Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a valued member of the Arizona delegation, John Shadegg.

John Shadegg is ending his service to this institution after 16 years. He came here in 1994 and has served the State of Arizona extremely well during that time. During his time here, John promoted the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual responsibility, and has stayed true to his ideals while proudly serving the people of Arizona's Third District.

Arizona has a habit of producing great legislators, including Barry Goldwater, Mo Udall, Carl Hayden, and others; John Shadegg's name will certainly be added to that illustrious list.

I want to pay tribute to John today and tell him how much the Arizona delegation, and all of us will miss his steady, constant, principled leadership here in the House of Representatives. Well done, John Shadegg.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a valued member of the Arizona delegation, John Shadegg.

John Shadegg is ending his service to this institution after 16 years. John came here in 1994 and has served the State of Arizona extremely well during that time. He has promoted the principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility, and has stayed true to his principles and been a valued member of the Arizona delegation.

Arizona has a habit of producing great legislators, including Barry Goldwater, Mo Udall, Carl Hayden, and others; and John now adds his name to that list of great Arizona legislators.

I just want to pay tribute to him and tell him how much the Arizona delegation and all of us will miss his steady, constant, principled leadership here in the House of Representatives.

Well done, John. Well done, John Shadegg.

Mr. Speaker, when the Obama administration was faced with a massive omnibus in January of 2009, the President stated that he had to sign it because this is simply last year's business that he had no part of. Well, he's going to face another omnibus this year. This was all done under his watch by the Congress. It's not his fault, but he has a veto pen and he should use it.

This omnibus that's going to come to the President is going to contain more than 6,000 earmarks for things like a couple of hundred thousand that was mentioned for maple syrup research or $500,000 for biodiesel research from sewage-based biodiesel and thousands and thousands of other earmarks like this.

The President recently said: I agree with those Republican and Democrat Members of Congress who have recently said that, in these challenging days, we simply can't afford what are called earmarks.

Well, Mr. President, please make good on that statement. Veto this omnibus bill coming. Better yet, convince your colleagues in the House and the Senate to reject it before it comes to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1766 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which causes the violation of 426(a).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this tax package that the House will consider shortly. While there may not be unfunded mandates per se in the bill, this will impose a burden on States and local governments and everyone else here. And particularly it will add a huge burden to our kids and our grandkids, because we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars that will go directly to the deficit and directly to our $14 trillion national debt.

On November 2, I think we got a pretty good message from the taxpayers. They wanted us to stop running deficits and to start paying down the debt. Yet before we even get to the new year, just weeks away from the election, here we are, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit and to the debt. This compromise shows that Washington just doesn't get it yet. We simply didn't get the message we were supposed to on November 2.

I do support the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that were enacted, and we also have to find a remedy for the death tax. But we've got to do it in a different way than this. Congress can take swift action to ensure that taxes don't go up, but we shouldn't be adding the other items that we're doing here. It's taken on the seasonal theme again, of course. It's become a Christmas tree. I'll explain a few of the items in it. But it just notes, more than anything, that we haven't gotten the message, that we're just going about things the same way we always have.

Let me just take one provision here, ethanol. We've been subsidizing ethanol now for nearly 30 years. It's about a $6 billion a year subsidy. They have the trifecta, the ethanol industry. We mandate its use. We impose tariffs to imports to make sure we can compete, and then we subsidize as well. And we're going to continue to do all those things here for an industry that should be mature at this time, but it's continuing to get subsidies. How in the world that belongs as part of this tax package I'll leave for the voters to decide. But it just shows that we haven't changed. When are we going to wake up to the fact that we can't continue to do business like this anymore?

With regard to ethanol, one of the former backers was former Vice President Al Gore. He said the other day: One of the reasons I made this mistake--this mistake being supporting the subsidizing of ethanol--is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home State of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the State of Iowa because I was about to run for President.

Now, that's a pretty candid admission. And the reason we have ethanol subsidies is that all Presidential campaigns begin in Iowa. But that's no reason to saddle the rest of the country with this kind of burden. And also the negative impacts on the environment are huge and growing from ethanol, yet we continue to do it just to buy a couple of votes to get this tax bill over the top.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time

I appreciate the comments of the gentlelady. She brings up that this is a technicality, that we're just speaking here on a point of order when we should be speaking on the bill and that we should debate this bill on the merits. I would like to. That's why I actually submitted an amendment to the gentlelady's committee, to the Rules Committee, to debate the ethanol provision; yet it wasn't included. We weren't allowed to debate that. And so if we're not allowed to debate that then under the rule, then we have to debate it some other time.

I would love to hear an explanation from the Rules Committee as to why this wasn't included and why only amendments that may make Members feel good about voting on but have no possibility of delaying this package were even considered.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I thank the gentleman.

Just continuing on the ethanol theme, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute said recently: ``Between 1999 and 2009, while U.S. ethanol production increased sevenfold to more than 700,000 barrels a day, U.S. oil imports actually increased by more than 800,000 barrels per day. Furthermore, and perhaps more surprising, during the same period, U.S. oil exports--yes, exports--more than doubled to more than 2 million barrels per day.

``Data from the Energy Information Administration show that oil imports closely track U.S. oil consumption. Over the past decade, as domestic oil demand grew, imports increased. When consumption fell, imports dropped. Ramped-up ethanol production levels simply had no apparent effect on oil imports or consumption.''

We have every level of the administration, anybody who analyzes this says that this is a boondoggle; and yet it reappears here, a $6 billion item, not insubstantial, not small. But it appears here in this tax package simply to get it over the line. That simply can't happen anymore if we're going to get control on this debt and deficit.

Let me talk about one other provision of the tax bill. All of us talk about the burden that the payroll tax has, and it is big. And it's tough for taxpayers to pay the payroll tax. I would like to lower it. I think everybody would like to lower it. But the payroll tax is dedicated specifically for Social Security. It goes into the Social Security trust fund.

Under this legislation, we'll have a 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax on the employee side. That will net somebody like me or any Member of Congress here about $2,000 a year. What does it do for the deficit? It will balloon the deficit by $120 billion a year. One year from now, because it's only a 1-year reduction, we'll be faced with this same problem.

What do we do as Republicans? We always say we're not going to raise taxes on anybody, no matter how temporary the tax. We'll be forced politically, with the situation, where do we increase this tax? Do we let it go? If we let it continue, that's another $120 billion hole in the deficit and in the Social Security trust fund. Why are we doing that?

If we do have payroll tax deductions, we may well want to, but at least let's have commensurate benefit cuts on the other side. Let's address benefits on the other side. If we're not going to lower them, then we shouldn't lower this.

This is simply irresponsible for us to take a bill like this and assume that it's not going to have an impact on the deficit and not going to have an impact on the debt.

Where are we now? Just a few weeks ago, every one of us, I tell you, every one of us running for office said to the voters, we're going to get control of the debt and the deficit. All of us said that. And yet our first actions here, before we even go into the next Congress, is to put a bill on the floor that's going to balloon the debt and deficit. How can we do that? We can't. We shouldn't. That's why I am raising this point of order.

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

May I inquire as to the time remaining?

Again, this is a package that we simply cannot afford. We cannot go on as if the deficit and the debt don't matter. Not only that they don't matter, but we expand them considerably. We can continue the tax cuts for every American. We can do that without these extra things in the bill. Let's wait until January. Let's wait until we have a new Congress, and let's do a different deal than this. This is not a deal that is good for the taxpayer; it is not a deal that is good for this institution.

We have said that we will change and that we got the message. This is evidence that we haven't.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I don't have time to detail all that is wrong with this bill, so I will focus on one very small part of it. It's the Social Security payroll reduction. I want everybody in this body to remember this figure, this one number: $2,136. $2,136--that's the raise that we're all giving ourselves with this bill. That's the raise that we're giving ourselves, and we're borrowing every penny of it from our kids and our grandkids, or probably China.

$2,136. We don't know where that came from. I asked people in this body, How did that provision get in here? It's not part of extending current tax rates, keeping the tax rates current. This is something completely new. We're told, Oh, somebody in the Senate put that in. But nobody has sought to remove it here. But keep in mind, again, $2,136. That's how much every Member of this body--because all of us make more than $106,000 a year, so all of us are giving ourselves a $2,136 raise with this legislation. We had better remember it because the voters certainly will.

As I mentioned, we're borrowing this money. We don't have it. We can't pull it from another account. There is nothing in the Social Security Trust Fund to take it from, so we're borrowing it, every penny of it. So just remember that number, $2,136. That's the raise we are giving ourselves with this legislation. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the tax deal negotiated between congressional leadership and the White House. Although we have yet to see the language of the bill, it is clear that it will represent a level of spending that should be unacceptable to those who are serious about our ballooning deficit.

What is striking about this legislation is the failure for either party to make tough choices. Where are the cuts? Take, for example, the 2 percent payroll tax deduction. If it is a good idea to reduce the payroll tax, it is imperative that we couple it with a reduction in benefits on the other side; but we make no such choices here. Again, we eat a sumptuous meal and pass the bill on to our kids and our grandkids because we lack the decency to pay for it ourselves.

If we can't make difficult choices now, Madam Speaker, when will we? Are we waiting for our New Year's resolutions to kick in? We're just a few years away from the fate of Greece and Ireland, and is this the best we can do? We can and should do better.

I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

I rise in opposition to this CR. Having failed to present one of the 12 annual appropriation bills for fiscal year 2011 to the President, this body finds itself once again in the position of scrambling at the last minute to pass legislation just to keep the government running.

This year is different. This year the outgoing majority wants us to accomplish much of its agenda long before Republicans take control. It would seem that if you failed to pass legislation in regular order that would fund the government for the coming year that you should at least recognize that we have had an election. And if you can't finish the work, allow those who are coming in to go ahead with their own budget.

Republicans have called to cut spending to fiscal 2008 levels. This, I think, continues funding at 2010 levels. That might not seem significant until you realize that's a $100 billion difference. And when you are running these kinds of deficits, when you have this kind of debt, that makes a difference. If the first rule when you are in a hole is to stop digging, certainly the first rule when you are running a deficit like we are is to stop spending. And if we can cut it to fiscal 2008 levels rather than 2010, we should do it. We are just digging a deeper hole that we will have to fill in later and make deeper cuts later on.

So I would encourage everyone to reject this CR; pass a short-term CR so we can deal with this responsibly in January or February rather than continuing funding at an unsustainable level.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in opposition to this bill. There's no denying that there are issues related to Chinese currency valuation. Unfortunately, the passage of this bill today will do little to address those concerns. Instead, approval of this bill will likely only result in retaliatory actions on the part of the Chinese.

A recent letter was penned to leaders of the House of Representatives by a variety of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, National Foreign Trade Council, and others. They wrote: ``Unilateral legislation, which seeks to increase tariffs on imports from China, is unlikely to incentivize China to move expeditiously to modify its exchange policies. Rather, it would likely have the opposite effect and could engender retaliation against U.S. exports into the Chinese market, currently the fastest growing market for U.S. exports.''

Courting retaliation with no direct benefit likely qualifies for what you would call the very definition of counterproductive trade policy. And it's unfortunate that, as has been said here today before, in 2 years this is about the only trade legislation that we've considered. Certainly, very little to open up new markets. We have three pending trade agreements that languish that should be approved, and yet this is what we're doing. That's really sad.

Later today I think we're considering something like a Made in America Flag Act or something to require that we not import any flags made outside of the U.S. into the U.S. I don't know what's next. Maybe requiring Americans to eat apple pie while they make flags. I don't know. But we're into the crazy season here where we're simply pandering instead of actually addressing what will open new markets and help create jobs in the private sector.

I urge opposition to H.R. 2378.

Madam Speaker, those who advocate for this legislation are forgetting one very, very important thing: we are broke.

Madam Speaker, I want to say just a few words about missed opportunities and misplaced priorities.

This is typically appropriation season, but this is only our second appropriation bill--and maybe final appropriation bill that we do all year. We typically have an open rule where any Member can bring any amendment to the floor as long as it is germane to strike spending and save money for the taxpayers, yet this year the Rules Committee only saw fit to allow 22 percent of the amendments offered to go onto the floor today.

Typically, any Member can offer any amendment they would like to as long as it saves money. But instead of saving money this year, we decided to spend time doing things like H.R. 1460, recognizing the important role of pollinators, or supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day, or congratulating the Saratoga race course. These are suspension bills that take 10 minutes to debate on the floor; that's the same amount of time that we give for amendments. And so instead of doing amendments to save money, we're actually honoring racehorses and things like that.

Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1569 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which causes the violation of section 426(a).

Madam Speaker, I raise this point of order today not to debate a point of unfunded mandates, although there are probably some in the legislation. It is simply the only opportunity that members of the minority have to stand up and talk about this process. We are only given a minimal amount of time on the rule, itself, and, on the bill, just an hour of debate and then amendment debate. Unfortunately, although we have had an open process in terms of amendments on appropriation bills for as long as any of us can remember--for decades and decades and decades--for the last couple of years, we have had structured rules come to the floor where members of the minority and the majority aren't allowed to offer the amendments that they would like.

Traditionally, Members could offer any amendment as long as it was germane and as long as it struck spending from the legislation and it was legislated on an appropriation bill. Yet this year and last year, for the first time, Members can't bring amendments to the floor. They have to submit them to the Rules Committee. Then the Rules Committee decides which ones they want to allow on the floor and which ones they don't or they will decide, Oh, you've offered 12 amendments, but you can only offer four. This limits the ability of the minority, in particular, to actually stand up and try to save money in the legislation.

We have to remember that every bill we consider this year, every appropriation bill--and unfortunately, probably, we are only going to consider two until after the election. Of the ones we consider, 42 cents of every dollar we spend we are borrowing. We are borrowing 42 cents of every dollar we are spending for whatever we spend it on.

Now, I think it is perfectly right and proper to ask: Is this right to spend, for example, money on, well, in this case, 461 earmarks in this piece of legislation alone? Some of them are for bike paths and street beautification. These are all good things, but they have no Federal nexus. They shouldn't be paid for by the Federal taxpayer. Yet, when we try to bring these amendments to the floor to debate them, only a few are allowed. Why is that?

I would ask if the gentleman representing the Rules Committee can explain why this is happening, why in the world we are so hard-pressed for time now, apparently, that we can only consider a couple of amendments, 22 percent of those that were offered.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, slamming the door on the legislative process. My taking 10 minutes to talk about this rule is slamming the door on the legislative process.

How is that?

What I am here to talk about is how the door has been slammed on the legislative process. The inability of Members to come and offer amendments to appropriation bills to try and save money is what is slamming the door on the legislative process. It has nothing to do with somebody's standing up and claiming time to speak against the rule.

So that is just baffling to me and to anybody out there, listening, when they learn that I offered 11 amendments. There were 461 earmarks which

were costing nearly $330 million. I should note, this year, Republicans have taken a moratorium. So, of those 461 earmarks, only six were sponsored by Republican Members--six out of 431. I commend my Republican colleagues for the position that has been taken this year.

Let me just read a list of the ones that I will be challenging today:

I was allowed to choose four out of the 11 I submitted. Now, I could have submitted a lot more and could have tried to have been dilatory about this, but I said, I'll offer just as many as I would if that were the number that I could actually offer coming to the floor. But I was only allowed four.

I should mention many of my Republican colleagues who offered earmark amendments were not given any, not any. Some of them had a great case to make here. They would have asked, for example, why it is that certain Members requested, say, $4 million for an earmark and got more than that, actually, given to them.

Why is it, if you take the position that some Members take, that, hey, I know my district better than anybody else, better than those faceless bureaucrats we always hear about in the bureaucracy, so I need $4 million for this bike path or whatever, and you get $5 million, how is that? That's a good question to ask. It would have been nice to get the answer for that, but we won't be able to because those Members were denied the ability to come down and offer their amendments.

I'll be offering amendments to strike funding, for example, for the Blackstone River Bikeway in Rhode Island. It might be a good bikeway. They might need it there. But I can tell you, the Federal Government doesn't need to pay for it. The Federal taxpayer doesn't need to pay for it, especially when we're spending 42 cents of every dollar--we're borrowing, I'm sorry, 42 cents for every dollar we spend.

I would challenge any Member who will vote against my amendment to strike funding from the Blackstone River Bikeway in Rhode Island to go home and say, with a straight face to their constituents, yes, I think it's proper that we borrow 42 cents from either the Chinese or from your kids or grandkids because we can't pay for it now, for the Federal Government to pay for a bikeway in Rhode Island.

Or for downtown Tacoma streetscapes, a downtown Tacoma streetscape improvement project in Washington. Why in the world should, in this case, a powerful member of the Appropriations Committee be able to get an earmark to pay for downtown Tacoma streetscapes?

Again, we're borrowing 42 cents for every dollar we spend there. Go home to your constituents, I dare you, and say, yes, I voted to uphold, to keep that earmark in there. It was so important that we got the downtown Tacoma streetscape project that we're borrowing 42 cents from your kids and grandkids to pay for, just so I can go home to my constituents and say, hey, I bring home the bacon.

Or the restoration and improvements to the historic Darwin Martin House Home and Complex. Now, it might be good. Why is the taxpayer paying, through the Federal Government, and borrowing 42 cents on every dollar to do that?

Or the construction of a children's playground. It might be a good playground, the children might need it somewhere, but it's not the Federal Government's responsibility. And go home to your constituents, I dare you today, anybody who votes to strike my amendment or votes my amendment down to strike that funding, go home and explain why in the world we need construction of a children's playground and borrow, those kids who are going to be playing on it, borrow their money because we can't pay for it now. But it's so important for us to go home and say I brought home the bacon that we're going to approve that earmark.

Let me tell you another reason why we can't reform this process very easily. This chart will show you the appropriations process this year. And it looks, people have said, like a PAC-MAN chart. But the red there is the percentage of earmark dollars that are associated with powerful Members of Congress. Those are either appropriators, or those who chair committees, or those who are in leadership positions. That makes up about 13 percent of the body.

In this bill today, and this is one of the lower ones, 42 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of the Members of this body.

Now, for those who say, hey, we're here to earmark because we know our constituents better. We know our district better than those faceless bureaucrats, apparently you only know your district if you're a powerful Member or you're a member of the Appropriations Committee. That seems to be the determiner of whether or not you know your district. And I just don't think that's right.

I said earlier in a 1-minute something, and I was wrong and I want to confess that. I said that it takes 10 minutes to debate a suspension bill. And in that same 10 minutes of debating a suspension bill we could debate an amendment, an amendment takes 10 minutes.

I was wrong. It takes 40 minutes; 40 minutes are allotted to debate suspension bills. So we could actually debate four amendments for the time that it takes to debate one suspension bill.

And let me remind those who are watching what a suspension bill is. It's a bill that doesn't go through the regular process. It's brought to the floor because it's typically noncontroversial.

This year we've done a lot of suspension bills. We have recognized the important role of pollinators, as I mentioned, H.R. 1460.

We spent 40 minutes supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day.

We spent 40 minutes supporting the goals of National Dairy Month. Those might be good things, but we don't need to spend 40 minutes debating on the floor the goals and ideals of National Dairy Day, or supporting the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer week, or congratulating the Chicago Blackhawks, spending 40 minutes there, when every 40 minutes you spend apparently is 10 minutes, or 10 times 4, that we don't do amendments here on appropriation bills.

So the notion that we're running out of time, somehow, and we don't have time to do appropriation bills, typically, the months of June and July are reserved mostly to do appropriation bills. This is only the second appropriations bill we've done. We've done the last one yesterday. We're going to start and finish this one today.

In years past, we've taken sometimes 3 or 4 days to do one appropriation bill. That's perhaps as it should be because this is important. We're spending a lot of money here. That's what Congress does. But we ought to take care, and we ought to allow Members who have amendments to try to save the taxpayer money to actually offer them.

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

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Chairman, I wish to offer the amendment on behalf of Congresswoman Bachmann.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would simply reduce funding for capital and debt service grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation for capital investments by $1.2 million.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I misspoke earlier; I left off three zeros. This amendment would save $1.2 billion, not $1.2 million. It's easy to mess that up these days, given all the zeros we're talking about.

The U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that the average Amtrak passenger receives a $210 Federal subsidy for their ticket. Larger subsidies obviously go to underperforming routes and those traveling in first class or sleeper cars. In fact, the Federal Government says that it could actually save money by buying a plane ticket for every passenger on some of the worst performing routes, like that from Orlando to L.A., for example. This has been going on for a long, long time, and we're always told that Amtrak will be self- sufficient just around the corner, or that something else will happen; and it simply never does. It's kind of the transportation version of corn ethanol subsidies. So, I don't want to anger another group here.

But anyway, it just seems to never, never end; and we keep subsidizing on and on. It might be one thing if we were running a big surplus to do this. We're not: 42 or 41 cents on every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed from future generations, from the Chinese, from other bond holders. When we're spending, when we're borrowing 42 cents on every dollar, I think it behooves us to look for areas where we can save; and this is a modest area here, to cut some, just a small portion, of the subsidy that we currently provide.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 2, Part

This amendment would prohibit $1 million from going to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation for the Blackstone River Bikeway, and it would reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount.

This particular earmark would fund a project to construct a 3\1/2\ mile route or portion of a bikeway in North Smithfield, and Woonsocket, including the construction of sections that would connect a public library, a planned middle school complex, and several bridges.

Here we have a project that is described as a cyclist's paradise of mill villages and farming communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. According to the Web site of the project, the bikeway is being developed thanks largely to Federal transportation funding, and it's an effort among Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and on and on, some other entities as well.

Well, certainly Federal transportation funding is right. There is a lot of it going here. And a lot of earmarks have gone this way as well. Over the past several years, this project has received several earmarks. In fact, Citizens Against Government Waste has in their waste Pig Book this project has received five earmarks in transportation appropriations bills worth nearly $7 million since 2002, including, last year, same project received a $475,000 earmark; in 2005, a $500,000 earmark; 2004, a $1.5 million earmark; 2003, a $3 million earmark; 2002, a $1.5 million earmark. Why are we doing this?

Here we are, as we just mentioned, running a deficit of about $1.4 trillion this year. We have a national debt north of $13 trillion. Forty-two cents of every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed. Yet we can't wean ourselves off these kind of earmarks.

Bike paths. I love biking. I will go home this weekend and bike. But why in the world should the taxpayers at the Federal level be on the hook for an earmark for a bike path in Rhode Island? Why did we just choose this one? That's part of the problem of this system of earmarking that we have.

I look at this chart. The contemporary practice of earmarking is very much a spoils system. And if we look at the bill that we are considering right now, THUD, this is actually one of the least egregious offenders. If you look at the red area, that's the percentage of earmark dollars that are claimed by members of the Appropriations Committee or members of leadership or chairmen of committees. They represent about 13 percent of this body, yet they claim, look at this, look at the red, some bills, in the ag appropriations bill 76 percent of all earmarks will go to these 13 percent of powerful members. In this bill, 42 percent.

That's the problem. How do we choose this bike path as opposed to one in Utah or one in Alaska or somewhere else? It's a spoils system that has to stop. And if we can't stop it this year, when we're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, when will we stop it?

I reserve the balance of my time.

I don't think we want to talk about bull. I don't know how it is in Wisconsin, but in Arizona, to have a bill that has more than 400 earmarks worth more than $300 million is not an insignificant sum.

Now, you can have a chart that takes the overall amount that the bill spends and then make $300 million look pretty small. But only in Washington will people say, yeah, that looks pretty small. Anywhere else in the country they're going to say that's a pretty big amount. And everybody knows how the game works here. Earmarks are, as has been said by many, the gateway drug to spending addiction. Once you start getting earmarks, you start approving bloated appropriations bills worth $67 billion. And if you didn't have your earmark in there, you wouldn't be likely to keep increasing the amounts that we spend every year.

Now, some may point out, hey, we are down this year from last year, but we were up 28 percent last year from the year before. That is what has got us into this problem where we have a deficit of $1.4 trillion and we are borrowing 42 cents on every dollar, and then we dismiss $300 million as insignificant.

I mean you can use a magnifying glass and try to make it sound like it's small, but it's $300 million. And people across the country are saying if we don't start here, where do we start? If we can't do this, will we ever reform the entitlement programs we have to reform?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 4, part B.

Before I start on this amendment, let me address what was just said here.

We're told by challenging these earmarks, $300 million in this bill, that we, those who want to save some money here, know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I think we better translate that into Chinese. And the next time we try to auction our bonds and we have no takers and the Chinese won't buy this paper, say, ``Hey, you know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.'' See where that gets us.

It does matter what kind of deficits we run and what kind of debt we have. It matters. It matters a lot. We may say that it doesn't around here or that we'll get serious about it later or that we can fund all of the bike paths we want this year or streetscapes or whatever we're doing because we'll get serious about it next year, but we never seem to do it.

I've been doing this for several years now, and I hear that all the time. ``Yeah, we'll get to it later. This year we've got to do this,'' and we never seem to get to it.

So I would just challenge the cost of everything, the value of nothing, those sayings. Yeah, they're nice to hear, but when you're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, I think there's a little too much cost there, and I think people across the country would agree.

This amendment would prohibit a million dollars going to the downtown Tacoma streetscape improvements in Tacoma, Washington, and reduce spending in the bill by a commensurate amount. According to the sponsor's Web site, the recipient will be the City of Tacoma, and the funding would be used toward streetscape improvements along Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma.

The City of Tacoma, I believe, has received a similar earmark in 2010 for $800,000 to develop complete streets, including new bike paths, widening sidewalks, installing medians, street trees, and other amenities.

When do we stop here? Why do we choose this one and say the City of Tacoma deserves another earmark, this time to use for streetscapes. There are a lot of cities around the country that need streetscapes, a lot of them that are probably deserving. But why in the world did we choose this one?

Again, it goes back to the spoils system I talked about. Powerful Members on certain committees get the spoils, a huge, disproportionate percentage of it.

So you can talk all high and mighty about how Members know their districts better than those faceless bureaucrats, but apparently, unless you're a chairman of an important committee or you're on the right committee or you're in leadership, you don't know your district very well. So it's a spoils system that shouldn't be done. We ought to be saving money where we can.

And let me just remind Members here that people across the country, it's all well and good to say we couldn't take 1 percent or one-half of 1 percent from that bill because that's indiscriminate; it would cut out all programs. Here, we're talking about one specific project. And you're going to have to justify voting against amendments to remove funding for a streetscape in Tacoma, Washington, that was picked for who knows why.

So I would just caution those who want to support this kind of earmarking that people across the country are fed up with it, and they know when Members vote specifically on amendments to strike funding for these projects that they would rather fund a project like this than actually help pay down the deficit we have.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, this bill has 461 earmarks, $328 million in those earmarks. I wish we could challenge them all. We can't. We've only been allowed the opportunity to challenge four of them. So we will have a rollcall vote on four amendments to strike these earmarks. So Members will have to go from this body back to their districts this next month and say why they voted against an amendment to strike an earmark for downtown beautification in one city that was just picked by the Appropriations Committee and why in the world it's better to borrow 42 cents of every dollar we're spending here from our kids and our grandkids and our foreign debtors, why that is a good plan for economic development, why it wouldn't be better to actually pay down the debt to lessen this deficit a bit. That's what this is about.

So don't think we can hide behind, well, these were indiscriminate cuts. This is a specific cut to cut a certain earmark from the bill, in this case, that would cut a million dollars. It's not insignificant not to anyone outside of the Beltway. This is a specific amendment to strike a million dollars in spending for a streetscape for beautification in a certain city.

I think we ought to beautify the appropriations process a little bit by actually having fewer earmarks and saving a little money.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 10, part B.

This amendment would prohibit $1 million from being used for a restoration and improvement project

at the historic Darwin D. Martin House and complex and would reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount.

According to the sponsors of the Web site, the entity that would receive the earmark is called the Martin House Restoration Corporation, whose purpose is to restore a structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the 19th century. The MHRC's Web site says that it was formed in 1992 with a clear mandate. First part of this mandate: Raise the money to restore the complex to its 1907 grandeur.

There are a lot of historic buildings around the country, a lot of them, that need a lot of restoration. My own home needs a lot of it. A lot of people are losing their homes. Those homes need a lot of restoration. A lot of them are losing them because of the Federal Government's spending ways.

Yet here we are designating one project to receive a million dollars. Again, let me say it one more time. This is not as if every Member comes here and is designated a million dollars to take home and spend in their district on restoring homes. They aren't. The spoils system runs well here. If you're on the Appropriations Committee or you're in leadership, you get the spoils. That's why 42 percent of the earmarked dollars in this bill are going to just 13 percent of the Members of this body. In that sense, you can't justify it nor can you justify spending a million dollars in this way when we're borrowing 42 cents of every dollar that we'll spend this year.

We have a deficit of $1.47 trillion. We have a debt of $13.2 trillion. How in the world can we continue to do this, to earmark money for projects like this, when we have that kind of deficit and we have that kind of debt?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve.

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

I do thank the gentlelady on the Rules Committee for making this amendment in order, at least a few of mine. I do appreciate that. But I am just baffled that the other side would continue to talk about--let's gain perspective here--we're just talking about a little money, and to basically belittle any attempt to save a million here or a million there. I just think that says we're out of touch completely with what the country is going through, to say, hey, we've got a $1.4 trillion deficit this year, we've got a $13.2 trillion debt that we're going to need to pay off, our kids and grandkids will be doing this forever, but we say, ``Well, we can't start here because it's just too big. We really need to tackle those entitlements.'' Although I don't see a plan of anybody here on this side of the aisle who has presented this bill to actually tackle the entitlement programs. Some of us have presented something. This road map that the gentleman from Wisconsin, the colleague of the gentleman who spoke before, has introduced is a great plan to actually address entitlement spending as well.

But we're here today to vote on four specific amendments to save specific money from specific projects; and that's what you'll have to go and answer to specific constituents about: whether you voted yes or no on amendments to strike a million dollars that could be saved from a project like this one, from an earmark like this one. I would venture to guess that your constituents and my constituents would want you to do that. And it will be tough to explain by saying, ``This is just a little part of the budget. We can't save here. We're not addressing entitlement spending, so we're not going to address discretionary spending, either.''

I would urge support of the amendment. And, remember, people are watching here. They're watching what we're doing. When you go home, you'll need to explain, if you vote against this amendment, why you didn't want to save the taxpayer a million dollars when we have a deficit of $1.4 trillion and a debt of $13.2 trillion.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 11 in part B made in order under the rule.

I thank the Chair.

This amendment would prohibit $150,000 from being spent on the construction of a child's playground. Now I am the father of five children. I understand the importance of having a place for kids to play. Believe me, kids need to let loose and expend some energy somewhere. But Federal spending has been let loose, far too loose, so loose that we have this year a $1.4 trillion deficit. We are borrowing 42 cents on every dollar that we spend.

When we are doing this, we can't just all of a sudden say we are going to build playgrounds anywhere as a model for economic development or anything else. We can't continue to spend money this way. This is one of the smaller earmarks. We have to start somewhere.

I would urge those of you who want to oppose this amendment to go home to your constituents and say, I wanted to put you $150,000 more in debt because I thought it was important that we spend money; the Federal Government, mind you. Municipal governments, State governments, if they want to spend money on playgrounds that's great. But why is the Federal Government doing it here?

Why are we doing it when in May of 2010 the national debt hit $13 trillion. It's now 13.2. According to The Washington Post, that works out to be more than $40,000 in debt for every U.S. resident; $40,000 of debt for every U.S. resident.

Then we are saying, ``Well, this is just small. We can't save this money; we can't go at the deficit this way. We have to deal with those entitlement programs.'' We certainly do, but we need to start somewhere. This is a great place to start.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, you have got to have a Federal nexus somewhere. If you are spending taxpayers' money, it helps to say why in the world should the Federal Government be involved at all. I would submit that if you argue that the Federal Government should be paying for playgrounds around the country, where does it stop?

Where is there no Federal nexus? What is the Federal Government not responsible for? How in the world

would our deficit stay at $1.47 trillion this year if we say the Federal Government is in charge of all playground-building around the country?

I would remind my colleagues, when we vote on these amendments, these are specific amendments to save specific money on specific earmarks. And you can't get by with saying, well, that was indiscriminate cuts and it would have affected this program or that. We are talking about here on these four amendments saving money on street beautification. Where is the Federal nexus there?

On a bike path in Rhode Island, where is the Federal nexus? Why is the Federal Government doing that when we have a deficit of $1.47 trillion and a debt of $13.2 trillion? Why in the world, when every citizen of this country is in debt more than $40,000, why in the world are we saying we are going to pile more on you simply because we can't control ourselves here?

I would urge you again, you are going to have to go home and not say, well, I voted against an amendment that would have cut that program indiscriminately. This is specific amendments for specific programs, specific earmarks that the country knows the Federal Government should not be doing or that the Congress should not be directing money toward.

With that, I urge adoption of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1559 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which causes the violation of section 426(a).

Mr. Speaker, I raise this point of order today not because of unfunded mandates in the bill, although, there are probably some, but because it is about the only opportunity we have here in the minority to protest the kind of treatment that these appropriation bills are getting in the Rules Committee and to protest the manner in which they are coming to the floor.

It used to be that it was a time-honored tradition in this House to have appropriation bills come to the floor under an open rule. Over the past couple of years, that has turned into a structured rule, so many Members in this body, in the minority and the majority, have not had this opportunity. Let's take last year, for example.

Every appropriation bill, all 12, came to the floor under structured rules. There were some Members on both sides of the aisle who offered multiple amendments throughout the year. That is the one chance they have to actually offer amendments on appropriation bills--the things that we are supposed to be doing here in Congress--and they weren't allowed to offer one. Many Members were denied the opportunity to offer any amendments.

There were some 1,500 amendments offered last year. Just 12 percent, fewer than 200, were made in order. And, in fact, I offered about 635 myself. I was only permitted to offer 50, after the structured rule took effect.

Now, the leadership on the majority side will often say, well, we have to keep order in this place, and people would simply offer dilatory amendments and take too long in the process. I remember times in years past, and I haven't been here that long, but just a couple of years ago where we would spend 2 or 3 or 4 days on one appropriation bill because that's what we do here. That's the important part of what we do. Yet, the majority can't seem to find time to allow all amendments to these bills.

Instead of allowing debate on amendments to appropriation bills, let me give you some idea of what we've been doing over the past couple of months and why the statement that we simply can't allow people to offer this many amendments would be proper because we don't have time. Well, here's what we've had time for. And let me note that each one of these that I mention, and this is just a fraction of these kind of suspension bills that we've dealt with, each one of these allows for 10 minutes of debate. That's as much time as we allow on any amendment coming before on the appropriation bill.

H.R. 1460, Recognizing the important role of pollinators. That one we dealt with just a month or so ago.

H.R. 1491, Congratulating the University of South Carolina, the Gamecocks, for winning the 2010 NCAA Division I College World Series.

H. Res. 1463, Supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day.

Now, these things may be nice to do and nice to those who receive these kind of accolades, but it's not the important business of this House. And so to say that we don't have time to actually debate amendments to these appropriation bills, and the one that we

are dealing with today, many amendments that were submitted by Members were turned away, were not allowed in this structured role.

Another thing we dealt with, supporting the goals of National Dairy Month. Now, how in the world is that more important than allowing Members to strike funding from appropriation bills?

I need not remind this Chamber that 42 cents of every dollar we spend this year, 42 cents of every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed from our kids, from our grandkids, from whomever overseas who buys our bonds. And yet we can't allow time to let Members offer amendments to strike spending from these bills. We only allow a certain percentage of them.

Supporting the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer Week. That was H.R. 1297 that we dealt with in the last couple of months, the time that we usually designate in this body to deal with appropriation bills.

Congratulating the Chicago Blackhawks. That was H.R. 1439.

Supporting National Men's Health Week.

Recognizing June 8, 2010, as World Ocean Day.

As I mentioned, these might be good things to do, but when they're taking up time that the majority seems to say now we don't have time for appropriation bills, that's wrong.

And when they, in the Rules Committee, will say, sorry, the gentleman from Colorado or wherever else can't offer his amendment because we've taken too much time recognizing National Nurses Week or supporting the goals and ideals of National Learn to Fly Day or expressing support for the goals and ideals of Children's Book Week, recognizing the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the East Bay Regional Park District in California, I think you're getting the picture here.

It's a hollow statement to say that we don't have time to deal with these amendments on appropriation bills. The truth is the leadership simply doesn't want these things debated all that much.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and I will explain why in a minute.

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the gentlelady.

The gentlelady says that I am criticizing pollinators or beer distillers or whomever. I'm not. I'm just saying the Congress doesn't need to congratulate everybody who wins a championship or everybody who distills beer. I mean, it's just nutty for us to spend so much time on these things and then say, I'm sorry, we don't have time for Members to offer amendments on appropriation bills to actually strike spending so that we're not borrowing 43 cents on every dollar that we spend this year.

Let me mention why it is that the leadership and the Appropriations Committee may not be so anxious for Members to debate these bills-- because there are a lot of earmarks in them. This chart shows 11 of the 12 appropriation bills that have gone through either the subcommittee or committee. It looks like a hungry Pacman here, but what this shows in the red is the percentage of earmark dollars associated with powerful Members of Congress. That includes members of the Appropriations Committee, members of leadership, or chairmen of committees. That represents about 13 percent of this body.

Yet, when you look at the number of earmark dollars or percentage of earmark dollars, Homeland Security, that 13 percent is garnering 52 percent of the earmark dollars. CJS, 57 percent; Agriculture, 76 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of this body, the 13 percent that are writing the rules here and are deciding that certain amendments simply won't be offered. That is wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. TTHUD, which we'll be doing just tomorrow, 42 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of this body.

Is it any wonder that the leadership on the majority side does not want certain amendments debated here?

MILCON VA, 51 percent going to just 13 percent of this body. Energy and Water, 53 percent; Labor/HHS, 66 percent; Interior, 60; Defense, 55.

In Defense, we just learned today that an amendment has been submitted--I'm sorry, an earmark has been submitted, $10 million for the John Murtha Center, our beloved Member who deceased just a few months ago. We're going to earmark $10 million to create a center in his honor in the Defense bill. I think that that ought to be debated here, but chances are we won't even get to the Defense bill.

It's unlikely we're going to get to very many of the appropriation bills this year, and the ones that we do will come to the floor under a structured rule where Members will not be allowed to offer amendments, or just a few of them on the ones that the majority chooses to hear. They can choose the ones they don't want to hear and choose the ones that they hear.

I would like to hear a response from the Rules Committee as to what reasoning goes behind which amendments will be allowed under what is traditionally an open rule and which ones will not.

And I would yield to the gentlelady if she would explain the rule or how the Rules Committee arrives at this rule.

I guess the gentlelady doesn't want to respond on this. I wouldn't either. I wouldn't want to try to justify closed rules or structured rules coming to this body on appropriation bills when we're spending more time doing things like recognizing the 50th anniversary of Title VI international education programs, recognizing the importance of manufactured and modular housing in the United States. These are all goods things. It doesn't mean we should spend time that could otherwise be debating appropriation bills, which is what we do here. We prioritize by funding. That's what Congress does. We have the power of the purse. And yet we're shortchanging that process so that we can support the goals and ideals of Student Financial Aid Awareness Month and raise awareness of student financial aid. Like I said, not a bad thing, but not something that should supplanting what we should be doing here.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I would just plead with the Rules Committee and, more importantly, the leadership on the majority side to realize that the traditions of this body, the institutional things that we have here, open rules on appropriations, should be honored.

Now, I've come here for the past 10 years and offered a lot of amendments, many of which when we were in the majority. My own party didn't like these amendments, but they suffered through them because they knew that things matter here like tradition or upholding the institution.

So they allowed all amendments, some of which targeted Members of our own party. But the majority in power now doesn't seem to want that. They want to shield their Members from difficult votes and also shield those who are getting these earmarks from any scrutiny. These amendments aren't really scrutinized in the Appropriations Committee. So if they aren't argued and debated here, they simply aren't going to get a vetting.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, this amendment is straightforward.

It would simply prevent the funding of all Member-requested earmarks in the bill. It would return the funds to the original accounts. I'm not here to dispute the merits of these projects. I have no doubt that some of those projects are worthwhile and would improve the quality of life for our military servicemembers and their families, but that's not what is at issue here.

At issue, again, as I pointed out before, is the spoils system that this process of earmarking represents. This year's Military Construction-VA appropriations bill shows that the spoils system is alive and well. It's happened in previous years, and it's no different this year. The only difference here is we have basically just one party engaging in it, and so the spoils are even more concentrated in fewer Members.

Let me just put this chart up here. These are the FY 2011 earmark dollars associated with powerful Members of

Congress. By powerful Members I mean those who are on the Appropriations Committee, those who are in leadership, or those who are chairmen of committees. And if you look at the appropriations bills that have gone through either the subcommittee or full committee on appropriations, you see this appropriations spoils system in action here.

This looks like a Pacman chart here with a hungry Pacman here. The red represents the percentage taken by powerful members. In the Homeland Security bill, 52 percent of the earmark dollars go to powerful Members. Fifty-two percent go to just 13 percent of this body; CJS bill, 57 percent; Agriculture, 76 percent; THUD, 42 percent; and MILCON VA, what we're doing now, 51 percent.

More than half of the earmark dollars in this legislation are going to just 13 percent of the Members in this body. Madam Chair, that is simply not right. We shouldn't be doing this. Yet year after year we do it. No matter what kind of reforms we enact, we still have the spoils system alive and well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds if he wants to finish.

Madam Chair, I plan to withdraw this amendment. I had planned to from the beginning. What I wanted to do was come down here and explain the spoils system that this kind of earmarking represents.

The problem, the gentleman mentioned that this amendment is crafted in a way that it would prohibit the spending of money on these projects. It would. The problem is there is no way to craft an amendment that wouldn't do that.

What we have here is a situation where we simply can't go in and say this is a good earmark and this is not, not through this process. That's part of the whole flawed aspect of what we are doing here and why we need to change this.

But the gentleman is correct, we shouldn't give the administration a free ride to say this is where things ought to be spent. We have the power of the purse. This is article I stuff, and we ought to exercise it.

The problem I have is we basically exercise authority over that much of it and leave the administration with this, instead of saying, through the process of authorization, appropriation, and oversight, we have more control of what the administration is doing.

Instead, we say we don't like the way you are spending this money--we say that to the executive branch--so we are going to run a little parallel track in the Congress where we determine where this much goes. Then when we determine where this much goes, 51 percent of it goes to just 13 percent of this body.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I think that is a valid point; although, I would argue that Members with military bases don't necessarily align with the 13 percent represented in this chart.

But I would again, before asking unanimous consent to withdraw this amendment, make the case, we will be dealing with another appropriation bill tomorrow that is cleaner than this one in terms of being able to target earmarks and prohibit funding for them and actually save money. The way this bill is structured makes it difficult to do that, but I recognize it.

I just wanted to make the point and to drive it home again, through the process of authorization, appropriation, and oversight, we can do a far better job.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I thank the gentlelady for sponsoring this legislation. I rise in support of it. As was mentioned, I am a cosponsor.

This would rescind contract authority for old transportation earmarks. I think we all recognize there are a lot of earmarks that go through this place that are never funded, and that's usually a good thing because often they are quite wasteful.

This bill also shines a spotlight on wasteful transportation earmarks in a number of bills, and it rescinds more than $8 million in contract authority for SAFETEA-LU which we passed just a few years ago. Many of us will remember, SAFETEA-LU contained more than 6,000 earmarks, including the infamous earmark for the Bridge to Nowhere, but it also included bike paths, museums, hiking trails, visitor centers, streetscapes, and parking facilities worth more than $700 million alone.

I would urge those who are looking to bolster their fiscal credentials by voting for this legislation to rescind contract authority for old earmarks to remember that in 2 days we'll be considering the T-HUD transportation bill, which contains about 500 new earmarks worth more than $300 million, and if we are going back and saying, yes, earmarks are wasteful, we ought to recognize that in the same week we're doing this we're also considering a new appropriation bill with about 500 earmarks worth about $300 million.

I will be offering a series of amendments, and if I'm allowed I'll offer that, if the majority allows me to do it, to strike some of these earmarks, and I hope that the same people who vote for this legislation will also vote to strike certain wasteful earmarks from that legislation as well.

We simply can't say all right we're for fiscal responsibility when we're rescinding old earmarks that haven't been spent or earmarked moneys and then a couple of days later approve a bill that has more than 500 earmarks worth about $300 million that will take effect now.

So, anyway, I commend the gentlelady for bringing this to the floor. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. This is a good piece of legislation. Let's also remember when we're approving new earmarks we ought to have the same fiscal discipline.