Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a public servant, Seattle Police Officer Tim Brenton. Officer Brenton was killed in the line of duty last week on October 31, 2009. Officer Brenton lost his life in an apparent deliberate murder that has shocked Seattle and frozen our hearts.

Officer Brenton leaves behind his wife and two children and the rest of his family, including a father and an uncle who also served the public as police officers and a brother who is a firefighter. He leaves behind a partner, Officer Britt Sweeney, who was also wounded that night.

He leaves behind a police department in mourning, and he leaves behind a community in shock because of this brutal and senseless crime. But more than that, he leaves behind a legacy of selflessness, of caring, and of commitment to service. We all owe a great debt to Officer Brenton and to the many public servants who place their lives on the line to protect us.

The Seattle Times newspaper noted that a neighbor called the Brentons ``just a regular American family, going to work, making a living.'' But the Brentons are no regular family. They have been doubly marked by valor and by sacrifice. The perpetrators of this tragic crime have marked all of us as we mourn the effects of this violence on the family and friends of Officer Brenton.

I ask you all to join me in bowing your heads in remembrance of Officer Brenton.

Mr. Speaker, Prime Minister Angela Merkel was in this Hall just a few hours ago. She represents a country where they have had health care security for 126 years. Americans have been waiting for 100 years; and when the Republicans took over the last time, they knocked out Mrs. Clinton's plan and they bragged about it. And for 12 years, they made not one single proposal that they would bring to the floor for a vote. They want the status quo. They like what is going on. And if folks back home like what is going on, stick with them, because they are never going to change anything.

What they say about this is, Not so fast. One hundred years is too fast? Well, they say, But we have something we're just about to bring out here on Thursday. Not so fast, right. Wait until the last minute after all of the debate, and then say, Not so fast. The American people want it done now.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging my colleagues, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite) for bringing this resolution to the floor.

This is an issue that deserves our unanimous support, and I'm sure it will have it. H. Res. 831 really expresses the ideals and the goals of National Adoption Day and National Adoption Month. Every child deserves to be raised in a home that is safe, loving and is permanent. Unfortunately, this basic principle is not a reality for the 129,000 children who are currently in our Nation's foster care system waiting for a permanent home to call their own.

Last year, the Congress passed bipartisan, bicameral legislation that dramatically reformed our Nation's foster care and adoption program. The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act was designed to improve the outcomes of children's lives in the foster care system as well as increase the number of children who find permanency through placement with a grandparent or other relative or through adoption. The new law helps States provide greater financial assistance to relative caregivers who choose to become the legal guardian of a foster child and also promotes the adoption of children with special needs and improves the Adoption Incentive Program.

While my colleagues and I were able to accomplish a great deal last year in improving foster care and adoption programs, our work is far from over. We must ensure that families are given the postadoption support they need when they welcome an adopted child into their home. Any of us who have raised a child know that it's difficult to do, but it is an immensely rewarding endeavor, and when the Federal Government has an ability to encourage these connections, we ought to do so.

There are a wealth of families interested in adopting a child out of foster care. A study last year showed that there are 600,000 women in the United States seeking to adopt. The majority of these women said they would consider adopting older youth, siblings, or children with special needs. We can and must do a better job of connecting these would-be parents to kids growing up in foster care.

It's my hope that this bill and the resolution connected to it will lead to an overall increase in the awareness of National Adoption Day and will help us close the gap so that it is possible to imagine a Nation where every child, indeed, lives in a safe and secure home.

We must also do a better job of keeping kids out of the foster care system to begin with. Today, we provide some or more financial assistance to States to remove children from homes and place them in care than we do in providing support to children in at-risk homes where they are living in their homes.

At this time last week, I delivered remarks in front of a group of current and former foster youth, and the topic of discussion was: How can we better address the stresses of crises in the home that bring families to the door of the system in the first place? The point I heard over and over again from these young adults was, My parents weren't bad people. They just needed some extra help and guidance to keep our family together.

Keeping children safely with their biological parents is almost always in the child's best interest. In an effort to move us in that direction, I have introduced bipartisan legislation with Representative Danny Davis and Todd Platts to provide States with mandatory grant funding to support an evidence-based voluntary home visitation program.

The President took Representative Davis' idea and put it in his budget. We put it in H.R. 3200, which is the health care bill that is now about to be considered in this body.

The home visitation program provides services to pregnant women and families with preschool-aged children that are designed to enhance the child's health, well-being, and development. I am pleased that the proposal was introduced and that it made its way into the health care bill. We expect it will pass out of here in a few days.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H. Res. 831 and to recommit ourselves to working on legislation that improves the lives of all children and families and improves our child welfare system. The 129,000 children who are awaiting a permanent family deserve nothing less from this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the people may be wondering what is going on here today. Well, you are watching the charge of the light brigade. The Republicans believe that they can just throw themselves into it and they will stop it. But they are not going to stop it.

The other night, Tuesday night, New York City, a friend of mine had a problem. He called a doctor's office and got the first question, which is always, What kind of insurance do you have?

He said, Well, I don't have any insurance. I am from out of the country.

They said, Oh, well, you can come in and see the doctor, but you have to bring $250 in cash or the doctor will not see you.

He said, I don't have that kind of cash.

They said, Well, tough luck. Go to the emergency room.

Now, that is the health care system that my colleagues in the light brigade want to protect. Keep trying to protect it, guys. It ain't going to work. The American people want a change, and they are going to get one.

Madam Speaker, exactly one month ago today the House cast aside partisanship to work together and overwhelmingly pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits, which are running out for an average of 7,000 Americans every day.

While my Republican colleagues in the House recognize that unemployment is an American issue that transcends politics, Senate Republicans are oblivious to the urgent need to pass legislation because people are hanging on by their fingernails. Instead, the Senate Republicans have a choke hold on legislation to extend unemployment insurance benefits, and Americans who need the help the House passed a month ago aren't going to get helped until Senate Republicans stop playing partisan games.

There are positive signs the economy has turned the corner, but the Senate Republicans know what everyone else knows, that unemployment always takes longer to recover. But they still have a choke hold on the bill, which is a choke hold on nurturing the economic recovery.

A caller to my office this morning put it best: There is one reason you may not be able to buy food for your family next week, and it is called the Senate Republicans. Maybe they are the ones who ought to be out of work.

Maybe then the Republicans in the Senate would understand what it means to look to Washington for leadership but see petty partisanship instead.

Release the choke hold and pass the bill to extend unemployment benefits. Thousands of Americans can wait no longer.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to offer special recognition to my constituent and friend, Roberto Maestas, as he steps into a new role after serving as the executive director of El Centro de la Raza for the past 37 years. For more than 40 years, Mr. Maestas has been intimately involved in the ongoing struggle for civil rights and social justice, not only for Latinos, but for all disadvantaged people. He is among Seattle's most respected figures, esteemed for his effectiveness, his political savvy, and his legendary persuasive powers.

Mr. Maestas recently has become Senior Advisor and Chair of Historical Resources at El Centro de la Raza. El Centro de la Raza's board of directors has asked Mr. Maestas to lead a program to chronicle, collect, record and preserve El Centro de la Raza's historical contributions to the local, national, and international community and to the social justice movement. We are so fortunate to have this

opportunity to capture an accurate, vibrant history of a tumultuous, formative era with someone who not only lived through it but actually helped to make that history.

Roberto Maestas was born in New Mexico, but he has called Seattle, Washington, his home since the early 1950s. As a young man, Mr. Maestas taught at Franklin High School before pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Washington in 1968, where he became one of the University's first Chicano graduates.

In the early 1970s, as part of the United States War on Poverty, Mr. Maestas helped form an Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language (ESL) program at South Seattle Community College to serve the city's growing Latino community. But, in 1972, funding was abruptly cut, and the program needed a new home. Mr. Maestas, along with fellow teachers, students, and a number of community activists, peaceably occupied the abandoned Beacon Hill School, and negotiated its conversion into a new community center, El Centro de la Raza.

Under his leadership, El Centro has become a voice and hub for Latinos seeking services, advocacy, and social justice. It has grown from a provider of ESL classes to a multimillion dollar Community Action Agency offering a wide array of services to thousands of low- income people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Its programs include a bilingual child care center, a Basic Healthcare enrollment program, a food bank, senior services, and a home ownership program.

In addition, Mr. Maestas and El Centro de la Raza have been at the forefront of multicultural and international initiatives. El Centro played a prominent role in local solidarity campaigns with Central American social justice activists, and it continues to host art exhibitions, cross-cultural exchanges, and international speakers. Mr. Maestas, along with Bernie Whitebear, Larry Gossett, and Bob Santos co- founded the Minority Executive Directors' Coalition; his extraordinary work over three decades to build the strongest municipal multi-racial coalition in the United States is widely acknowledged and justly acclaimed. Although the founding of El Centro de la Raza was sparked by Latinos and distinguished with a Spanish name, that name translates in English to: ``The Center for the People of All Races.'' Through the years, Mr. Maestas has worked with diligence and determination to ensure that El Centro is ``home'' for all people interested in advancing the struggle for a better world by serving, educating, defending, and organizing each other to build the ``beloved community'' envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Appropriately, El Centro de la Raza and Mr. Maestas have received countless international, national, state, and local awards, including the ``Thousand Points of Light'' award in 1991 from the President George Bush, Sr.

Madam Speaker, Roberto Maestas is an invaluable asset to the Seattle community. His contributions and his commitment to better the lives of all people deserve our gratitude, our deep respect, and our keen approbation. The people of Seattle, including the thousands who have been served at El Centro de la Raza and the countless students, volunteers, and staff whom he has touched, are grateful for his kind guidance and his visionary leadership. I join them in thanking Mr. Maestas for his service, and in wishing him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice my strong support for H. Res. 627, legislation I co-sponsored honoring the citizen soldiers of the National Guard of the State of Washington, including the 81st Brigade Combat Team of the Washington Army National Guard.

The National Guard plays a vital role in the defense of our communities and country. When we need them, they are always there, whether it be responding to a natural disaster at home or deploying to a combat zone overseas. The men and women of the Washington National Guard are our friends and neighbors, and their dedication and patriotism make us all very proud every time they put on the uniform.

More than 11,000 Washington State citizen soldiers have answered the call to duty since 9/11, including the 81st Brigade Combat Team that recently returned home from a mission in Iraq. Tragically, Specialist Samuel Stone, of Port Orchard, Washington, was killed during the deployment.

Outside my office in the Longworth House Office Building I have placed pictures of all the soldiers from the State of Washington who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every day, visitors coming to or passing by the 7th Congressional District Office stop and look at the faces of the fallen. In so doing, we honor those who have died in service to their country and consider the consequences of sending soldiers off to war.

We are proud of the men and women of the Washington National Guard who willingly place themselves in harm's way to protect our lives, property and country. They deserve public recognition and our heartfelt thanks. I think of H. Res. 627 as a medal awarded to every citizen soldier for service above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you on behalf of a grateful State and Nation.

Madam Speaker, my hometown newspaper, The Seattle Times, published a front page story the other day under the headline, ``First-time Buyers Ignite Home Sales.'' The bottom line is that the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers is working and should, at a minimum, be extended before it expires at the end of November. Some experts even suggest expanding the program to anyone buying a home. And that's worth considering.

The tax credit was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that the President signed into law in February. It had an almost immediate and positive impact on the U.S. housing market, and the data proves it. This chart shows that in March, the housing was still in free fall. But in April, when the tax credit began to take hold, we see the beginning of a steady increase in home sales through August, the last month for which figures are available. The tax credit has made homeownership a reality for thousands of decent, hardworking Americans. Extending it makes financial sense, economic sense, and it especially makes middle class sense.

Across America, prices are stabilizing, and the inventory of homes for sale is trending downward toward a point where market forces do not favor either the buyer or the seller. When people buy homes, they purchase appliances and curtains and a whole list of durable goods, so the positive impact of the local economy is more than just the actual purchase. It supports other jobs.

The program is working for America's families and for America. During the Congressional debate last winter the National Association of Realtors forecast that the first-time homebuyer tax credit would generate a half a million homes. The actual number is 1.4 million homes. And that benefits local governments too because of real estate and other local taxes that help pay for vital community services like police and fire.

If the program is extended and possibly expanded, there is new forecast of the impact, and it's very impressive. The second chart shows what can happen if we keep going a little longer and jobs and wages across the country, including my State, and the congressional district, the U.S. would expect 347,000 jobs with wages of $16 billion; Washington State, 8,000 jobs, with $375 million in wages.

The first-time homebuyer credit has nurtured a fragile housing market to better health in just 6 months. Even if you're not buying a house, you benefit because the housing market is one of the underpinnings of our entire economy and is the largest asset for families. So rebuilding the housing market helps us rebuild the economy.

As you can see, there are pending home sales. In this last chart you can clearly see that the tax credit is taking the housing market and America in the right direction. But this positive news will be threatened if we don't take action now. If it takes 60 days for a mortgage application to be processed, we are nearing the end by November 30. The tax credit is the foundation of the fragile housing market recovery that we are expecting to see across this country.

Now is not the time to mess with success. The homebuyer tax credit works, and it keeps it working by extending the program into the next year. The Congress should act immediately on this because the slow-down is just around the corner if we don't keep the tax credit there.

Mr. Ellison, it is a pleasure to be here today. In the caucus the other day we were talking about health care, and one thing that is very clear in this country is that the medical-industrial complex doesn't want to change. They want things as they are. They would be glad to take additional money to cover people, but they want to go through the private sector. Let's just keep grinding out the profits, never mind what happens to the patients.

This effort that is being made in the House, and I hope to have a bill out here in 10 days or so, is an effort to make sure that what you just suggested happens. That is, that everybody in this country has health care that is adequate, that takes care of the needs they have, no matter how much money they have, no matter what they look like, no matter where they live. They should have the same kind of health care in this country no matter what their circumstances are.

I told the story, I said one of the things that people tell me: Everybody in this country gets health care. What are you talking about?

What I said to my colleague when he said that to me, you know, the difference between Members of Congress and ordinary folks in this society is, we live a somewhat different life. If you call up and say, This is Dr. McDermott or Congressman McDermott, I have a pain in my stomach, they will tell me to come into the office tomorrow morning. Everybody else goes through this little drill. When you call the doctor's office and say, I have a pain in my stomach, the first question is, What kind of insurance do you have?

Now if you have private insurance, you will be in the office tomorrow morning. If you have Medicare, well some doctors don't take Medicare, so it may be a week before you get taken care of. God forbid if you have Medicaid, you will never get taken care of. Or it will be a month or a month and a half. And if you don't have health insurance, they have an offer for you: If you will come in and pay $25 or $30 upfront, we will have an appointment for you in 2 weeks.

People say that isn't true. Well, let me tell you, there are very well-documented studies, and they put people on two phones sitting right next to each other, they would call the same doctor's office, give the same story about a pain in their stomach, and find out what the relationship there was between what kind of insurance they had and when they got seen.

Now, it shouldn't be that way in this country. If you are sick and you have pain in your stomach, you ought to be able to get in and see a doctor.

What clearly happens in that case, for those people who have to wait 2 weeks or a month or whatever, they go along with that pain in their stomach waiting for their appointment, waiting for their appointment. When they can't stand it any longer, they go to the emergency room. That is why emergency rooms are flooded with things that ought to be seen in a doctor's office, but people can't find a way, they can't find a doctor that will accept them.

Well, I told this story, and one of my colleagues came up to me and said, You

know what, you are absolutely right. He said, I just had my knee replaced. He said, I got talking to the doctor about it, and the doctor and I were talking about how he would get paid. The doctor said, Oh, you're perfect. You've got private insurance. We all have Blue Cross- Blue Shield here in the Congress. He said that is good insurance and that pays for it and that is good.

My friend said what if I had Medicare?

The doctor said, I would have said, Why don't you wait for a couple of months?

And my friend asked, If I had Medicaid? The doctor said, I would never see you. I don't accept Medicaid patients for knee replacements.

So there is rationing in this society today, and it depends on what kind of plastic you have in your pocket. Now to simply pass out more plastic cards in the insurance industry today will not work, and that's why we have to have a good public option. We have to have an option that functions the same as it does if you have a private insurance card.

If you meet a Canadian some time, ask a Canadian to show you their provincial health care card. In Ontario, they are orange. In New Brunswick, they are blue-green. In Quebec, they are kind of a greenish color. They have a card no matter where they go in the province. In Canada, they hand in that card and they get taken care of. That's what ought to happen in this country, and the public option is the only way we are going to get people who don't have health insurance today the opportunity to access the health care system and actually have an opportunity to see a doctor.

Now it is clear that the President has said not only does he want to have access, but he wants to have a plan that controls cost. The fight now in here is the fight between--giving people access is going to cost more money in some ways, although there is lots of money to be saved in the present system, but the providers and the drug companies and the insurance companies and all the other people who are involved in the medical industrial complex don't want to have anybody put any control on their costs. That's what the fight is that is going on right now as this bill comes to the floor.

John Conyers has worked as long as I have trying to get what we know would be the best system, which is the single-payer system. Now the President said we are not going to go that route, we are going to go a little different route. We are helping him to get there. It is not the perfect system, but it will get people the access and the cost control that is necessary.

I listened to my colleague from Minnesota just a moment ago telling us this story about this clinic and what is in the bill. I believe that bill has been out on the floor and up on the Web site. Anybody who can read could have read it in the last 30 days, in the last 60 days, and there are no such clinics in that bill.

Absolutely not.

No; that is scare tactics. You know better than that, Keith. Why are you asking those questions?

You know, there is sort of a political axiom that if you can make people afraid, you can get them to do exactly what you want them to do. In this case, they want people to say no, we don't want the government to take over our health care.

Now the government pays for military health care. The government pays for veterans' health care. The government pays for seniors' health care in this country and poor people's health care in this country. And they want government to go away? Come on.

Sixty cents out of every health care dollar in this country is coming from the government through all of those programs. And the people are saying that they don't want the government. I have had older folks come to me and say, I don't want the government to get into my Medicare. Folks, Medicare is a government program. They simply are scaring people to the point where they are not thinking clearly about what is going on in this country.

Well, you know, John, you are talking about the fundamental thing the President is trying to do, and that is to give people security, health security, that they know that if they get sick or they have an accident, they'll be taken care of. The fundamental weakness of our system forever has been that your health insurance has been tied to who you were employed by. When the economy's rolling along, and when the economy's going up, that's not too bad. It works pretty well. In fact, the difference between right now and what was going on in 1993-1994, as you remember when Mrs. Clinton tried to do this--everybody says, What's the difference between then and now? Then things were going up, and everybody thought, Well, this plan they're putting together is for somebody else. It's for them. They didn't know who ``them'' was, but it was somebody they didn't know.

When you have a system that's tied to employment--people always thought that this health care business was about them. The difference today is, as you point out, middle class people who yesterday felt they were just about as secure as they could be--they had a job, they had health care, their kids were in college, blah, blah, blah--and bingo, they lose their job. We had a bank go down in Seattle, Washington Mutual Bank. There were 4,300 people that were affected. That's 4,300 families who found themselves instantly without a paycheck, without health care, and in many cases, all of their pension money was in an IRA of the company's stock. So they suddenly had no pension. They had no security whatsoever. No house, no health care, no food, no anything.

It's impossible for that not to be stressful to people, and people then have stress-related diseases. There are plenty of stress-related diseases. We know them. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress disease. And any kind of emotional thing like that is going to take a toll on you physically. A lot of people are suffering today from emotional illnesses, secondary to the instability of their economic situation.

You're tough out of luck. If you go into the individual market, you'll pay even more. So if you're in a big group, you know, working for Ford Motor Company or for Delco Battery or something, that way you get the risk spread over everybody. But if they're just looking at you or me or the next guy, they're going to charge you a much higher premium for anything that you have, any kind of preexisting condition.

So it's worse when you leave one of those groups. People stay in, and they scramble to try to make it. But every company in the country has been shifting more and more cost onto the individual. They used to pay in some companies 100 percent. Now they pay 60 percent, and 40 percent has to be paid by the employee. Their deductibles are going up, and the copays are going up. That's why the President has said we have to find a way to control costs. We can't let this go on.

Well, I think that is what is really troublesome about this debate, is that people on the other side who argue that there doesn't need to be change--you say to them, Well, what are you offering? They say, Well, let's give tax credits to people so they can buy their own health insurance.

Now, let's just think about that for a minute. The average income in this country is about $45,000. So you're making a little less than $4,000 a month. You can easily spend $1,000 a month on a premium. So each month you've got to take $1,000 of your $4,000 out and go down and buy your health insurance. Now, the Republican solution to that is, Give them a tax credit. Let them wait a whole year to the end of the year, and then you give them back their money at the end of the year.

Most people don't have that kind of ability to wait for 12 months to get their money back. Rich people can. I mean, they can wait for a tax credit someplace down the road. But ordinary people who are living from paycheck to paycheck to paycheck do not have the ability to spend a thousand dollars a month on a health care premium and wait 12 months to get credit for it on their income tax.

So their proposals sound like they have something in mind. Yes, they have something in mind, but it simply won't work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the University of Washington women's softball team for their winning of the 2009 Women's College World Series.

I appreciate my colleague's kind words about our wonderful university, and it sounds like he might have wished to go there maybe.

The road leading to the first NCAA National Softball Championship in the University of Washington was very difficult and at times seemingly out of reach. At least that's what the pundits thought. But they didn't know these outstanding softball players and the extraordinary role models that they are. The Husky team never stopped striving to be the best, and no obstacle was too difficult to overcome, including sweeping the best-of-three championship series from top-seeded and top-ranked University of Florida.

The Huskies deserve to be recognized as a team and as individuals, so let me tell you their names: Alicia Blake, Ashley Charters, Jenna Clifton, Amanda Fleischman, Lauren Geer, Felicia Harris, Marnie Koziol, Danielle Lawrie, Alyson McWherter, Kimi Pohlman, Jennifer Salling, Taylor Smith, Bailey Stenson, Dani Stuart, Morgan Stuart, Ashley Tuiasosopo, Jessica Ventoza, Ashlyn Watson and Niki Williams.

Baseball is a team sport. There are many outstanding players one could talk about, but it's won as team. And they were led by Coach Heather Tarr and Assistant Coaches Gina Carbonatto and Lance Glasoe, and they had a volunteer assistant by the name of J.T. D'Amico and a student assistant by the name of Dru Hester.

Winning a national title is an achievement every college athlete and coach dreams about; yet sports is not just about athletic success, as important as that is. It's about dedication and hard work and teamwork, and it's about life, pursuing a dream and overcoming every obstacle to realize a dream. These young women had the chance to chase their dream, but that's because of the sacrifice of others.

None of the athletes on the UW softball team were born when Patsy Mink stood in the well of this House and wrote and worked to pass Title IX in 1972, but they all enjoy the benefits of Patsy's vision. As a result of Title IX, women and girls have had greater opportunities to participate in sports. Title IX has enabled more women to receive athletic scholarships and greater opportunity for higher education. Many female athletes credit Title IX for giving them an opportunity to attend college through athletic scholarships and to participate in sports. In addition, because of Title IX, the salaries of coaches of women's teams have increased.

I congratulate the University of Washington women's softball team, but I also rise to honor every female athlete. Every time you compete, you remind us that all the sacrifice is worth it to make history and change history for generations to come.

Congratulations to the women of the University of Washington softball team.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3548) to amend the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 to provide for the temporary availability of certain additional emergency unemployment compensation, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 3548.

Mr. Speaker, across America, there are people who are hanging on by a thin, economic lifeline called unemployment insurance. Without the passage of this bill, that thread will break for over 1 million workers before the end of this year, plunging them and their families into an economic abyss and threatening to reverse the positive signs we are beginning to see in the economy. We can prevent that this afternoon by passing this bill.

This legislation will provide an additional 13 weeks of extended benefits to individuals in hard-hit States, specifically those with a 3-month average unemployment rate at or above 8.5 percent. It's important to note that this legislation is fully offset and does not increase the deficit.

At the beginning of this year, America felt the bare-knuckled brunt of what has already been called the Great Recession. Nearly three- quarters of a million jobs were lost in the month of January alone, and we met the crisis head on.

The steps we took earlier this year helped us turn away from an economic catastrophe and toward recovery. Don't take my word for it. Former John McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi said, ``Without the stimulus, job losses would be measurably worse.'' But even as economic indicators show improvement, we know we cannot replace 7 million lost jobs overnight.

Recovery will take time. There are still six unemployed workers for every available job, so extended unemployment compensation isn't a convenience; it's a necessity.

Since I introduced this legislation 2 weeks ago, my office phones have been ringing nonstop with calls from Americans all across the country who have exhausted or soon will exhaust their benefits, asking, When is it going to pass?

I heard it from paralegals who could not find a job because attorneys are competing against them for employment; from contractors who are still reeling from the collapse of the housing market; and from school teachers whose local school districts could not afford to keep them on the payroll.

Without quick action, they will become unable to afford their mortgages or health coverage. Providing these Americans with a modest economic lifeline is not only the humane thing to do, but it's in the economic interest of the country.

Every UI dollar generates $1.64 in positive impact in the economy. That supports existing jobs and our fragile housing market. In other words, UI, unemployment insurance, is a win for every American.

I urge all Members to support this bipartisan, budget-neutral bill to extend unemployment benefits.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1 minute to the majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers. So if Mr. Davis wants to speak to end, and I will speak, we will be done.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the minority on the subcommittee for being supportive of bringing this bill out here. We did not go through some of the usual procedures. We brought it out straight to the floor. I think that their cooperation should be recognized because it is a reflection of the fact that everybody in this House cares about the American people. We all want people to have a job, and we want them to have some way to sustain themselves until this economy begins to open up again.

One of the interesting things about this period in our economic history, as has been pointed out by some economists, there have been three real recessions. One was 1930, and in that recession, many workers never returned to the work they did before. Rather than going back to the farms, they moved to the cities, and that was a major shift in what was happening. In the 1980 recession, many workers were able to go back to the work that they had done before. The question that our country faces right now is: Will we be able to go back to what we had before, or will we create a new economy? And I think that this bill will give us a chance to get the industries, the new industries, the green industries and so forth, up and running so that we can return people to gainful employment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Dolph Chianchiano, Senior Vice President for Health Policy and Research for his 30 years of service to the National Kidney Foundation.

As the co-chair of the Congressional Kidney Caucus, I have had the honor of working with the NKF and Dolph to educate my colleagues about the impact of kidney disease, and to shape policy and legislation to make the lives of patients better.

Being from Seattle, where dialysis treatments were first used, I have seen the power of research and innovation in the treatment of kidney disease. People live longer, more productive lives with kidney failure, and we continue to learn more every day.

Dolph Chianchiano has contributed to the understanding we now have about kidney disease in his role of administrator of NKF's research program, which has awarded nearly $80 million in grants in his tenure. He made the important decision to expand the program to include not only physician research, but other members of the renal health care team: nurses, dietitians and social workers. He has cultivated a cadre of researchers, providing early career grants to researchers that go on to devote a career to improve the lives of kidney patients. Many kidney professionals have remarked, ``I got my start through an NKF research grant.''

Dolph has also been a tireless advocate for more research funding at the federal level, helping to guide the research agenda of the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In the past three decades, we have seen many advances, and hopefully more will come, as we improve the treatment for kidney disease.

I have worked with the NKF for the 20 years I have been in Congress, and I look forward to many more years working with Dolph and the others associated with the Foundation. Congratulations on 30 years of service to kidney patients. I applaud you and wish you well.

Madam Speaker, earlier today I introduced legislation--the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act. The aim of this legislation is to reverse the growing trend of the misclassification of employees as independent contractors. Independent contractors serve a legitimate purpose in our workforce, our economy, and in many business models. These contractors are important to our economy and often provide the flexibility that many businesses need. Some employers, however, are using a loophole that exists in the Internal Revenue Code to treat workers that are actually employees as contractors in order to reduce their own tax liability and avoid federal and state labor law. When employees are misclassified as contractors, responsible companies lose business,

workers lose rights and protections, and the federal and state governments lose out of billions of dollars in much-needed revenue.

This legislation is similar to the measure I introduced last year, along with Representatives Richard Neal, and John Tierney. I am pleased we have joined together again this Congress to reintroduce this initiative. Our efforts to construct this bill were informed by information obtained through public hearings on this issue in the House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Education and Labor.

The Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act would close the tax loophole that allows employers to misclassify employees as contractors at will. It aims to put all employers on a level playing field, protect workers, and reduce the federal budget deficit. The intention of the bill is not to deny businesses the ability to use legitimate independent contractors; instead it is to ensure that laws that determine what an employee or independent contractor is are evenly applied. They are not today.

I recognize that this issue is one that has vexed the Congress for some time and that forging the necessary degree of consensus to address this problem will be difficult. I intend for the legislation introduced today to serve as a basis for discussion and look forward to working with many stakeholders to perfect the bill and help push for its passage.

Mr. Speaker, health care reform may be the single most important issue Members will vote on during their entire legislative career. The issue affects every American. Health care affects our economy at home and our ability to compete internationally.

For the first time in almost 20 years, we have a real opportunity to solve America's health care crisis, and the American people have spoken clearly and overwhelmingly that they want Congress to produce a solution that puts the American people's interests ahead of special interests.

To say there is urgency in what we need to do is an understatement, and for the last several months, the three committees in the House have been working separately and collaboratively on health care legislation. Two of the committees, including the Ways and Means Committee where I serve, reported bills out of committee to the floor. And I want to explain why the Ways and Means Committee's bill is the best bill and is vital to the success of health care reform.

Let's start with Medicare.

For senior citizens, Medicare is health security. The program is so effectively managed that 97 cents of every dollar goes for patient care, and that means it's 97 percent efficient. In many private insurance company programs, 40 cents of every dollar simply goes for overhead, advertising, paper, not delivering health care. So the smart choice is to develop health care legislation based on a proven model, and that's what we did in the Ways and Means Committee.

A new model with a strong public option based on the Medicare model, which has delivered quality health care to seniors and a very comfortable living to doctors and other medical professionals across this country, that's what we need today.

Without a strong public option, health care reform is just a slogan. And without real cost control, health care reform is just another press release. America spends twice as much on health care as any other industrialized nation in the world, and runaway costs are bankrupting average Americans and consuming an even greater part of our gross domestic product than before. The situation is unsustainable.

Now, we talk about the need to address preexisting conditions when it comes to health care, and we should. But runaway costs are a preexisting economic condition we must fix in the new legislation or we're setting ourselves up for failure.

Recent changes to the legislation have scrapped the proven legislative effective and fair model we have in Medicare and substituted negotiated rates making the government negotiate with doctors. On the surface, it may look fair, but looks can be deceiving. The private sector has had decades of opportunities to make health care work, and the economic wreckage of that is everywhere to be seen. Now they want more.

The legislation now would call for negotiations. Let me tell you what that means. So-called negotiated rates do not limit what can be charged or the rate of increase each year. A public option tied to Medicare is the only way to control the costs; otherwise, health care costs will keep going up and Americans will keep getting left out.

While the rich can always take care of themselves--health care at any price--the middle class and the disadvantaged will remain one accident or illness away from financial ruin in the richest country in the world. That sounds like the status quo, right? We don't need any more of that.

Under the chairmanship of Charlie Rangel, the Ways and Means Committee tackled these tough issues and produced health care reform legislation that's fair for providers and affordable for the American people.

You have seen what happens when the private marketplace decides what's best for the American people: Wall Street, housing market. Remember, when they say the market will take care of itself, they mean just exactly that. And we need someone to take care of the American people. That's what the Ways and Means bill is all about.

It comes down to this: Who do you trust? The private health insurance industry companies have had 18 years since Mrs. Clinton and the President tried to change it in 1993 and 1994, and there's nothing that's happened except raising the rates and more people losing their insurance. Or you can trust the people who design Medicare, which has given every citizen in this country, every senior citizen, real health security.

The choice will be made in September. The American people will have a month to think about this, listen to their legislators, ask questions, read the bill. It's online. You can find it. There are plenty of ways to find out what's happening. But you have to tell your legislators, We want this bill from the Ways and Means Committee.

Well, Mr. Chairman, you raise the issue I think that is probably our biggest and most tough issue to deal with, and that's the question of fear. People continue trying to convince people that they have to be afraid. We had a speaker here just a moment ago who had a beautiful picture of a little child, and the fear was that the government is going to come and take over their health care. Now nothing could be further from the truth in what we've put together.

If you look at America, you have 150 million people in private insurance. Then you've got 50 million people in Medicare; you've got 50 million in Medicaid; and then you've got 50 million who don't have anything. Now these people who have insurance today in their employment, each month when 300,000, 400,000, or 500,000 people lose their jobs, they suddenly are over in the basket with the people who don't have health insurance. So we're not talking about people who aren't trying or people who haven't been paying their taxes or haven't been working. We're talking about us, the middle class, who are in danger in this present system because if your employer stops paying your insurance, you don't have anything, and you're suddenly over here trying to buy it for yourself. It wouldn't matter if you are older, you've got a problem, you've got a problem kid or whatever. You are going to have a very tough time. Now the answer to that is for the government to say, Here is a public option that you can buy into at an affordable price.

The problem with individual insurance, most people by the time they're 30 or 40, you know, something's starting to go wrong, whatever; and the premium for those kinds of insurance programs is $1,000 a month. Many people are paying $12,000 out of pocket trying to buy an individual program. That is unreachable for most of the working class in this country. They can't come up with that kind of money. The only solution is to have a government-subsidized program that they can buy into.

Now people say, Ah, there it is. The government's going to make all the decisions. No. You're going to buy an insurance program that will be paid for by a government mechanism, but the delivery of the health care is going to be by private physicians, private hospitals, private nurses. The whole thing is private.

It's part of the scare tactics. If you watch television tonight when you go home, you will see commercials on there saying that the government is somehow going to get between--they did it in '93, '94. It was Harry and Louise. Harry and Louise were sitting at the kitchen table, and Harry says to Louise, You know that Mrs. Clinton, she is going to take away our health care. They're doing that same thing again now, making it appear that that's what's going to happen when no such thing is being planned.

There is no question that the government is not going to be between you and your doctor and making a decision what needs to be done.

Well, because our bill, Charlie, has one thing in it; it says to insurance companies you can't cherry-pick the healthy patients you want to take care of and leave the sick ones to somebody else.

What we say is if you're an insurance company, you've got to cover everybody; you've got to open the doors wide and let anybody come in. Insurance companies don't want that. What they want are healthy patients who pay a premium, for whom they have to pay out very little money, then they can give the rest to the stockholders. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, that's the free enterprise system. But they're afraid that if we have a government system that is there for the people's benefit and has a 3 percent overhead, whereas an average insurance company overhead is 14 percent--and they know the people are going to take the lower premium in the government plan, or they're afraid of that--so they say, you've got to put us on a level playing field.

Well, you can't make profit off people's sickness and have a level playing field with a government plan.

It's very strange. And people who talk about believing in competition and believe in the marketplace, as Representative Schwartz says, there are places in this country where there is only one option; and if you have nobody to compete with, they control the prices. And for them to get the idea that it's socialistic to put somebody in there to compete is really saying they're afraid to compete.

They know they can't win. They have failed over the last 18 years. They knocked out Mrs. Clinton's efforts in `93. They had an open field. The entire country was open to the private sector, and they cannot figure out how to cover 50 million people. So we come stepping in and say, we have a way. And they say, oh, no, no. If the people ever get wind of what you're doing, they will leave us. They're afraid that people will leave them because they have been in it for the profit and not in it for the benefit of the patients. And that's really why I think they're afraid.

Well, the plan that would be provided for every American who was in a health insurance plan, whether the private one they were in before or the one that they're in in the government option, would give them the protection for the basic things that everybody needs in a health care system.

I have a story you reminded me of. One night I was going out of a hospital in Seattle and a telephone operator stopped me and said they want you up on the coronary care unit. So I went up there, and there was a guy putting on his clothes and said, I'm leaving the hospital. He had had a heart attack the day before. They wanted him to stay in the hospital. He said, Look, I have no health insurance. If I lie in this bed, it costs me $1,000 a day, and I can't afford it. And what if I die? I then leave my family with a big bill. So either way I'm caught. And when we put this program together, we give people the assurance that if you have a heart attack, or whatever, and you need hospitalization, you will being taken care of.