Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Washington opposed to the conference report?

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the conference report.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

It's been a decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001. We are in danger of losing our most precious heritage, not because a band of thugs threatens our freedom, but because we are at risk of forgetting who we are and what makes the United States a truly great nation.

In the last 10 years, we have begun to let go of our freedoms, bit by bit, with each new executive order, court decision and, yes, act of Congress. The changes in this bill to the laws of detention have major implications for our fundamental rights. We should not be considering this as a rider to the Defense authorization bill. This should have been the subject of close scrutiny by the Judiciary Committee. The complex legal and constitutional issues should have been properly analyzed and the implications for our values carefully considered.

You will hear that this bill merely recodifies existing law; but many legal scholars tell us that it goes a great deal further than what the law now allows, that it codifies claims of executive power against our liberties that the courts have never confirmed. You will hear that it really won't affect U.S. citizens, although, again, there is credible legal authority that tells us just the opposite. You will hear that it doesn't really turn the military into a domestic police force, but that clearly isn't the case.

Most of all, you will hear that we must do this to be safe, when the opposite is true. We can never be safe without our liberties, and this bill continues the decade-long campaign to destroy those liberties.

This bill goes far beyond the authorization for the use of military force. That resolution authorized ``all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.''

This bill is not limited to those responsible for the September 11 attacks and those who aided or harbored them. It includes anyone who ``substantially supported'' al Qaeda and the Taliban or ``associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.'' It is not clear what is meant by ``substantially supported'' or what it takes to be ``associated'' with someone who ``substantially supported'' them. It refers to any ``belligerent act'' or someone who has ``directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.'' It doesn't, as does our criminal law, say ``material support,'' so we really don't know whether that support could be merely a speech, or an article, or something else.

So let's not pretend that this is just the same as the AUMF. If it were, there would be no need to pass this law; we have it already. Courts, in reading legislation, operate on the very sensible assumption that Congress doesn't write surplus language, that it must have intended to do something. Here it is pretty clear that we are expanding the reach of the AUMF beyond the 9/11 perpetrators and those who aided and harbored them. Whoever it reaches--and we don't know--but whoever it reaches, the government would have the authority to lock them up without trial until ``the end of hostilities,'' which, given how broadly the AUMF has been used to justify actions far from Afghanistan, might mean forever.

And who will be taken out of the civilian justice system and imprisoned forever without a trial? The bill says anyone who ``is determined'' to be covered by the statute. It doesn't say determined by whom or what protections there are to ensure that an innocent person doesn't disappear into a military prison. That's not America.

We also need to be clear that the so-called ``Feinstein amendment'' does not really provide the protection its sponsor intended to provide. The Feinstein amendment says that ``nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.''

So what are ``existing law and authorities''? As former FBI Director William Sessions has recently written: ``The provision does not limit such detention authority to people captured on the battlefield. The reality is that current law on the scope of such executive authority is unsettled.'' Director Sessions goes on to point out that the two cases where the Supreme Court might have decided the question of detaining a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident, the U.S. claimed that the President had the authority--the administration claimed that the President had the authority to detain a suspected terrorist captured within the United States indefinitely without charge or trial.

In both these cases, Padilla and al-Mari, the government changed course and decided to try them in civilian courts in order to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on that question, and that question remains undetermined.

So when the Feinstein amendment references ``existing law,'' you should not assume that means that current law clearly deprives the President of this dangerous power. I hope it does, but it is still, legally, an open question. We should ensure that our liberty is protected and not leave that question to some future court, and we should certainly not enact a law codifying--and that's what this law does, it codifies, it puts into law terrifying claims of power made by Presidents but never approved by the courts or, until now, by the Congress. And that's the fundamental reason we should reject this bill.

We must take great care. Our liberties are too precious to be cast aside in times of peril and fear. We have the tools to deal with those who would attack us.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

We do not need to do this. We should not do this. And because of this momentous challenge to one of the founding principles of the United States--that no person may be deprived of his liberty without due process of law--this bill must be rejected.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Guam (Ms. Bordallo).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I will reserve until it is time to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are told, and this seems to be one of the

principle issues in the debate today, that this bill, with reference to the detention and security provisions, merely codifies existing law. Some of us say no, it doesn't codify existing law; it codifies claims of power by the last two administrations that have not been confirmed by the courts--by some courts, but not by the Supreme Court. Rather terrifying claims of power, claims of the right to put Americans in jail indefinitely without a trial even in the United States.

Now, I can cite specifics here. The text, for example, says very specifically that Congress affirms the authority of the President, includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pending disposition under the law of war, and then expands the definition of covered persons to people not implicated or supporting or harboring people implicated in 9/11 for the first time.

And then we have a provision that says nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the authorization for use of military force.

Well, that directly contradicts what I just read, which is a very specific provision. And since the rules of statutory construction always say that the specific controls the general, this provision, frankly, insofar as it contradicts the first, is meaningless. It provides no protection whatsoever. The same is true of the Feinstein amendment, for similar reasons.

Now, we have disagreement we heard on the floor today, but that reflects the disagreement in the country at large. We have many law enforcement people, many legal scholars disagree on what this language means. The President's chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, said that the bill mandates military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects, and since it would apply to individuals inside the U.S.--which we have heard denied on the floor but the President's counterterrorism advisor thinks it does--it would be inconsistent with the fundamental principle that our military does not patrol our streets.

And we have many generals, including a former Commandant of the Marine Corps, saying that this is a terrible expansion and change of existing law.

Now the fact of whether it simply codifies existing law or further restricts our liberties in unprecedented ways is unclear. That my friends here can say it only codifies existing law, and I can say and all of these other people--experts, legal experts, military people, counterterrorism experts--can say it goes way beyond existing law, shows why it is dangerous to have this kind of provision affecting fundamental rights and civil liberties in a defense authorization bill which is admirable in many other ways.

The Armed Services Committee is not the proper place to consider questions of civil liberties and legal rights, and certainly not a conference report. All these questions should have been considered in hearings. The Judiciary Committee in both Houses, frankly, should have held hearings. We should have called in the counterterrorism experts, we should have called in the legal scholars, we should have called in the statutory scholars and asked: What does this provision mean? How should it be changed? Does this provision contradict that provision, and what does it really mean? Does it go beyond existing law, and, if so, how can we change that?

In legislation like this, there should be hearings and testimony and proper debate and consideration.

Now, we can still fix this. If we defeat this bill now, we can then take this provision out of the bill, and pass the bill without this provision in a couple of days. We are going to be here. There is no reason we shouldn't do that. And then next year--which is only a couple of weeks away--give proper consideration to these detention provisions if people feel a need to pass them. We should not do such fundamental changes on the fly in a conference report with one hour of debate, no proper committee consideration, no public hearings, and considerable disagreement among scholars and judges and counterterrorism experts and military experts as to what this language means and what it does.

The true answer is that nobody on this floor can be 100 percent certain what this does. And when you are dealing with our fundamental liberties, that should say don't pass it. So I urge my colleagues to defeat the bill. We can then take this out of the bill, take the bill up on the floor again in a couple of days, and that's the safe way to safeguard our liberties and to do what we have to do for our military security.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington DC from December 5-8, 2011.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 892; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 893; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 894; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 895; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 896; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 897; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 898; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 899; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 900, the motion to recommit H.R. 10; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 901, final passage of the Regulations in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (H.R. 10); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 902; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 903, the rule providing for consideration of the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011 (H.R. 1633); ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 904, the Synthetic Drug Control Act; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 906; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 907; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 908; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 909; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 910; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 911, the motion to recommit H.R. 1633; and ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 912, final passage of the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act (H.R. 1633).

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

My amendment would exempt rules proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the new impediments to the regulations in this bill.

Mr. Chairman, there they go again. The right-wing Republican House majority is practicing more voodoo economics. This time it's the belief that overregulation is the cause of our slow economic growth and high unemployment rate. There is no evidence to support this position--none. In actuality, according to the Economic Policy Institute, ``economy- wide studies do not find a significant decline in employment from regulatory policies.'' And some regulations actually create jobs due to regulatory compliance.

More broadly, findings from the Office of Management and Budget in both Republican and Democratic administrations show the benefits of regulations far outweigh their costs. Most recently, OMB found that the benefits from major rules issued between 2001 and 2010 yielded benefits ranging from $136 billion to $651 billion and imposed costs of between $44 billion and $62 billion.

Despite these facts, the right-wing Republican House leadership presses ahead with what it calls regulatory reform. Today's bill, H.R. 3010, in the name of so-called reform, adds over 60 new procedural and analytical hoops agencies and departments must jump through before a regulation can be issued. The result is to impede, obstruct, and delay the attempt of government to accomplish one of its most basics functions--protecting the health and welfare of our people.

Not surprisingly, groups who care about protecting public safety, health, and the environment, such as the Natural Resource Defense Council, Public

Citizen, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. PIRG, oppose this bill. According to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, which represents a coalition of many such groups, this bill ``will grind to a halt the rulemaking process'' and ``is nothing less than an attempt to roll back critical public safeguards and promote industry interests ahead of protecting American citizens.''

Americans should rightfully be scared that this bill will put their health and safety at risk. One example that highlights this is the subject of this amendment--nuclear power. The risks and dangers of nuclear power were made all the more clear this year. In Japan, we all watched in horror when that country was devastated by a meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. We are now told that over 10 percent of the land of that country will be unusable for decades. Later, Virginia was struck by a relatively rare but strong earthquake felt up and down the eastern seaboard. It caused a nuclear power plant near the epicenter to have to go offline.

Because of the catastrophes that can result from disasters, be they natural or manmade, at nuclear power plants, prevention of meltdowns is the key. That's why I'm a cosponsor of H.R. 1242, the Nuclear Power Plant Safety Act of 2011, sponsored by Representative Markey, which is designed to help do that. Among other changes, it would require the NRC to impose rules requiring plants to upgrade to withstand severe events, like earthquakes, and to have enough backup power so as to avoid a meltdown for a significant length of time.

The NRC must have the ability and flexibility to impose new regulations quickly to safeguard the health and well-being of Americans. Impeding the Nuclear Regulatory Agency's ability to regulate will not save one job, but it might cost millions of lives in the event of a disaster. Sadly, this bill makes the ability to regulate nuclear power plants all but impossible.

For me, this concern hits close to home. A nuclear power plant at Indian Point about which many people, including myself, have had concerns for years lies less than 40 miles from the center of New York City, in my district. There are 20 million people living within a 50- mile radius around the plant, the same radius used by the NRC as the basis for the evacuation recommended after the Fukushima disaster. Indian Point sits near two earthquake fault lines and according to NRC is the most likely nuclear power plant in the country to experience more damage due to an earthquake.

To keep my constituents and, indeed, all Americans safe, I'm offering this amendment today. It would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the onerous new requirements for rulemaking imposed by this bill. With this amendment, the NRC would have the ability to safeguard public health and safety as it should. We must pass this amendment so that rulemaking for nuclear disaster is not impeded.

I urge the passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the argument for this amendment is very simple. This bill would make it almost impossible--by putting 60 new requirements in the way of agencies to make new rules, would make it almost impossible for rulemaking and, in fact, especially for emergency or safety rulemaking in the event that we perceive the necessity for such a thing.

At least for nuclear power plants, the potential for disaster, the potential for killing mass numbers of people, we have seen. We've seen it at Chernobyl. We've seen it at Three Mile Island. We've seen it at Fukushima. At least for that situation, allow the government rulemaking agency to continue to have the power to protect our people.

A vote for this amendment is a vote to continue to have the government have the power to protect our people. A vote against this amendment and for this bill is a vote to put the lives of all our people at risk and to prevent the government from protecting the lives of our people, and it would be almost an immoral vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

This amendment, while superficially appealing, is one of the most damaging things we could do to the Constitution of the United States. And, yes, it is true, if you ask people do they think we should have a balanced budget, they say yes; and if you ask people do you think we should have an amendment requiring a balanced budget in the Constitution, they say yes. But if you ask them do you think we should have an amendment requiring a balanced budget in the Constitution if it meant a cut in Social Security, they say no; if it meant a cut in Medicare, they say no; if it meant a cut in other essential services, they say no.

And when you probe further, you find that this is a very damaging provision. For a number of reasons, economists tell us that, in a recession, you want to increase the government spending temporarily. You have to increase it because unemployment insurance payouts go up, food stamp payouts go up; and if you decrease the spending, it reduces the amount of products that people want in society, it reduces the amount of money in circulation, and it makes the recession into a depression.

In good times, you should run a surplus; in recession, you should run a deficit. Over a long period of time, the budget should be balanced. But if you attempt to balance the budget during a recession, you generate a much worse loss of jobs. And that's why you don't want this--or you shouldn't want this.

Secondly, this amendment is not self-enforcing. All it says is outlays shall not exceed receipts, and Congress can pass appropriate legislation.

But what does that mean? It means that if outlays exceed receipts or if someone thinks that the estimates are wrong and outlays are going to exceed receipts, then you go to court, and then a court has to decide whether that's correct. A court has to decide whether the estimates are correct. And if the court decides the estimates are not correct, then the court has a choice. It can say, ``This is political. We're going to exercise judicial restraint,'' as the gentleman from Virginia said yesterday, in which case it won't enforce the amendment and the amendment is meaningless; or the court will say, ``Okay, we'll order a tax increase'' or ``we'll order an expenditure cut,'' in which case you have those judges making political decisions, which I don't think we'd want to see.

Thirdly, a balanced budget amendment starting where we are now with a huge deficit that's been accumulated over a few years means that you're going to have to make drastic cuts in Social Security and Medicare and veterans' benefits. Some people say on the other side of the aisle, well, that won't be true because they don't count; but, yes, they count.

The amendment says ``outlays.'' Outlays are defined as all expenditures other than debts. Social Security is not a debt; the courts have held that. Medicare is not a debt; there's no contractual right. This means that if you're going to reduce outlays, Social Security is right in it. And if you're not going to reduce Social Security, you've got to reduce a lot of other things by much more. So this is a dagger pointed at the heart of Social Security and Medicare and veterans' benefits.

Now, we're told that the only way we can get our budget into balance is by this amendment. Well, the fact is that's not true. The reason we have the problem we have now is because of years of reckless Republican Presidents and administrations.

When President Clinton took office, we had a huge budget deficit-- $300 billion a year. The forecast was for 500 and 600 billion by the mid-nineties. Within a few years, we had turned that around. Congress made decisions to turn that around followed by the President's recommendations in 1993 and a smaller one in 1997. That one the Republicans held with, with Speaker

Gingrich. As a result of those decisions, by the time President Clinton left office and President Bush assumed office, we had a huge surplus. And the question was: What are we going to do when we've paid off the entire national debt by 2012? That was what was going to happen.

What changed that? Two huge tax cuts for rich people, pushed through by the Republicans and President Bush. And we said, at the time, that that would generate tremendous deficits. In fact, the reason they were set to expire in 2010 was because the CBO said that after 2010 they would generate tremendous, ongoing deficits, which they are doing.

Secondly, we had two unfunded wars. For the first time in American history, we didn't raise taxes to pay for wars. Thirdly, we doubled the Pentagon budget, not including the wars. And fourth, we had a recession starting in 2008 during the end of the Bush administration.

Now, some people say, well, it's the Obama administration, the unfettered spending of the Obama administration. Nonsense. The amount of money being spent on non-defense discretionary spending--that is, all spending other than defense--veterans' benefits, Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt, is the same today, the same, not a penny more, adjusted for inflation and population growth, as it was in 2001. And in 2001, we had a huge surplus.

Where did the surplus change to a deficit? Wars, tax cuts, and increased Pentagon spending.

Now, what can we do about this? So the problem is not spending alone, the problem is that we're not taxing the rich and the corporations enough. In 1970, corporations paid 30 percent of all Federal income tax receipts from corporate income taxes. Today, it's 8 percent. We've let the corporations get away with murder--the big businesses, with Exxon paying no taxes on profits of $6 billion, General Electric paying no taxes, getting a refund. That's our problem. But we don't want to deal with that, we want to pass a constitutional amendment.

Now, if we pass this constitutional amendment, it would mean that any time we went into a recession, it would drive it into a depression. It would mean we would have to make huge spending cuts now. It would mean we would have to decimate Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits. It makes no sense at all.

If this were in effect now--we were told by the macroeconomic analysts that if this amendment went into effect for next year, it would increase unemployment by 15 million people. So I urge that we not pass this amendment, and instead we do the hard work of increasing taxes on corporations and rich people, of getting discipline into our expenditures. But the first thing to do is jobs. If we got unemployment down to 5 percent, where it was in 2007, that by itself would reduce unemployment by 40 percent.

In a recession, first you take care of the jobs. When you're back into better times, then you can start thinking about balancing your budget, and that's when you ought to do it; not force cuts in expenditures or increasing taxes during a recession, which just makes the recession much worse and the unemployment much worse, which is what this amendment would do.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out that when S&P downgraded our debt, they were so well respected that the interest rates went down and the price of our bonds went up. So much for S&P.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that families are able to borrow to pay for the car and to pay for the mortgage. Under this amendment the Federal Government would never be able to borrow. It's quite different.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield 4 minutes to a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that if this amendment passed, we would never be able to borrow money to do the infrastructure that we need.

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 90 seconds.

It is not true, as we have heard on this floor repeatedly today, that both parties are addicted to spending and that the deficit is equally the fault of both parties.

It is the fault of George Bush. It is the fault of the Republican Congress. Under President Clinton, a Democratic Congress voted for tax increases and for spending cuts, and produced balanced budgets 4 years in a row of such a significance that we were going to eliminate the entire national debt by 2012. The Republicans came in and without Democratic support voted for huge tax cuts, for two unfunded wars, and for doubling the Pentagon's budget without increasing taxes to pay for it.

That generated the huge deficit we have. The deficit was also generated by the fact that, because of, arguably, Republican deregulatory policies, we got into this huge depression caused by Wall Street, and that increased the deficit. In January of 2009, before President Obama took office, 1 month before, the CBO said that the next year's deficit would be $1.2 trillion without this President's having done a thing.

The point, as I said before, is that nondefense discretionary spending--everything other than Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans benefits, and interest on the debt--has not increased since 2001 when adjusted for inflation and population growth. So that is not the source of our budget deficit. The source of our budget deficit is that we cut the taxes on the rich and the corporations and that we spent money on wars we didn't pay for.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains, please?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the 49 States borrow for capital budgets. They have balanced budget amendments for operating budgets. This makes no distinction and would not let us borrow ever.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, either we will have the discipline to do what we have to or this amendment simply puts those decisions in the hands of a Federal judge, which we don't want to see, I don't think.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have, please?

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.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Velazquez).

Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have remaining?

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 yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez).

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare will be there unless we pass this balanced budget amendment because this balanced budget amendment will cause the inability to pay for them. The trust fund is amply funded right now for Social Security.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to reply to what the gentleman just said.

The fact is, the reason this country is in such deficit is because of a deliberate Republican crusade over the last 30 years to reduce taxes on the rich in order to deliberately create huge deficits, and to then use those deficits as the excuse to justify large cuts to gut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and education programs that they have never liked in the first place but could not justify cutting without it.

Taxes used to be 18 to 19 percent of the economy, of GDP. Now they're about 14 percent of GDP, and yet the Republicans won't increase it because we have decreased the taxes on the rich and on the corporations. The country is not broke; we're just not taxing the millionaires and the billionaires the way we used to.

And the fact is, you look at the history here. When Ronald Reagan took over as President of the United States, the entire national debt of the United States accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy Carter was less than $800 billion. Then you had 12 years of Reagan and the first Bush cutting taxes on the rich. When Clinton took over, you had a $4.3 trillion deficit, and it was expected to go much higher. We made the tough decisions; we voted for increased taxes in 1993 and for cutting the budget. And when Clinton left office 8 years later, the budget had been balanced. But from the time we made that vote in 1993, the deficit decreased every year until it became a surplus, then it increased every year. And when Bush II took over, we were looking at a $5.7 trillion surplus over the next 10 years, and we were going to pay off the entire national debt. Then we had those huge Bush tax cuts and the irresponsible, unpaid-for wars. And when Bush left office, we had a $9.5 trillion deficit--a turnaround of $15 trillion--and a recession, which causes the bigger deficits now.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

The CBO estimated, before President Obama took office, that the next year's deficit would be $1.2 trillion before he did anything. And I would remind us that nondefense discretionary spending in this country has not gone up by a nickel, adjusted for inflation and population growth, since 2001, when we had a huge surplus.

The problem is that our taxes on the rich are too low. We cannot reach an agreement in the supercommittee because the Republicans will not tax the rich. That's the basic problem, and a balanced budget amendment will not solve that problem.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).

Madam Speaker, since the gentleman has admitted that the balanced budget amendment would not deliver the pennant to the White Sox or the Red Sox or the Cubs, or, I suppose, the Yankees, there's no argument to the balanced budget amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished whip.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for a unanimous consent request.

I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, since 1995, when this amendment was last on the floor, we proved we could balance the budget without a balanced budget amendment. But a balanced budget is not the highest goal. The highest goal is prosperity, a full employment economy; and that requires a balanced budget over the business cycle. It requires that in good times we have a surplus and pay down the deficit. But then in recessions, you should have a deficit to spur the economy; you should spend money to spur the economy to get out of the recession. To try to balance the budget by cutting spending during a recession is to increase unemployment, is to guarantee that every recession becomes a depression. Just look at what's happening in Germany, which was in pretty good shape until they elected a government that enacted austerity to try to balance the budget. Their economy is tanking. The same thing in Great Britain.

The second point I want to make is that when we talk about balanced budgets in the States, they have a separate budget for operating expenses and for capital budgets. Here, this balanced budget amendment would say we should never borrow money for anything; the Federal Government should never borrow money. That's insanity economically. It means we have no

money for our bridges, roads, highways, et cetera.

Third, this amendment would say if we couldn't reach agreement, if we didn't pass the balanced budget, the courts would have to decide whether to increase taxes and, if so, which taxes, or cut programs, and in such a case, which programs. We should not be giving the courts the power to make such decisions.

Finally, Social Security, Medicare, these are not debts. They're obligations of the Federal Government. A balanced budget amendment would put them at risk. We would have to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut all these things if we passed a balanced budget amendment. And if we're unwilling, as our colleagues on the other side are, raise taxes on the rich. The fact is taxes on the rich are much less than they've ever been, which is the basic cause of the deficits that we're running now.

The balanced budget amendment would not balance the budget. You would still have a stalemate between Republicans, who want no taxes on the rich and want draconian cuts on lower- and middle-income programs, and those on our side of the aisle who disagree on them. If you can't reach agreement on those things now in the supercommittee, what makes you think you would reach agreement just because you had a requirement on the books that said you should? It would end up in court.

The balanced budget amendment is simply a sop to be able to say we are doing something about a balanced budget when we are, in fact, unwilling to make the tough decisions that could, in fact, balance the budget. We showed, during the Clinton administration, that those decisions could be made. And if we really want to balance the budget, we have to undo most of the Bush tax cuts, we have to stop voting for wars that we don't pay for, and we have to really balance the budget, not pass an amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this misguided attempt to amend our constitution. It is both bad economic policy and bad constitutional policy.

Let's start with the basics. While balancing your budget and paying down your debts is important--and we did that under President Clinton-- a balanced budget every year, regardless of the circumstances, even when facing economic crisis, a natural disaster or a terrorist threat, is economically dangerous. We would be risking economic ruin if we enshrined this unyielding rule in the Constitution and shackled future generations to one particular economic policy preference that does not work at all times and in all situations.

In general, the economists tell us, in good times, you should have a balanced budget and pay down the debt. In bad times, when a recession increases demands on government and tax revenues fall, or in emergencies, you need to be able to run a deficit.

The nonpartisan economists at Macroeconomics Advisers, for example, tell us that if this amendment were in effect next year, in fiscal year 2012, it would eliminate 15 million jobs and double the unemployment rate. And this amendment would shackle future generations in such situations.

One thing we can be sure of, this amendment will devastate the economy; destroy Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security; cripple our government's ability to deal with national emergencies, maintain our vital infrastructure, or deal with new challenges as they emerge.

Let's be clear on what this amendment does not do. It does not require us to balance the budget the way States or businesses or families do. They're not required to spend no more than that year's income. Families borrow money. If they were told you must pay cash--you want to buy a house, pay cash; you want to buy a car, pay cash--they wouldn't have the house, they wouldn't have the car, the standard of living would be much lower.

States borrow money. States have balanced budget amendments generally, but those amendments refer to their operating budgets. They borrow money for their capital budgets to build bridges and roads and highways. The budget of the United States does not make such a distinction, and this balanced budget amendment would say you can never borrow money. You cannot borrow money to build highways, to make investments, to deal with the economy in a recession. It doesn't make sense.

Similarly, we collect payroll taxes to pay for Social Security benefits. We collect gasoline taxes to pay for transportation infrastructure, and we carry over unexpended funds in those trust funds from prior years. Because they were paid in prior years, those revenues would not count, only the expenditures. If you paid $100 in Social Security taxes in 1960 and drew $100 of benefits in 2011, the budget would show a deficit of $100 because the tax was paid in a different year, even though it's the same money. No matter how much money we had put away for a rainy day, we would still be limited to spending no more than that year's tax revenues. No one in this room balances their budget that way.

What happens when you retire and your income drops? Do you not touch your savings because it didn't come in during that year? Of course not. You're not running a deficit when your expenses equals that year's income plus savings.

I know we have a lot of millionaires here, but did anyone pay cash for their home?

But this amendment enshrines crazy bookkeeping and distorted policies into our Constitution. So all the chatter about States and businesses and families balancing their budgets is true, but it's irrelevant to what this amendment actually says.

Because this is a constitutional amendment, it would give Federal judges, those same unelected, life-tenured Federal judges my Republican friends always complain about, the power to cut spending and raise taxes. Anyone could bring a lawsuit if the budget doesn't balance, if the estimated receipts, in his opinion, didn't match the estimated tax revenues, and a judge would have to decide whose revenue and expenditure estimates were correct. And if they didn't match in the judge's opinion, the judge would have to decide to increase taxes or to cut expenditures and which expenditures it cut, an unelected judge.

How is that possible? It's possible because, as a constitutional amendment, the courts will have to have the power to enforce it, just as they do the rest of the Constitution.

The Constitution now gives the power to tax in the first instance to the House. All revenue measures must originate here. That's because we are closest to the people--the people's House. This would go as far away from that wise decision as you possibly can by giving that power ultimately to the only part of government that is not elected by the people and that is not accountable at the ballot box--the judiciary.

The courts could also order reduction in spending to enforce a balanced budget. They could slash military spending or Social Security or eliminate disaster relief. The voters and Congress would be powerless to stop such decisions.

Is this really someone's idea of constitutional conservatism?

This amendment isn't limited to a requirement that we balance the budget. It imposes a three-fifths supermajority requirement to raise the debt ceiling. When we considered that in 1995, it never occurred to anyone that any Member of Congress, much less a majority, would consider allowing the United States to default on its debt. It wasn't just considered crazy; it was considered impossible.

Today, unfortunately, we live in a different world. This year, for the first time in American history, we nearly defaulted on the full faith and credit of the United States and, for the first time in our history, saw our top credit rating downgraded, and that was for difficulty in getting a simple majority. A three-fifths majority would make it much more difficult.

Is this balanced budget amendment necessary?

We have been told it's the only way to impose the necessary discipline to force Congress to balance the budget. We know that's not true because we balanced the budget under President Clinton. We turned in four balanced budgets and ran a surplus. In fact, in 2001, Alan Greenspan, testifying in favor of President Bush's proposed tax cuts, said we had to reduce taxes because we were going to eliminate, pay down the entire national debt in 10 years, and that would be a bad thing, he thought, for various reasons. But that was the danger--we'd pay down and eliminate the national debt.

But President Bush and a Republican Congress succeeded in turning that record surplus into record deficits in record time. They did it with two huge tax cuts, two unfunded wars, a prescription drug benefit that wasn't paid for, and the rejection of the Democratic Congress' pay-as-you-go rule. It was all done off the books.

And I have heard the calumny that it was wild spending by the Obama administration that has brought about our $15 trillion national debt. Well, the truth of the matter is, if you look at non-defense discretionary spending, everything we do, other than defense and Social Security and Medicare and veterans benefits and interest on the debt, adjusted for population and for inflation, it hasn't gone up by a nickel since 2001.

The fault, dear colleagues, is not in our Constitution; it's in an irresponsible Republican President and an irresponsible Republican Congress. Many of those same Republican Members who saw nothing wrong with busting the budget, who sat quietly when Vice President Cheney said that deficits don't matter, now demand this assault

on our founding document instead of delivering the votes for sound fiscal policy.

We should do our jobs, not wreck the Constitution and the economy with snake oil cures like this. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I have to correct what the distinguished gentleman from Virginia said a moment ago when he said that this amendment would not affect Social Security because Social Security would be paid for by the trust fund. This amendment says the total outlays cannot exceed receipts. Total outlays should include all outlays of the United States Government except for those for repayment of debt principle. That includes Social Security, which the courts have held is not a debt. Therefore, Social Security would have to be paid out of the same amounts, and they would be counted against the overall outlays when calculating whether the budget is in balance, something that's not the case today. It would throw the budget further out of balance and would require deeper cuts.

If this amendment were in effect today, Medicare would have to be cut by $750 billion, Social Security by $1.2 trillion, and veterans benefits by $85 billion through 2021. Despite anything anyone may say on this floor, that's the simple truth about this amendment.

Will the gentleman yield?

Just two comments.

First of all, going back to what you were discussing a moment ago, the answer to your question is that under this amendment, 40 percent of either House could hold the entire country hostage against the other 60 percent. Sixty percent could want a balanced budget and there may be a necessity for an increase in the debt ceiling, but 40 percent could say no. Forty percent could hold the country hostage as we saw the country was held hostage this year. With this, it would be much easier to hold the country hostage because the minority, not a small minority, but 40 percent could do it.

Secondly, if the gentleman's answer is correct that the courts would exercise judicial restraint and not make decisions on tax increases or revenue or spending cuts, then there's no point to this whole amendment because you're saying it's unenforceable. Either the amendment is enforced by action of the court or it's not enforced.

The amendment is silent. All it says is ``this will happen.'' ``This must happen.'' When this must happen in our system of government, if it doesn't, or if someone thinks it's not going to, they go to court and they ask for a court order to make sure it happens.

The court either will--there are two possibilities and only two. One, the court will say, Here's how we'll make an order. We'll raise this tax, we'll lower that expenditure; or the court will say, in which case you have unelected judges making those decisions--and this amendment gives no guidance on how to make those decisions--or the court will say as the gentleman from Virginia just suggested the court would do, the court will exercise judicial restraint and will say this is a political question. We decline to make any order, in which case this amendment is not worth the paper it's written on because it's not enforceable at all.

Either it's enforceable by the court saying increase this tax, decrease that expenditure, or it's not enforceable and it's a total joke. One way or the other.

I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 822, what the Brady Campaign correctly calls the ``Packing Heat on Your Street'' bill.

America is in dire economic straits. Millions of people are out of work. Our growth rate is anemic. People are clamoring for Congress to pass legislation to grow the economy and help create jobs. And so what is the House of Representatives doing? This august body is considering gun legislation. The disconnect between the Republican House majority and the American people is beyond belief. It is no wonder that Congress' approval rating is 13 percent, according to the latest Gallup Poll.

Not only are we wasting our time on this issue, what the bill does should scare every American. This bill, as amended by the Judiciary Committee, would let a person with a concealed-carry permit issued by one State take his or her weapon into any other State of which they are not a resident, regardless of the laws of that other State. State laws on both gun possession and concealed carry would be overridden. This bill takes away the right of the citizens of each State to set their own gun control policy. For a Republican House majority that supposedly believes in States' rights, this bill is shocking. So, for example, some States require firearms training or require people to be 21 years old to have a concealed-carry permit. All such rules would be tossed aside by this new Federal mandate.

I tried to protect States by filing an amendment with the Rules Committee which would have created an exception to the bill to let States enforce laws against persons convicted of sex offenses against minors from possessing guns or having concealed weapons. That amendment was not made in order. I guess it was more important to satisfy the gun lobby than it is to make sure our kids are protected from violent predators.

To the extent States want to allow their citizens to enter into other States with concealed weapons, they can do so by entering into reciprocity agreements, and many States have done so. But why would we force those that have not, which have chosen to end reciprocity agreements due to lax standards of another State, why would we force them to accept the concealed-carry permit of every other State?

Because any permit would suffice, this bill will create a race to the bottom, with whatever State has the most

permissive concealed-carry rules setting national policy. In some States you don't even have to be a resident to get a concealed-carry permit. This lowest common denominator approach will only lead to more people carrying more hidden weapons--packing heat on your street. Knowing there are more concealed handguns all around does not make me feel safer.

Lastly, I want to address the constitutional argument. In Heller, the Supreme Court held there is a Second Amendment right for persons to bear arm. Nowhere did the Court say, however, that there is an unlimited national right to carry a concealed handgun. In fact, Justice Scalia recognized the legality of reasonable limits on the Second Amendment. I can't imagine a more reasonable restriction for States to impose than those which govern who can carry a concealed firearm in their own States.

I ask that Members reject this deeply flawed and dangerous bill.

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

Although the American people are concerned about restoring our economy and creating jobs, today we are returning to irrelevant issues that do nothing to promote economic growth and put Americans back to work. We have seen this before.

In the 107th Congress, we passed a bill to reaffirm the phrase ``One Nation, under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance, and reaffirm the national

motto. We went so far as to reenact into law, word for word, the existing law making ``In God We Trust'' the national motto, just to be sure.

Now, no one has threatened it. No one has said it was not the national motto. This resolution today, which has no force of law, simply restates the national motto--once again.

Why have my Republican friends returned to an irrelevant agenda? Irrelevant because it does nothing. It simply restates existing law that no one has questioned. Why are we debating nonbinding resolutions about the national motto?

The American people are demanding action on the President's jobs legislation. They are demanding that we pay attention to rebuilding our national infrastructure. They are demanding that we deal with a budget fairly and effectively. They are demanding fairness for the middle class and for the 99 percent of Americans who don't write million- dollar checks and hire expensive lobbyists and make huge campaign contributions.

And yet here we are, back to irrelevant issue debates, the kind of thing people do when they have run out of ideas, when they have run out of excuses, when they have nothing to offer a middle class that is hurting and that has run out of patience.

What happened to Republican pledges that we weren't going to do these kind of symbolic resolutions anymore? Symbolic because, after all, it changes nothing. The national motto remains the national motto, as much today and tomorrow as yesterday. What happened to Republican pledges that we were going to focus on the business of legislating? That was earlier this year.

Make no mistake about it: Some have taken a decidedly divisive tone when discussing the national motto. Some have sought to imply that their political adversaries, including the President, are somehow less godly, or less patriotic, and have used the national motto as a political wedge to drive home that point, or to try to drive home that point.

I think that kind of divisiveness undermines national unity which, especially in times like these, is very important. Rather than trying to one-up each other over who can be the better or more godly American, we should be working together to solve our very real problems.

Mr. Speaker, let's get back to the work we were sent here to do. Let's stop playing the kind of social issue games that do nothing to move the Nation forward. The national motto is not in danger. No one here is suggesting that we get rid of it. It appears on our money. It appears in this Chamber above your head. It appears in the Capitol Visitor Center, all over the place. We don't need to go looking for imagined problems to fix. We've got enough real ones to worry about.

This resolution is a waste of time, a waste of effort. And again, remember that this country is a country for all people--whether they are religious or not, whether they believe in God or not, whether they believe in one God or not. The First Amendment tells us we should make no law respecting establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This is not an establishment of religion, but simply restating this when no one has threatened it, when no one has questioned it. It is an exercise to tell people who may not believe in God: You don't really count; you're not really Americans.

The establishment clause is there to protect religion from government, and government from religion, to separate the two.

This resolution is here to say we don't want to separate the two. If someone was threatening the national motto then maybe it would be necessary. As it is, this is simply an exercise in saying we're more religious than the other people. We're more godly than the other people. And by the way, let's waste time and divert people's attention from the real issues that we're not dealing with, like unemployment. We shouldn't go looking for imagined problems to fix when we have enough real ones to worry about.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Nobody said that the national motto ``In God We Trust'' is just words. Nobody said any such thing. What I said is that this resolution is just words because no one is threatening the national motto. It's there. It's on our currency, and it's on our walls. It's there. It's our national motto. No one denies that fact. Nothing will change when we pass this resolution. It was our national motto yesterday, it's our national motto today, and it will be our national motto tomorrow.

This resolution is simply words designed to distract attention from our real problems to a nonexistent problem. There's no challenge to our national motto. There is no challenge to the foundations of this country. There is a challenge to our economy, and that we ought to be paying attention to.

So all the nice words that my friend from Virginia talked about how important our belief in God is, I agree, obviously. But this resolution is a waste of time and a diversion.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I would point out that the lawsuit that the gentleman from California referred to lost at the Supreme Court, and that was a number of years ago, which adds to the point that, of course, ``In God We Trust,'' our national motto, is not under attack or under threat, nor is ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance under attack or under threat. And this is, in fact, an unnecessary resolution.

Yes.

Reclaiming my time, the gentleman may be correct. I'm not familiar with that case. But cases making these challenges occur all the time. They lose 100 percent of the time, and there's no reason to expect that that will change.

So, again, ``In God We Trust'' was our national motto yesterday and it's our national motto today. Whether this resolution passes or not, it will be our national motto tomorrow, and we're wasting our time.

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.

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.

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

I've listened to this discussion. There's no question that most people in this Chamber, maybe everybody in this Chamber, agrees with the phrase, with the motto, ``In God We Trust.'' I certainly do.

It's no question it's the motto of this country. We've adopted it. It's no question that it's not threatened. No one's seeking to change it, except for every so often there's a court case which uniformly gets thrown out, and that's not new.

There's no necessity for this resolution except, really, the only reason for this resolution, frankly, is to declare how good we are, that we're going to reaffirm what needs no reaffirmation, and to divert attention from the issues that we really ought to be dealing with.

So let me say, again, ``In God We Trust'' is the motto of the United States. It was yesterday, it is today, it will be tomorrow whether we pass this resolution or not.

We do have to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone in this country believes in God, and they are just as much Americans as those of us who do believe in God.

I see no reason for passing this resolution to reaffirm what is already the case and what we've affirmed before. So it's a waste of time. And I am not saying that ``In God We Trust'' is a waste of time, nor that the national motto is simply words or a symbol. They mean something.

But this resolution is simply words which does nothing, is intended to do nothing other than to get up and say, we're godly, we're good people. And it's true, we are, I hope. Most of us are. But we don't have to declare it. And we don't have to make people who may not agree with it feel that they're not as American as we are.

We don't have to spend the time in this House when we're not spending it on things that are important in terms of something that we can actually change, that we can actually do something about, like creating jobs and affecting the economy. We can't change this. This is the national motto. It will remain the national motto. This resolution changes nothing.

If this resolution were saying, let's abolish the national motto, then it would change something and we'd say, well, you can debate it one way or the other. But this changes nothing. It simply diverts attention, it wastes our time, and it is unworthy for that reason.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this bill seeks to undo women's constitutional rights under the guise of being about government funding for abortion. The law, unfortunately, already forbids Federal funds from paying for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or where the woman's life is in danger. This bill goes well beyond that. It would make it virtually impossible for any of the health plans offered through the health exchanges set up as part of the Affordable Care Act to cover abortions.

As the authors plainly intend, it would make it virtually impossible for most women to buy insurance coverage for abortions with their own money. The bill would also allow a doctor or hospital to refuse to provide an abortion to a woman whose life is in imminent peril. They could let that woman die right there in the emergency room, and the government would be powerless to do anything.

Madam Speaker, I remember a time not that long ago when women had no options for legal abortions and had to resort to illegal back alley abortionists. Women were butchered, many died, others became sterile, all because the medical care they desperately sought and the compassion they desperately needed was denied to them. No woman should be treated with this contempt.

The real purpose of this bill--which denies women the right to purchase insurance coverage for legal abortions, even with their own money--is to make it impossible for women to exercise their constitutional right to choose for themselves.

This bill is an abomination. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained at a meeting outside the Capitol, and I missed one vote on October 5, 2011. Had I been able to, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 747, an amendment offered by Mr. Waxman to H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington, DC on September 12, 2011 and September 14-15, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 699, the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 700, the Appeal Time Clarification Act of 2011; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 701, to protect the safety of judges by extending the authority of the Judicial Conference to redact sensitive information contained in their financial disclosure reports; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 706, relating to the disapproval of the President's exercise of authority to increase the debt limit; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 707, on ordering the previous question on the rule for H.R. 2587; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 708, the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 2587; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 709, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2011; ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 710, the motion to recommit H.R. 2587; ``no'' on rollcall vote No. 711, final passage of the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, this country is in the middle of a great crisis, entirely an artificial crisis created by an attempt by one political party to blackmail the entire country into adopting its program of destroying Medicare and Social Security and food stamps and unemployment and all of the things that many of our people depend on.

But why do I say it's an artificial crisis? Because the debt ceiling increase is something we normally do--seven times during President Bush's administration.

Some people think to raise the debt ceiling is to say we're going to borrow and spend more. No, it's not. You raise the debt ceiling in order to pay for bills you already incurred because of decisions made 2 and 3 and 5 years ago, mostly during the Bush administration.

Not to raise the debt ceiling is like going into an expensive restaurant, having an expensive meal, and then getting the bill and saying, Oh, my God. I've got too much money on my credit card. I don't think I'll pay the bill. Well, if that's the case, you shouldn't have had the meal.

If you don't want to pay the bill, you shouldn't have made those budget decisions. You shouldn't have cut those taxes 10 years ago and gotten into those wars 7 and 8 years ago and made the other decisions that piled up the deficit.

If you want to have a debate, which we should, on how to change our policies in the future, that's for the budget debate. We're going to pass the budget at some point. We're going to debate tax levels, expenditure levels.

But instead, what are they doing? They're saying, That's a nice economy you've got there; pity if something should happen to it. And if you don't do exactly what we want, we're going to destroy it by not raising the debt ceiling and causing a collapse in credit so that everybody's interest rates go up and that people have to pay a thousand dollars more a month on their mortgage or whatever, because it's a ripple right throughout the economy.

A default would be a real crisis for the economy, and it will cost the economy probably a trillion dollars in extra deficit spending over the next 10 years just in higher interest costs. But if we don't do exactly what they want, to destroy Medicare and Social Security and the other things they never liked in the first place, they will wreck the economy by not raising the debt ceiling in order not to pay the bills that they incurred.

Then we hear that we have a deficit crisis, that, after all, the country is broke. We've got to cut the budget. Even the President says the country is broke. We've got to cut the budget--a little less savagely, but we've still got to cut.

Wrong.

The country is not broke. It is just that we are not taxing the millionaires and the billionaires and the corporations the way we used to.

In 1950, the corporations paid 6 percent of the entire economy of the GDP in corporate taxes. Today, it's under 1 percent. Twenty years ago, 30 percent of all income taxes came from corporations; today, it's under 6 percent. And that's why the middle class feels overtaxed, because they are, because we don't tax the millionaires and the billionaires the way we used to. We don't tax the corporations the way we used to--the big multinationals, I'm talking about, not the small businesses. Instead, we've shifted the tax burden to the middle class, and we don't get enough tax revenue.

And the fact of the matter is, if you look at the budget of 2001 and if you look at the budget of 2011, in 2001, the budget was $258 billion in surplus. It was the last Clinton budget. How has it changed? Why is this budget $1.2 trillion in deficit and that was a quarter trillion in balance? What's changed?

Well, adjusted for inflation and for population growth, nondefense discretionary spending, everything they want to cut now, hasn't changed at all. It was $369 billion then; it's $369 billion now.

What's changed? Well, defense spending and homeland security spending have gone up 74 percent because of two wars and a lot of bloat, a 74 percent increase in defense spending. Mandatory programs, that is to say, Medicare, Social Security, veterans, up 32 percent. And it is not only those. There is also unemployment insurance, mostly because we're in a recession, and you have to pay more unemployment insurance and food stamps and so forth. Total revenues are down 24 percent. From a bigger country, we're getting 24 percent less revenue today. Why? Because in 2001, the taxes collected 20 percent of GDP, and today it's 14.5 percent of GDP.

So what should we be doing? Well, first of all, we should raise the debt ceiling to recognize the debts that were already incurred, and we should do it cleanly, so as not to throw the economy into a tailspin. Then we should debate all of these issues in the budget. We should raise taxes on the millionaires, the billionaires, the corporations; cut defense; and try not to tamper with people's Social Security, Medicare, and the things that they depend on.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

The New York State legislature created SUNY Empire State College in 1971 in order to provide educational opportunities to adults not adequately served by traditional residential colleges. At the same time, it also established the Center for Labor Studies, which was renamed in 1986 to honor the distinguished labor leader, the long-time business manager of LBEW Local 3 and president of the New York City Central Labor Council, who did so much to support its creation.

The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College continues to fulfill its namesake's dream of providing wage-earning adults with an opportunity to develop their labor leadership skills and to earn a college degree in a learning environment that celebrates their achievements and recognizes their particular needs. To do so, the Van Arsdale Center provides flexible, worker-friendly educational programs delivered by highly qualified faculty to ensure that its trade union students and other working adults may acquire the analytical and communicative skills that are the hallmark of a college degree.

The center currently serves several important constituencies in the New York City area, including IBEW Local 3 and United Association Local 1 apprentices, as well as paraeducators affiliated with the United Federation of Teachers. The longest-standing of these partnerships is with the Joint Industry Board of the Electrical Industry in New York City (JIB), and it is one of the center's most successful partnerships. Since 1978 every registered electrical apprentice in IBEW Local 3 has been required to complete, in addition to their related classroom instruction in electrical theory, an academic course of study in which they learn to read and write at the college level and for which they are awarded a college degree; or, if they already have a degree, a 20- credit certificate in ``Labor and the Construction Industry.'' Other programs were added later: the paraeducator program of the UFT in 2006, the college degree program of UA Local 1 in 2008; and others are in development.

The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies has graduated more than 5,000 men and women, many of whom have gone on to hold positions of honor in the New York City labor movement and beyond. Please join me in congratulating this exemplary educational organization on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

Many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle would not be

here today if President Jefferson had not borrowed to finance the Louisiana Purchase.

Mr. Speaker, this bill promises all the fun of a constitutional amendment without actually amending the Constitution. It simply says that the United States should default on our debts and destroy our economy if we don't amend the Constitution.

If we default on our debts, we will do more damage to our economy than large deficits, tax increases and draconian cuts combined. Right now, we enjoy very low interest rates because we are still the most stable, reliable and wealthy country in the world.

If the markets get the idea that we are too dysfunctional to pay our debts, even though we are certainly wealthy enough to do so, nothing else will matter. Interest rates will climb. Homeowners and businesses will be pushed out of the credit market. The stock market will crash.

Never before in the history of this country has anyone been irresponsible enough to play chicken with our full faith and credit. Never.

We know how to balance the budget, because we've done it before. In the not-too-distant past, we managed, in working with President Clinton, not only to balance the budget but to run surpluses and begin paying down the debt. Unfortunately, President Bush and a Republican Congress managed to turn record surpluses into record deficits in record time.

Rather than admit to serious Republican economic mismanagement and finding responsible solutions, we get this dusted-off quack cure from the past. The so-called balanced budget amendment requires a balanced budget much sooner than does the Republican budget that the House recently passed, the one that abolishes Medicare and turns Medicaid into a block grant.

I asked the sponsor of the balanced budget amendment, the gentleman from Virginia, how he thought this could be done. He answered that the Republican Study Committee budget, which is even more radical than the Ryan budget, would be in balance in just 9 years. That's what we're really voting for today--an accelerated version of the Republican Study Committee budget. Anyone voting for this should be prepared to go home and explain that vote, including Republican members who voted against their study committee budget.

Economists have long known that, in good times, you should balance the budget and pay down the debt but that, in times of recession, when tax revenues plummet and the economy contracts, you have to spend money on unemployment insurance and on putting people back to work. You must run a deficit to get the economy going again. The balanced budget amendment would force us to do the exact opposite and turn every recession into a depression.

This constitutional amendment does a whole lot more than require a balanced budget. Many of its provisions simply cement into the Constitution the policy preferences of the current majority and bind our children and grandchildren to those preferences.

The two-thirds requirement, for example, to increase revenues would have the perverse effect of allowing special interest tax loopholes to be slipped into law with a majority vote, but would require a supermajority to repeal them. This is not just antithetical to a balanced budget; it would also cement the most corrupt aspects of our Tax Code into the Constitution.

The amendment would also require a two-thirds vote for any budget that exceeds 18 percent of GDP. The CBO tells us: ``Outlays have averaged close to 21 percent of GDP over the past 40 years.'' Federal outlays have not dropped below 18 percent since 1966--that is, since the enactment of Medicare.

Regardless of what other parts of this bill may say, there is no way to meet these restrictions without destroying Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans' programs, and military preparedness. That's just arithmetic, and no amount of rhetoric will change it.

The real problem is that tax revenues have declined from 20\1/2\ percent of GDP in 2000 to 14\1/2\ percent of GDP because we no longer tax the millionaires, the billionaires and the large corporations the way we used to.

Let's start doing that, and we can have a balanced budget without phoney constitutional amendments which promise balanced budgets, without showing how, but that do protect the millionaires from paying their fair share.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the rescinding of unobligated high-speed rail funds in the bill that we are considering today.

During the full committee markup of the 2012 Energy and Water appropriations bill, Chairman Frelinghuysen offered an amendment providing $1.028 billion in emergency funding to the Army Corps of Engineers to repair damage caused by recent storms and floods and to prepare for future disaster events. It makes sense to spend money on that; we have always given money for emergencies. But the funding is offset in the chairman's amendment by a recision of all the remaining unobligated high-speed rail funding that was originally approved in the American Recovery Act.

The language of the amendment would rescind all unobligated high- speed rail funding as opposed to just $1.028 billion to be spent for the emergency. This provision jeopardizes several important projects that are already underway, already in the planning stages, that support good jobs and will make long-overdue improvements to our rail system.

Last May, the Department of Transportation awarded some of these high-speed rail funds for major improvements on the Northeast Corridor, such as $449 million for catenary improvements, which would allow trains to reach 160 miles per hour on certain segments, and $294 million for the Harold Interlocking in Queens, which would reduce delays for Amtrak and on the Long Island Railroad.

I've heard a lot of people complain about the trip times and reliability on the Northeast Corridor and complain that even the Acela is not true high-speed rail, and they're right. But these are the kinds of projects that have to be done to prepare to make significant improvements in the corridor and to prepare the way for true high-speed rail later.

Make no mistake: These are projects that are happening now. This is not money just sitting there waiting for a visionary high-speed rail system to come about. This is money going to real infrastructure investments now that support real jobs now and support real economic development when we need it most.

I share the chairman's desire to provide funding to the Army Corps to repair storm damage, but this is not the way to go about it. This is a perfect example of why we have--or used to have--different rules for emergency spending. If something unexpected happens, massive storms and floods, we should be able to respond without jeopardizing other funding. We always said that emergency funding didn't have to be paid for by offsetting other reductions in worthy programs.

I am very concerned about the underinvestment in transportation and infrastructure that seems to have taken hold on the other side of the aisle. We have always had bipartisan agreement that investing in roads, rails, bridges, highways, tunnels and transit is an essential government function. And historically, it's what made the economy grow. From Henry Clay's American system and the internal improvements and Abraham Lincoln's transcontinental railroad, from the Eerie Canal of DeWitt Clinton, in more recent times the interstate highway system of Dwight Eisenhower, the economy of the United States was built on these infrastructure developments.

As the Nation is embroiled in negotiations over the debt limit now and how to address the long-term deficit, this is yet another example of the misguided thinking that cutting government spending is somehow the answer to these long-term economic challenges. It is unfathomable that we would pass anything that would eliminate good jobs, and not just the direct transportation and construction jobs but all of the jobs dependent on the connectivity and efficiency of our transportation system.

We need to make the investments necessary to put America on a path toward long-term economic growth. We should be providing a lot more money for high-speed rail, which is one of the connection systems of the future. This bill that we will be considering today takes an extra step backward by revoking funds already allocated--not necessarily obligated, but allocated and

announced--for ongoing projects that are moving ahead. I urge my colleagues to fix this provision.

Emergency funding is obviously warranted for the floods, but it should not be done by eliminating already allocated funds for high- speed rail in an area where we very much need those improvements on the current transportation system.

I yield back the balance of my time.