Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise this morning to mark the retirement of one of Louisville's finest meteorologists and his 23 years of service to my hometown.

Like most Louisvillians, I have trusted John Belski's dependable forecasts for the last two decades. No easy task, especially given that our community has faced ice storms, floods, and wind storms in the last two years alone. But, through it all, Louisville could count on John Belski to deliver accurate reporting with an award-winning smile.

In his tenure at WAVE 3, Belski reported on weather so unprecedented that it would make even the most seasoned professional nervous. Day in and day out, his attention to detail and calm demeanor provided reassurance and even life-saving information to thousands during the most trying of times.

His talents are not limited to just meteorology. Belski authored an internationally recognized weather folklore book, and was the 2005 World Dainty Champion--a feat achieved while broadcasting live on the air.

We in Louisville are grateful to John and will surely miss his expertise. I am proud to join all of our community in thanking him for his work and wishing him the best in the next chapter of his life.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to control the time until the gentleman from Michigan returns.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, when families around the country try to deal with their budgetary issues and there are limited resources available, what they do is, they say, Well, we may have to borrow money; but if we're borrowing money, we're going to borrow it for survival--meaning necessities--or we're going to borrow it to make an investment that will pay off over time.

There are many things in this package that represent those two standards. Unemployment benefits represent necessities. Those are things our citizens need to survive for them and their families, and there are business tax credits

in these bills that represent investments that will create jobs and stimulate economic activity. All of those are good things.

On the other hand, there are expenditures in this bill that don't meet either of those standards. These are the expenditures that give over $100 billion to the wealthiest citizens in this country, the ones whose net worth has dramatically increased over the last decade, who now, 1 percent of this country, control a vast majority of the wealth of this country. They have done extremely well. To give them more money when we're borrowing it is not the kind of priority we need to set. It does not represent an investment in jobs or in stimulative activity, and it does not represent necessities. These are bonuses to people who don't need them.

There are lots of good things in this bill. Unfortunately, the price for getting them is much too high. This is like going to the hospital when you're very sick, and the doctor says, You know, I'm going to give you $250,000 of care that's going to be really effective for you. It's going to make you well. Unfortunately, you're going to have to eat $100,000 worth of candy which will do nothing for you. This is the price that we are being asked to pay by Republicans in the Senate for the many good things in this bill. Always, government is about choices. Governing is always about choices and priorities. This is the wrong set of priorities for this country.

Mr. Chair, when most people borrow money--and go into debt--it's either for survival or for an investment that will pay off in the future.

Borrowing $114 billion from China to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans meets neither of those goals.

Over the last ten years, while economic growth has stalled and middle class wages have stagnated, the wealthy have been doing just fine. In fact, two-thirds of all the income gains made in this country over the last ten years have gone to the wealthiest one percent. And the top one percent now owns more financial wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

They clearly don't need any more help to get ahead.

This $114 billion tax giveaway to the rich is not an investment in our economy.

Just look at what happened in the decade that followed the passage of these cuts in 2001.

Even if you exclude the beginning of the recession, we saw the slowest economic growth since World War 2: fewer jobs created, fewer businesses started, fewer dollars injected into our economy.

So where did all that money go? Into the bank accounts of the wealthiest few. When their taxes were cut, they banked three times as much money than before. More money was stashed away rather than--as some would have you believe--put into business expansion or job creation.

That's why the Congressional Budget Office ranked an extension of these tax breaks LAST among the options we have to help grow the economy and create jobs.

There are things in this proposal that are about survival, like an extension of unemployment insurance to help the families hit hardest by this recession. There are investments, like the tax credits that will help small businesses expand.

But unfortunately--and ultimately--the long-term costs of this bill are far more damaging to our nation than these short-term gains.

Borrowing money to give tax cuts to the rich--tax cuts that are more than most families make in a year--is unconscionable.

Economics shows this is a dead-end. History proves it would be disastrous. And basic morality dictates that our priorities should focus on making our economy work for EVERYONE--not just the wealthy few.

I urge my colleagues to join me in standing against this proposal and its unacceptable price and yield back the remainder of my time.

Madam Speaker, this week, the Senate and the House will be asked to vote on a package of tax extenders and other provisions that will provide great benefits for many hardworking American families and for low-income people. Unfortunately, this comes at a very high price to the American people and to the national debt.

We are being asked by Republican leaders in the Senate to give benefits to the very wealthiest Americans, including an estate tax provision that will benefit only 6,600 families--the wealthiest families in America.

This is like going to the hospital with a serious illness and having the doctor say to you, I'm going to give you $250,000 worth of care that's really going to help you; but in order to get it, you're going to have to eat $100,000 worth of candy that's going to do nothing for you but add a lot of weight down the road--to our national debt and to our children and grandchildren.

This is a bad deal for the American people, and I hope my colleagues will reject it.

Madam Speaker, I was unable to cast the recorded votes for rollcall 608, 609, and 610. Had I been present I would have voted ``yes'' for these measures:

Rollcall No. 608--H.R. 6400--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass.

Rollcall No. 609--H. Res. 1642--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass.

Rollcall No. 610--H. Res. 1264--On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, there was a time, and it wasn't too long ago, that the gorgeous waterfront park in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, was a junkyard. It was a time, just 25 years ago, that if you found yourself in our now thriving downtown after dark, you were most likely either working late or lost. This was a time, believe it or not, that Louisville Slugger was in Indiana.

You can't make this stuff up.

No, these days, it's hard to picture Louisville before 1985, hard to believe how much has changed in the last quarter century, hard to imagine Louisville without Mayor Jerry Abramson. Yet on January 3, 2011, that's exactly what we'll be when we say goodbye, with gratitude, to the man for whom the title ``Mayor for Life'' proved just a little too optimistic.

Don't get me wrong, with our diverse and storied neighborhoods, along with our hardworking community-oriented families, the Derby City-- hometown of the Louisville Lip, Muhammad Ali--has long been a source of pride. Still, few could have dreamed that it could be the world-class 21st century city it has become.

Mayor Jerry dared not only to dream, he led the charge that made that dream reality. In five terms as mayor, Jerry was a driving force in expanding and modernizing our airport and transforming Louisville into an international shipping hub by luring UPS and 23,000 jobs to our community. His team's investments in our community have encouraged some of our Nation's largest companies--Ford, GE, Humana--to invest as well, creating thousands more quality jobs for our residents. But during his tenure, Louisville has also become a city of entrepreneurship, the Possibility City, a vibrant, attractive place for startups to grow into thriving businesses.

The once antagonistic relationship between the River City and the rest of Kentucky now is limited to sporting events, under his stewardship. In all other facets, a partnership has grown, from Pikeville to Paducah, in which Jerry's Louisville works with Frankfort and 119 other counties for the betterment of the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky.

But what will truly be the legacy of Mayor Jerry? How about a revitalized downtown, which has been transformed into a vibrant and modern destination while remarkably retaining its historic character and preserving its architectural treasures; or in our park system, which has grown and flourished like never before, earning us the distinction, city of parks. It could be his commitment to Louisville's low-income families. After all, in the last 15 years, his administration has revolutionized the Federal HOPE VI program with

two of the most successful housing projects in the Nation. Maybe his legacy will be Metro Safe, which has improved public safety in our neighborhoods, or his Operation Brightside initiative that has made those neighborhoods cleaner and greener, or the Hometown movement that has enhanced our community's health.

I think you see where I am going with this. With more accomplishments, victories, and advances for our entire community than I have time to rattle off today, Jerry Abramson's legacy is Louisville. I am far from the only one who thinks so.

Jerry has been named Local Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine, Kentucky's best civic leader a record five times, and one of the best and most dynamic mayors in the country. But if you know Jerry like I do, you know these aren't the accolades that matter to Jerry. He cares about the ones that named Louisville the Most Livable City in America, a top city for young people, one of the country's best places to retire, one of the Nation's safest cities, one of the best cities to do business in--the list goes on.

His pride in and passion for Louisville has been contagious and has inspired generations of leaders who have worked with him to create great things for our community and who will continue to carry the torch after he has passed it on. That pride can be seen everywhere today. We display it on T-shirts and bumper stickers in any number of different ways, from the fleur-de-lis to proud displays of our area code, from efforts to Keep Louisville Weird to T-shirts that conflate Jerry and Elvis, which is definitely weird. You can see it in the way we support our local businesses, local restaurants, and local artists, in the way we take care of our neighborhoods and watch out for our neighborhoods. And we do it all because we know we live in the best city in the world, and we want to keep it that way.

So after more than two decades, our Mayor for Life opts for early retirement--in title alone, mind you. If you think Jerry's service to this community was just a job, you've got another thing coming. As he moves on to the next stage of his career of service, City Hall will miss his leadership, his tenacity, and his passion for Louisville; but we will forever benefit from his legacy. After all, it's hard to miss.

To Mayor Abramson and his incredible, devoted staff, I join all of metro Louisville in thanking you for your service. The measure of your work and your sacrifice is that you have unquestionably left Louisville a better place than when you found it, and I am grateful that your work is not yet done for our city, our Commonwealth, and our Nation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

You know, this is kind of a comical debate in a way. We hear time after time after time, why would we want to pass job-killing tax hikes? Well, I would ask my colleagues from the other side of the aisle why did they write them into the law? Because these are Republican tax hikes that we are dealing with, trying to decide what makes sense from a fiscal standpoint and from a fairness standpoint.

I love the fact that people talk about job-killing tax hikes as if every small business is going to make a decision based on what their personal tax rate is. I come from a family of small business people. My father was a small businessperson who built a very large company. I have two brothers who are small businessmen. I have a sister who is a small businessperson. I ran a small business. Not one of us ever made a decision about what we would do in our business based on whether a few more percentage points would come out of our net income, particularly when we're dealing with people who are mostly making millions of dollars a year.

I have one brother who is in the barbecue restaurant business. I talked to him about what impact taxes have on his decisions in business. He said, you

know, if nobody can afford barbecue, it doesn't matter what my tax rate is. That's where we are as a country. We have a major portion of our population whose standard of living has stagnated over the last 10 or 20 years, and we have a very small percentage who have done very, very well thanks in part to the tax breaks that they were given back in 2001 and 2003.

We can afford to give everybody tax cuts if we want to raise the national debt another $700 billion. No, I think we have to draw a line somewhere. We have to say the people who have done extremely well over the last 10 years thanks to the Bush tax cuts need to pay a little more. This won't kill jobs. We won't be crying crocodile tears for them. It's more important that we make sure that the vast majority of Americans have the income they need to drive this economy. That's where the business people, small and large, will prosper.

Madam Speaker, I rise in recognition of a man whose service to my hometown has not just improved our community, but has literally saved lives. Since 2003, Dr. Adewale Troutman has led the Louisville Metro Department of Health and Wellness with an ambition only topped by his achievements. As he moves on from our community to pursue new opportunities, no one can doubt that his work has left our community healthier and stronger.

Locally and nationally, Dr. Troutman's name has become synonymous with the fight to achieve real health equity and better health outcomes for each and every one of our citizens. And, his legacy is visible in every corner of our community.

It's evident at Healthy Start, the Louisville program that has dramatically reduced infant mortality and provided exceptional care to expecting and new mothers under Dr. Troutman's watch. It's seen in the cleaner air in our public places, thanks to Dr. Troutman's fight for a public smoking ban. And it's found in his widespread efforts to reduce health disparities and ensure every citizen of Louisville has the opportunity to live a long, fulfilling life. Through that work and so much more, Dr. Troutman has played a critical role in establishing Louisville as a place where the health and well-being of every resident is a top priority.

Every American should aspire to make their community a better place. Along with his wife Denise Vazquez Troutman, and her service at Louisville's Center for Women and Families, the Troutmans have more than exceeded that goal.

We in Louisville will miss Dr. Troutman's service but will continue to benefit from his legacy for years to come. Though he and Denise are leaving our community, the thousands of children and families that now have better opportunities to be healthy and better chances to succeed in life will serve as long-standing reminders of their work.

Therefore, I ask my colleagues to join me today in recognition of the extraordinary work and dedication of Dr. Adewale Troutman to Louisville, Kentucky.

Madam Speaker, we are now in a situation in this country in which we have the greatest disparity between the very wealthiest people and everybody else that we have had in 100 years. Already this year, the top 1 percent of the income earners in this country have earned 24 percent of total income. Despite all of this, our colleagues on the Republican side want to preserve tax cuts for those very, very fortunate people who have more now as a percentage of the American economy than they have ever had. Meanwhile, they're going to deny 2 million Americans an extension of unemployment benefits which every economist agrees is the best way to create economic activity.

The American people rightly wonder whose side their government is on, and the problem, the juxtaposition of these issues that we face this week, the question of tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans or extending unemployment benefits for those people who are struggling, is a clear delineation of whose side this government is on.

We're on the side of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, soon we are going to have to decide how to treat the Bush tax cuts. We are going to have to decide whether or not to indebt the American people another $700 billion to extend benefits, tax benefits, for the richest 1 percent of the country.

Before we go too far in feeling sorry for that 1 percent, consider this:

From 2001 to 2006, 53 percent of all gains, total gains, in income in this country went to that 1 percent. That is right, one out of every two dollars went to the richest 1 percent. That is where the economy has gone.

The growth in this country has benefited primarily the richest people in the country, and we now have the greatest disparity in wealth that we have seen in this country in almost 100 years.

Heed the words of the Roman priest Plutarch, who once wrote: An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

Let's keep that in mind when we consider what to do with those tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, our Republican colleagues are constantly reminding us that the administration last year said that unemployment would not get to 8 percent if we passed our Recovery Act. Well, that remains to be seen. But let's talk about a projection that they made some years ago that they don't want to talk about, and

that's that we were going to have endless surpluses. They used that prediction of endless surpluses to justify cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in the United States.

Well, those people had a great decade. On average, $100,000 savings on taxes during that time. Did they create more jobs because they cut their taxes? No. In fact, we had actually the most stagnant period of private sector job growth in modern history.

So now, when we don't have an endless surplus, in fact, a very large deficit, and we need job creation, they say, Oh, let's cut their taxes again. It wasn't good enough that the average millionaire had his or her net worth increased by 16 percent in 2009 while every other American stagnated. No. They want to make it a little bit better for the wealthiest people in America.

We want to cut taxes for middle class America and not millionaires.

Madam Speaker, I was unable to cast the recorded votes for rollcall 488, 489, and 490. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' for these measures: H.R. 5850, on agreeing to the Boehner Amendment; H.R. 5850, on agreeing to the Latham Amendment; and H.R. 5850, on agreeing to the Culberson Amendment.

Madam Speaker, we heard just a few minutes ago a repetition of the myth that our friends from the Republican Party tried to foist on the American people, the idea that somehow, by restoring the pre-Bush tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, we are going to impede small business. Well, I come from a family of small business people, and I can assure you that nothing is further from the truth.

I have a brother in the barbecue business. He does very well, makes a lot of money. He used to vote Republican because he didn't want to pay as much tax. But he called me in 2008 and said, you know, I am starting to support Democrats now and I am going to support President Obama. The reason is because I realized, finally, that if people can't afford to buy barbecue, it doesn't matter what their tax rate is.

Ladies and gentlemen, the reason we need to restore the tax rates to the pre-Bush rates is because we have a way to get this country out of deficit. More importantly, the answer to our economic woes is rebuilding America, making it in America and restoring our manufacturing base and the jobs that come with it so people can afford barbecue.

Madam Speaker, I rise in recognition of a group of remarkable women who have played a vital role in strengthening communities across Kentucky, throughout the nation, and around the globe for more than 150 years. Since 1858, the reach of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville has grown from a school on the corner of Chestnut and Shelby Streets in downtown Louisville to a mission that touches the lives of thousands of women, men, and children across the nation and across the globe. And on July 25, the Sisters will have their distinguished history and continued service officially recognized by the Commonwealth of Kentucky when a marker is placed at the site where their mission began so many years ago. Today, I am honored to join the chorus of voices praising the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville for their decades of contributions to better the world through their teachings and actions.

The story of the Ursuline Sisters in Lousiville began when three sisters from Germany arrived 152 years ago to pursue a tradition of faith and service, answering the call meet the needs of the community's children. In the spirit of their founder--St. Angela Merici--they sought to serve with an openness and eagerness to meet the needs of others. Compelled by faith and principle and driven by hard work, the Ursuline Sisters soon made that mission a reality, each and every day of the last 152 years.

Within weeks of their arrival, the Sisters were teaching dozens of children. Under their leadership, construction on a new convent and school--Ursuline Academy--was completed the following year. Their successful efforts soon expanded exponentially. In less than 25 years, more than 100 sisters were teaching in 20 Ursuline schools.

Today, the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville have grown to serve a community of faith in eight states and Peru.

The Ursuline Sisters do not just offer a quality education or health care--they provide invaluable guidance and assistance to those who need it most. Throughout their history, the Sisters have worked on behalf of the underserved and the disenfranchised, seeking to empower every life they touch. Today, the schools they have established and operate, the students they have taught, and the people they have served stand as a living legacy to their mission to create stronger communities and a stronger world.

By placing a historical marker at the place where this powerful mission began, the legacy of the Ursuline Sisters will remind and educate our community about the impact of service. The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville don't just change with the world--they help shape it through knowledge, compassion, and a selfless commitment to service.

Therefore, I ask my colleagues to join me today in further recognizing the extraordinary work and dedication of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville.

Mr. Speaker, Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Mr. Sessions of Texas, said that if the Republicans took over the House next Congress, that we could count on the exact same agenda that we had under the Bush administration.

Now, you know, there is some good news and bad news to that. The good news is we wouldn't have to fight about extending desperately needed unemployment insurance benefits to American citizens, because when the Republicans were in control they didn't pay for anything--not for two wars, not for a massive tax cut for the rich, and certainly not for a massive prescription drug program.

Of course, the bad news is that we would be once again turning the country over to big banks and big insurance companies and Big Oil because, as Minority Leader Boehner said, he is for a moratorium on regulation in this country.

No. I know the Republicans would like the American people to get collective amnesia this fall, but they remember, just like the elephants. They remember the Bush agenda, and they don't want that exact same agenda repeated in the 112th Congress.