate bridges that fall down and roads that crumble.

Meanwhile, thousands of engineers, electricians, and carpenters are out of work. Do you see the connection between out-of-work construction people and a desperate need to rebuild our infrastructure? All that is missing is for the Republican majority to pass a jobs bill which funds the investment in our infrastructure that will lead to economic prosperity and to jobs now.

Every day that goes by in this Chamber without an infrastructure bill is a vote against safety and against jobs for people who desperately need them.

Madam Speaker, 2 days ago the United States Senate, the Republicans in the United States Senate, unanimously decided to not bring for consideration the jobs bill. I don't understand the workings of the United States Senate, and I don't understand the logic behind that decision, but I do understand why on a good day the approval ratings of the United States Congress are 12 percent.

Maybe the bill wasn't perfect. The only justification for not bringing the jobs bill today is because you've got a better bill.

So I ask the Senate and I ask the leadership of this House, there are 14 million Americans who today need a job; so if the bill's not perfect, that's fine; let's make it good. But let's do it today.

The American people cannot wait on the politics of this institution. Let's bring a jobs bill to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, today, we expect that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will apply for member status before the United Nations. This unilateral action is likely to complicate U.S. peace efforts. It also rejects the essential principle of solving the conflict through direct negotiations with Israel.

History has taught us that a just and lasting peace must be negotiated. It cannot be imposed from the outside, lest it be built on an unstable and temporary foundation.

The creation of a viable, autonomous and peaceful Palestinian state is essential, not only to address the aspirations of the Palestinian people, but also to ensure Israel's security in the region. A two-state solution is the only answer for sustainable peace, and while the negotiations to achieve that goal have suffered setbacks, that must be the objective.

During a speech on Middle East policy at the U.S. State Department on May 19, 2011, President Obama stated, ``For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.'' I agree with these sentiments.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present to cast my vote on Mr. Holt's amendment to H.R. 2218--Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act. I wish the record to reflect my intentions had I been able to vote.

Had I been present for rollcall No. 702, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, last night the Republican majority in this House, without the support of a single Democrat, did something very dangerous--and I am not talking about the pernicious cuts that would damage the least fortunate in our society. I am not talking about an ill-conceived balanced budget amendment that would surely result in our default. We should debate those things, and people of good will disagree how we do them.

I am talking about the provision of that bill that will bring us back in 6 months to have this discussion again while Americans lose billions of dollars in their retirement accounts, while businesses and our markets face uncertainty. We will do this in 6 more months because of the Republicans.

Now I am a House Democrat. Don't listen to me on this. Listen to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. That Murdochian mouthpiece of malicious malarkey wrote, ``Republicans are not looking like adults to whom voters can entrust the government.''

Mr. Speaker, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I'm told that this afternoon this House will vote on the Boehner default prevention bill, in direct contravention of House rules, with limited debate and no opportunity for amendment. One of the most important discussions we need to have as a country--limited debate and no opportunity for amendment.

I would welcome that debate. I'd love to talk about what's involved in gutting Medicare and Social Security without asking the very wealthiest people in this country to participate in solving this problem. I'd love to have that debate. And we will, later, not today.

What I'm rising to talk about today, though, is the fact that this bill would have us having exactly this discussion 6 months from today, talking about default and credit ratings and the impacts of default, instead of talking about what every American wants this Chamber to be focused on, which is what we can do to bring about jobs.

This is not a good bill. But the notion that it would have us having this conversation again in 6 months is reason enough for every Member of this Chamber to reject that bill this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present to cast my vote on final passage of H.R. 2018, The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. I wish the record to reflect my intentions had I been able to vote.

Had I been present for rollcall No. 573, I would have voted ``no.''

This bill is an assault on the fundamental water protections the American people rely on and would reverse decades of progress. It significantly undermines the Clean Water Act, jeopardizes public health, and gravely affects our environment and economy.

Mr. Chairman, I was moved to come to the floor to argue in opposition to this amendment and in opposition to the underlying legislation. I was moved because the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma and the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia are both about reports and analyses that this new agency will be required to produce. And it's odd, because to give my friends on the other side credit, they usually stand for more streamlined and efficient government, sometimes to the point that government ceases to function; but they are about efficiency and streamlining, and yet here we're hearing about more reports and more analyses, for the simple reason that this is part of a larger strategy to weigh down, to underfund, and to decapitate an agency they have no interest in seeing survive, an agency that would protect consumers, that would protect that group that was badly and most severely harmed in the disaster that we just went through.

Why? One can speculate. Perhaps it's to stand for the industry, for the financial concerns. But why do that? Why do

that when it has been proven time and time again, not just in the last 3 years but over hundreds of years, that financial services is a very volatile and very risky pursuit that if not adequately regulated will do what it has done in the last 3 years, will do what it did in the late 1920s, what it has done hundreds of years prior, collapse in upon itself.

This is regulation that is smart, that is commonsense, and that will protect the American family from products that could destroy that family. So let's not weigh down this agency. Let's not decapitate it. Let's not underfund it. Let's let it survive to protect American families.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I stood on this floor with 3 weeks to go before August 2, the debt ceiling, to make the argument that we should abide by the commitments that we have made in the past. Today, I heard Chairman Bernanke of the Federal Reserve say that to fail to raise the debt ceiling would be devastating for jobs.

So what's the holdup? Don't take it from me. Let me read you a paragraph from The Economist magazine. This is not Mother Jones. This is not even The New York Times. This is The Economist magazine.

``The sticking point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical.''

Let me read that again: ``This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical.''

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my Republican colleague from North Carolina for that very powerful statement, and I am very glad that Congresswoman Woolsey was in the Chamber to hear that, Congresswoman Woolsey who has worked so hard to remind us of the terrible consequences of war.

I often sit here as we debate and seize from time to time at the statements of Republican colleagues, but that was profoundly moving, and I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.

I stand today, Madam Speaker, to talk on another issue that should unite our parties, and that is the fundamental question about whether or not the United States honors its commitments.

Today is July 12, exactly 3 weeks before August 2. August 2 is the date at which this government can no longer honor its commitments, at which time it will be forced to choose between paying those soldiers that we heard so movingly described and sending out Social Security checks, running a court system, paying Social Security and Medicare. Do we honor our commitments in the United States of America? I would think that both parties would say ``yes'' to that question. The Treasury Secretary, CEOs of American corporations and economist after economist have told us, Do not play around with the debt ceiling.

What is this debt ceiling, by the way, that is putting into peril the question of whether we honor our commitments? The debt ceiling is a pernicious fiction. It is a fiction that was put in place by this body decades ago to try to convince the American people that we could control our debts. And since then, it has never done that. It has been raised dozens of times as this body took the spending decisions and the tax cut decisions that required borrowing.

Under the Bush administration, the debt ceiling was raised seven times. Dozens and dozens of times, the debt ceiling has been raised. It is a fiction. It is a particularly pernicious set of smoke and mirrors that this institution uses to make people feel better while the debt rises, as it did under President Reagan, as it did under the first President Bush, as it did not under President Clinton, and as it did under President George W. Bush and President Obama.

So now the question is, do we honor the commitments made historically in this Chamber? We raise the debt ceiling not to spend more new money, to start new programs or to cut new taxes, but because we honor the commitments that were made in this Chamber to cut taxes in '01 and '03, to go to war twice in the last decade and

to add an expensive new drug benefit in Medicare.

Look, these are all things that people supported and opposed, but we committed to do them as a body. And you cannot make those decisions, you cannot vote to lower taxes or to increase spending and then turn around and say, I'm not going to pay for that. That is the worst sort of hypocrisy.

I'm glad that my friend from Louisiana (Mr. Landry) talked about credit cards, but he got it a little bit wrong. The debt ceiling is sort of like a credit card, but what we're talking about right now, because we are talking about paying for past decisions and commitments, would be as if I went to the electronics store and I bought myself a big screen TV, I bought myself a new microwave, and I bought myself a new home security system, and then I get home and a month later I get the credit card bill and I say, uh, I don't know if I'm going to pay this credit card bill. I took the decisions. I made the commitments. And now the time has come to honor those commitments.

Do we act as stewards of one of the best assets that this country has, our full faith and credit, the belief that the United States honors its commitments? This is a critical asset, particularly now at a time of great economic uncertainty. Do we act as stewards of that full faith and credit? Or do we use the debt ceiling as a gun to the head to say that unless you do X, Y and Z, unless you cut 2 trillion or 3 trillion, we won't raise the debt ceiling, which is what we are hearing from the Republican side today? Do you use it? Do you hold it hostage, the full faith and credit of the United States? That is what we are seeing today.

Look, there is no question we need to address the deficit. We need to address the long-term sustainability of Medicare and Social Security in an equitable way. We should do that. And this President has basically put everything on the table, including making some of my colleagues on the Democratic side very uncomfortable with Social Security and Medicare. But he has put them on the table because there can be no sacred cows, unless you're John Boehner, or a Republican, and not everything is on the table because we won't put the immense amount of spending we do through the Tax Code for advantages for oil companies, for advantages for big agriculture and for all sorts of tax breaks for corporations and others. We won't even talk about that.

My friends, this comes down to the question of do we honor our commitments? The answer to that question must be yes.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my colleague from Oregon.

And with all due respect to the ranking member, I think the effort to limit these subsidies is both fiscally responsible, more in keeping with the kind of market economics that so many of us in this Chamber believe are the right way to go, and will help the health of the American people, something that will have a dramatic impact on the rising health care costs in this country.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment would limit the total title I payments to farm entities to less than $125,000 a year. It doesn't eliminate them; it simply limits them. Under current law, market loan payments, loan deficiency payments, and commodity certificates are not capped, and entities can receive unlimited title I dollars.

Mr. Chairman, 4 hours ago in this Chamber, we debated amendments that would eliminate and gut the WIC program, WIC--women, infants and children. This is a program that seeks to provide basic food to poor children, to poor families.

There were amendments that would eliminate the Food for Peace program whereby we send food--in those bags that we've all seen, ``A gift from the people of the United States of America''--to people who are starving around this planet, a gift from the people of the United States of America at a moment when we can use friends. And we said we're going to gut them, we're going to reduce them. Why would you do that? You would only do that if you face the kind of budget constraints that we face today. A brutal necessity to find savings.

Here we have an opportunity to save nearly $1 billion in subsidies to large producers. These are not small farmers, as my colleague from Oregon said. The top 10 percent of subsidy recipients receive almost three-quarters of these funds. This is not the small farmer; these are big conglomerates.

These subsidies are bailouts. We hear a lot about bailouts in this Chamber. And nobody thinks bailouts are a good thing. These are slow- motion, year-in-and-year-out bailouts of an industry.

Many of my colleagues support both the goals of fiscal responsibility and the idea that markets are efficient. Here, not only are we taking taxpayer dollars and sending them to a slow motion, perpetual bailout, but we're doing it in such a way that it creates cheap corn sugars and other things that go into the fast-food that exacerbate the obesity problem in this country. This is a bad idea. And I urge my colleagues to support this amendment for both fiscal health and sheer market grounds.

I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to talk about something that most Americans don't know much about: derivatives.

Derivatives are basically big bets on the future of the housing market, the future of oil prices that, amongst other things, AIG used to destroy itself, requiring the Bush administration to put together a bailout package that was so controversial that we got to pay for.

Derivatives are also used by speculators to take position in energy markets. Don't take it from me. Goldman Sachs says that $20 to $30 of the price of a barrel of oil today is associated with speculation in the energy markets.

Now, you'd think given all this that we might regulate derivatives, which we haven't done before, and you'd be right, except for the fact that the bill that we're talking about today, the Agriculture bill, would gut money for the CFTC, which will be the regulator of the derivatives markets.

Now, the majority can't say we shouldn't regulate them. So, instead, in their zeal to deregulate everything, they're saying let's gut the regulators' ability to look after these contractors.

Sounds crazy? It is.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the many achievements of Dr. Charles MacCormack, whose tireless work to improve the lives of children around the world serves as an example to all of us.

As President and CEO of Save the Children, Dr. MacCormack has overseen humanitarian aid programs in more than 50 countries. In the wake of natural disasters and in regions of the world torn apart by war, Save the Children helps children avoid unbearable pain and suffering. Dr. MacCormack's retirement creates a void at Save the Children that will be difficult to fill and he will be missed by friends, colleagues and the countless children across the world whose lives are better, because of him.

As many as a billion children around the world go to sleep hungry each night. For nearly two decades, Dr. MacCormack has led a global organization that protects the most vulnerable children and creates real change in the lives of those most in need. Throughout his life, Dr. MacCormack has conducted research, taught, and led organizations that promote greater mutual understanding among cultures, provide basic necessities to those in need, and defend the defenseless.

Before joining Save the Children, Dr. MacCormack was President of World Learning, a non-profit organization that promotes understanding among people from diverse cultures through educational exchanges and research. He serves on the Board of InterAction, an association of more than 160 humanitarian and development organizations, and on the Boards of the Basic Education Coalition and the Campaign for Effective Global Leadership. Dr. MacCormack has taken leadership roles with the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, the Food Security Advisory Committee, and the Non-Governmental Committee on UNICEF and is a founding board member of Malaria No More.

Dr. MacCormack has enriched the lives of people around the world. But today, let us all turn our attention to him and express our gratitude for his lifetime of service. As a Representative, I am proud to honor him here today; and as a fellow citizen and friend. I am indebted to Charlie for all he has done and continues to do--for the children of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Au Pair in America Program. Based in Stamford, Connecticut, the American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS) and its Au Pair in America Program have been leaders in providing young people with exceptional cultural exchange programs.

The Au Pair in America program began in 1986 with the goal of providing young people with unique cultural exchange opportunities. The first authorized sponsor for au pair programs, Au Pair in America has brought more than 87,000 au pairs from over 60 countries to live with an American family, care for children, and pursue educational interests for a year.

On June 9, 2011, the State Department will be hosting a reception in honor of the program's 25th anniversary. I congratulate AIFS and Au Pair in America on the continued success of this educational and cultural program, and extend my best wishes to all the program participants in their work to foster global exchange.